A Case Study on Sextus’ Belief on the Skeptics
Generally, skepticism refers to a process where one tends to either suspend judgment, have systematic uncertainty or criticize particular objects, various principles or occurrences. As such, skeptics mainly characterize this trait and Sextus Empiricus was one of them. As a result, he expressed his view on skepticism through writing about the various outlines of skepticism and its importance in maneuvering the present political world in particular. Thus, he first provided a preview on the structure of philosophy during the early days and then a vivid description on the growth of skepticism before his existence. Consequently, he gives a deep analysis of various methods used by skeptics which ultimately culminates with a thorough exploration of the pros and cons of his skeptical analysis. As such, this paper brings out a critical analysis of Sextus’ analogies of pyrrhonian skepticism and his belief that it finally leads to a happy life.
Sextus gives his own meaning of skepticism which he frames as a type of philosophy uniquely secluded from the others by both its attitude and general outlook to various philosophical issues. In addition, he goes on to state that skepticism is the state of being able to differentiate between mental and physical things or occurrences (Sextus & Hallie, 1985). According to Sextus, possession of this ability first leads to shelving judgment which ends with serenity because of the equipollence in the differentiated things and occurrences. As such, the unique skeptical ability is responsible for making individuals to point out oppositions from the various things with ease.
According to Sextus, the philosophy of skepticism stems from two main foundations that ultimately lead to personal tranquility if correctly used (Sextus & Hallie, 1985). As such, the first foundation mainly deals with dogmatic claims. It majors on the fact that these claims tend to have an assumption on the relationship between how people perceive things to look like and how they actually look like in reality (Sextus & Hallie, 1985). By dogmatic, Sextus generally refers to the approval or acceptance of occurrences or things that are not evident and as a result, they tend to be beyond either being true or untrue. As such, he claims that skeptics lead undogmatic lives in relation to how things or objects appear. In addition, these appearances tend to revolve around various aspects of their lives including their environment, custom laws and culture and their feelings among others (Sextus & Hallie, 1985). As such, skeptics continue with their lives while delaying judgment with regard to the final truth of the non-existent materials as derived from different debates in other sciences.
In essence, Sextus points out that the pyrrhonian skeptics could believe in the existence of many things or ideas but still, they fail to dogmatize about those beliefs because they cannot justify anything about them. As such, these skeptics acquire tranquility through their cultured capacity to refuse actively to comply with the various ways in which judgments on objects appear (Sextus & Hallie, 1985). Thus, they first experience suspense within their minds which in the end culminates to a state of tranquility. Sextus argues that this is opposed to how other individuals, apart from skeptics, perceive different occurrences. This is because according to Sextus, other people only cast direct judgments on how occurrences appear without even allowing room for the benefit of doubt.
In addition, Sextus claims that pyrrhonian skepticism is more of an attitude portrayed by the skeptics other than being a theory as portrayed by other philosophers. As such, the attitudes occur in different forms which he breaks down into ten modes that catalyze the skeptics’ mind suspension. Some of the listed modes include, the belief that similar objects do not produce the same impressions because of the various differences in individuals and animals and that similar objects again do provide consistent impressions due to the existent of different senses, among others (Sextus & Hallie, 1985).
Sextus then moved on to his second foundation of skepticism which he terms as shelving of judgment that also referred to epoche. Consequently, he revealed that he rooted his philosophy in this second foundation since it made Sextus standout amongst the dogmatists in a manner that made it worth all the challenges of pursuing his philosophy (Sextus & Hallie, 1985). According to Sextus, postponing judgment of given occurrences thus remaining neutral to all the claims of truth being laid out makes an individual’s soul to have untold peace and calmness.
As such, another scholar by the name Bob Plant, named Sextus’ argument as philosophical health. According to (Sextus & Hallie, 1985), anything that led to a sense of untold peace and tranquility resulted to the well-being of the individuals experiencing it. As a result, Bob came up with an immaculate summary of the whole philosophical health process as laid out by Sextus. Thus, the details entailed in his summary begun by illustrating equality in equipollence of views, objects and occurrences that are mutually exclusive. These mutually exclusive elements trigger refined judgments that in turn leave the individuals undecided on what to support or not. (Sextus & Hallie, 1985) As a result, this kind of paralyses their judgment and reason which according to Sextus makes the individuals ataraxic.
Thus, according to Bob’s summary, the procrastination of judgment gives serenity to the skeptics via philosophical computations (Sextus & Hallie, 1985). In turn, the acquired serenity cultures all their inner wants until the individuals forgo the strong urge to pursue unachievable lives. However, it is important to note that Sextus neither agreed nor disagreed on the existence of both good and evil deeds. However, he chose to alter the different concepts of the humanistic answers to the queries relating to inner peace and the general morality in human beings. According to Sextus, the dogmatists rush into concluding that attaining peace results from partaking all the good deeds on one hand while condemning the evil ones on the other (Sextus & Hallie, 1985). In the contrary, skeptics claim that the only way to achieve untold states of tranquility is by consenting to the fact that these states are actually unattainable.
However, Sextus’ concept on the ideology that skeptics generally lead a better life is not entirely true. This is because skepticism can easily turn into being cynical whereby the individuals end up distrusting everything done by others. In turn, this could make them lead unfulfilled life since it makes them rigid in the sense that they are afraid of trying out new ideas from other people (Sextus & Hallie, 1985). In addition, skepticism leads to uncertainty which makes individuals keep on procrastinating things which they may ultimately never face. As a result, this completely slows down both individual growth and self-awareness.
In essence, even though Sextus laid out logical analogies on how skepticism results to inner serenity and calmness, it would be easier for one to look at it from a different angle. This is because as stated earlier, skepticism hinders the growth of individual awareness which is very important in negating all forms of negativity surrounding people. Thus, negation of negativity through awareness ultimately provides a basis for growth of inner peace and tranquility.
References
Sextus, E., & Hallie, P. P. (1985). Selections from the major writings on scepticism, man, & God. Indianapolis: Hackett.
