However this may be, ataraxia is the skeptic’s telos or goal (Pyr. 1.25)—or rather, ataraxia about matters of opinion (that is, about topics one’s attitude to which can be affected by philosophical discussion), coupled with metriopatheia, moderate feeling, about matters over which we have no such control (such as hunger, pain, etc.). And this, as I said, may help to explain why the Pyrrhonists do not seem to have been interested in cultivating a public image. If your overriding aim is to be tranquil, you will want to do as little as possible to cause trouble for yourself; in that case, putting yourself in the public spotlight might well be something you will choose to avoid. Politics is perhaps an extreme case; someone who values tranquility above all else is unlikely to care for political office. But the same could easily be true of any activity that exposed you to public judgment and, potentially, public ridicule or shaming—such as the Second Sophistic’s public displays of oratory; this kind of thing would just not fit with your plan of life. It is no accident that the Epicureans, who also had ataraxia as their goal—to be achieved, however, by a very different mechanism—also cultivated, at least at first, a very private and sheltered lifestyle; lathe biôsas, “live hidden,” was a well-known saying of Epicurus, criticized by Plutarch (Whether “Live Hidden” is Well Said; Mor. 1128a–1130e). The picture is admittedly more complicated in the Roman period, and the view of Epicureans as allergic to politics can certainly be overstated8 (although Lucretius, too, seems to have “lived hidden”). The decision of the Epicurean Diogenes of Oenoanda (second century CE) to erect a massive stone inscription, containing his own Epicurean writings as well as some of Epicurus’s own, also suggests a certain desire for public recognition, even if only posthumously (it was constructed late in his life, according to his own words).9 But there is no denying that the ideal of ataraxia is at least a strong deterrent to self-promotion and to putting oneself in any public line of fire; and here the Pyrrhonists seem to have been more uncompromising than the Epicureans. Another factor may be that if one does not think that anything is in reality good or bad, one is likely to lack enthusiasm for difficult political causes; one needs to think certain things are really important if one is to exert oneself on their behalf. The skeptics’ suspension of judgment on this matter (which the Epicureans do not share) is a further motivation toward quietism.
Returning now to Sextus: he has so successfully exemplified the maxim “live hidden” that virtually nothing is known about him beyond what I have already mentioned. He is generally placed in the second century CE, but the evidence is hardly decisive. The latest definitely datable person referred to in his works (who is mentioned in the past tense) is the emperor Tiberius (Pyr. 1.84), so Sextus cannot have been writing earlier than the middle of the first century CE. Beyond this, the evidence, such as it is, depends on connections with other individuals, such as Diogenes Laertius, whose dates are themselves very far from certain. Clear indications as to his place of birth, or where he lived and worked in his maturity, are equally elusive. It is hard to disagree with the conclusion of one of the very few comprehensive attempts to sift the evidence concerning Sextus’s life: “It is necessary to suspend judgement on Sextus’ life in almost every detail.”10 And so the prospects for relating Sextus with any precision to his time and place are not good.
But there is yet a further reason for this. Whatever his exact time and place, Sextus seems strikingly cut off from broader intellectual developments of his own day. For although, as just mentioned, the middle of the first century CE is the earliest one could possibly place him, the philosophers he writes about are those of the Hellenistic period and earlier. He refers to several philosophers active in the early first century BCE—Aenesidemus, the Academics Philo and Antiochus, and the Stoic Posidonius—but no one clearly later than that. The philosophical opponents on whom he concentrates the most are the Stoics, but he has no inkling of Roman Stoicism; Stoicism, for him, is primarily the school in its prime in Athens under Chrysippus, and only occasionally are later refinements mentioned (e.g., Math. 7.253ff.). He also has no idea of Platonism or Aristotelianism as live forms of philosophy in his own time (as they were, whenever exactly that was); he mentions a few Platonists from the pre-skeptical phase of the Academy (Speusippus, Xenocrates, Polemon) and a few Aristotelians from the Hellenistic period (Theophrastus, Strato, Critolaus), but no one post-Hellenistic. Nor does he have any idea of writers in roughly his own time (as Plutarch and Favorinus may very well have been) who undertook what they presented as a revival of the thinking of the skeptical Academy. From Sextus’s perspective it looks as if the clock stops in philosophy—with the exception of the Pyrrhonist movement itself—at around 75 BCE.11
This peculiar isolation from his own place and time simply compounds the difficulty of saying anything informative that might relate Sextus to the culture in which he lived. What we can do, however, is look at a specific instance of this isolation that is relevant to one of the main concerns of this volume. To put this in context, a word is needed about Sextus’s surviving works. His best-known work, as already mentioned, is Outlines of Pyrrhonism, which consists of a general introduction to the Pyrrhonist outlook (book 1), plus a critical examination of theories in the standard three areas of philosophy in the Hellenistic period—logic, physics, and ethics (books 2 and 3). Then there is another, partially surviving work doing the same things at much greater length; the general portion of this work is lost, and the surviving portions consist of two books Against the Logicians, two Against the Physicists, and one Against the Ethicists. We also have a third work of Sextus in six books, each directed against some specialized field of inquiry. The second of these six books is Against the Rhetoricians, and this is the one on which I will focus. Now, one might expect that a book with this title would be concerned with forms of rhetoric prominent in the author’s own day; and, whenever exactly Sextus lived, if this had been his concern, the rhetorical activities characteristic of the Second Sophistic would surely have occupied much of his attention. In fact, however, we see nothing of the kind.
Against the Rhetoricians begins with a reference to rhetoric as primarily exercised in political and judicial contexts (ep’agoras kai bêmatôn, Math. 2.1). There follow brief discussions of definitions of rhetoric offered by Plato (2–5), his student Xenocrates and the Stoics (6–7), and Aristotle (8–9). Most of the remainder of the book is then devoted to arguments for two connected conclusions: rhetoric is not a genuine technê or expertise, and rhetoric does not exist. The connection between the two points is that if there were genuinely to be such a thing as rhetoric, it would have to qualify as a technê; hence Sextus freely switches between the two conclusions, treating them as interchangeable. As in much of Sextus’s surviving work, the arguments vary in quality and persuasiveness, but they are mostly organized around several themes: rhetoric is not a technê because it has no clear use (20–47); it does not exist because it has no clear subject matter (48–59); and it does not exist, or is not a technê (both are stated almost simultaneously, 60) because it has no clear telos or end—nothing can be clearly specified as “what it is for” (60–87). Throughout the discussion the assumption persists that rhetoric is typically employed to influence assemblies or juries. This is broadened in the final section (89–112), where the three parts of rhetoric distinguished by Aristotle—judicial, deliberative (i.e., political), and focused on praise (“encomiastic”)12—are each introduced, and there follow brief arguments for the impossibility of each. The book concludes with an objection to all three parts that appeals to arguments elsewhere in Sextus’s oeuvre against the possibility of demonstration—something that rhetoric surely depends on (106–112).
What is striking about this entire book is the complete absence of any contemporary context. Nothing in Sextus’s descriptions of how rhetoric operates would not be at home in the classical period, and his opening reference to Plato’s Gorgias (2) positively encourages one to think of the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. He mentions the Peripatetic Cr
itolaus (12, 20, also 61, where “his friend Aristo” is also mentioned—not the Peripatetic Aristo of Ceos, but an obscure peripatetic of that name identified by Quintilian as Critolaus’ pupil; see Inst. Or. 2.15.19–20), as well as Clitomachus and Charmadas, both Academics of the late second century BCE (20); we also hear of the second-century BCE rhetorical theorists Hermagoras and Athenaeus (62)—juxtaposed, however, with Plato, Xenocrates, and Isocrates (61–62). But these are the latest datable figures referred to; Sextus’s consistent practice of not mentioning any philosopher later than the early first century BCE is precisely paralleled by his references to writers on rhetoric. As for practicing orators, the named examples are Demosthenes (40), his contemporary Demades (16), Aeschines (40), and Corax, the supposed originator of systematic oratory (96–99) in the fifth century BCE. The subjects of incidental anecdotes are also distinctly archaic: Lycurgus (21), Tissaphernes (22), Plato the Old Comedian (35), and the Areopagus “in ancient times” (to palaion, 77).
The point is clear enough: Sextus shows no sign of having any awareness of a flourishing rhetorical culture in his own day. Now, it may be said that one characteristic of the Second Sophistic itself is a tendency not to focus on contemporary authors, and to regard the Greek literary universe as something from an earlier period13. But the leading figures of the Second Sophistic were certainly aware of each others’ existence, and wrote in response to what their contemporaries wrote; even if they focused on the Greek past, in doing so they were engaged in a highly sophisticated form of rivalry with one another. Sextus, by contrast, seems to have no idea that the Second Sophistic even exists.
Recall, too, that the title of his book is Against the Rhetoricians. He is not himself engaged in a rhetorical exercise (as he himself conceives it, at any rate); rather, his goal is to undermine rhetoric. For someone with this purpose, entirely ignoring its contemporary practitioners would seem a perverse strategy; his readers, whether sympathetic or not, could reasonably object that he is missing the target, or at least one target. As we saw, most of Sextus’s book has to do with judicial and deliberative oratory; yet the oratory of the Second Sophistic was not delivered before political assemblies or law courts. Of course, opportunities also still existed in the period of the Second Sophistic for rhetorical skill to be exercised in political and judicial settings, and Philostratus’s Lives of the Sophists contains frequent references to these; but Sextus shows no apparent knowledge of contemporary manifestations of political or judicial oratory, either. As for epideictic oratory, the category that, of Aristotle’s three, seems to have the most overlap with the activities of the Second Sophistic, Sextus gives it very short shrift, merely arguing that a genuine understanding of whom to praise or blame, and on what grounds, would require knowledge (about the inner dispositions of the people concerned, or about the real nature of good and bad) that no one can be expected to have (101–105). One suspects that the leading Second Sophistic practitioners, renowned for extemporaneous speaking on themes (whether of praise or blame or anything else) proposed to them by the audience, and skilled at tailoring their speeches to the particularities of the audience and the moment, would simply have laughed at this.14 The fact that someone as practiced in argument as Sextus should have left himself so exposed to such criticisms suggests, again, that his complete lack of reference to the rhetoric of his own day is not a matter of policy, but a matter of ignorance.
As we have seen, his treatment of rhetoric is just one example of a general phenomenon in Sextus’s writing. Now, the one apparent exception to this phenomenon of Sextus being in a profound sense unconnected with his own time is the section of the first book of Outlines of Pyrrhonism in which he explains why skepticism—by which he means Pyrrhonism—is not the same as various other philosophies that have been taken to be equivalent or importantly similar to it (1.210–241). Clearly these claims of equivalence or resemblance cannot have been made until Pyrrhonism existed as a distinct philosophical tradition capable of being compared with other preexisting philosophies; and so here we do seem to have a case of Sextus engaging with critics or commentators of his own day. The first of the claimed similarities is between skepticism and the philosophy of Heraclitus (1.210–212), and this Sextus attributes to the founder of the later Pyrrhonist tradition, Aenesidemus; somewhat surprisingly, he argues strongly against the suggestion, calling it absurd (atopon, 212).15 Otherwise we are simply told that a certain philosophy “is said” (legetai, 1.213) or “is thought” (dokei, 1.217) to be similar to or the same as Pyrrhonism, or that “some people” (tines, 1.215, 220, 236) say so. Presumably the proponents of these claims are distinct from Aenesidemus, and Sextus certainly makes it sound as if they are contemporaries whose views he is anxious to refute, thereby asserting the autonomy of Pyrrhonism. The last case—Pyrrhonism’s relation to medical Empiricism (1.236–241)—sounds like an internal dispute; as we saw, Sextus himself is identified as an Empiricist, and he is not the only Pyrrhonist of whom this is true.16 But in the other cases, we really have no idea who Sextus is arguing against.17 In fact, given his tendency to dwell in the past, we cannot even be sure that they are his contemporaries; they could belong to any period between his own and that of Aenesidemus, who first put Pyrrhonism on the map. So it is not even obvious that this is indeed an exception to his usual silence about everything subsequent to the early first century BCE. But even if it is, this is of very little use, since he gives us no clue as to who these unnamed tines are.
The school that Sextus spends the most time on in this section is the Academy—including both Plato himself and what I have been calling the skeptical Academy (1.220–235). Now, as we saw, Favorinus seems to have had a project of bringing Academic and Pyrrhonist skepticism into alignment; if so, Sextus, who sees the Academics (with the partial exception of Arcesilaus) as very different from the Pyrrhonists, would have had a very different attitude from Favorinus. Given this conflict of opinion, Leofranc Holford-Strevens has made the ingenious suggestion that the unnamed source of the view Sextus opposes—namely, that the Academic and the Pyrrhonist philosophies are the same—is Favorinus himself.18 He is properly tentative about this, and I too must admit that I cannot show he is wrong. However, if Sextus’s target was Favorinus, one might have expected him to acknowledge the revival of Academic skepticism that Favorinus himself represents; indeed, emphasizing Favorinus’s self-styled role as an Academic, and showing how different Pyrrhonism is from this, might well have been an effective form of refutation. Yet, as we have seen, for Sextus the Academy appears to end, as the history of philosophy in general (except for Pyrrhonism) appears to end, in the early first century BCE; Sextus never mentions Favorinus any more than he mentions other philosophers beyond that date. And so I am inclined to doubt that Sextus is responding directly to Favorinus, even though I certainly cannot propose any definite alternative.
Be that as it may, the general verdict is clear: Sextus Empiricus, and the Pyrrhonist movement in general, appear to have led an extremely secluded existence. While Pyrrhonism was in the period covered by this volume, it seems to have been, in a very real sense, not of it. I have tried to say a little to explain this phenomenon; but ultimately, given that it reveals itself to us by means of a profound lack of information, one cannot do much more than note it with interest. Sextus Empiricus had an important influence on the direction taken by philosophy in the early modern period; and many contemporary philosophers still take him very seriously. But his standing in the ancient world would not have given us any reason to expect this.
FURTHER READING
A good general survey of ancient skepticism is Thorsrud 2009. Bett 2010, a collection of essays, is more comprehensive but still accessible. Both contain extensive bibliographies of both primary and secondary materials, organized by topics. On the difference between the Academics and the Pyrrhonists, see in particular Striker 2010. On the demise of the skeptical Academy and the rise of Pyrrhonism with Aesnesidemus, see the works cited in notes 1, 2, and 3.
&n
bsp; Favorinus’s philosophical side is well treated in Holford-Strevens 1997; see also Ioppolo 1993 and (for a very concise discussion) Lévy 2010, 96–98. Good recent work on the Pyrrhonism of Sextus Empiricus includes Perin 2010 and the essays in Machuca 2011a; see also the ancient portion of Machuca 2011b—and the rest of this volume for some indication of Sextus’s wide-ranging influence in modern philosophy. On the Pyrrhonian Modes see Annas and Barnes 1985, Barnes 1990, Woodruff 2010.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Allen, J. 2010. “Pyrrhonism and Medicine.” In The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Scepticism, edited by R. Bett, 232–248. Cambridge.
Anderson, G. 1993. The Second Sophistic: A Cultural Phenomenon in the Roman Empire. London and New York.
Annas, J., and J. Barnes, eds. 1985. The Modes of Scepticism: Ancient Texts and Modern Interpretations. Cambridge.
Annas, J., and J. Barnes, eds. (1994) 2000. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Scepticism. Cambridge.
Barnes, J. 1990. The Toils of Scepticism. Cambridge.
Bett, R. 2000. Pyrrho, His Antecedents, and His Legacy. Oxford.
Bett, R., ed. 2010. The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Scepticism. Cambridge.
Bett, R. 2013. “The Pyrrhonist’s Dilemma: What to Write if You Have Nothing to Say.” In Argument und literarische Form in antiker Philosophie: Akten des 3. Kongresses der Gesellschaft für antike Philosophie, edited by M. Erler and J. E. Hessler, 389–410. Berlin and Boston.
Brittain, C. 2001. Philo of Larissa: The Last of the Academic Sceptics. Oxford.
Fish, J. 2011. “Not All Politicians are Sisyphus: What Roman Epicureans Were Taught about Politics.” In Epicurus and the Epicurean Tradition, edited by J. Fish and K. R. Sanders, 72–104. Cambridge.
The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic Page 89