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Five Modes of Scepticism


OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 8/2/2019, SPi

OXFORD PHILOSOPHICAL MONOGRAPHS


Editorial Committee
William Child, R. S. Crisp, A. W. Moore, Stephen Mulhall,
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Other titles in this series include
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Vagueness and Thought
Andrew Bacon
Visual Experience: A Semantic Approach
Wylie Breckenridge
Discrimination and Disrespect
Benjamin Eidelson
Knowing Better: Virtue, Deliberation, and Normative Ethics
Daniel Star
Potentiality and Possibility: A Dispositional Account of
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Barbara Vetter
Moral Reason
Julia Markovits
Category Mistakes
Ofra Magidor
The Critical Imagination
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From Morality to Metaphysics: The Theistic Implications
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Aquinas on Friendship
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The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle
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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 8/2/2019, SPi

Five Modes
of Scepticism
Sextus Empiricus
and the Agrippan Modes

Stefan Sienkiewicz

1
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 8/2/2019, SPi

3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
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© Stefan Sienkiewicz 2019
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
First Edition published in 2019
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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 8/2/2019, SPi

For my parents, Richard and Naz—for everything.


OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 8/2/2019, SPi
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 8/2/2019, SPi

Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction 1
1. The Mode of Disagreement 12
Some Features of Disagreement 12
Kinds of Disagreement 15
Is the Sceptic Part of the Disagreement? 19
Disagreement and Undecided Disagreement 22
Principles of Disagreement 25
Two Accounts of the Sorts of Beliefs a Sceptic Can Hold 29
A Dogmatic Mode of Disagreement 31
The Method of Equipollence 34
A Sceptical Mode of Disagreement 41
Chronicling Disagreement and Creating Disagreement 47
Concluding Remarks 51
2. The Mode of Hypothesis 53
When the Mode of Hypothesis Occurs 53
What Hypothesizing Is Not 55
What Hypothesizing Is 59
The Function of Hypothesizing 64
Three Modes of Hypothesis 68
A Sceptical Mode of Hypothesis 72
The Mode of Hypothesis as a Limiting Case of the
Method of Equipollence 74
Concluding Remarks 76
3. The Mode of Infinite Regression 77
Infinity Introduced 77
The Unacceptability of Infinitely Regressive Arguments 80
The Unsurveyability of Infinitely Regressive Arguments 87
Infinite Regression and the Suspension of Judgement 93
A Dogmatic Mode of Infinite Regression 97
A Sceptical Mode of Infinite Regression 99
Concluding Remarks 102
4. The Mode of Reciprocity 104
Reciprocity Parallel to Infinite Regression 104
Formal Reciprocity 105
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 8/2/2019, SPi

viii CONTENTS

Regressive Reciprocity 108


Conceptual Reciprocity 110
The Unacceptability of Reciprocal Arguments 111
Two Kinds of Priority 114
Asymmetry and Transitivity 116
From Reciprocity to the Suspension of Judgement 118
A Dogmatic Mode of Reciprocity 119
A Sceptical Mode of Reciprocity 121
Concluding Remarks 123
5. The Mode of Relativity 125
Modes of Relativity 125
The Logical Form of Sextus’ Argument 129
Sub-Argument 1 132
Sub-Argument 2 134
Sub-Argument 3 136
The Nature of Sextan Relativity 137
The Mode of Relativity and the Other Agrippan Modes 143
Relativity and Disagreement 147
Concluding Remarks 152
6. The Modes Combined 154
Preliminary Remarks 154
Net 1 157
Net 2 166
The Modes Recombined 177
Actual Disagreement, Possible Disagreement, and the Giving
of Reasons 181
Dogmatic Nets 186
Concluding Remarks 190

References 193
Index Locorum 199
General Index 202
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 8/2/2019, SPi

Acknowledgements

This book owes much to many. My interest in Sextus Empiricus was


sparked back when I was an undergraduate when I stumbled across
Jonathan Barnes’s The Toils of Scepticism, without which—simply
put—this book would not exist. That spark was fanned by attending a
splendid series of lectures on Sextus by Benjamin Morison, who first
prompted me to think more about the theoretical underpinnings of the
Agrippan modes and under whose expert guidance I began to articulate,
in an MSt thesis, some of the ideas that still find expression in the
following pages. So many of the insights of this book—if insights they
be—I owe to my conversations with him. To my DPhil supervisor, David
Charles, whose acuity, diligence, kindness, and generosity—both philo-
sophical and otherwise—remain for me exemplary, I owe a debt that
cannot be repaid. To my two doctoral examiners—Jonathan Barnes and
Thomas Johansen—without whose encouragement and advice this book
would not have seen the light of day, I offer my heartfelt thanks. Finally,
to Peter Momtchiloff for his patience and good humour and to the
anonymous readers for Oxford University Press, whose extensive and
thoughtful comments have improved the contents of this book no end,
I am deeply grateful.
In terms of scholarship, the writings of two individuals, in particular,
demand singling out: first, Benjamin Morison, whose work on the
Aenesideman modes has much influenced my thinking about the Agrip-
pan modes, and, second, Jonathan Barnes, whose pioneering Sextan
studies have provided the foil for much of the contents of this book.
A hasty reader might be forgiven for inferring that I only cite the work of
Barnes when I wish to disagree with it or when I wish to contrast a path
taken by Barnes with an alternative path down which I subsequently
tread. Nothing could be further from the truth. Though it will be plain
from the following pages just how much I owe to the writings of Julia
Annas, Richard Bett, Myles Burnyeat, Michael Frede, R. J. Hankinson,
Benjamin Morison, Casey Perin, and Gisela Striker, Jonathan Barnes’s
influence will be apparent on virtually every page.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 8/2/2019, SPi

x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Moving from individuals to collectives, I would like to express my


gratitude to the ancient philosophy community in Oxford of which—in
one way or another—I have been a member for the past fourteen years. It
has been at the centre of my intellectual life and has given me so much.
Long may it flourish. It is impossible to record here the names of all of
the philosophers who have helped me in the writing of this book—let
alone all of those philosophers from whom I have learned—but for their
conversation, correspondence, advice, and encouragement along the way
I would like to thank: Tom Ainsworth, Jason Carter, Ursula Coope,
Matthew Duncombe, Gail Fine, Mark Gatten, Edward Hussey, Terry
Irwin, Dhananjay Jagannathan, Lindsay Judson, Nakul Krishna, Harvey
Lederman, Tamer Nawar, Michael Peramatzis, Martin Pickup, Gonzalo
Rodriguez-Pereyra, Christopher Shields, Gisela Striker, James Studd and
Rob Watt.
I would also like to give hearty thanks to the following institutions: to
the Oxford colleges of Christ Church and Oriel for supporting me so well
as a student and to Balliol for supporting me so well as a fellow; to the
AHRC for awarding me the funding required to complete my postgradu-
ate studies; to the Bodleian Library where virtually every word of this
book was written and to the London Library and the Institute of Classical
Studies Library where a good deal of them were rewritten. In particular,
I would like to thank my wonderful Balliol colleagues both in philosophy
and in classics for making the last five years such a pleasure. I raise a glass
to Adam Caulton, Alex Kaiserman, Adrian Kelly, Ofra Magidor, Jonny
McIntosh, Matthew Robinson, Rowland Stout, Rosalind Thomas and
David Wallace.
Last—but by no means least—I want to record a debt that cannot at all
easily be put into words. To my family (in particular my parents, Richard
and Naz, to whom I dedicate this book), to Emma, and to every one of
my friends—for all those nameless, unremembered (and remembered)
acts of kindness and of love, thank you. This book would not have been
written without you. Of that I am not in the least bit sceptical.
STEFAN SIENKIEWICZ
Balliol College, Oxford
April 2018
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 8/2/2019, SPi

Introduction

This book has as its focus a particular type of philosophical scepticism


and a particular aspect of that particular type of scepticism. The type of
scepticism in question is Pyrrhonian scepticism and the particular aspect
of that type of scepticism is its Agrippan aspect.¹ Pyrrho and Agrippa are
shadowy characters—Agrippa the shadowier—and in the following
pages not one citation of either Pyrrho or Agrippa is to be found. This
is for the simple reason that none of their writings (if, indeed, Pyrrho
wrote anything at all²) survive.³ Instead, the main textual source for this
study, which is also our main textual source for ancient Pyrrhonism in
general, is The Outlines of Pyrrhonism by the third-century AD doctor and
philosopher Sextus Empiricus.⁴ It is the version of Pyrrhonian scepticism
presented to us in the pages of Sextus’ Outlines with which I shall be
concerned.⁵

¹ Other varieties of scepticism—for example the Academic and the Cartesian—do not
feature.
² According to Sextus, Pyrrho wrote a poem for Alexander the Great (M 1.282).
Diogenes Laertius in his Lives of the Philosophers claims, at one point, that Pyrrho wrote
nothing at all (I 16) and, at another, that he left nothing in writing (IX 102). Whatever the
truth of the matter, it is reasonable to infer that none of Pyrrho’s writings was philosophical.
³ Agrippa is mentioned once in Diogenes Laertius IX 88. There are no other mentions of
him in the ancient texts and none of his works survive. The situation regarding Pyrrho is
marginally better. His name crops up in Diogenes Laertius, Sextus, and Plutarch; and in
Eusebius’ Preparation for the Gospel (Praep. evang. XIV xviii 1–4) a summary is offered of
some aspects of his thought by his student Timon. I discuss this passage in greater detail in
Chapter 1 n. 17. For further information on Pyrrho see Sedley (1983), pp. 14–16 and Bett
(2000).
⁴ ‘PH’ is the standard abbreviation.
⁵ I shall also, occasionally, make reference to Sextus’ other works, namely Against the
Mathematicians 1–6 and Against the Mathematicians 7–11 (the standard abbreviation is M).
However, my main focus will be on the Outlines. For the Greek texts I have used the
standard Teubner editions: PH (ed.) Mutschmann and Mau (1958); M 7–11 (ed.)
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 8/2/2019, SPi

    

Unless I say otherwise, by ‘sceptic’ I should be taken to mean Pyrrhonian


sceptic, by ‘Pyrrhonian sceptic’ I should be taken to mean Pyrrhonian
sceptic as presented by Sextus in the Outlines and by ‘Agrippan aspect of
Pyrrhonian scepticism’ I should be taken to mean those five argument
forms (or ‘modes’) which Sextus outlines for us at PH 1.164–79 and which
Diogenes Laertius (IX 88) attributes to Agrippa.⁶ They are the modes of
disagreement, hypothesis, infinite regression, reciprocity, and relativity.
These are by no means the only argument forms Sextus discusses in the
Outlines—PH 1.35–63, for instance, is taken up with an exposition of ten
Aenesideman modes and PH 1.180–6 adverts to eight modes which target
causal explanations. However, I shall not comment upon either of these
other sets of modes, unless, in so doing, light is shed on one or more of the
Agrippan modes.⁷
Why this Agrippan focus? There are at least three reasons. First, these
modes lie at the heart of the sceptic’s argumentative practice. Sextus
adduces them time and again in the Outlines—indeed they can be seen to
underpin both the ten Aenesideman modes and the eight modes against
casual explanation, though to fully elaborate on this claim would require
writing a different book from the one I have written.
Secondly, these argument forms have intrinsic and abiding philosoph-
ical interest. I hope a sense of their intrinsic philosophical interest
emerges from the subsequent pages. As for evidence of their abiding
interest, one might point to the fact that there has, in recent years, been a
surge of interest in the epistemology of disagreement.⁸ Indeed, taking the
longer view, one can point to the fact that the sceptical problem posed by
the combined modes of infinite regression, reciprocity, and hypothesis

Mutschmann (1914); M 1–6 (ed.) Mau (1961). Translations of PH are based on Annas and
Barnes (2000). Translations of other ancient texts are my own.
⁶ Sextus attributes the modes to ‘the more recent sceptics’ (οἱ νεώτεροι) at PH 1.164.
These sceptics are presumably more recent than the ‘older sceptics’ (οἱ ἀρχαιότεροι) of
whom Sextus speaks at PH 1.36 and to whom he ascribes the ten modes. Elsewhere, at
M 7.345, Sextus attributes the ten modes to Aenesidemus, so we might date the more recent
sceptics of PH 1.165 to somewhere between Aenesidemus and Sextus, that is between 100 BC
and AD 200. For further detail on Aenesidemus’ dates see Glucker (1978), pp. 116–18 and on
Sextus’ see House (1980).
⁷ For reflections on the Aenesideman modes see Annas and Barnes (1985), Striker
(1996a), and Morison (2011) and on the eight modes against causal explanation see Barnes
(1983).
⁸ See, by way of example, the anthologies by Feldman and Warfield (2010) and Chris-
tensen and Lackey (2013).
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 8/2/2019, SPi

 

has been a perennial source of reflection for epistemologists. In the words


of Laurence Bonjour it is ‘perhaps the most crucial in the entire theory of
knowledge’.⁹
Thirdly, and for my purposes most significantly, those commentators
who have discussed the Agrippan modes, have—for the most part—
failed to distinguish, or to distinguish sufficiently carefully, between
two importantly different perspectives on these modes. It is the articu-
lation of these two different perspectives which is the central theme of
this book.
The Agrippan modes are introduced to us by Sextus at PH 1.164 as
modes of epochē—a sceptical term of art which Sextus glosses for us at
PH 1.10 as a standstill of the intellect (στάσις διανοίας), owing to which
we neither reject nor posit anything (δι’ἥν οὔτε αἴρομέν τι οὔτε τίθεμεν).
The term is often translated by the phrase ‘suspension of judgement’ and
this is the translation adopted in these pages. In subsequent chapters
I adopt the following characterization of the phenomenon: some epi-
stemic subject, S, suspends judgement with regard to some proposition,
P, just in case, having considered the matter, S neither believes P nor
believes not-P.¹⁰ This book, then, asks of the five Agrippan modes, both
individually and collectively, how they bring about suspension of judge-
ment, so understood. In particular, to reiterate its central theme, it
identifies two different perspectives on this question: one might ask
how some dogmatic philosopher comes to suspend judgement on the
basis of one or more of these modes, or one might ask how a sceptic
comes to suspend judgement on the basis of one or more of these modes.

⁹ Bonjour (1985), p. 18.


¹⁰ The ‘having considered the matter’ clause is important because it prevents suspension
of judgement arising too easily. Without it, I would stand in a relation of suspended
judgement to a whole range of propositions just by virtue of never having entertained
any of the propositions in question. For example, until writing this sentence, I have never
given a moment’s thought as to whether or not Parmenides was left-handed. I therefore
neither believed nor disbelieved the claim, but that is not to say that I suspended judgement
on the matter. Sextus himself emphasizes that suspension of judgement over some question
only arises once the arguments on both sides of the question have been considered (PH 1.8).
For a recent analysis of the concept of suspended judgement, which departs from this
Sextan way of construing suspension of judgement and instead argues that having con-
sidered whether P is neither necessary nor sufficient for suspending judgement over P see
Friedman (2013), pp. 165–81. On Friedman’s view ‘one suspends judgment about p only if
one has an attitude that expresses or represents or just is one’s neutrality or indecision about
which of p, ¬ p is true’ (Friedman (2013), p. 179).
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 8/2/2019, SPi

    

These are different questions because the sceptic and the dogmatist are
very different sorts of epistemic agent. One basic difference is that the
sceptic, unlike the dogmatist, is restricted with regard to the sorts of
belief he can hold. As Sextus informs us in a celebrated passage of the
Outlines—PH 1.13—the sceptic does not hold any beliefs, the holding of
which involves assenting to some unclear object of investigation of the
sciences (τήν τινι πράγματι τῶν κατὰ τὰς ἐπιστήμας ζητουμένων ἀδήλων
συγκατάθεσιν). Two main interpretative traditions detailing the sorts of
beliefs a sceptic is prohibited from holding have sprung up from the well-
tilled soil of the PH 1.13 passage, the details of which do not need to
concern us here in this Introduction—they will concern us later. It will
suffice to say that, according to one of these traditions, the sceptic is
prohibited from holding beliefs which have theoretical content (which
I term the Content Interpretation) and, according to the other, the
sceptic is prohibited from holding beliefs which are arrived at by a
process of reasoning (which I term the Grounds Interpretation).¹¹ For
the moment, let us refer to these prohibited beliefs as ‘theoretical beliefs’.
The PH 1.13 passage, therefore, tells us at least one thing about the
respective ways in which a sceptic and a dogmatist come to suspend
judgement on the basis of the Agrippan modes: the dogmatist can reach
suspended judgement by relying on various theoretical beliefs, but a
sceptic cannot.
Of those commentators who have probed the working of the Agrippan
modes, the most significant treatment to date is that of Jonathan
Barnes.¹² Though there have been (albeit briefer) treatments of the
modes by R. J. Hankinson, Harald Thorsrud, and Paul Woodruff, it is
Barnes’s work which will provide the main focus for this study.¹³ It has
two main aims. The first is to show that the reconstruction offered by
commentators, like Barnes, of some of the modes—in particular the
modes of infinite regression and reciprocity—is a dogmatic one. By
this I mean that it is a reconstruction which captures perfectly well
how a dogmatic philosopher might come to suspend judgement on the

¹¹ Barnes (1982) and Burnyeat (1984) can be seen as representative of the Content
Interpretation, Frede (1987) and Morison (2011) of the Grounds Interpretation. I elaborate
on these two traditions of interpretation in greater detail in Chapter 1.
¹² See Barnes (1990a) and Barnes (1990b).
¹³ See Hankinson (1995), Thorsrud (2009), and Woodruff (2010).
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 8/2/2019, SPi

 

basis of these modes, but which cannot capture how a sceptic might
come to do so.¹⁴ The reason for this is that on the proposed reconstruc-
tion, the sceptic would have to hold a variety of theoretical beliefs to
which he is not entitled.
The second aim is to effect a change of perspective by approaching the
question of how the modes in general are meant to bring about suspen-
sion of judgement not from the point of view of the dogmatist, but from
the point of view of the sceptic. In this respect, the book can be seen as
opening up an alternative to a line of thinking advanced by Michael
Frede. On Frede’s view, the various first-person locutions that pepper the
Outlines—locutions such as ‘we come to suspend judgement’—are to be
understood as claims made by a sceptic who adopts, temporarily and
purely for dialectical purposes, a set of dogmatic assumptions and
patterns of reasoning.¹⁵ The present work can be seen as an attempt at
seeing how far one can take these locutions at face value—that is, taking
them as claims which a sceptic makes on his own behalf and not for
purely dialectical reasons.
Lest this point be misunderstood, let me stress that, in what follows,
I take no view as to whether Sextus himself was a sceptic who lacked all
theoretical beliefs.¹⁶ In the following pages I often speak of Sextus
‘formulating an argument’ or ‘drawing a conclusion’ or ‘objecting to a
line of reasoning’, activities which, one might reasonably think, would
require the holding of at least some minimally theoretical beliefs. The
point is simply to see how one might characterize the sceptic’s behaviour
if, pace Frede, one interprets those first-person utterances in the context
of the Agrippan modes as utterances made by a sceptic who makes them
sincerely and not for purely dialectical reasons.
In reconstructing the Agrippan modes from a sceptical and not a
dogmatic perspective two questions in particular will be distinguished
from one another and addressed: the question as to how the sceptic puts
the modes to use in his tussles with his dogmatic opponents, and the
question as to how a sceptic might come to suspend judgement on the

¹⁴ Note that the dogmatist could either be the historical figure with whom the sceptic
tussled or the contemporary historian of philosophy who anatomizes, analyses, recon-
structs, and passes judgement on the effectiveness of the sceptic’s arguments.
¹⁵ See Frede (1987c), pp. 204–5.
¹⁶ Lorenzo Corti has emphasized to me in conversation the importance of distinguishing
Sextus from the sceptic referred to in his pages.
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