Abstract
Sextus Empiricus submits that Pyrrhonian skeptics are tranquil. He begins his explanation of skeptical tranquility by relating how people suffer anxiety when they are confronted with conflicting appearances. In order to alleviate this anxiety, and thereby gain tranquility, they seek ways of deciding which appearances are true and which false. They compare the accounts for these appearances, but find them equally believable, and are repeatedly forced to suspend belief. They nevertheless become tranquil through this suspension of belief. Sextus often suggests that the skeptics’ tranquility comes about through their not having beliefs of any kind. But in his sustained explanation of skeptical tranquility, he suggests that it comes about only through their not having positive beliefs about natural values. The two ideas about the sources of skeptical tranquility are in conflict.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
It may be unnecessary to delete “to seem” (dokein), on the suggestion of Mutschmann. I follow the translation of Annas and Barnes, with minimal changes to preserve consistency.
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- 5.
For the idea of tranquility or ataraxia, see Striker (1990).
- 6.
For Philo, and Aenesidemus’ criticism, see Brittain (2001).
- 7.
See Bett (2000, pp. 102–5).
- 8.
- 9.
See Svavarsson (2002).
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- 11.
- 12.
At the outset of his second meditation, Descartes confesses to being ita turbatus … ut nec possim in imo pedem figere, nec enatare ad summum. By referring to Descartes (and Cartesian anxiety) I intend nothing more than to point out possible historical parallels to Sextus’ idea of epistemic anxiety. One could also point to Hume’s epistemic despair in the Treatise I.iv.7 (Selby-Bigge 268–9).
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One might ask whether Sextus views the gaining of knowledge as a means to the attainment of tranquility. This question has received considerable attention. The gaining of knowledge is, for Sextus, instrumental in the attainment of tranquility. So Palmer (2000) and Striker (2001). Perin (2006) argues that it might also be an end in itself.
- 14.
According to most interpreters of Sextus, the inability to decide, or “standstill of the intellect,” as Sextus calls it, does not lead to suspension of assent but rather is suspension of belief (PH 1.10); see especially Barnes (1990). It is open to question whether Sextus could be taken to have in mind, by the term epochē, not such a psychological reaction, but rather a rational conclusion; see Perin (2006).
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- 16.
See Bett (1997) for arguments for the claim that the first part of M 11 represents a version of skepticism that is negatively dogmatic (and an Aenesideman inheritance) and inconsistent with Sextus’ skepticism as expressed elsewhere in his works. For a critique of this argument, see Svavarsson (2004) and Schofield (2007).
- 17.
Sextus also refers to what he said in his discussion of the end in the presumably lost general account of the Adversus Mathematicos.
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to Julia Annas, Robert Bolton, Eyjólfur Kjalar Emilsson, Diego Machuca, and an anonymous referee for comments and criticisms, and to the Centre for Advanced Study in Oslo for inimitable hospitality.
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Svavarsson, S.H. (2012). Two Kinds of Tranquility: Sextus Empiricus on Ataraxia . In: Machuca, D. (eds) Pyrrhonism in Ancient, Modern, and Contemporary Philosophy. The New Synthese Historical Library, vol 70. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1991-0_2
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