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The System Afthe Sceptical Modes in Sextus Empiricus The System afthe Sceptical Modes in Sextus Empiricus Nathan Powers The Pyrrhonian sceptic-ill-training learned the so-called 'modes', sche­ matized argument patterns on which sceptics relied in their suspen­ sions of judgment. Our richest source of information about these modes is Book One of Sextus Empiricus' Outlines of Flrvrnnnl Hupotup6seis: henceforth PH),! In recent decades, the several of mode that Sextus describes have been studied closely," There has, how­ ever, been little investigation of how Sextus himself, as a representa­ tive of the later Pyrrhonian tradition, takes the various sorts of modes he describes to be related to one another, In this paper I shall argue that, whatever the original purpose of each of mode may have been, Sextus does not simply catalogue them for posterity, he presents them as a loose system within which each sort of rnode has a specific function to fulfill in advancing the aims of scepticism. 1 Scepticism is defined at PH I 8 as 'an ability to set out oppositions among things which appear and are thought of in any way at all'; this ability 2'.1- abIes one to attain suspension of judgment, and suspension of leads to tranquility (ataraxia), The 'ability to set out oppositions' for Sextus con­ sists, at least in large part, in a command of the modes: PH I 350 All references to PH I are henceforth by section number only. I follow Mutschmarm-Mau's Teubner text (1958). Translations of Sextus are based on A'.1° nas & Barnes (2000), modified for accuracy where necessary. 2 For analysis of the ten modes of Aenesidemus, see Striker, Annas & Barnes (1985), and Hankinson Ch, 9. On the five modes of Agrippa, see Barnes (1990a) and Hankinson Ch, 10, On the eight 'refutational' modes of Aenesidemus, see Barnes (1990b) 2656-68 and Hankinson 213-17. APEIRON a journal for ancient philosophy and science 003-6390/2010/4304157-172003-6390/2010/4304 157-172 16.00 ©AGlOeJmlC© Academic Prj,cting and Publishing 158 Nathan PozversPowers I Sextus groups the sceptical modes into two categories: those 'through which suspension of judgment is brought about' (35), the presentation of which occupies the bulk of PH I (36-179); and those which 'refute and assert to be unsound every causal explanation' advanced by dog­ matists (180), a brief presentation of which immediately follows the others (180-6). For convenience, I'll call these two groups the sive' and the 'refutational' modes, respectively The suspensive modes themselves come in two kinds:3 the famous ten modes of Aenesidemus (36-163), and the five modes of Agrippa (164-77).4 I shall first consider how in Sextus' view the Agrippan and Aenesideman suspensive modes are related to one another, before turning to the relationship between the suspensive and refutational modes. It will be helpful to begin with a brief characterization of the modes of Agrippa. According to the first Agrippan mode Cfrom dispute [di­ aphonia],), the existence of a dispute that is undecided" warrants sus­ pension of judgment about the matter under dispute. exactly it should do so is a crux that I hope to shed some light on below.) The second Agrippan mode ('from regression') says that if some reason p is 3 This is a slight simplification of the situation as it stands in Sextus, because he offers a way of grouping the ten Aenesideman modes into three superordinate modes (38), or alternatively into just one overarching mode (39); it is clear that these alternative groupings would not significantly affect the content or function of the modes, and they may well have originated as mnemonic aids. More prob­ lematically, Sextus also presents an odd group of two modes immediately after his description of the Agrippan modes; but it seems fairly clear that these are intended as some sort of condensation of the Agrippan modes (Annas & Barnes [1985] 22, Barnes [1990a] 116-17). At any rate, the chief focus in my discussion of the suspen­ sive modes will be on the relationship between the Aenesideman and the Agrip­ pan modes. 4 Diogenes Laertius attributes the ten modes to Aenesidemus (9. 78; d. Sextus M 7. 345 and Eusebius, PE 14. 18. 11), and the five modes to the otherwise unknown 'Agrippa' (9. 88). In PH I, however, Sextus ascribes the former simply to 'the older sceptics' (36), and the latter simply to 'the more recent sceptics' (164). Our extant sources, it is worth noting, report the ten Aenesideman modes with considerable variation 1.'1 both order and content (see Annas & Barnes [1985J 29-30 for some remarks on differences in order, and their commentary passim for differences in content). This paper is focused on Pyrrhonian argumentation as Sextus presents it in PH. 5 anepikritos; the precise meaningm£:l'':\r\llr\CT of this term is considered below. The System of the Scepticallvlodes in Sextus Empiricus 159 brought forward in favor of a claim, p will fail to convince unless some other reason r is brought forward in support of it, and so on ad tum, The third mode ('from relativity') states that appearing to be the case appears so only relative to the observer and to the circum­ stances of observation, thus warranting no decisive statement about how observed objects (really) are. The fourth ('from that any reason p brought forth in favor of a claim will be if it is itself an unproved assertion, Lastly, the fifth ('from rules out considering a reason p to count in favor of a claim if p cannot convince without making appeal to the very claim which it is to support. Sextus explicitly conceives of the Agrippan modes as together with one another;6 collectively they frustrate any reasoned ap­ peal that a dogmatist might make to decide a dispute. Barnes has named this collective function of the Agrippan modes 'the net.,7 Briefly put, the Pyrrhonist keeps pushing for of ex­ planatory principles put forward by the dogmatist to settle matters of dispute. Since the sceptic won't at any point accept appeal to first primitive or self-evident) principles (fourth Agrippan mode) or allow explanantia and explananda to justify each other the dogmatist is forced into an infinite regress which is unacceptable. With no means available to settle the dispute, the dogma­ tist is forced to suspend judgment (first mode). Sextus says very little about how he takes the Agrippan modes to be related to the Aenesideman modes, His explicit comment is the following (177): 'They [the "more recent" sceptics] put five Agrip­ pan modes] forward not as rejecting the ten [Aenesideman] modes but in order to refute the rashness of the dogmatists in a more varied [or deeper?] manner (poiki16teron) and using both sets together (kai dia tauton sun ' 6 Or, to be exact, Sextus conceives of the first, second, fourth, and fifth modes as so functioning. The third mode ('from relativity') is not included in this scheme, and indeed its presence among the other Agrippan modes is somewhat anomalous (d. Barnes [1990a] 113; Hankinson 185). However, as Hankinson POh""lts out, the mode from relativity itself seems to be (at least in Sexhls' view) closely connected with the mode from dispute: if appearances were not relative to the per­ sons who have them, disputes would not arise about appearances {d. PH I 7 Sextus takes pains to elaborateela!bor'ate the sceptic's net at 170-7; see Barnes (1990a) Ch. 5. 160 Nathan Powers Considered on its own this statement can be interpreted in a weak way, as saying that the Aenesideman modes are one group of arguments that can be used to produce suspension of judgment, and the Agrippan modes are simply arguments of a different sort useful for producing the same end.8 But it can also be understood as stating a stronger connec­ tion between the two kinds of mode, namely that they work together in concert - dia tout8n sun ekeinois - to produce suspension of judgment. Turning to the Aenesideman modes, I think it can be shown that the stronger connection is indeed what Sextus has in mind. II Each of the Aenesideman modes is essentially an application of one under~g pattern of argument, which I shall call the 'Standard Argu­ ment.' We begin with a report of an appearance: (1) x appears to be F (in circumstance C1). Now, for every such report we shall be able to produce a conflicting report: (2) x appears to be G (in circumstance C2), where x, as it appears, cannot be both F and G. Broadly speaking, each of the Aenesideman modes is a resource for discovering new conflict­ ing reports. Now, (3) We cannot prefer appearances in C1 to those in C2, or vice-versa. So, (4) We cannot say whether x is (really) F or G. 8 It might be thought that poikiloteron points towards this weak interpretation, if one translates it as 'more varied'; taking it as 'more subtle' or 'deeper' implies a stron­ ger connection. Cf. Sextus PH II 21, where the context seems to require that poiki/os be translated 'deeply' or 'in detail', not 'in a varied way'. 9 I here report the consensus view: e.g., Striker; Annas & Barnes (1985) Ch. 3; Han­ kinson Ch. 9. The System of the Sceptical Modes in Sextus 161 And &is leads to our being rationally required to suspend as to the nature of x (with respect to F and G).lO The difficult step here is (3), because usually or a report of how x appears to us, and we shall always assumes) have a tendency to give special weight to reports of how things pear to ourselves.
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