Outlines of Pyrrhonism

Sextus Empiricus · R. G. Bury

The fullest surviving account of ancient Greek scepticism. Sextus Empiricus (fl. later 2nd century AD) was a physician and Pyrrhonist who set out, with relentless symmetry, the arguments by which the sceptic suspends judgement on every dogmatic claim and so arrives at tranquillity (ataraxia). The Outlines of Pyrrhonism is his own summary of the school: Book I sets out what scepticism is, the ten and five modes of suspension, and the sceptic’s catch-phrases; Books II and III turn the method against the logicians, physicists, and ethicists — criterion, sign, proof, cause, god, motion, number, and the good. This is R. G. Bury’s translation (Loeb Classical Library, 1933). Public domain in the United Kingdom and much of the world; in the United States the Loeb text remains under copyright until the 2030s. Pyrrho of Elis, the founder of the sceptical school — marble head, Roman copy of a …

Editions (plain text / reader):

• R. G. Bury (this edition) — read
• Greek text — read

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