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Pyrrho (ca. 360 BC - ca. 270 BC), a Greek philosopher of classical antiquity
Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome....
, is credited as being the first Skeptic philosopher, and the inspiration for the school known as Pyrrhonism
Pyrrhonism

Pyrrhonism, or Pyrrhonian skepticism, was a school of skepticism founded by Aenesidemus in the first century BC and recorded by Sextus Empiricus in the late 2nd century or early 3rd century AD....
 founded by Aenesidemus
Aenesidemus

Aenesidemus was a Greece sceptical philosopher, born in Knossos on the island of Crete. He lived sometime during the 1st century BC, taught in Alexandria and flourished shortly after the life of Cicero....
 in the 1st century BC.

ho was from Elis
Elis

Elis, or Eleia is an ancient district, that corresponds with the modern Elis Prefecture. It is in southern Greece on the Peloponnesos peninsula, bounded on the north by Achaea, east by Arcadia, south by Messenia, and west by the Ionian Sea....
, on the Ionian Sea
Ionian Sea

The Ionian Sea is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, south of the Adriatic Sea. It is bounded by southern Italy, including Calabria, Sicily and the Salento peninsula, to the west, by southwestern Albania, including Saranda and Himara, and a large number of Greek islands, including Corfu, Zante, Kephalonia, Ithaka, and Lefkas to the east....
. Diogenes Laertius
Diogenes Laertius

Diogenes La?rtius , the biographer of the Greece philosophers, is supposed by some to have received his surname from the town of Laerte in Cilicia, Asia Minor, and by others from the Roman Empire family of the La?rtii....
, quoting from Apollodorus
Apollodorus

Apollodorus of Athens son of Asclepiades, was a Greeks scholar and grammarian. He was a pupil of Diogenes of Babylon, Panaetius, and the grammarian Aristarchus of Samothrace....
, says that Pyrrho was at first a painter, and that pictures by him were exhibited in the gymnasium at Elis. Later he was diverted to philosophy by the works of Democritus
Democritus

Democritus was an Ancient Greek philosopher born in Abdera in the north of Greece. He was the most prolific, and ultimately the most influential, of the pre-Socratic philosophers; his atomic theory may be regarded as the culmination of early Greek thought....
, and according to Diogenes Laertius became acquainted with the Megarian dialectic
Megarian school of philosophy

The Megarian school of philosophy, which flourished in the 4th century BC, was founded by Euclid of Megara, one of the pupils of Socrates. Its ethical teachings were derived from Socrates, recognizing a single Form of the Good, which was apparently combined with the Eleatic doctrine of monism....
 through Bryson
Bryson of Achaea

Bryson of Achaea, was an ancient Greek philosophy who lived c. 340 BCE.Very little information is known about him. He was said to have been a pupil of Stilpo and Clinomachus, which would mean that he was a dialectician of the Megarian school of philosophy....
, pupil of Stilpo
Stilpo

Stilpo , Hellenistic Greece philosopher of the Megarian school of philosophy , was a contemporary of Theophrastus and Crates of Thebes. None of his writings survive, he was interested in logic and dialectic, and his ethical teachings approached that of the Cynics and Stoics....
.

Pyrrho, along with Anaxarchus
Anaxarchus

Anaxarchus or Anaxarch , a Greece philosopher of the school of Democritus, was born at Abdera, Thrace in Thrace.He was the companion and friend of Alexander the Great in his Asiatic campaigns....
, travelled with Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great , also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greeks King of Macedon . He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle....
 on his exploration of the East, and studied under the Gymnosophists
Gymnosophists

Gymnosophists is the name given by the Ancient Greece to certain ancient Indian philosophy who pursued asceticism to the point of regarding food and clothing as detrimental to purity of thought ....
 in India
India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
 and the Magi
Magi

File:Adoracao_dos_magos_de_Vicente_Gil.jpgMagi is a term, used since at least the 4th century BCE, to denote a follower of Zoroaster, or rather, a follower of what the Hellenistic civilization associated Zoroaster with, which was – in the main – the ability to read the stars, and manipulate the fate that the stars foretold....
 in Persia
Persian Empire

The 'Persian Empire' was a series of successive Iranian or Persianization empires that ruled over the Iranian plateau, the original Persian homeland, and beyond in Southwest Asia, South Asia, Central Asia and the Caucasus....
.






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Pyrrho (ca. 360 BC - ca. 270 BC), a Greek philosopher of classical antiquity
Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome....
, is credited as being the first Skeptic philosopher, and the inspiration for the school known as Pyrrhonism
Pyrrhonism

Pyrrhonism, or Pyrrhonian skepticism, was a school of skepticism founded by Aenesidemus in the first century BC and recorded by Sextus Empiricus in the late 2nd century or early 3rd century AD....
 founded by Aenesidemus
Aenesidemus

Aenesidemus was a Greece sceptical philosopher, born in Knossos on the island of Crete. He lived sometime during the 1st century BC, taught in Alexandria and flourished shortly after the life of Cicero....
 in the 1st century BC.

Life

Pyrrho was from Elis
Elis

Elis, or Eleia is an ancient district, that corresponds with the modern Elis Prefecture. It is in southern Greece on the Peloponnesos peninsula, bounded on the north by Achaea, east by Arcadia, south by Messenia, and west by the Ionian Sea....
, on the Ionian Sea
Ionian Sea

The Ionian Sea is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, south of the Adriatic Sea. It is bounded by southern Italy, including Calabria, Sicily and the Salento peninsula, to the west, by southwestern Albania, including Saranda and Himara, and a large number of Greek islands, including Corfu, Zante, Kephalonia, Ithaka, and Lefkas to the east....
. Diogenes Laertius
Diogenes Laertius

Diogenes La?rtius , the biographer of the Greece philosophers, is supposed by some to have received his surname from the town of Laerte in Cilicia, Asia Minor, and by others from the Roman Empire family of the La?rtii....
, quoting from Apollodorus
Apollodorus

Apollodorus of Athens son of Asclepiades, was a Greeks scholar and grammarian. He was a pupil of Diogenes of Babylon, Panaetius, and the grammarian Aristarchus of Samothrace....
, says that Pyrrho was at first a painter, and that pictures by him were exhibited in the gymnasium at Elis. Later he was diverted to philosophy by the works of Democritus
Democritus

Democritus was an Ancient Greek philosopher born in Abdera in the north of Greece. He was the most prolific, and ultimately the most influential, of the pre-Socratic philosophers; his atomic theory may be regarded as the culmination of early Greek thought....
, and according to Diogenes Laertius became acquainted with the Megarian dialectic
Megarian school of philosophy

The Megarian school of philosophy, which flourished in the 4th century BC, was founded by Euclid of Megara, one of the pupils of Socrates. Its ethical teachings were derived from Socrates, recognizing a single Form of the Good, which was apparently combined with the Eleatic doctrine of monism....
 through Bryson
Bryson of Achaea

Bryson of Achaea, was an ancient Greek philosophy who lived c. 340 BCE.Very little information is known about him. He was said to have been a pupil of Stilpo and Clinomachus, which would mean that he was a dialectician of the Megarian school of philosophy....
, pupil of Stilpo
Stilpo

Stilpo , Hellenistic Greece philosopher of the Megarian school of philosophy , was a contemporary of Theophrastus and Crates of Thebes. None of his writings survive, he was interested in logic and dialectic, and his ethical teachings approached that of the Cynics and Stoics....
.

Pyrrho, along with Anaxarchus
Anaxarchus

Anaxarchus or Anaxarch , a Greece philosopher of the school of Democritus, was born at Abdera, Thrace in Thrace.He was the companion and friend of Alexander the Great in his Asiatic campaigns....
, travelled with Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great , also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greeks King of Macedon . He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle....
 on his exploration of the East, and studied under the Gymnosophists
Gymnosophists

Gymnosophists is the name given by the Ancient Greece to certain ancient Indian philosophy who pursued asceticism to the point of regarding food and clothing as detrimental to purity of thought ....
 in India
India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
 and the Magi
Magi

File:Adoracao_dos_magos_de_Vicente_Gil.jpgMagi is a term, used since at least the 4th century BCE, to denote a follower of Zoroaster, or rather, a follower of what the Hellenistic civilization associated Zoroaster with, which was – in the main – the ability to read the stars, and manipulate the fate that the stars foretold....
 in Persia
Persian Empire

The 'Persian Empire' was a series of successive Iranian or Persianization empires that ruled over the Iranian plateau, the original Persian homeland, and beyond in Southwest Asia, South Asia, Central Asia and the Caucasus....
. This exposure to Eastern philosophy
Eastern philosophy

Eastern philosophy includes the various philosophy of Asia, including Indian philosophy, Chinese philosophy, Iranian philosophy, Japanese philosophy, and Korean philosophy....
 seems to have inspired him to adopt a life of solitude; returning to Elis, he lived in poor circumstances, but was highly honored by the Elians and also by the Athenians, who conferred upon him the rights of citizenship.

Pyrrho wrote nothing. His doctrines were recorded in the satiric writings of his pupil Timon of Phlius (the Sillographer). Unfortunately these works are mostly lost. Today Pyrrho's ideas are known mainly through the book Outlines of Pyrrhonism written by the Greek physician Sextus Empiricus
Sextus Empiricus

Sextus Empiricus , was a physician and philosopher, and has been variously reported to have lived in Alexandria, Rome, or Athens. His philosophical work is the most complete surviving account of ancient Greek and Roman skepticism....
.

Philosophy

The main principle of Pyrrho's thought is expressed by the word acatalepsia, which connotes the ability to withhold assent from doctrines regarding the truth of things in their own nature
Noumenon

The noumenon is a posited object or event as it is in itself, independent of the senses. It classically refers to an object of human inquiry, understanding or cognition....
; against every statement its contradiction may be advanced with equal justification. Secondly, it is necessary in view of this fact to preserve an attitude of intellectual suspense, or, as Timon expressed it, no assertion can be known to be better than another. Thirdly, Pyrrho applied these results to life in general, concluding that, since nothing can be known, the only proper attitude is ataraxia
Ataraxia

Ataraxia is a Ancient Greek term used by Pyrrho and Epicurus for a limpid state, characterized by freedom from worry or any other preoccupation....
, "freedom from worry". ("By suspending judgment, by confining oneself to phenomena or objects as they appear, and by asserting nothing definite as to how they really are, one can escape the perplexities of life and attain an imperturbable peace of mind.")

The proper course of the sage, said Pyrrho, is to ask himself three questions. Firstly we must ask what things are and how they are constituted. Secondly, we ask how we are related to these things. Thirdly, we ask what ought to be our attitude towards them. Pyrrho's answer was that things are indistinguishable, unmeasurable, undecidable, and no more this than that, or both this and that and neither this nor that. He concluded that human senses neither transmit truths nor lie. Humanity cannot know the inner substance of things, only how things appear
Phenomenon

A phenomenon is any observation occurrence. In popular usage, a phenomenon often refers to an extraordinary event. In physics, a phenomenon may be a feature of matter, energy, or spacetime....
.

The impossibility of knowledge, even in regard to our own ignorance or doubt, should induce the wise man to withdraw into himself, avoiding the stress and emotion which belong to the contest of vain imaginings. This theory of the impossibility of knowledge is the first and the most thorough exposition of agnosticism
Agnosticism

Agnosticism is the philosophy view that the logical value of certain claims ? particularly metaphysics claims regarding theology, afterlife or the existence of deity, ghosts, or even ultimate reality ? is unknown or, depending on the form of agnosticism, inherently impossible to prove or disprove....
 in the history of thought. Its ethical implications may be compared with the ideal tranquility of the Stoics
Stoicism

Stoicism was a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early third century B.C. The stoics considered passionate emotions to be the result of errors in judgment, and that a Sage , or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not have such emotions....
 and the Epicureans
Epicureanism

Epicureanism is a system of philosophy based upon the teachings of Epicurus , founded around 307 BC. Epicurus was an atomism materialism, following in the steps of Democritus....
.

External links

  • of Outlines of Pyrrhonism by Sextus Empiricus