Works › Outlines of Pyrrhonism
Work #1695

Outlines of Pyrrhonism

Pyrrhoneioi Hypotyposeis — the systematic handbook of ancient scepticism

Sextus Empiricus · c. 200 CE · Greek · Philosophical treatise in three books

Tradition: Pyrrhonist scepticism

Opposing every argument with one of equal force — the method of equipollence and the tranquillity that follows suspension

The Outlines of Pyrrhonism is the most complete surviving account of the Pyrrhonist sceptical tradition. Book I defines scepticism, explains its goal (tranquillity through suspension of judgment), and lists the modes (tropoi) by which equipollence is achieved: the ten modes of Aenesidemus (showing how appearances vary with circumstance) and the five modes of Agrippa (showing how dogmatic justification falls into regress, circularity, or hypothesis). Books II and III apply the sceptical method to logic, physics, and ethics in turn, systematically dismantling the doctrines of the Stoics, Epicureans, Peripatetics, and Academics. The work was rediscovered in the Renaissance and profoundly influenced Montaigne, Descartes, Hume, and the entire modern epistemological tradition.

Author

Editions cited

  • Sextus Empiricus: Outlines of Scepticism (Julia Annas & Jonathan Barnes, Cambridge Texts, 2000)
  • Sextus Empiricus, Volume I: Outlines of Pyrrhonism (R. G. Bury, Loeb Classical Library, 1933)
Compare this work

School Embodiments

Pyrrhonism · 85%
Empiricism · 8%
Stoicism · 4%
Platonism (Classical) · 3%
Pyrrhonism 85%

The Outlines is the definitive codification of Pyrrhonism. Every later engagement with ancient scepticism — Montaigne, Hume, the modern epistemologists — depends on this text.

"Scepticism is an ability to set out oppositions among things which appear and are thought of in any way at all, an ability by which, because of the equipollence in the opposed objects and accounts, we come first to suspension of judgment and afterwards to tranquillity." (I.8, Annas & Barnes)
Empiricism 8%

The ten modes are empirical arguments: they proceed from observed variations in perception. The sceptic lives by appearances, custom, and nature — a proto-empiricist stance.

"We follow appearances … living in accordance with the normal rules of life, without holding opinions." (I.23–24, paraphrase)
Stoicism 4%

Stoic logic and epistemology are the primary dogmatist targets. Sextus's engagement is so detailed that the Outlines is a major source for Stoic doctrine.

"If the Stoics say that the kataleptic impression is the criterion of truth, we oppose equally convincing arguments." (II.80, paraphrase)
Platonism (Classical) 3%

Academic scepticism (Arcesilaus, Carneades) is distinguished from Pyrrhonism: the Academics make probabilistic judgments, while the Pyrrhonist suspends judgment entirely.

"Some say Plato is a sceptic … but the Academic differs from the Pyrrhonist." (I.220–235, paraphrase)

Internal Tensions

The self-referential problem: Sextus's own method is apparently a doctrine — "oppose every argument with one of equal force" — which should itself be subject to sceptical opposition. His answer (the sceptical arguments "cancel themselves along with the things they are applied to, as purgative drugs expel themselves along with the humours," I.206) is elegant but perhaps circular. The deeper tension: the sceptic claims tranquillity follows suspension, but this causal claim about a psychological outcome is itself a dogmatic assertion.

⧖

I. Time

The sceptic suspends judgment on the nature of time. Book III arguments show that time cannot coherently be said to be limited or unlimited, divisible or indivisible. "We are unable to say whether time is real or unreal." (III.136–150, paraphrase)

Attributes
Extent: not engaged Ontological Status: not engaged Grain: not engaged Freedom: not engaged Traversability: not engaged Direction: not engaged Dimensionality: not engaged
✦

II. Space

The same treatment applies to place and void: arguments for and against cancel out. "Some say place exists, some deny it — we suspend judgment." (III.119–135, paraphrase)

Attributes
Extent: not engaged Ontological Status: not engaged Curvature: not engaged Dimensionality: not engaged Locality: not engaged
◉

III. Matter

The ten modes show that the qualities we perceive in matter depend on the perceiver. "We cannot say what the external object is like in its nature, but only how it appears." (I.59)

Attributes
Extent: not engaged Ontological Status: not engaged Conservation: not engaged Dimensionality: not engaged Locality: not engaged
◎

IV. Observer

The sceptical observer is embodied, passive (yields to appearances without asserting truth), plural, and operates within the limits of immediate experience. "The sceptic does not dogmatise … going by the guidance of nature, the constraint of feelings, the tradition of laws and customs, and the instruction of the arts." (I.23–24)

Attributes
Time Instance: Single Space Instance: Single Knowledge Extent: Immediate Knowledge Retainment: Partial Physicality: Embodied Agency: Passive Number: Plural Metaphysical Agency: None
⚡

V. Energy

Causation, motion, and force are subjected to the sceptical method: arguments for their reality are matched by arguments against. "If cause exists, it is either corporeal or incorporeal … but each has been disputed." (III.13–29, paraphrase)

Attributes
Extent: not engaged Ontological Status: not engaged Conservation: not engaged Dispersibility: not engaged
⧉

VI. Information

Information is emergent and non-conserved. The sceptic makes no claim that knowledge accumulates. Suspension of judgment is the dissolution of all doctrinal content. "We say the honey appears sweet but we do not affirm that it is sweet." (I.20)

Attributes
Ontological Status: Emergent Cosmic Conservation: Non-conserved Personal Conservation: Non-conserved Granularity: not engaged

Personas that cite this work

Sextus Empiricus

Personas with the nearest attribute fingerprint

Historical figures whose own classification on the same six-dimensional grid lands closest to this work's. Computed by attribute-agreement on coordinates both address.

100%
Sextus Empiricus
17/17
85%
Arcesilaus
11/13
82%
David Hume
14/17
77%
Carneades
10/13
76%
Albert Camus
13/17
76%
Hippocrates of Cos
13/17

Computed school proximity

The work's attribute fingerprint scored against all schools using the same quiz scorer. Useful as a sanity check on the hand-curated embodiments above.

88%
Cyrenaicism
15/17
77%
Psychoanalysis
14/17
77%
Tragedy (Philosophical)
14/17
76%
Philosophical Pessimism
14/17
76%
Aestheticism
13/17
75%
Cynicism
14/17
75%
Pyrrhonism
14/17
74%
Materialism (Philosophical)
14/17

How Outlines of Pyrrhonism resolves each dilemma

17 resolved positions across 4 dimensions, including 4 distinctive where the majority of schools go the other way · 40 unaligned.

Each dimension is sorted so minority positions come first. Mainstream positions are folded into an expandable list.

Time · 9 dilemmas, all mainstream
Are addicts responsible for their addiction? — — Are natural resources fundamentally finite, or only practically so? — — Could we owe future generations more than is materially possible to provide? — — Do we owe extinct species something we cannot give them? — — Do you really choose? — — How much weight do future people deserve? — — Is regret rational? — — Is the universe running out of usable energy? — — Should we hold AI systems responsible for what they do? — —
Matter · 7 dilemmas, all mainstream
Does matter have intrinsic moral standing? — — Is the physical world fully real? — — Is the world created from nothing? — — Should we edit the human germline? — — What is a nation? — — What is money? — — What makes someone male or female? — —

Observer · 37 dilemmas · 4 distinctive

Mind, agency, and the knower's relation to the known.

Distinctive · only 14% of schools agree (29/202)
What makes someone the same person over time?
When dementia hollows out memory, when a coma resolves with no recall, when you imagine being uploaded — the question of whether the surviving person is still you turns on what kind of thing the 'you' was to begin with.
There was never a fixed self to either preserve or lose.
On these views, what we call a self was always a stream of experience, a constructed narrative, a process — never a thing whose continuity could be the question. Dementia, upload, transformation, death are stages in a process, not events that either preserve or destroy …
Roads not taken You are your body — continuity is bodily continuity. (36%) · You are a soul — what persists through change is the non-bodily aspect. (29%) · You span moments — identity is a pattern that need not be located at a single now. (9%)
Distinctive · only 14% of schools agree (29/202)
Is the late-stage dementia patient still the person their spouse married?
Loss of memory, of recognition, of the cognitive patterns that made the person — does this end the person, or merely the person you knew? The answer turns on what makes someone who they are.
There was no fixed person to lose; care is owed to whoever is here.
On these views, the person their spouse married was never a fixed thing whose continuation could be tracked across time. There has always been a stream of experiences, a developing character, a construction. Dementia is one of the more visible changes in the process; the …
Roads not taken Same body, same person — even when the cognitive pattern has changed. (36%) · The soul persists; the cognitive change is the body's, not the person's. (29%) · The person is the pattern across moments — diminished pattern, diminished person. (9%)
Distinctive · only 14% of schools agree (29/202)
If a teleporter copied and destroyed you, would you have survived?
The Star Trek transporter problem: a machine scans your body atom by atom, transmits the pattern, builds an exact duplicate at the destination, and dismantles the original. Whether you arrive at the destination or die in the scanner is the question; the answer depends on what you are.
There was no fixed you to either survive or fail to; the question is malformed.
On these views, the question presupposes a fixed self whose continuity is the issue. There isn't one. The teleporter case feels more troubling than ordinary sleep, dementia, or growth, but the framework is the same: a stream of experience stops at the scanner, a new …
Roads not taken Different body, different person — you died in the scanner. (36%) · The soul accompanies the person; engineering can't transfer it. (29%) · You are the pattern; the pattern survives the substrate change. You arrive. (9%)
Distinctive · only 16% of schools agree (33/202)
Is truth universal, tradition-bound, situated, or constructed?
What kind of thing is a true claim, and how does it relate to the standpoint from which it is made?
Truth is real but always known from a perspective.
Multiple perspectives engage in dialogue; truth is partial, plural, but real.
Roads not taken Truth is mind-independent, universal, accessible in principle to all. (65%) · Truth is real but accessible only from within a tradition. (10%) · What counts as truth is constituted by language, practice, history, power. (8%)
13 mainstream positions
Can prayer for someone far away affect them? Prayer changes the pray-er, not the prayed-for. 49% Are coincidences ever more than coincidence? Coincidence is exactly what the math says it is. The pattern is in the noticer. 49% Is divine omniscience compatible with human freedom? The observer is in time; foreknowledge across times raises real freedom problems. 46% Does meditation reveal something genuinely timeless? Meditators are bounded observers reporting unusual brain states; the 'timeless' is metaphorical. 46% Does prayer change God's mind? If there is an addressee at all, it is in time; prayer is communication, and may genuinely change what comes next. 46% Are the dead morally present to the living? Observers are bounded by their own moment, and no further agency makes the dead present. 44% What kind of religious-theological authority does the tradition recognize? The category does not apply — the school is non-religious. 44% Who is the moral primary — the individual, the community, the cosmos, the class, or the species? The discrete person is the moral primary. 40% Does history have a direction or meaning? History is not where the deepest truth lives. 37% Should we trust expert testimony when we can't verify it? Trust expertise only insofar as it coheres with first-person experience. 17% Is religious revelation a real source of knowledge? What gets called 'revelation' is real direct experience — not a text. 17% Does an LLM 'know' the things it correctly produces? An LLM has no first-person experience, so no knowing in the relevant sense. 17% How is knowledge of reality produced? Through controlled empirical investigation. 17%
20 unaligned
Are there indivisible units of experience? Schools split: 44% / 37% / 13% — Can a civilization recover from collapse? Schools split: 66% / 17% / 8% — Could a fetal brain organoid in a petri dish be conscious? Schools split: 32% / 29% / 11% — Could an AI have a mind that matters? Schools split: 30% / 30% / 15% — Could causation work backwards? Schools split: 68% / 17% / 8% — Do animals have moral standing comparable to humans? Schools split: 32% / 29% / 11% — Does environmental harm in another country bind me morally? Schools split: 50% / 29% / 12% — Does the second law of thermodynamics mean something morally? Schools split: 66% / 17% / 8% — Is environmental damage ever truly permanent? Schools split: 66% / 17% / 8% — Is genetic engineering of food stewardship or domination? Schools split: 48% / 15% / 15% — Is memory stored or reconstructed? Schools split: 44% / 37% / 13% — Is reality fundamentally digital? Schools split: 44% / 37% / 13% — Is salvation, liberation, or fulfillment individual or communal? Schools split: 15% / 14% / 4% — Is the arrow of time a real feature of the cosmos, or only of how we describe it? Schools split: 68% / 17% / 8% — Is the asymmetry between memory and anticipation a real feature of time, or just of us? Schools split: 68% / 17% / 8% — Should we colonize space? Schools split: 48% / 15% / 15% — What happens to "you" when you die? Schools split: 37% / 30% / 18% — What is marriage? Schools split: 54% / 16% / 15% — What is our place in nature? Schools split: 48% / 15% / 15% — When does a person begin? Schools split: 54% / 16% / 15% —
Information · 4 dilemmas, all mainstream
Could the dead, in principle, be brought back? — — Does deleting your data online destroy something real? — — Is anything truly lost when someone forgets? — — Is forgiveness ontologically possible? — —
← #1694 Against Celsus All Works #1696 On Abstinence from Animal Food →