Pyrrho of Elis · Philosophy
The earliest summary of Pyrrho’s philosophy, preserved through Timon and Aristocles, frames it as answers to three questions: what are things like? how should we relate to them? and what do we gain? The answers are: undecidable; without opinions; and tranquillity.
Because Pyrrho wrote nothing, reconstructing his actual philosophy means working from fragments - and the most precious fragment of all is a short passage in which his pupil Timon summarised the whole of his master’s thought. Timon’s summary does not survive directly; it was quoted by a later philosopher, Aristocles of Messene, whose work was in turn quoted by the Christian writer Eusebius in his Preparation for the Gospel. So the foundation of skepticism reaches us at three removes. Yet through this chain comes a remarkably clear structure. Timon reports that ‘whoever wants to be happy must consider these three things’ - and then poses three questions.
First, how are things by nature? Second, what attitude ought we to adopt toward them? And third, what will be the outcome for those who adopt this attitude? The genius of this framing is that it makes skepticism not a barren denial but a positive practical programme, organised toward happiness. It begins with a claim about reality, derives from it a recommended stance, and ends with the promised reward. Each answer leads to the next, like steps on a path. To understand Pyrrhonism is, above all, to follow this chain - and to ask, at each link, whether it really holds. Let us take the three questions in turn.
If things are undecidable, what attitude should we take? Timon’s answer gives us the most famous catchphrase of ancient skepticism. We should be ‘without opinions, without inclinations, without wavering’ - and we should say of each single thing that it ‘no more is than is not’ (in Greek, ou mallon). The phrase repays attention. It does not assert that a thing both is and is not, nor that it neither is nor is not - those would be definite metaphysical claims. It registers, rather, the skeptic’s finding that the reasons for saying a thing is some way are exactly balanced by the reasons for saying it is not, so that he is pulled equally in both directions and comes to rest in neither. ‘No more’ honey is sweet than not-sweet; ‘no more’ is the tower round than square; the appearances and arguments cancel out, and judgement hangs suspended.
This is the opening of the lesson. The rest — the dialogue, the primary source, and the recall — is in the app.
You learned that Pyrrho’s philosophy, in Timon’s summary, answers three questions: (1) What are things by nature? - undecidable; we cannot determine that a thing is one way rather than another. (2) What attitude follows? - we should hold no firm opinions, saying of each thing that it ‘no more is than is not.’ (3) What…
Leads to Democritus.
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