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Pyrrho, his Antecedents, and his Legacy

2002; Philosophy Documentation Center; Volume: 22; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5840/ancientphil200222237

2154-4689

Luca Castagnoli,

Classical Antiquity Studies

Many different interpretations of Pyrrho's thought have been advanced within the last twenty years or so, since careful research on the topic has first been made possible thanks to the publication of Decleva Caizzi's precious collection of the extant testimonies on Pyrrho.The varied and conflicting character of the different interpretations reflects an embarrassing variety and conflict in the evidence offered by the sources themselves, and the liability of some crucial texts to a number of competing readings; the question appears so thorny that some have even despaired of succeeding in devising a single consistent account of Pyrrho's outlook.Bett's approach is more optimistic.Fully aware that there is no prospect of our being able to establish with certainty the correctness of any comprehensive interpretation of Pyrrho's philosophy, the author declares to be aiming at something 'more modest': shaping a coherent interpretation that, although controversial, is at least 'more probable than the alternatives' (12) 1 .The inner difficulty of this 'modest' task appears clear when one reads Bett's monograph: almost 250 pages are devoted to it, and the reader constantly feels that not even a leaf is superfluous for defending the author's case.Bett's main contention is that the position of Pyrrho is 'significantly different from what has generally been thought of as the Pyrrhonist outlook' (I), namely the outlook embodied in Sextus Empiricus' Outlines of Pyrrhonism: 'rather than suspending judgement because of the 'equal strength' of incompatible views and perspectives, it looks as if Pyrrho declared reality to be inherently indeterminate' (4) (a view which would clearly qualify as utter dogmatism in Sextus' eyes).The first chapter, significantly entitled 'Pyrrho the Non-Sceptic', is the core of the book: it examines Pyrrho's most general theoretical ideas, and particularly what Bett christens 'indeterminacy thesis' (the thesis to the effect that reality is intrinsically indeterminate).Bett agrees with most scholars that Aristocles' short account of Pyrrho's philosophy (quoted verbatim in Eusebius' Praeparatio evangelica 14.18.1-5) is by far the best piece of evidence we can rely on in our attempt of investigating Pyrrho's outlook.According to Bett, Aristocles is a quite reliable source in general 2 , and, unlike many other sources, does not seem liable here to the charge of anachronism, since 'the passage dealing specifically with the thought of Pyrrho … gives the strong impression of being uncontaminated by any later phase of Pyrrhonism' (15): t¦ m•n oân pr£gmat£ fhsin aÙtÕn [scil.Pyrrho] ¢pofa…nein ™p' ‡shj ¢di£fora kaˆ ¢st£qmhta kaˆ ¢nep…krita, di¦ toàto m»te t¦j a"sq»seij ¹mîn m»te t¦j dÒxaj ¢lhqeÚein À yeÚdesqai.di¦ toàto oân mhd pisteÚein aÙta‹j de‹n, ¢ll' ¢dox£stouj kaˆ ¢kline‹j kaˆ ¢krad£ntouj enai, perˆ ˜nÕj ˜k£stou lšgontaj Óti oÙ m©llon oestin À oÙk oestin À kaˆ oesti kaˆ oÙk oestin À oÜte oestin oÜte oÙk oestin.to‹j mšntoi ge diakeimšnoij oÛtw perišsesqai T…mwn fhsˆ prîton mn ¢fas…an, oepeita d' ¢tarax…an, A"nhs…dhmoj d' ¹don»n.(Eus.PE 14.18.2-5)Unfortunately, the interpretation of this very piece of evidence is itself a matter of wide controversy.In answer to the question 'What are things like by nature?',Pyrrho is said by his 'spokesman' Timon to 'reveal' that things are equally ¢di£fora kaˆ ¢st£qmhta kaˆ ¢nep…krita.The elucidation of the exact meaning of these adjectives is crucial for our understanding of Pyrrho's thought, and has been at the center of the scholarly debate.Bett lucidly spells out the two most prominent exegetic alternatives: the three epithets 'may be read as drawing attention to something about things themselves' (things are intrinsically 'indifferent', 'unstable', and 'indeterminate'), or 'as drawing attention to something about our grasp of, or cognitive access to, things' (things are 'undifferentiable', 'unmeasurable ', and 'indeterminable' by us).Bett calls them the 'metaphysical ' and the 'epistemological' readings respectively (19): some version of the first has been propounded, for example, by Decleva Caizzi 1981, Long&Sedley 1987, and Hankinson 1995; the latter, which has remained the standard one a long time, has found a particularly sensible advocate in Stopper 1983 3 .According to Bett, both readings of the Greek text are possible, but the controversy can be settled if we examine carefully which one 'better fits the logic of the passage' ( 22).For the inference immediately drawn (di¦ toàto m»te t¦j a"sq»seij ¹mîn m»te t¦j dÒxaj ¢lhqeÚein À yeÚdesqai) makes sense only if we endorse the metaphysical reading: that our sensations and opinions are neither true nor false does not follow from, and is inconsistent with, the epistemological view that the nature of things is undiscoverable for us; on the other hand, it perfectly follows from the metaphysical doctrine that the nature of things is inherently indeterminate.