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Question What do the terms 'Pyrhonism' and 'Academic scepticism' mean? I know they're both types of scepticism but how do they differ? Or is one a form of the other? Thanks.

Accepted:
March 4, 2010

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You won't be surprised to learn that what these terms mean is a matter of some controversy among scholars. Some bits, however, have achieved general agreement. Pyrrhonian and Academic skepticism mark two branches of ancient skepticism. David Hume and other moderns also used the terms. One way to discriminate them is institutionally. Not long after Plato's death his school just outside of Athens, the Academy, became dominated by skeptical thinkers. The philosophical work engaged by those thinkers came, of course, to be called Academic skepticism. The major texts by which Academic skepticism, however, came to be known to the modern world were not those of philosophers leading the Academy but, rather, of the Roman philosopher, Cicero. His books, Academica and De natura deorum, became highly influential. Pyrrhonian skepticism, by contrast, follows a line rooted in the thought of a man named Pyrrho, who lived in small town of Elis, on the other side of Greece. Pyrrho was not associated with a prominent institution and seems to have written nothing. His follower, Timon, however, did make it to Athens and wrote a book called the Silloi or Lampoons. Centuries later, Pyrrhonian skepticism, became associated with the work of Sextus Empiricus. His book, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, was the single most important conduit of Pyrrhonian ideas into today's philosophical world. And it's probably the ideas in which you're most interested. In general, Pyrrhonian skepticism is taken to be more radical than Academic skepticism. Pyrrhonism is associated with ideas like: the suspension of all belief, a rejection of all knowledge claims and all criteria for distinguishing truth from falsehood. Academicism is associated, instead, with the abandonment of absolute certainty and definite knowledge, in particular the rejection of the Stoics' ideas about indubitable perceptions. But Academics are held to accept the more moderate position of probablistic belief and probablistic criteria. By this I mean Academical skepticism is thought to reject claims to definitely know X but not the idea that some beliefs about X are more probably true than others. For myself, I think this isn't the best way to distinguish the too schools. I think that Pyrrhonians and Academics actually shared a great deal in their views about knowledge and truth. Academics, however, were more willing to construct philosophical theories and to engage in philosophical debates with other philosophical schools. Central among those Academic theories are certain decision procedures for belief, procedures that might still be consistent with the abandonment of criteria for knowledge and truth. Pyrrhonians, by contrast, for fear of becoming themselves dogmatic, developed little philosophical theory of their own and spent most of their time deconstructing philosophical dogma per se. Pyrrhonians did, however, embrace in a non-dogmatic way what they saw as "common life" and in particular the fourfold guidance of (1) the practical technologies of life, (2) nature, (3) the compulsion of our feelings, (4) the customary practices of the societies in which they find themselves.

Question What do the terms 'Pyrhonism' and 'Academic scepticism' mean? I know they're both types of scepticism but how do they differ? Or is one a form of the other? Thanks. Accepted:March 4, 2010

Question What do the terms 'Pyrhonism' and 'Academic scepticism' mean? I know they're both types of scepticism but how do they differ? Or is one a form of the other? Thanks.

Accepted:
March 4, 2010