On Pyrrho

Skeptic Process Philosophy/Theology

Pyrrho of Elis was born around 360 BCE and died around 270 BCE and is known for the philosophical movement Pyrrhonism. This movement flourished several centuries after his time and later became one of the two major traditions of skepticism in the Greco-Roman world (the other tradition being located in Plato’s academy during much of the Hellenistic period). Like many ancient philosophers, Pyrrho himself left no writings. His doctrines were recorded in the writings of his pupil Timon of Phlius and unfortunately most of these works are lost. Most of what we know today as Pyrrhonism comes through the book Outlines of Pyrrhonism written by Sextus Empiricus (2nd century AD - 3rd century AD) over 400 years after Pyrrho’s death. From that we will attempt to form what we can given these problems with ancient sources. 

Adventures of Alexander the Great

Around the year 334 BCE, Pyrrho met Alexander the Great and joined the Macedonian conqueror’s entourage. Pyrrho was probably around 30 years old at the time when he embarked on this journey to the East. Before this, he had been a painter and became (most likely) a student of the philosopher and musician Anaxarchus (killed 320 BCE). Anaxarchus was closer to Alexander the Great in age, and was probably ten to twenty years older than Pyrrho. Toward the end of 330 BCE, Alexander and his followers reached Kapisa, a principality in what is now east-central Afghanistan. After campaigning in Central Asia, including the conquest of Bactria, Sogdiana, and western Gandhara, they crossed the Hindu Kush into Eastern Gandhara, the southerneasternmost corner of Central Asia and the northwesternmost part of India. Here they spent over two years before leaving by land and by sea to return to the Near East¹. In their travels, Pyrrho and his teacher Anaxarchus met Iranic and Indic philosophoi ‘philosophical-religious practitioners’. Diogenes Laertius refers to the thinkers Pyrrho met by their stereotypical Greek names: Gymnosophistai (naked wise-men of India); Magoi (or Magi, Persian wise men). The ancient formulation of philosopher had a double fold meaning, not only did it mean those who love wisdom, but also it meant a religious teacher-practitioner – this ancient formulation was also more closer to what we nowadays would think of as science. These thinkers Pyrrho met on his paths, Diogenes Laertius claims², led him to develop his “most noble philosophy”. 

On Pyrrho’s return to Greece, from the Near East, he taught about ethics, specifically about the causes of pathe (passion/suffering), and a way to be apatheia (without passion/suffering), thus achieving ataraxia (undisturbedness/calm). This new way of thinking and living, that Pyrrho brought back, focused on the logical point that our thought is circular and imperfect, therefore cannot tell us anything absolute about ethical matters. He thus urges us, then, to have no views, and to have no inclinations for or against any interpretations or views on ethical matters. Pyrrho’s student Timon says that if we follow his path, we will eventually achieve apatheia (passionlessness), and then ataraxia (undisturbedness or calm). Pyrrho practiced his teachings for the rest of his life and was honored by the people of Elis – who erected a statue of him in the center of town and out of respect for him made philosophoi exempt from taxation. 

Pyrrho’s Philosophical System

A key distinctive point of Pyrrho’s thought that was unprecedented in Greece, and thus sets Pyrrho’s system apart from all other Greek philosophical systems is that having ‘no views’ and choosing to ‘not decide’ leads to the goal of ‘undisturbedness and peace’. This we can say with evidence³ that this belongs to Pyrrho and the Pyrrhonists alone amongst Greek thinkers. All accounts agree that Pyrrho’s teachings can be described as a system that has a goal (telos) which is directly connected to the rest of his thought and practice and this constitutes a coherently consistent system in its entirety. We can then ask how Pyrrho or Timon say we can achieve ataraxia? Ataraxia is achieved ‘indirectly’, and in a particular sequence, following a particular program of thought and practice that is connected to three important fundamental logical points, as a consequence of which one should have no views, and not incline in either direction toward them, such as to not decide. This successive cultivation of states of mind of no views and not deciding leads to undisturbedness – and is a thread that runs most consistently through the entire history of Pyrrhonism, and again it is this thread that sets Pyrrhonists apart from all other Greek philosophers. How does this differ from any other Greek thought that might have a similar goal of ataraxia, or some other related form of tranquility? Those other Greek thoughts attempt to achieve ataraxia directly, instead of indirectly (like the Pyrrhonists), and typically aspire to achieve this goal of direct ataraxia as a result of coming to understand the nature of things through painstaking enquiry, and being able to ascribe to them some set of definite characteristic. However, again, Pyrrho or Timon would say ataraxia can only be achieved indirectly, in a particular sequence, and following a particular program – so the Pyrrhonians would claim a hopeless affair any attempt at an understanding of the nature of things as a direct aim of attaining ataraxia. The idea of having no views indirectly leads up to undisturbedness is a well-known Early Buddhist idea.

Sextus Empiricus, Diogenes Laertius, and many modern scholars, credit Pyrrho with introducing the Problem of Criterion to European thought. Sextus Empiricus, in Against the Logicians, quotes an otherwise unknown work attributed to an Anacharsis the Scythian on the Problem of Criterion: 

“For who judges something skillfully? Is it the ordinary person or the skilled person? We would not say it is the ordinary person, for he is defective in his knowledge of the peculiarities of skills. The blind person does not grasp the workings of sight, nor the deaf person those of hearing. And so, too, the unskilled person does not have a sharp eye when it comes to the apprehension of what has been achieved through skill, since if we actually back this person in his judgment on some matter of skill, there will be no difference between skill and lack of skill, which is absurd. So the ordinary person is not a judge of the peculiarities of skills. It remains, then, to say that it is the skilled person – which is again unbelievable. For one judges either a person with the same pursuits as oneself, or a person with different pursuits. But one is not capable of judging someone with different pursuits; for one is familiar with one’s own skill, but as far as someone else’s skill is concerned one’s status is that of an ordinary person. Yet neither can one certify a person with the same pursuits as oneself. For this was the very issue we were examining: who is to be the judge of these people, who are of identical ability as regards the same skill. Besides, if one person judges the other, the same thing will become both judging and judged, trustworthy and untrustworthy. For insofar as the other person has the same pursuits as the one being judged, he will be untrustworthy since he too is being judged, while in so far as he is judging he will be trustworthy. But it is not possible for the same thing to be both judging and judged, trustworthy and untrustworthy; therefore there is no one who judges skillfully. For this reason there is not a criterion either. For some criteria are skilled and some are ordinary; but neither do the ordinary ones judge (just as the ordinary person does not), nor do the skilled ones (just as the skilled person does not), for the reasons stated earlier. Therefore nothing is a criterion.” Sextus Empiricus

Therefore, there is no one who judges skillfully, and for this reason there is no criterion. The Problem of the Criterion is acknowledged not to have existed in Greek philosophy before the time of Pyrrho, so it is clear that it cannot be some authentic work of Anacharsis (one of the Seven Greek Sages). Regardless, the above text is indeed modeled directly on the same topic – the problem of judging or deciding – and other similar things in nature. Another curious detail is that this argument is strikingly similar to the second part of the argument about the Problem of the Criterion in the Chuangtzu. Exactly as in the saying of Anacharsis above, attributed to him by Sextus Empiricus, the Chinese argument specifically concerns the ability to decide which of two contending individuals is right:

“If you defeat me, and I do not defeat you; are you then right, and I am not? If I defeat you, and you do not defeat me; am I then right, and you are not? Is one of us right, one of us wrong? Or are both of us right, both of us wrong? If you and I cannot figure it out, then everyone will be mystified by it. Who shall we get to decide who is right? We could get someone who agrees with you to decide who is right, but since he agrees with you, how could he decide it right or wrong? We could get someone who agrees with me to decide who is right, but since he agrees with me, how could he decide it right or wrong? Therefore, neither I nor you nor anyone else can figure it out.” Chuangtzu

The classic metaphysical tetralemma is embodied in the first part of the argument structure: ‘If you and I cannot figure it out, then everyone will be mystified by it’. The similarity of the passage with Sextus Empiricus to Chuangtzu could be chalked up to the fact that Scythians were common amongst the people of ancient Greece, especially in Athens. Anacharsis may have just heard an argument given by such a Scythian, and with such a stock Scythian story – an eastern Scythian Saka – could have transmitted a version of it to the Chinese to end up in the Chuangtzu. It is through these sentiments though we can gain a little bit of depth on some of the ways of thought we find in Pyrrho to understand his system even deeper. 

Pyrrho’s Ethics

Timon gives a short introduction to the Ethics of Pyrrho in the famous ‘Aristocles passage’, in which he states that whoever wants to be happy they must consider three questions:

1. What/how are pragmata (ethical matters, affairs, topics) by nature?

2. What attitude should we adopt to the nature of pragmata?

3. What will be the outcome for those who adopt this attitude?

Timon then quotes Pyrrho’s own revelation of the three negative characteristics of all pragmata ‘matters, affairs, questions, topics’. For Timon, Pyrrho himself declares that pragmata (matters, questions, topics), are all adiaphora (undifferentiated by a logical differentia), and astathmeta (unstable, unbalanced, not measurable), and anepikrita (unjudged, unfixed, undecidable). Therefore neither our sense-perceptions nor our doxa (views, theories, beliefs) tell us the truth or lie about pragmata; so we certainly should not rely on them. Rather we should be adoxastous (without views), aklineis (uninclined towards this or that), and akradantous (unwavering in our refusal to choose) – saying about every single one of these that it no more is than it is not, or it both is and is not, or it neither is nor is not (tetralemma). To paraphrase, Pyrrho says that ethical matters or questions are not logically differentiated, instead they are unstable (or unassessed and unassessable by any measure), and they are unjudged, not fixed (or undecidable). Therefore, our inductive and deductive reasoning cannot tell us whether any ethical question is true or false, so we should not count on these faculties to do so. Instead, Pyrrho laments, we should have no views on ethical matters, we should not incline toward any choice with respect to ethical questions, and we should not waver in our avoidance of attempts to decide such matters, reciting the following tetralemma formula in response to every single ethical question:

“It no more is than it is not; or it both is and is not; or it neither is nor is not”

The famous ‘Aristocles passage’ is not easy to understand yet crucially important so let us dive into it further. Pragmata (plural) or pragma (singular) is largely used by Pyrrho abstractly. In this way it is used to refer to ‘somethings, things’ but in the abstract logical sense of “an object of our cogitation or disputation” and should be largely understood by Pyrrho to mean “ethical things, matters (etc.)”. Pyrrho sees pragmata as disputed matters and if people did not argue about them they would not be characterizable. Pyrrho’s secret weapon in ethical issues is to use logic and metaphysics to skewer them. How exactly does he do this? What is cogitation? Let us further analyze.

The Three Characteristics — Pyrrho

Pyrrho famously declares that all ethical ‘matters, questions’ have three characteristics which are all, oddly enough, negative. So his statement is actually a declaration of what matters are not. That is, the positive equivalent of each negative term is what Pyrrho negates, so we must base our understanding of the terms on their positive forms, which (unlike the negative ones) are all well attested in Classical Greek. Pyrrho’s declaration, therefore, is presented as the foundation of his teaching: it is inseparable from his practical indirect path, via apatheia (passionlessness), to ataraxia (undisturbedness, calm). Because of its conciseness, we need to extrapolate and interpret further. 

Adiaphora: Without a Self-Identity

The first characteristic of Pyrrho’s famous declaration defines a term called adiaphora (undifferentiated by a logical differentia), as the negative of diaphora (differentiated by a logical differentia). Adiaphora, in its undifferentiation by a logical differentia is ‘without a logical self-identity’: pragmata (matters, affairs) do not come supplied with their own self-identifying differentiae or other categorizing criteria. For example, someone’s expression of anger is not automatically identified for us by a ‘thought balloon’ spelling out its genus (or superordinate category) ‘an emotion’ and further differentiating it as some sort of ‘bad’ emotion, thus distinguishing it from ‘good’ emotions (among other choices). Pyrrho, in several testimonies, denies that pragmata are in fact differentiated from their contrasting opposites, for example ‘the just’ versus ‘the unjust’, or ‘the truth’ versus ‘a lie’. People dispute pragmata as to whether they are good or bad, just or unjust, and so on, but any specific pragma, in order to be a subject of philosophical discussion at all, must necessarily be discrete and differentiated from other pragmata by a logical differentia. Because pragmata themselves do not actually have differentiae (as Timon says, “by nature”), we ourselves necessarily supply the differentiae. But that makes the entire process strictly circular and therefore logically invalid. A direct consequence of the teaching of adiaphora (without a logical differentia, no self-identity) is the explicit denial of the validity of opposed categories, or ‘antilogies’. 

Astathmeta: Unstable, Unbalanced, Not Measurable

The second characteristic of Pyrrho defines a second term, astathmeta, as an adjective from the stem sta- as in ‘stand’ with the negative a-, literally meaning ‘not standing’. The word is based on the noun stathmos (standing place, stable; a balance-beam, measuring scale). For example, Aristophanes, in The Frogs, has Aeschylus say, “what I’d like to do is take him to the scales (stathmos); That’s the only real test of our poetry; the weight of our utterances will be the decisive proof.” So astathmeta means a kind of ‘non-standing-place’, no stathmos (balance-beam scale), thus unstable and unbalanced. Since pragmata are unbalanced and unstable, they pull this way and that way, and are therefore unsettling. They make us feel uneasy and susceptible to passions and disturbedness. 

Anepikrita: Unjudged, Undecided, Unfixed

The third characteristic of Pyrrho defines a third and final term, anepikrita, which is a negative made from epikrisis (determination, judgment), from the well-attested derived verb epikrino (to decide, to determine; to judge; to select, to pick out, to choose) – as in Aristotle’s usage “with what part of itself (the soul) judges that which distinguishes sweet from warm” – which is based in turn on the verb krino (to separate, to distinguish; to choose; to decide disputes or contests; to judge; to prefer). Krino is the source also of the important word kriterion (criterion, or means for judging or trying, standard). Anepikrita thus means ‘unjudged, undecided, unchosen, unfixed’ (this characteristic defines a lack of fixity metaphysically), so pragmata are not permanently decided or fixed.

The Three Characteristics – The Buddha

Pyrrho’s tripartite statement is completely unprecedented and unparalleled in Greek thought. Yet it is not merely similar to Buddhism, it corresponds closely to a famous statement of the Buddha preserved in canonical texts such as the Nikaya texts of the Pali Canon (reflecting thoughts in Early Buddhism). The statement known as the Trilaksana or the ‘Three Characteristics’ of all dharmas (in this sense meaning ethical distinctions, factors, constituents, etc.), where the Greek pragmata closely corresponds to this Indic dharma as we use it here with Pyrrho. 

The Buddha says, “All dharmas are anitya (impermanent)... All dharmas are duhka (unsatisfactory, imperfect, unstable)... All dharmas are anatman (without an innate self-identity).”

Anitya: Impermanent, Variable, Unfixed

The first term, anitya (Pali anicca), is the negative form of nitya (eternal, invariant, fixed, etc.) and means a kind of impermanence, variableness, or an unfixedness. 

Dukha: Uneasy, Unsatisfactory, Unsteady

The second term, Dukha (Pali dukkha), is contested by scholars and actually has no universally accepted basic meaning or etymology. Sanskrit is where we get the ‘unsatisfactory, uneasy, uncomfortable, imperfect, and so on’ but the term is perhaps the most misunderstood and most mistranslated. A similar term we can use is duh-stha (standing badly, unsteady) and can be argued to be closely similar to the Greek astathmeta both meaning ‘unstable’. 

Anatman: No Innate Self-Identity

The third term, anatman (Pali anatta), means something like no innate self-identity. As with the other characteristics, it is applied to all dharmas, including humans, so it of course includes the idea of the human ‘self-identity’, and much discussion in Buddhist texts and the scholarly literature on them focuses on that idea. The Buddha explicitly says that “all dharmas are anatman” – as Hamilton⁴ rightly points out: “In a great many, one might almost say most, secondary sources on Buddhism, anatman, has regularly been singled out as being the heart or core of what Buddhism is all about.” I muse further on anatman in the essay ‘On Parmenides’. 

Pyrrho’s version of the Trilaksana (Three Characteristics) is so close to the Indian Buddhist one that it is virtually a translation of it: both the Buddha and Pyrrho make a declaration in which they list three logical characteristics of all discrete “(ethical) things, affairs, questions”, but they give them exclusively negatively, that is, “All matters are non-x, non-y, and non-z.” The peculiar and particular way in which the characteristics are presented is thus the same, the main difference being the order of the first and the third characteristics. Now, the Trilaksana is not just any piece of Buddhist teaching, it is the very center of Buddhist practice, which is agreed to be at the heart and soul of living Buddhism of any kind. With the Trilaksana we can speak of a type of ‘insight meditation’ that is evidently the oldest, and single most important of the different kinds of stages of Buddhist meditations, from Gethin (1998), Foundations of Buddhism⁵:

“With the essential work of calming the mind completed, with the attainment of the fourth ‘dhyana’, the meditator can focus fully on the development of insight… Insight meditation aims are understanding [that “things''] … are impermanent and unstable (anitya/anicca), that they are unsatisfactory and imperfect (duhkha/dukkha), and that they are not self (anatman/anatta). The philosophical nuances of these three terms may be expressed differently in the theoretical writings of various Buddhist schools, but in one way or another the higher stages of Buddhist path focus on the direct understanding and seeing of these aspects of the world.”

This characterization is supported by the Mahasaccaka Sutta, in which the Buddha describes his final enlightenment, ending with his achievement of the four dhyanas. In the last and highest of these, the fourth, he says, “as a result of abandoning bliss, and abandoning pain, as a result of the earlier disappearance of cheerfulness and dejection, I reached the Fourth Dhyana, which is free from pain and bliss, the complete purity of equanimity and attentiveness, and resided [there].”⁶ What the Buddha seems to be abandoning here is the distinction between the opposite qualities or ‘antilogies’ that are mentioned. This is Pyrrho’s adiaphora state of being ‘undifferentiated without an intrinsic self-identity’, which is identical to the Buddha’s state of being anatman (without an intrinsic self-identity). It is equated with nirvana (extinguishing of the burning of the passions), and the peace that results from it. In the terms of the Mahasaccaka Sutta, “being free from both pain and bliss” means the state of apatheia (passionlessness), while “complete equanimity” is exactly the same thing as ataraxia. As Timon says, the result of following the Pyrrho program, is first apatheia (passionlessness), and then ataraxia (undisturbedness, equanimity – nirvana). 

“By skepticism we arrive first at suspension of judgment, and second at freedom from disturbance.” Sextus Empiricus

“I feel safer with a Pyrrho than with a Saint Paul, for a jesting wisdom is gentler than an unbridled sanctity.” Emil Cioran

“The right understanding of any matter and a misunderstanding of the same matter do not wholly exclude each other.” Franz Kafka

“The great subverter of Pyrrhonism or the excessive principles of skepticism is action, and employment, and the occupations of common life.” David Hume

“The history of science alone can keep the physicist from the mad ambitions of dogmatism as well as despair of Pyrrhonian skepticism.” Pierre Duhem

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Part 1 of a multi-part series On Pyrrho

1. Greek Buddha: Pyrrho’s Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia, Beckwith; Bosworth (1988); Cawthorne (2004); Holt (1989)

2. The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius IX

3. Pyrrho, His Antecedents and His Legacy, Richard Bett (2000: 179, 219-221)

4. Early Buddhism: A New Approach, Sue Hamilton (2000)

5. The Foundations of Buddhism, Rupert Gethin (1998)

6. Mahasaccaka Sutta, MN I, 247, translated by Bronkhorst (1986)