Sextus Empiricus

Sextus Empiricus was a Greek Pyrrhonist philosopher and Empiric school physician with Roman citizenship. His philosophical works are the most complete surviving account of ancient Greek and Roman Pyrrhonism, and because of the arguments they contain against the other Hellenistic philosophies, they are also a major source of information about those philosophies.

Life

Little is known about Sextus Empiricus. He likely lived in Alexandria, Rome, or Athens. His Roman name, Sextus, implies he was a Roman citizen. The Suda, a 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia, states that he was the same person as Sextus of Chaeronea, as do other pre-modern sources, but this identification is commonly doubted. In his medical work, as reflected by his name, tradition maintains that he belonged to the Empiric school in which Pyrrhonism was popular. However, at least twice in his writings, Sextus seems to place himself closer to the Methodic school.

Philosophy

As a skeptic, Sextus Empiricus raised concerns which applied to all types of knowledge. He doubted the validity of induction long before its best known critic, David Hume, and raised the regress argument against all forms of reasoning:
This view is known as Pyrrhonian skepticism, which Sextus differentiated from Academic skepticism as practiced by Carneades which, according to Sextus, denies the possibility of knowledge altogether, something that Sextus criticized as being an affirmative belief. Instead, Sextus advocates simply giving up belief; in other words, suspending judgment about whether or not anything is knowable. Only by suspending judgment can we attain a state of ataraxia.
There is some debate as to the extent to which Sextus advocated the suspension of judgement. According to Myles Burnyeat, Jonathan Barnes, and Benson Mates, Sextus advises that we should suspend judgment about virtually all beliefs; that is to say, we should neither affirm any belief as true nor deny any belief as false, since we may live without any beliefs, acting by habit. Michael Frede, however, defends a different interpretation, according to Sextus, beliefs are permissible so long as they are not grounded in reason, philosophy, or speculation; a skeptic may, for instance, accept commonly held views within their society. The key distinction between the skeptic and the dogmatist lies in the source of belief: the skeptic does not arrive at beliefs through rigorous philosophical inquiry.

Writings

and the Suda report that Sextus Empiricus wrote ten books on Pyrrhonism. The Suda also says Sextus wrote a book Ethica. Sextus Empiricus's three surviving works are the Outlines of Pyrrhonism, and two distinct works preserved under the same title, Adversus Mathematicos. Adversus Mathematicos is incomplete as the text references parts that are not in the surviving text. Adversus Mathematicos also includes mentions of three other works which did not survive:

Medical Commentaries
Empirical Commentaries
Commentaries on the Soul which includes a discussion of the Pythagoreans' metaphysical theory of numbers and shows that the soul is nothing

The surviving first six books of Adversus Mathematicos are commonly known as Against the Professors. Each book also has a traditional title; although none of these titles except Pros mathematikous and Pyrrhōneioi hypotypōseis are found in the manuscripts.

Book	English title	Greek title
I	Against the Grammarians	Πρὸς γραμματικούς / Pros grammatikous
II	Against the Rhetoricians	Πρὸς ῥητορικούς / Pros rhetorikous
III	Against the Geometers	Πρὸς γεωμετρικούς / Pros geometrikous
IV	Against the Arithmeticians	Πρὸς ἀριθμητικούς / Pros arithmetikous
V	Against the Astrologers	Πρὸς ἀστρολόγους / Pros astrologous
VI	Against the Musicians	Πρὸς μουσικούς / Pros mousikous

Adversus Mathematicos ''I–VI is sometimes distinguished from Adversus Mathematicos VII–XI by using another title, Against the Dogmatists and then the remaining books are numbered as I–II, III–IV, and V, despite the fact that it is commonly inferred that what we have is just part of a larger work whose beginning is missing and it is unknown how much of the total work has been lost. The supposed general title of this partially lost work is Skeptical Treatises'''.

Book	English title	Greek title
VII–VIII	Against the Logicians	Πρὸς λογικούς / Pros logikous
IX–X	Against the Physicists	Πρὸς φυσικούς / Pros Physikous
XI	Against the Ethicists	Πρὸς ἠθικούς / Pros Ethikous

Legacy

An influential Latin translation of Sextus's Outlines was published by Henricus Stephanus in Geneva in 1562, and this was followed by a complete Latin Sextus with Gentian Hervet as translator in 1569. Petrus and Jacobus Chouet published the Greek text for the first time in 1621. Stephanus did not publish it with his Latin translation either in 1562 or in 1569, nor was it published in the reprint of the latter in 1619.
Sextus's Outlines were widely read in Europe during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, and had a profound effect on Michel de Montaigne, David Hume and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, among many others. Another source for the circulation of Sextus's ideas was Pierre Bayle's Dictionary. Since the Renaissance, French philosophy has been continuously influenced by Sextus: Montaigne in the 16th century, Descartes, Blaise Pascal, Pierre-Daniel Huet and François de La Mothe Le Vayer in the 17th century, many of the "Philosophes", and in recent times controversial figures such as Michel Onfray, in a direct line of filiation between Sextus' radical skepticism and secular or even radical atheism.

Works

Translations

;Old complete translation in four volumes:

Sextus Empiricus, Sextus Empiricus I: Outlines of Pyrrhonism. R.G. Bury .
Sextus Empiricus, Sextus Empiricus II: Against the Logicians. R.G. Bury .
Sextus Empiricus, Sextus Empiricus III: Against the Physicists, Against the Ethicists. R.G. Bury Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1936/1997.
Sextus Empiricus, Sextus Empiricus IV: Against the Professors. R.G. Bury .

;New partial translations

Sextus Empiricus, Against the Grammarians David Blank Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.
Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians Lorenzo Corti Leiden: Brill, 2024.
Sextus Empiricus, Against those in the Disciplines. Richard Bett .
Sextus Empiricus, Against the Logicians.. Richard Bett Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Sextus Empiricus, Against the Physicists. Richard Bett Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Sextus Empiricus, Against the Ethicists. Richard Bett .
Sextus Empiricus, Against the Musicians. A new critical text and translation on facing pages, with an introduction, annotation, and indices verborum and nominum et rerum by Denise Davidson Greaves.
Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Scepticism. Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes .
Sextus Empiricus, The Skeptic Way: Sextus Empiricus's Outlines of Pyrrhonism. Benson Mates Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Sextus Empiricus, Selections from the Major Writings on Skepticism Man and God. Sanford G. Etheridge Indianapolis: Hackett, 1985.

;French translations

Sextus Empiricus, Contre les Professeurs, Greek text and French Translation, under the editorship of Pierre Pellegrin.
Sextus Empiricus, Esquisses Pyrrhoniennes, Greek text and French Translation, under the editorship of Pierre Pellegrin.

;Old editions

Sexti Empirici Adversus mathematicos, hoc est, adversus eos qui profitentur disciplinas, Gentiano Herveto Aurelio interprete, Parisiis, M. Javenem, 1569.