Talk:Pyrrhonism

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Merge radical skepticism here

The article to be merged here seems to be about the same subject, to wit: "the philosophical position that knowledge is impossible." --TS 18:10, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I've withdrawn this proposal. Pyrrhonism was a completely agnostic position, disavowing as dogmatic even the statement that all knowledge was impossible. --TS 12:02, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Both are wrong Tony. A much much much much much better way of looking at what Pyrrhonism/New Academy is and was would be to see it as the use of Epoche from a position of Wu wei. LoveMonkey (talk) 13:12, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Modern Pyrrhonism

Considering the recent upsurge in Pyrrhonism along with scientific scepticism, it would be a good idea to discuss it here. 150.203.110.137 (talk) 15:40, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

fallibilism

pyrrhonian skepticism is a much more radical view than fallibilism. the former says that we might be wrong; the latter that there would be no way of knowing if we were. obviously the skeptical claim is logically stronger.

also, what's with the citation to the 'journal of management research?' surely, better sources could be found ... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.32.173.159 (talk) 07:16, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

This is tricky stuff, and people disagree, but I think it is a mistake to think that Pyrrhonism's conclusion is that "there would be no way of knowing" if we're wrong about something. That is (second-order) negative dogmatism, exactly the sort of view that they will suspend judgment about. It might well seem to them that there would be no way (they don't see how they could know whether or not they know), but that is not the same as making the "logically stronger" claim you're ascribing to them. Delavagus (talk) 16:27, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Blaise Pascal

Blaise Pascal, in the 17th century, devoted some of his arguments to counter the Pyrrhonist sceptics of that day. Some say that Pascal's wager does not make sense without knowing the Pyrrhonist background of that time. I'm just adding this in case someone want to add it to the article. Lehasa (talk) 15:25, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Criticism of Pyrrhonism?

There seems to be a lack of coverage of views critical of Pyrrhonism here. A quick search for "David Hume on Pyrrhonism" revealed this and this which might be a good start. --BenMcLean (talk) 22:26, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

A more skeptical approach with primary sources

There's a fair amount of direct citation of primary sources like Sextus and Diogenes in this article, which is especially problematic for Pyrrhonism because they are contradicted by other ancient sources such as Cicero, Aristocles, etc. The short of it is that modern scholars are more hesitant to ascribe claims made about Early Pyrrhonism in the 4th century BCE that are not supported by disinterested sources. There's also the matter of the influence from Buddhism - we should discuss this, but it seems from the sources like it's more tentative than currently presented in this article. - car chasm (talk) 18:41, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Merges

I've merged in a variety of subpages of this article, many of which seemed to have similar information copied into all of them. There's no reason for such a WP:CFORK when nothing about pyrrhonism is quite covered comprehensively or well sourced in this page yet. - car chasm (talk) 06:58, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

If I understand correctly the gist of your latest edits in this specific area, it seems to me you are implying that Pyrrhonism and Skepticism are not the same thing. I always thought that early modern and modern Skepticism developed in part from Pyrrho's ideas? Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 17:27, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, I think that's very close to what I'm saying, I think it's really about "suspending judgement" about it ;) - the consensus as I understand it (from A.A. Long's monograph) is that Pyrrho and Timon (i.e. "early" Pyrrhonism) may not have been as skeptical or as closely aligned with the 1st century BCE revival, and that the "later" Pyrrhonists projected a lot of their doctrines onto them when those doctrines were also a refinement and development out of the new academy. But that it's not definitive either way, especially due to the relatively few fragments of Timon's work that survive.

I definitely don't think it's a definite enough case that it merits excluding Timon and Pyrrho from any pages or categories on skepticism. More like how we treat Socrates - it's hard to say what doctrines he had (if any), but scholars do try to tentatively reconstruct what they might have been based on the available evidence, even if it contradicts what some of the (perhaps biased) ancient primary sources say, and that that's worth covering so long as it's clear these are tentative theories.

I haven't encountered anything to suggest this is a particularly contentious issue within the scholarly literature yet, I think it's more about presenting all the primary evidence in a way that it's clear (to a reader) that it's inconsistent, and that there are good reasons for not taking Sextus or Diogenes' word on everything, but also reasons for not disregarding them entirely. - car chasm (talk) 19:05, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

And as for modern/early modern skepticism, definitely I agree they were heavily influenced by Pyrrhonism (through Sextus), I don't think there's any question of that. it's more Pyrrho -> Sextus that's up in the air than Sextus -> Montaigne, I don't think there's any reasonable doubt about the second, it's well documented and he cites sextus a lot! - car chasm (talk) 19:12, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

And I think the scope of this article is "Ancient Pyrrhonism" and what it influenced should be in the legacy section, certainly a lot of modern people will colloquially refer to themselves as "Pyrrhonists" but I don't think that's based on a consistent set of principles that's identical with Ancient Pyrrhonism as much of an acknowledgement of influence. E.g. Montaigne should be covered under Renaissance skepticism and someone like Robert Fogelin or Benson Mates should probably be considered a "Neo-Pyrrhonist" - which there should be references from Fogelin himself to support, and that Neopyrrhonism should be its own article that's linked out from here if it turns out there's enough WP:SIGCOV beyond those two people that it needs its own page. - car chasm (talk) 19:21, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying all this to me. And thanks for all the work I see you doing on Philosophy articles. I was confused between Pyrrho and Sextus, and now my confusion got clarified. The confusion stems from the fact that what Sextus started is sometimes called, probably by mistake, Pyrrhonism, when in fact it should be called just Skepticism. And the Skepticism that goes from Sextus to Montaigne is a different thing than Pyrrho's own classical thougts. But your clarification above really explains all that much better than I could. Thanks again! warshy ^(¥¥) 20:13, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

No problem! I think we're mostly on the same page, just one small thing - technically Sextus mostly documented what his predecessors (Aenesidemus 1st BCE, Agrippa 1st CE, possibly others) started, and his is just the only work on Pyrrhonism (which is what Aenesidemus -> Sextus called themselves) that survived the middle ages, but broadly yes, I do think everything else you said is correct, and that it's right to say he and his work started renaissance and modern skepticism. I'll just chart it out here a bit more for clarity:

• Pyrrho and Timon: possibly skeptics, possibly "dogmatists", hard to say because our ancient sources disagree
• Aenesidemus, Agrippa the Skeptic, Sextus Empiricus: "Pyrrhonists" who claim to be reviving lost doctrines of Pyrrho and Timon, diverging from earlier Academic skepticism which also claimed influence from Pyrrho and Timon
• Montaigne: Renaissance skeptic, influenced by work of sextus
• David Hume: Empiricist, skeptic, influenced by work of sextus
• Fogelin: "Neopyrrhonist" who reconstructed what he believes the best interpretation of the "Pyrrhonists" to be and interprets in the context of contemporary philosophy, but acknowledges we'll never fully know what they thought

- car chasm (talk) 21:16, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Your knowledge of these areas is truly encyclopedic, so I'll get out of your way and let you keep improving the Philosophy area on Wikipedia. It is a great work you do, and I'll keep admiring it and learning from it. Thank you again! warshy ^(¥¥) 22:55, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Nietzsche on Pyrrhonism

The paragraph about Nietzsche is, at least very least, a tendentious reading of the text. I would go so far as to say it's completely mistaken. In GM 3.9, Nietzsche is not talking about "skeptics" (however broadly construed) and certainly not about "Pyrrhonism" in particular. Nietzsche's essay is about the different "meanings" of what he calls "the ascetic ideal" to different sorts of people: artists, philosophers, women, priests, etc. In sec. 9, he turns to "philosophers." In the cites passages, he's talking about the first philosophers: It was "on the apron strings" of the ascetic ideal "that philosophy... learned to take its first steps and half-steps on earth." These people (or, rather, this earliest kind of philosophy itself) is "the shy little blunderer and milquetoast with crooked legs." Yes, he uses the word "ephectic," but that is not nearly enough to support the claim that he's talking about Pyrrhonians in this passage.

Nietzsche's remarks on skepticism are ambiguous: some positive, some negative. But if we bear in mind the distinction between ancient and modern skepticism, it becomes possible to distinguish two main opinions: a negative assessment of "modern" skepticism (i.e., Cartesian skepticism, etc. -- negative dogmatism) and a positive assessment of ancient skepticism (Pyrrhonism). On modern skepticism, you might point to Beyond Good and Evil, 208. (This passage does seem to echo the sentiments about the earliest philosophers in GM 3.9.) But then in the very next section, he refers to "another, stronger type of skepticism" that he advocates: "This skepticism despises and nevertheless appropriates; it undermines and takes possession; it does not believe but does not die out on this account; it gives the spirit a dangerous freedom, but is severe on the heart." See also Wanderer and His Shadow, sec. 213, which (as I read it) gives a positive spin on Pyrrhonism (quite directly: it's a dialogue between "Pyrrho" and "an old man"). The ancient Pyrrhonians were, I think, Nietzsche's prototype for his "free spirits." His attitude toward metaphysics generally is one of suspension of judgment in a distinctively Pyrrhonian sense (cf., Human All Too Human, sec. 9; Twilight of the Idols, "How the True World Became a Fable"), and I read his rejection of "convictions" as basically Pyrrhonian (cf., Human All Too Human, secs. 630-638).

Finally, he is explicitly approving of the ancient skeptics in Ecco Homo, "Clever," sec. 3): "I have to go back half a year to catch myself with a book in my hand. What was it again? An excellent study by Victor Brochard, Les Sceptiques Grecs, that puts my Laertiana1 to good use as well. The sceptics were the only respectable types among the philosophical tribes, tribes that generally talk out of both sides of their mouths (they would talk out of five sides if they could)!" In The Antichrist (sec. 12), he says: "I will make an exception for a couple of the sceptics, the decent types in the history of philosophy; but the rest of them have no conception of the basic demands of intellectual integrity. They all act like little females, these admiring fans, these prodigies,—they think that ‘beautiful feelings’ constitute an argument, that a ‘heaving bosom’ is God’s bellows, that conviction is a criterion of truth." And in Antichrist sec. 54, he tells us that "Zarathustra was a skeptic." Delavagus (talk) 16:24, 31 October 2024 (UTC)