SEXTUS EMPIRICUS

Sextus Empiricus is philosophy’s great absence — a writer whose works survive while their author vanishes. We know he lived around 160-210 CE. We know he was a physician of the Empiric school. We know he taught Skeptical philosophy. Beyond that: nothing. No city claims him, no anecdote preserves him, no student recorded his character.

This absence is almost fitting. Pyrrhonian Skepticism recommends suspending judgment about how things really are, withdrawing from dogmatic assertion, letting go of the need to be right. Sextus practiced what he preached: he left arguments, not autobiography.

He inherited a tradition stretching back four centuries. Pyrrho of Elis, who accompanied Alexander to India, returned teaching suspension of judgment and equanimity. His follower Timon wrote satirical poems mocking dogmatic philosophers. The tradition went quiet, then revived with Aenesidemus in the 1st century BCE, who systematized Skeptical arguments into “modes” or “tropes.” Later Skeptics developed the tradition further.

Sextus compiled all of this. His Outlines of Pyrrhonism is a systematic introduction: what Skepticism is, how it differs from other philosophies, and the modes of argument that induce suspension of judgment. His Against the Mathematicians (the learned, not just mathematicians) applies Skeptical analysis to every field: logic, physics, ethics, grammar, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astrology, music. If dogmatists claim knowledge, Sextus has counterarguments.

He was probably active in Alexandria, Rome, or Athens — all centers of philosophical teaching. He may have led a Skeptical school; the comprehensive, pedagogical nature of his works suggests teaching purposes. He wrote clearly, if drily, organizing arguments methodically.

His works were read in antiquity, forgotten in the medieval West, preserved in Byzantine manuscripts, and rediscovered in the Renaissance. That rediscovery changed European thought: Montaigne, Descartes, Hume, and the entire modern epistemological tradition responded to Sextus’s challenges. The physician no one remembers became the teacher of philosophers who shaped modernity.

Pyrrhonian Skepticism begins with a problem: for every philosophical position, an equally strong counter-position can be found. Dogmatists claim knowledge about the nature of reality; Skeptics show that their arguments can be opposed by arguments of equal weight. When arguments balance, judgment suspends. When judgment suspends, tranquillity follows.

The Skeptic’s tools are the “modes” — patterns of argument that induce suspension. Aenesidemus’s Ten Modes show how the same thing appears differently: to different animals, to different people, to different senses, in different circumstances, in different positions, mixed with different things, in different quantities, in different relations, based on frequency or rarity, and according to different customs. If honey appears sweet to humans but bitter to bees, what is honey really? We can’t say.

Agrippa’s Five Modes are more abstract: disagreement (philosophers disagree, so none has the truth), infinite regress (every proof needs a further proof), relativity (things appear relative to conditions), hypothesis (assuming premises begs the question), and circularity (proving A from B and B from A). Any dogmatic position falls to one of these.

But doesn’t Skepticism refute itself? If you claim “nothing can be known,” isn’t that a knowledge claim? Sextus is careful: the Skeptic doesn’t assert “nothing can be known” as a dogma. He reports his experience: “So far, I haven’t found anything that resists Skeptical arguments.” The Skeptical statements are like ladders kicked away after climbing, or purgatives that expel themselves along with the illness.

The Skeptic lives by four guides: nature (biological needs), necessity of feelings (hunger, thirst), tradition of laws and customs, and instruction in arts and crafts. He doesn’t need dogmatic theory to eat, obey laws, or practice medicine. He lives by appearances, not by claims about hidden reality.

The goal is practical: ataraxia, tranquillity, freedom from disturbance. Dogmatic belief causes anxiety — what if I’m wrong? what are the implications? Suspension of judgment brings relief. You stop struggling to be certain about what can’t be known. Like Apelles’s thrown sponge, you achieve peace by giving up the fight.