Vitae philosophorum

Pyrrho of Elis was the son of Pleistarchus, as Diocles relates. According to Apollodorus in his Chronology, he was first a painter; then he studied under Stilpo’s son Bryson[*](For Stilpo’s son Bryson Roeper’s conjecture βρύσωνος ἢ Στίλπωνος (Philolog. xxx. 462) would substitute under Bryson or Stilpo. In any case chronology seems to forbid the supposition that Pyrrho was a pupil of either Stilpo or Bryson.): thus Alexander in his Successions of Philosophers. Afterwards he joined Anaxarchus, whom he accompanied on his travels everywhere so that he even forgathered with the Indian Gymnosophists and with the Magi. This led him to adopt a most noble philosophy, to quote Ascanius of Abdera, taking the form of agnosticism and suspension of judgement. He denied that anything was honourable or dishonourable, just or unjust.[*](i.e. a particular act is no more just than unjust.) And so, universally, he held that there is nothing really existent, but custom and convention govern human action; for no single thing is in itself any more this than that.

He led a life consistent with this doctrine, going out of his way for nothing, taking no precaution, but facing all risks as they came, whether carts, precipices, dogs or what not, and, generally, leaving nothing to the arbitrament of the senses; but he was kept out of harm’s way by his friends who, as Antigonus of Carystus tells us, used to follow close after him. But Aenesidemus says that it was only his philosophy that was based upon suspension of judgement, and that he did not lack foresight in his everyday acts. He lived to be nearly ninety.

This is what Antigonus of Carystus says of Pyrrho in his book upon him. At first he was a poor and unknown painter, and there are still some indifferent

He would withdraw from the world and live in solitude, rarely showing himself to his relatives; this he did because he had heard an Indian reproach Anaxarchus, telling him that he would never be able to teach others what is good while he himself danced attendance on kings in their courts. He would maintain the same composure at all times, so that, even if you left him when he was in the middle of a speech, he would finish what he had to say with no audience but himself, although in his youth he had been hasty.[*](Here Diels would insert in the text words which would make the meaning easily moved by the applause of the crowd and ambitious of fame.) Often, our informant adds, he would leave his home and, telling no one, would go roaming about with whomsoever he chanced to meet. And once, when Anaxarchus fell into a slough, he passed by without giving him any help, and, while others blamed him, Anaxarchus himself praised his indifference and sang-froid.

On being discovered once talking to himself, he answered, when asked the reason, that he was training to be good. In debate he was looked down upon by no one, for he could both discourse at length and also sustain a cross-examination, so that even Nausiphanes when a young man was captivated by him: at all events he used to say that we should follow Pyrrho in disposition but himself in doctrine; and he would often remark that Epicurus, greatly admiring Pyrrho’s way of life, regularly asked him for information about Pyrrho; and that he was so respected by his native city that they made him high priest, and on his account they voted that all philosophers should be exempt from taxation.

Moreover, there were many who emulated his

O Pyrrho, O aged Pyrrho, whence and how
1. Found’st thou escape from servitude to sophists,
2. Their dreams and vanities; how didst thou loose
3. The bonds of trickery and specious craft?
4. Nor reck’st thou to inquire such things as these,
5. What breezes circle Hellas, to what end,
6. And from what quarter each may chance to blow.

This, Pyrrho, this my heart is fain to know,
1. Whence peace of mind to thee doth freely flow,
2. Why among men thou like a god dost show?

Athens honoured him with her citizenship, says Diocles, for having slain the Thracian Cotys.

He lived in fraternal piety with his sister, a midwife, so says Eratosthenes in his essay On Wealth and Poverty, now and then even taking things for sale to market, poultry perchance or pigs, and he would dust the things in the house, quite indifferent as to what he did. They say he showed his indifference by washing a porker. Once he got enraged in his sister’s cause (her name was Philista), and he told the man who blamed him that it was not over a weak woman that one should display indifference. When a cur rushed at him and terrified him, he answered his critic that it was not easy entirely to strip oneself of human weakness; but one should strive with all one’s might against facts, by deeds if possible, and if not, in word.

They say that, when septic salves and surgical and caustic remedies were applied to a wound he had sustained, he did not so much as frown. Timon

As leaves on trees, such is the life of man.[*](Il. vi. 146.)

Ay, friend, die thou; why thus thy fate deplore?
1. Patroclus too, thy better, is no more,[*](Il. xxi. 106 f.)

Posidonius, too, relates of him a story of this sort. When his fellow-passengers on board a ship were all unnerved by a storm, he kept calm and confident, pointing to a little pig in the ship that went on eating, and telling them that such was the unperturbed state in which the wise man should keep himself. Numenius alone attributes to him positive tenets. He had pupils of repute, in particular one Eurylochus, who fell short of his professions; for they say that he was once so angry that he seized the spit with the meat on it and chased his cook right into the market-place.

Once in Elis he was so hard pressed by his pupils’ questions that he stripped

Philo, again, who had a habit of very often talking to himself, is also referred to in the lines[*](Cf.Od. xxi. 364.):

Yea, him that is far away from men, at leisure to himself,
1. Philo, who recks not of opinion or of wrangling.

Besides these, Pyrrho’s pupils included Hecataeus of Abdera, Timon of Phlius, author of the Silli, of whom more anon, and also Nausiphanes of Teos, said by some to have been a teacher of Epicurus. All these were called Pyrrhoneans after the name of their master, but Aporetics, Sceptics, Ephectics, and even Zetetics, from their principles, if we may call them such—

Zetetics or seekers because they were ever seeking truth, Sceptics or inquirers because they were always looking for a solution and never finding one, Ephectics or doubters because of the state of mind which followed their inquiry, I mean, suspense of judgement, and finally Aporetics or those in perplexity, for not only they but even the dogmatic philosophers themselves in their turn were often perplexed. Pyrrhoneans, of course, they were called from Pyrrho. Theodosius in his Sceptic Chapters denies that Scepticism should be called Pyrrhonism; for if the movement of the mind in either direction is unattainable by us, we shall never know for certain what Pyrrho really intended, and without knowing that, we cannot be called Pyrrhoneans. Besides this (he says), there is the fact that Pyrrho was not the founder of Scepticism; nor had he any positive tenet; but a Pyrrhonean is one who in manners and life resembles Pyrrho.

Some call Homer the founder of this school, for to the same questions he more than anyone else is

Man’s soul, O Glaucus, son of Leptines,
1. Is but as one short day that Zeus sends down.

Great God ! how can they say poor mortal men
1. Have minds and think? Hang we not on thy will?
2. Do we not what it pleaseth thee to wish?

Furthermore, they find Xenophanes, Zeno of Elea, and Democritus to be sceptics: Xenophanes because he says,[*](Fr. 34 D.)

Clear truth hath no man seen nor e’er shall know;

Who knoweth if to die be but to live,
1. And that called life by mortals be but death?

So to these mortal may not list nor look
1. Nor yet conceive them in his mind;

Each believes naught but his experience.

Pliant is the tongue of mortals; numberless the tales within it;

Ample is of words the pasture, hither thither widely ranging;

And the saying which thou sayest, back it cometh later on thee,

The Sceptics, then, were constantly engaged[*](διετέλουν, imperfect.) in overthrowing the dogmas of all schools, but enuntiated none themselves; and though they would go so far as to bring forward and expound the dogmas of the others, they themselves laid down nothing definitely, not even the laying down of nothing. So much so that they even refuted their laying down of nothing, saying, for instance, We determine nothing, since otherwise they would have been betrayed into determining[*](Inf. § 104.); but we put forward, say they, all

But Not more (one thing than another) can also be taken positively, indicating that two things are alike; for example, The pirate is no more wicked than the liar. But the Sceptics meant it not positively but negatively, as when, in refuting an argument, one says, Neither had more existence, Scylla or the Chimaera. And More so itself is sometimes comparative, as when we say that Honey is more sweet than grapes; sometimes both positive and negative, as when we say, Virtue profits more than it harms, for in this phrase we indicate that virtue profits and does not harm.

But the Sceptics even refute the statement Not more (one thing than another). For, as forethought is no more existent than non-existent, so Not more (one thing than another) is no more existent than not. Thus, as Timon says in the Pytho, the statement means just absence of all determination and withholding of assent. The other statement, Every saying, etc.,[*](i.e.Every saying has its corresponding opposite (supra, § 74).) equally compels suspension of judgement; when facts disagree, but the contradictory statements have exactly the same weight, ignorance of the truth is the necessary consequence. But even this statement has its corresponding antithesis, so that after destroying others it turns round and destroys itself, like a purge which drives the substance

This the dogmatists answer by saying that they do [not merely] not deny the statement, but even plainly assert it. So they were merely using the words as servants, as it was not possible not to refute one statement by another; just as we[*](Here (as in § 104) the writer, whether D. L or his source, seems to pose as a Sceptic himself; cf. Introd. p. xiii.) are accustomed to say there is no such thing as space, and yet we have no alternative but to speak of space for the purpose of argument, though not of positive doctrine, and just as we say nothing comes about by necessity and yet have to speak of necessity. This was the sort of interpretation they used to give; though things appear to be such and such, they are not such in reality but only appear such. And they would say that they sought, not thoughts, since thoughts are evidently thought, but the things in which sensation plays a part.

Thus the Pyrrhonean principle, as Aenesidemus says in the introduction to his Pyrrhonics, is but a report on phenomena or on any kind of judgement, a report in which all things are brought to bear on one another, and in the comparison are found to present much anomaly and confusion. As to the contradictions in their doubts, they would first show the ways in which things gain credence, and then by the same methods they would destroy belief in them; for they say those things gain credence which either the senses are agreed upon or which never or at least rarely change, as well as things which become habitual or are determined by law and those which please or excite wonder.

They showed, then, on the basis of that which is contrary to what induces belief, that the probabilities on both sides are equal.

Perplexities arise from the agreements[*](If, however, with Reiske we here read τῆς for τὰς, the meaning is: The objections urged against the (supposed) consistency of our percepts or our concepts, were arranged by them under ten modes.) between appearances or judgements, and these perplexities they distinguished under ten different modes in which the subjects in question appeared to vary. The following are the ten modes laid down.[*](Cf. Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. Hyp.i. §§ 36-163.)

The first mode relates to the differences between living creatures in respect of those things which give them pleasure or pain, or are useful or harmful to them. By this it is inferred that they do not receive the same impressions from the same things, with the result that such a conflict necessarily leads to suspension of judgement. For some creatures multiply without intercourse, for example, creatures that live in fire, the Arabian phoenix and worms; others by union, such as man and the rest.

Some are distinguished in one way, some in another, and for this reason they differ in their senses also, hawks for instance being most keen-sighted, and dogs having a most acute sense of smell. It is natural that if the senses, e.g. eyes, of animals differ, so also will the impressions produced upon them; so to the goat vine-shoots are good to eat, to man they are bitter; the quail thrives on hemlock, which is fatal to man; the pig will eat ordure, the horse will not.

The second mode has reference to the natures and idiosyncrasies of men; for instance, Demophon, Alexander’s butler, used to get warm in the shade and shiver in the sun.