Copyright © 2004 Bruce W. Hauptli
I. Introduction to Skepticism:
Skepticism is the philosophical orientation which holds that there is little or nothing for epistemologists to study. Many contemporary epistemologists treat skepticism as a position which no one really adheres to—it is often considered only as vehicle for raising challenges to our knowledge and justificatory claims, not as a viable position in its own right. In ancient philosophy (that is in Greek and Roman philosophy from about 400 B.C.E. to 200 C.E.), there were two distinct sorts of skepticism which were recognized—and they were actual philosophical positions (indeed “schools”), championed by real individuals.
(a) Ancient Skepticism:
The “appearance/reality” distinction is one of those “basic”
distinctions in philosophy around which many important questions, divisions,
and arguments coalesce. While many philosophers appeal to the distinction
to focus attention upon the underlying reality, however, Ancient skeptics
would focus our attention upon the appearances—which they called “the evident.”
They proposed this focus because they held to a simple fundamental principle.
In his Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Sextus Empiricus [160-210] puts it
this way:
…the principle fundamental to the existence of Scepticism is the proposition, “To every argument an equal argument is opposed,” for we believe that it is in consequence of this principle that we are brought to a point where we cease to dogmatize.1
In effect, they held that we should not make claims to knowledge
about underlying reality because no non-evident proposition is better warranted
than its negation. They did not mean that we could make no assertions,
only that we should limit our propositional assent to those things which
are “evident.” As Sextus says,
those who say that the Sceptics deny appearances seem to me to be ignorant of what we say. As we said above, we do not deny those things which, in accordance with the passivity of our sense-impressions, lead us involuntarily to give our assent to them; and these are the appearances. And when we inquire whether an object is such as it appears, we grant the fact of its appearance. Our inquiry is thus not directed at the appearance itself. Rather, it is a question of what is predicated of it, and this is a different thing from investigating the fact of the appearance itself. For example honey appears to us to have a sweetening quality. This much we concede, because it affects us with a sensation of sweetness. The question, however, is whether it is sweet in an absolute sense. Hence not the appearance is questioned, but that which is predicated of the appearance. Whenever we do expound arguments directly against appearances, we do so not with the intention of denying them, but in order to point out the hasty judgment of the dogmatists.2
It may, at first, not appear obvious why Sextus would complain that
the skeptics “deny the appearances,” but Phillip Hallie clarifies why skeptics
complain of such misconception when he says:
in Molière’s Le Mariage Forcé there is a Sceptic names Marphurius, who at one point in the play is being belaboured with a stick. When he starts to yell, the man wielding the stick (Sganarelle, who is apparently speaking for Molière) tells poor Marphurius that a Sceptic cannot be sure that he is being hit by a stick, nor can he be sure that he feels pain. Saganarelle and Molière believed that the Sceptic doubts everything, including his own everyday experience of sticks and pains, that he lives in a philosophically induced total anaesthesia or aphasia.3
Molière’s portrayal of skepticism is as ancient as Diogenes
Laertius (in his Lives of Eminent Philosophers). Against this
sort of mischaracterization, Hallie points out that
scepticism thrived in the ancient world from the fourth century B.C. to the third century A.D., when practical-wisdom philosophies like Stoicism and Epicureanism were (though sporadically) important; in general, this was an era in the history of ideas when pure theoretical and pure mystical or otherworldly philosophies were the exception in the Greek world. What interested the Greeks primarily was insight into the proper conduct of life, practical wisdom for producing a happy life....4
According to Hallie,
...the arche, or moving cause, of Scepticism is the hope of living normally and peacefully without metaphysical dogmatism or fanaticism; and part of the means for so living is the Practical Criterion of the Sceptics. This Criterion stated that one should follow “the guidance of nature, the compulsion of the feelings, the tradition of laws and customs, and the instruction of the arts. The ataraxia, or unpreterbedness, that Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Scepticism sought was not a sort of paralytic anesthesia; it was peaceful living according to the institutions of one’s own country and the dictates of one’s own feelings, experience, and common sense. All three philosophies wanted tranquility, not paralysis; a peaceful life, not an imitation of death.5
Ancient skepticism had two primary forms:
Pyrrhonian [after Pyrrho of Elis: ~360-~270 B.C.E.] and Academic
[as in Plato’s Academy] skepticism. Scholars offer differing characterizations,
but the core difference is clarified by David Sedley when he says:
Sextus [a Pyrrhonian skeptic], in what is by far his fairest set of comments on the skeptical Academy, grants an almost complete philosophical concord between Arcesilaus [~315-~240 B.C.E.—an Academic skeptic and head of Academy ~273 B.C.E.] and his own Pyrrhonist school, but he adds the qualification that, when Arcesilaus says that individual acts of epoche are goods and individual acts of assent are evils, he might be accused of treating this as an objective truth, whereas when the Pyrrhonist says more or less the same thing he is merely describing the way things appear to him.”6
In short, the Academic Skeptics came close to contending that “we
know nothing”—and, thus, close to self-refutation, while the Pyrrhonians
tried to present no positive doctrine, and contented themselves with saying
“how things appeared to them,” and offering a methodology which, it seemed
to them, might help others attain a peaceful life. As Hallie notes,
...the Academic Sceptics introduced two elements into Scepticism. The first is a sustained, systematic attack upon certain dogmatic positions, like the metaphysics of Plato, and far more importantly the philosophy of the Stoics. The Academics pin-pointed their enemies and concentrated their fire upon them, while the pre-Academics were more interested in the living of a happy life and were satisfied to attack their opponents piecemeal. The second element that the Academic Sceptics introduced was a detailed doctrine for living amongst phenomena in ordinary life.7
In other words, the Academic skeptics engaged in the philosophic
critique of other philosophers (including Platonic Academics, stoics, Epicureans,
etc.) and tried to offer an “therapy” which would help people to avoid
dogmatism and content themselves with “the appearances” since, according
to their view, we don’t know anything about the underlying reality.
The Pyrrhonians left of the final clause. Thus an Academic skeptic
would contend, for example, that we have no perceptual knowledge (because
perceptions can contradict one another, etc.), while the Pyrrhonist would
contend that it seems to her that we have no such knowledge.
Whatever their orientation, the Ancient Skeptics
offered a number of “reminders,” “procedures,” “arguments,” or “tropes”
which facilitated the avoidance of “dogmatic belief.” The practice
recommended was to help individuals avoid the propensity, temptation, or
mistake of “going beyond the appearances.” As Hallie notes:
…doubt, rather than being an instrument for rolling back the veil of sense-experience, is a means of wiping off the excrescences that befoul man’s life and lead him into endless, bitter conflicts with his fellow men. The function of doubt is to make room for a happy everyday life, not to do away with it. This is the “true” function of doubt, at least as far as our greatest authority on Scepticism, Sextus Empiricus, is concerned.
This special function of doubt is well though not pleasingly expressed by Sextus in the metaphor of the laxative. Doubt washes itself away along with the dubious unprovable claims it works on, and it does so, according to our Sceptical physician, “just as aperient drugs do not merely eliminate the humours of the body, but also expel themselves along with the humors. The ultimate purpose of Scepticism is to make doubting unnecessary, to let the customs of our country, our needs for food and drink and so forth, and our plain everyday speech take over the direction of our thought and life after the doubting is done.8
For the Ancient Skeptics, the “evident” (or the appearances) was
not confined to sensory experiences. They spoke of “assent which
is compelled,” and believed that not only did our sensory experiences compel
our assent to things, but so did our feelings, and the traditions and instructions
of our professions, laws, customs, and arts.
(b) “Modern,” “Contemporary,” or “Cartesian” Skepticism:
Many who speak of skepticism have no intention of speaking of an Ancient
philosophical orientation concerned with avoiding dogmatism, limiting our
assent to the evident, and producing ataraxia. Instead, they see
skepticism as functioning as the epistemologists’ conscience, ensuring
that we accept no propositions which are not fully warranted. In
his “Scepticism,” Peter Klein, for example, maintains that:
assuming that knowledge is some form of sufficiently warranted true belief, it is the warrant condition, as opposed to the truth or belief condition, that provides the grist for the sceptic’s mill. The Pyrrhonists will suggest that no non-evident, empirical proposition is sufficiently warranted. A Cartesian sceptic will argue that no empirical proposition about anything other than one’s own mind and its contents is sufficiently warranted because there are always legitimate grounds for doubting it. Thus, an essential difference between the two views concerns the stringency of the requirements for a belief’s being sufficiently warranted to count as knowledge. A Cartesian requires certainty. A Pyrrhonist merely requires that the proposition be more warranted than its negation.9
The Cartesian skeptic poses the possibility of evil deceivers, brains
in vats, and other “skeptical hypotheses,” all of which are meant to show
the epistemologist that none of her beliefs are completely justified, and,
thus, none are entitled to be called “knowledge.” While there are
few real Cartesian skeptics, it also seems that few have improved upon
Descartes’ own inadequate attempts to firmly ground his claims to knowledge
in face of the Cartesian skeptic’s challenges.
The modern skeptics offer a global skepticism contending that we do not know because we are never legitimately certain, and since knowledge requires certainty, we must precind from knowledge claims. Such skeptics maintain that ‘certain’ is like ‘flat’ and ‘empty’—it is an “absolute term” which applies only when something admits of no degree of uncertainty (bumpiness or contents). Just as nothing can be completely flat or empty, so nothing can be completely certain. Since knowledge requires certainty, however, this entails that nothing is known. Such skeptical arguments serve to test theories of justification and help ensure that what we contend to be justified will indeed be so.
There are many contemporary versions against
such skeptical arguments, but one of the most effective appeals to the
nature of justificatory questions pointing out that a call for justification
is always offered relative to a specific context, and that that context
provides a basis for a valid justification. The arguments here, to
continue with the analogy to “absolute terms,” is that when we use ‘flat’
and ‘empty’, we do so in specified contexts. In his “The Pragmatic Dimension
of Knowledge,” Fred Dretske maintains that:
what counts as a thing for assessing the emptiness of my pocket may not count as a thing for assessing the emptiness of a park, a warehouse, or a football stadium. Such concepts, we might say, are relationally absolute: absolute, yes, but only relative to a certain standard. We might put the point this way: to be empty is to be devoid of all relevant things, thereby exhibiting, simultaneously, the absolute in the word ‘all’) and relative (in the word ‘relevant’) character of this concept.10
Similarly, he and many others contend, the modern skeptic falls
prey to error right at the beginning of her discussions—she contends that
knowledge requires completely justified belief, and fails to pay attention
to what sort of activity justification is. Since it is richly contextual,
critics of modern skepticism contend, all we need to do is remind the skeptic
of this (via some therapeutic arguments), and the global skeptical worries
will dissolve.
Here it is interesting to note that the response
to contemporary Cartesian skepticism is a therapeutic argument strongly
akin to the Ancient skeptics therapeutic arguments against the dogmatists.
But here I will stop this introduction!
II. Living the Skeptical Life:
In his “Can the Skeptic Live His Skepticism?”12 Myles Burnyeat considers the traditional objection to skepticism which holds that skeptics propound a view that they can not put into practice. In raising this objection, for example, David Hume says that “...though a Pyrrhonian may throw himself or others into a momentary amazement and confusion by his profound reasonings; the first and most trivial event in life will put to flight all his doubts and scruples, and leave him in the same, in every point of action and speculation, with philosophers of every other sect....”13 Burnyeat contends that while this objection is frequently raised, it is not generally supported by any argument. While a skeptical life seems an impossibility, Sextus and other Pyrrhonists recognize this objection but deny its force; and, thus, a detailed argument that such a human life is impossible is called for.
According to Burnyeat, instead of believing,
Pyrrhonians assent only where they are constrained to do so:
look through a sample of skeptic arguments and you will find that a great number of them end by saying that one is forced to suspend judgment, the word most commonly used being “anagkazo,” the same word as describes our passive relationship to an impression of sense and the assent it engages. The skeptic assents only when his assent is constrained; and equally, when he withholds assent, suspends judgment, this is because he finds himself constrained to do so. A marked passivity in the face of both his sensations and his own thought processes is an important aspect of the skeptic’s detachment from himself. (p. 131)
The Pyrrhonian skeptic who follows appearances is not limited to
the following sensory appearances. In addition to this “guidance
of nature,” Burnyeat points out, Sextus speaks of the compulsion of bodily
drives, the constraints imposed by law and custom, and the constraints
imposed by one’s profession. These constraints allow for activity
not by legitimating belief but, rather, by compelling the skeptic to “follow
the appearances.” She does not claim to believe (claim that what
she assents to is true) but rather, explains her action by appealing to
these constraints.
Like Hume, then, the Pyrrhonian skeptic recognizes the strength of nature, but for her it determines assent and not belief (since the latter is connected with truth). What she objects to is not assenting to the appearances but, rather, accepting any of them as true. She would avoid dogmatic belief by detaching herself from the search for truth and assenting only where constrained to do so. She offers skeptical arguments designed to produce suspension of belief—arguments designed to show that each belief claim has a contrary which has equal force of reason behind it.
Burnyeat argues that while this line of argument may rescue the Pyrrhonian from the traditional charge that her doctrine is incoherent with her day-to-day practice, it yields incoherence on a “higher level.” While on the first-level the Pyrrhonian skeptic may be able to consistently claim that it appears that honey is sweet while not believing this (assenting to it because of the compulsion of the appearances without believing it), the overall attainment of first-level belief-suspension requires that she accept, on the second-level, claims like “contrary claims have equal strength.” In the case of these claims, however, one may not distinguish assent from belief. According to Burnyeat, then, the skeptical life is impossible because the first-level belief-suspension will be possible only if the Pyrrhonist believes various second-level claims as the result of her arguments.
The Pyrrhonist could, however, contend that her assent on the second-level is itself constrained. That is, contra Burnyeat, she might claim that the second-level arguments and claims are not believed but, rather, assented to. Here it would be the practices and customs of thought which constrain assent (whereas on the first-level it was percipience, desire, custom, and professional training). Instead of claiming that certain philosophical arguments and beliefs are true, she would contend that skeptical inquiries and examinations lead her to assent to claims like “No more this than that.” The Pyrrhonist could contend that the tendency to move from assent to belief on the second-level would itself be a function of the forces which compel our assent on this level, and the “methodological” remarks which Sextus offers about the second-level assertions would be intended to block the tendency to slide from assent to belief on this level.
Of course this response raises the specter of a regress—Burnyeat could reply that it merely delays the problem since the assent on the second-level will be the result of some third-level beliefs which the skeptic accepts as true. Clearly, a life based on acceptance of beliefs on some higher-level is not a life without belief, and since the Pyrrhonist’s life is to be one which avoids belief, the Pyrrhonist can not live such a life if she believes on some higher level. This argument presumes that the skeptic accepts (rather than assents) on the higher level, however, and this claim deserves closer scrutiny.
If the Pyrrhonist’s response regarding the higher-level “assents” is to hold much promise, then, the distinction between assent and belief must, contra Burnyeat, make sense here. The picture Burnyeat paints of the Pyrrhonist’s second-level moves portrays her as employing rational arguments to establish the equipollence of contrary first-level claims. Thus she is hoist by her own petard—employing the apparatus of philosophical argumentation, she seeks to warrant meta-level claims about the object-level and, at best, may claim that object-level beliefs are to be eschewed. Here the Pyrrhonist is portrayed as using reason to attempt to establish the poverty of reason (here another of the traditional critiques of skepticism looms), and the self-refuting character of her endeavor seems to warrant the claim that the life-style which she champions is an impossible one.
In evaluating this picture of the Pyrrhonist’s procedure on the second-level we must recall the many warnings Sextus provides regarding the non-dogmatic character of the Pyrrhonist’s pronouncements. Suppose we take him at his word when he says that in “...none of our future statements do we positively affirm that the fact is exactly as we state it, but we simply record each fact, like a chronicler, as it appears to us at the moment.”14 Chroniclers do not generally present rational arguments. Instead they tell tales. Good chroniclers, of course, tell tales which report events which did occur—thus the distinction between chronicles and works of historical fiction. Sextus would offer a unique sort of chronicle however. First, the “events” chronicled are philosophical arguments—the Pyrrhonist records arguments which are about first-level claims. Second, like all chroniclers, the Pyrrhonist has a purpose in mind. Indeed, like most chroniclers, her purpose is one of “moral education.” But whereas ordinary chroniclers portray lives or historical events in order to educate us (whether by good or bad example) as to how life ought to be led, the Pyrrhonist chronicles philosophical arguments with the same end-in-view.
It is important to note that there is all the difference in the world between chronicling arguments and arguing however. The Pyrrhonistic chronicler reports (indeed, reports appearances according to Sextus) rather than argues. Where Burnyeat would have the Pyrrhonist advance second-level arguments (and, thus, accept certain things as true on this level), Sextus would have the Pyrrhonist chronicle such argumentation.15
As every instructor of introductory philosophy knows, students too frequently fail to distinguish philosophical argumentation from the chronicling of the same—they mistakenly believe that they may chronicle arguments when their instructors demand that they advance arguments. Should the Pyrrhonist accept the philosophy instructors’ demands however? If she does (if she advances arguments as reasons for certain second-level theses), she falls prey to Burnyeat’s critique. Suppose, however, that she refuses the philosophy instructors’ demands (and offers a chronicle rather than an argument). In that case her second-level remarks will not constitute an attempt to advance a philosophical thesis by reasoned argument, and her first-level assent would not be based upon argumentation in the manner Burnyeat imagines. Instead of arguing (and, thus asserting) on the higher-level, she would report how the arguments appear to her, and from this appearance her suspense of judgment would result.
Her technique for bringing about this state (and ultimately the tranquillity which she seeks) would not be by arguing but, rather, by chronicling philosophical argumentation. Instead of arguing for the conclusion that “...in each and every case dogmatic claims are indeed equally balanced and hence that one ought to suspend judgment” (p. 138), she would chronicle various philosophical arguments, and this chronicle would be offered to aid both her and others in forestalling the move on the first-level from assent to belief.
Burnyeat maintains that “...accepting the conclusion that p is true on the basis of a certain argument is hardly to be distinguished from coming to believe that p is true with that argument as one’s reason.” (p.138) He also claims that the Pyrrhonist uses “reason to...destroy all trust in reason itself” (p. 133) and he speaks of the individual who lives without belief as someone who has been “converted by the skeptic arguments.” (p. 126) I do not want to deny that one may well advance the arguments which the Pyrrhonist chronicles. Nor do I wish to deny that some skeptics may advance exactly the sorts of arguments which Burnyeat puts in the mouths of the Pyrrhonist.16 What I wish to deny is Burnyeat’s claim that the Pyrrhonist’s methodological remarks must be taken as assertions (as beliefs that certain higher-level claims are in fact true). If we construe the Pyrrhonist’s remarks along the lines of chronicle rather than argumentation, then these remarks need not be construed as assertions—they may be descriptions of how the higher-level arguments appear to the Pyrrhonist. Moreover, these appearances may compel the Pyrrhonist’s assent no less than the appearances which arise out of the senses, the passions, the traditions, and the professional practices.
Tranquillity rather than anxiety can be produced by such a chronicle just because it does not argue. The preferred moral is not drawn from the tale by deduction (after all, one may be able to “deduce” that “the race will go to the swift if they remain awake” with as much ease as one may be able to draw the traditional “conclusion”). Instead, the moral flows from the tale given the chronicler’s skill in telling the story. It is in the telling of the tale that one is “led” to the chosen moral, and the Pyrrhonist would tell a tale which would aid both herself and us in suspending judgment and, thus, achieving tranquillity.
In speaking of assent without belief, the Pyrrhonist need not recommend an impossible detachment from herself. Were she attempting to advance arguments without assertion and belief, she would indeed be attempting such an impossible task. Since she is not advancing arguments, the detachment she recommends is not impossible (at least not on the grounds Burnyeat cites). On the higher-level, as on the lower-level, the Pyrrhonist recommends that we assent only where compelled. Moreover, she claims, the chronicle which she sets out for us compels us to assent to the appearance that the lower-level claims are equally warranted and, thus, leads us to suspend judgment. The Pyrrhonist recognizes the human tendency to move from assent to belief, indeed it is just this move she would forestall. She need not make this move on the second-level to forestall it on the first one however. Her chronicles of the philosophical arguments do not constitute an attempt to divorce an arguer and her argumentative conclusions but, rather, they are meant to facilitate a self-conscious and consistent marriage of appearances and the appeared-to individual—a condition wherein one attends to the philosophical appearances and assents to them only when compelled to do so.
The compulsion fostered by the appearances on the higher-level, is no different from the compulsion on the lower level. Assent is actively compelled by our capacity for percipience only when we are perceiving. Similarly we will be compelled to assent on the second-level only when the various chronicles are clearly set out before us. In chronicling the various second-level arguments, the Pyrrhonist is attending to these appearances in order to foster the suspension of belief on the first-level and, thus, attain tranquillity. The skeptic’s plight is not that she must argue for her skepticism but, rather, that she must constantly keep the philosophic appearances before her so that she will not be led from first-level assent to first-level belief. Attending to such appearances, and assenting to them, however, does not amount to asserting or believing on the second-level (nor on any higher-level). Instead, the chronicler records the appearances in hopes that they will facilitate the purposes of the chronicle.
Of course, if what I offer here is an adequate response to Burnyeat’s argument, it can not constitute a third-level Pyrrhonistic argument. It must itself be a description of the Pyrrhonistic methodology—a meta-chronicle told not to argue for Pyrrhonism but, rather, to facilitate the suspension of belief and the attainment of tranquillity. But for the human tendency to move from assent to appearances to belief in real existences, these Pyrrhonistic “ladders” could be finally discarded. Given this tendency, however, constant reminders are necessary if dogmatism (on any level) is to be avoided. If this skeptical response is consistent, it may help philosophers understand the necessity for the sort of attack which philosophers like Wittgenstein and Quine mount against skepticism.17 Rather than arguing against the skeptics, these philosophers offer differing sorts of therapy designed to show how the skeptics’ orientations are fundamentally misconceived. Chronicles are not refuted, they are shown to be inadequate records by alternate chronicles which more adequately reflect the appearances. But this, of course, is a different story.
It may help to remember that Sextus was a practicing physician. If he was a Pyrrhonistic physician, then he did not claim to know that purgatives expelled both themselves and the humors, instead his assent must have been simply that “this is how it seemed to him,” and he was compelled to this assent by the conventions of his profession. His use of the purgatives was oriented toward producing tranquility, and if he was asked why he applied a purgative, he might well have responded with a second-level one like “purgatives clean out the system.” The second-level claim, however, need not be advanced as an instance of medical knowledge which justifies the first-level application of the medicine. Instead it could also have to be something he assented to because of the conventions of his profession. His assent on the second level would not be the result of medical argument, but would be as compelled as his first-level consent.
Well, anyhow, that is how it seems to me!
Notes:
1 Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism I, 6, trans. Sanford Etheridge, in Sextus Empiricus: Selections from the Major Writings on Scepticism, Man, and God, ed. Phillip Hallie (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1985), p. 35.
3 Phillip Hallie, “Classical Scepticism—A Polemical Introduction,” in Sextus Empiricus: Selections from the Major Writings on Scepticism, Man, and God, op. cit., pp. 2-28, pp. 5-6.
6 David Sedley’s “The Motivation of Greek Skepticism,” in The Skeptical Tradition, ed. Myles Burnyeat (Berkeley: Univ. of California, 1983, pp. 9-29, p. 13.
7 Phillip Hallie, “Classical Scepticism—A Polemical Introduction,” op. cit., pp. 17-18.
9 Peter Klein, “Scepticism,” in A Companion to Epistemology, eds. Jonathan Dancy and Ernest Sosa (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), pp. 457-458, p. 457.
10 Cf., Peter Unger, “A Defense of Skepticism,” Philosophical Review v. 80 (1971), pp. 317-336.
11 Fred Dretske, “The Pragmatic Dimension of Knowledge,” Philosophical Studies v. 40 (1981), pp. 363-378, p. 386-387.
12 This article originally appeared in Doubt and Dogmatism, eds. M. Schofield, M. Burnyeat, and J. Barnes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980). It is reprinted in The Skeptical Tradition, ed. Myles Burnyeat (Berkeley: University of California, 1983), pp. 117-148; and all citations to it here are to this source.
13 David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding [1748], Section XII. Cited from Hume's Enquiries, ed. L.A. Selby-Biggie (Oxford, Oxford U.P., 1902), p. 160.
14 Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism I, 1, trans. R.G. Bury (Cambridge: Harvard, The Loeb Classical Library, 1933). Etheridge’s translation is: “we declare at the outset that we do not make any positive assertion that anything we say is wholly as we affirm it to be. We merely report accurately on each thing as our impressions of it are at the moment. I prefer Bury’s translation for its suggestion of “chronicling” here.
15 Burnyeat recognizes that Sextus would treat his treatise as a chronicle and he draws the reader’s attention to the fact that Sextus does not mean to limit “appearances” to “sensory appearances:” “...the practice of argumentative inquiry is so considerable a portion of the skeptic’s way of life that they must certainly be included under the skeptic criterion. They are one outcome, surely, and a most important outcome, of his natural capacity for percipience and thought.” (p. 127) Indeed, my disagreement with Burnyeat is sparked by his own discussion—I agree that it is important that we recognize that the Pyrrhonists wished to talk about the compelling nature of our thoughts as well as our perceptual experiences. I disagree with Burnyeat as to whether this compulsion requires that one assert as well as assent.
16 Indeed Sextus sometimes encourages the interpretation Burnyeat offers. In PH II 79 he says that while in setting up “counter-arguments” against the dogmatists’ arguments “...we do not positively affirm either that they are true or that they are more plausible than their opposites, yet because of the apparently equal plausibility of these arguments and of those propounded by the Dogmatists, we deduce suspension of judgement.” Burnyeat could contend, of course, that to “deduce” the suspension of judgment is to follow exactly the course he has charted (and to commit oneself to second-level beliefs. While this and similar passages allow for Burnyeat’s reading, I contend that when Sextus is speaking of his methodology most carefully his remarks are most naturally construed along the chronicling metaphor.
17 Cf., L. Wittgenstein’s On Certainty,
trans. G.E.M. Anscome and G.H. von Wright (New York: Harper, 1969), and
W.V. Quine’s “Things and Their Place in Theories,” in his Theories and
Things (Cambridge: Harvard U.P., 1981).