Sceptics

Sceptics (from Gk. skepsis, ‘speculation’), Greek philosophers who asserted the impossibility of knowledge. As the name of a particular school of philosophy Scepticism began with Pyrrhon of Elis (c.365–c.270 BC), but sceptical attitudes were expressed by philosophers, notably the sophists, long before that. Pyrrhon travelled to India in the train of Alexander the Great and there, tradition relates, met some ‘magi’ who influenced the development of his philosophical views. He returned and lived the rest of his life quietly at Elis. He left no writings, and only fragments survive of the writings of his pupils. Pyrrhon inferred from the deceptions inherent in sense-perceptions and the contradictions in the teachings of ‘dogmatic’ philosophers that knowledge of the true nature of things is unattainable. Hence the proper attitude is to follow the appearance of things (phainomena), to suspend judgement (epochē), and to avoid commitment, with the aim of achieving mental quietude (ataraxia). His most influential pupils were Timon (2) of Phlius, Philo of Larisa (head of the Academy at Athens in the first century BC), and Nausiphanēs of Teos; our chief source of information on the Sceptics is the lengthy account by Sextus Empiricus (late second century AD). It remains unclear what the relationship was between Pyrrhon's Scepticism and that of the Academy at Athens, introduced by Arcesilaus (head of the Academy c.265 BC) and developed a century later by Carneades. It seems probable that Arcesilaus was influenced by Pyrrhon.