Outlines of Pyrrhonism

Page 7

...I would not wish to be a supporter, nor to make others into supporters. Why then, someone might ask, are you publishing this book? First, to drive the impious dogmatic philosophers Dogmatic philosophers are those who assert certain doctrines as absolute truths, a stance the Sceptics reject. of our age to madness. To drive them to madness, do I say? Nay, rather that I might heal them. For if opposites are the remedies for opposites, there is hope that the disease of impiety which they contracted from the dogmatic philosophers might be cured by the help of the Ephectics Ephectic: From the Greek ephektikos, meaning "disposed to suspend judgment"; another name for the Sceptics.. Next, I wish to relieve the modest cultivators of philosophy—those, namely, who apply such moderation in their study that they drink in nothing profane from profane things—from the longest labor and the greatest boredom. (For besides the fact that they will have in one and the same book what would otherwise have to be sought from various sources, they will also find many things treated very clearly here which are found handled most obscurely in others. This is so even though this author has pursued brevity—which is usually a companion to obscurity—while others have followed those same matters at great and copious length. This achievement must truly be credited to a certain admirable method peculiar to this man.) Finally, I wish to bind to me by some benefit even those who are accustomed to draw philology In this context, philology refers to a general love of learning and the study of classical texts. and wide-ranging history original: polyhistoria from all kinds of books. For to them, in nearly the whole first book, and especially in the exposition of the ten modes of investigation original Greek: τῶν δέκα τρόπων τῆς σκέψεως (tōn deka tropōn tēs skepseōs). These are the ten "Tropes" or arguments used by Sceptics to show why judgment should be suspended., I offer a rich treasure of polymathy Wide-ranging knowledge across many subjects., history, and philology. These are the main reasons that impelled me to publish this book. But perhaps some student of philosophy might object: "How can I think this man, who seems to have declared war on philosophy, will bring any help or use to my studies?" I, however, shall think that whoever conceives this opinion of Sextus is mistaken by the whole heavens A Latin idiom, toto caelo errare, meaning to be completely and utterly wrong., as the saying goes. Unless, perhaps, one interprets an attack on philosophy to be made by a man who sometimes gravely rebukes, and at other times mocks (rendering them a laughingstock to others), those very philosophers because they have deserved poorly of philosophy, and have philosophized so badly that they cannot even defend the doctrines of philosophy with their own arguments.