Pyrrho of Elis · Philosophy

The Afterlife of Doubt

Pyrrho left no writings, but his way of thinking was systematised five centuries later by Sextus Empiricus, whose surviving works carried Pyrrhonism into the modern world - igniting the skeptical crisis of the Renaissance, shaping Montaigne, providing the doubt Descartes set out to defeat, and feeding the mitigated skepticism of Hume.

What you'll be able to recall

You learned that Pyrrho founded a way of thinking that was systematised by Sextus Empiricus (c. 2nd century AD), whose Outlines of Pyrrhonism survived and was rediscovered in the Renaissance. This sparked a skeptical crisis that shaped Montaigne (‘What do I know?’), gave Descartes the radical doubt he trie…

Leads to Hume.

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