In Ancient Greek philosophy Pyrrhonism is often contrasted with
Academic skepticism, a similar but distinct form of Hellenistic philosophical skepticism. While early Academic skepticism was influenced in part by Pyrrho, it grew more and more dogmatic until
Aenesidemus broke with the Academics to revive Pyrrhonism in the first century BCE, denouncing the Academy as "Stoics fighting against Stoics. Some later Pyrrhonists, such as
Sextus Empiricus, go so far as to claim that Pyrrhonists are the only real skeptics, dividing all philosophy into the dogmatists, the Academics, and the skeptics. Dogmatists claim to have knowledge, Academic skeptics claim that
knowledge is impossible, while Pyrrhonists assent to neither proposition, suspending judgment on both. The second century Roman historian
Aulus Gellius describes the distinction as "...the Academics apprehend (in some sense) the very fact that nothing can be apprehended, and they determine (in some sense) that nothing can be determined, whereas the Pyrrhonists assert that not even that seems to be true, since nothing seems to be true." Sextus Empiricus also said that the Pyrrhonist school influenced and had substantial overlap with the
Empiric school of medicine, but that Pyrrhonism had more in common with the
Methodic school in that it "follow[s] the appearances and take[s] from these whatever seems expedient." Although
Julian the Philosopher mentions that Pyrrhonism had died out at the time of his writings, other writers mention the existence of later Pyrrhonists. Pseudo-Clement, writing around the same time (–320 CE) mentions Pyrrhonists in his
Homilies and
Agathias even reports a Pyrrhonist named Uranius as late as the middle of the 6th century CE.
Similarities between Pyrrhonism and Indian philosophy A number of similarities have been noted between the Pyrrhonist works of Sextus Empiricius and that of
Nagarjuna, the
Madhyamaka Buddhist philosopher from the 2nd or 3rd century CE. Buddhist philosopher
Jan Westerhoff says "many of Nāgārjuna's arguments concerning causation bear strong similarities to classical sceptical arguments as presented in the third book of Sextus Empiricus's
Outlines of Pyrrhonism," and
Thomas McEvilley suspects that Nagarjuna may have been influenced by Greek Pyrrhonist texts imported into India. McEvilley argues for mutual iteration in the
Buddhist logico-epistemological traditions between Pyrrhonism and
Madhyamika: An extraordinary similarity, that has long been noticed, between Pyrrhonism and Mādhyamaka is the formula known in connection with Buddhism as the fourfold negation (
Catuṣkoṭi) and which in Pyrrhonic form might be called the fourfold indeterminacy. McEvilley also notes a correspondence between the Pyrrhonist and Madhyamaka views about truth, comparing Sextus' account of two criteria regarding truth, one which judges between reality and unreality, and another which we use as a guide in everyday life. By the first criteria, nothing is either true or false, but by the second, information from the senses may be considered either true or false for practical purposes. As Edward Conze has noted, this is similar to the Madhyamika
Two Truths doctrine, a distinction between "Absolute truth" (
paramārthasatya), "the knowledge of the real as it is without any distortion," and "Truth so-called" (
saṃvṛti satya), "truth as conventionally believed in common parlance. Other similarities between Pyrrhonism and Buddhism include a version of the
tetralemma among the Pyrrhonist maxims, and more significantly, the idea of
suspension of judgement and how that can lead to peace and liberation;
ataraxia in Pyrrhonism and
nirvāṇa in Buddhism. Some scholars have also looked farther back, to determine if any earlier Indian philosophy have had an influence on Pyrrho.
Diogenes Laërtius' biography of Pyrrho reports that Pyrrho traveled with
Alexander the Great's army to India and incorporated what he learned from the
Gymnosophists and the
Magi that he met in his travels into his philosophical system. Pyrrho would have spent about 18 months in
Taxila as part of
Alexander the Great's court during Alexander's conquest of the east.
Christopher I. Beckwith draws comparisons between the Buddhist
three marks of existence and the concepts outlined in the "Aristocles Passage". 's empire and the route he and Pyrrho took to India However, other scholars, such as
Stephen Batchelor and Charles Goodman question Beckwith's conclusions about the degree of Buddhist influence on Pyrrho. Conversely, while critical of Beckwith's ideas, Kuzminsky sees credibility in the hypothesis that Pyrrho was influenced by Buddhism, even if it cannot be safely ascertained with our current information.
Ajñana, which upheld
radical skepticism, may have been a more powerful influence on Pyrrho than Buddhism. The Buddhists referred to Ajñana's adherents as
Amarāvikkhepikas or "eel-wrigglers", due to their refusal to commit to a single doctrine. Scholars including
Barua, Jayatilleke, and Flintoff, contend that Pyrrho was influenced by, or at the very least agreed with, Indian skepticism rather than Buddhism or Jainism, based on the fact that he valued
ataraxia, which can be translated as "freedom from worry". Jayatilleke, in particular, contends that Pyrrho may have been influenced by the first three schools of Ajñana, since they too valued freedom from worry.
Modern in balance: modern symbol of Pyrrhonism The recovery and publication of the works of Sextus Empiricus, particularly a widely influential translation by
Henri Estienne published in 1562, Philosophers of the time used his works to source their arguments on how to deal with the religious issues of their day. Major philosophers such as
Michel de Montaigne,
Marin Mersenne, and
Pierre Gassendi later drew on the model of Pyrrhonism outlined in Sextus Empiricus' works for their own arguments. This resurgence of Pyrrhonism has sometimes been called the beginning of modern philosophy. which became a modern symbol of Pyrrhonism. It has also been suggested that Pyrrhonism provided the skeptical underpinnings that
René Descartes drew from in developing his influential method of
Cartesian doubt and the associated turn of
early modern philosophy towards
epistemology..
Friedrich Nietzsche, however, criticized the "ephectics" of the Pyrrhonists as a flaw of early philosophers, whom he characterized as "shy little blunderer[s] and milquetoast[s] with crooked legs" prone to overindulging "his doubting drive, his negating drive, his wait-and-see ('ephectic') drive, his analytical drive, his exploring, searching, venturing drive, his comparing, balancing drive, his will to
neutrality and
objectivity, his will to every
sine ira et studio: have we already grasped that for the longest time they all went against the first demands of
morality and
conscience?"
Contemporary The term "neo-Pyrrhonism" is used to refer to modern Pyrrhonists such as
Benson Mates and
Robert Fogelin. ==See also==