Outlines of Pyrrhonism

[...whether things] were false, they began to seek: so that from the judgment and distinction of these things, they might attain that undisturbed state of mind. Now, the principle upon which Scepticism rests is primarily this: To every argument, an equal argument is opposed original: Omni orationi orationem æqualis ponderis & momenti aduersari. This is the core Sceptical tactic of finding two equally convincing but contradictory arguments to reach a state of balance.. For from this, we seem to be led to the point where we establish no dogmas.

Whether the Sceptic establishes any dogmas. CHAPTER VII.

We say that the Sceptic establishes no dogmas that is, decrees or formal doctrines, not in the sense that some use the word when they say a dogma is generally an "assent to any thing." (For the Sceptic does assent to those things which he is forced to feel through a mental impression original: phantasia. The Sceptic does not deny his own feelings or sensations, only the claims about the underlying "truth" of those sensations.. For example, when he is heated or cooled, he would by no means say, "I think I am not being heated" or "I am not being cooled.")

But we say the Sceptic does not establish a dogma in the sense that some define a dogma as an "assent to some doubtful and uncertain thing among those sought and debated in the sciences." For the Pyrrhonian a follower of Pyrrho of Elis, the legendary founder of Scepticism assents to nothing uncertain or controversial.

Indeed, he does not even establish dogmas when he pronounces the phrases of the Sceptical system—certainly not this one: No more original: Οὐδὲν μᾶλλον (ouden mallon); a Greek idiom meaning a thing is "no more" this than it is that., nor this one: I define nothing original: Οὐδὲν ὁρίζω (ouden horizo), nor any other of those we shall discuss later.

For he who establishes a dogma sets down that thing about which he speaks as being an actual reality. But the Sceptic does not put forward these phrases as if they must immediately be said to be "real." For he considers that, just as the phrase All things are false says that it is itself false along with everything else; and likewise the phrase Nothing is true; in the same way, the phrase No more says that it is itself "no more" [true] along with all other things, and therefore it circumscribes or "cancels out" itself along with the rest. We say the same regarding the other Sceptical phrases.

Now, if the person who establishes a dogma sets down that about which he dogmatizes as a reality, but the Sceptic utters his phrases in such a way that they can be circumscribed by themselves—then while he utters them, he can by no means be considered the author of any dogma. And also, what is most important in...