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HOW
TO KEEP AN OPEN MIND:
An Ancient Guide to Thinking Like a Sceptic
Sextus Empiricus
Selected and translated by Richard Bett
ISBN978-0-691-20604-2
Sextus derived his scepticism from Pyrrho of Elis who lived
some three centuries B.C. and is reputed to have been influenced by
some “naked wise men” he met in India while on a campaign with
Alexander the Great. Perhaps, then, Sextus was indirectly inspired
by Buddhists, but that’s speculation. Richard Bett’s selection is
based on Sextus’s Outlines
of Pyrrhonism which, on the surface, looks like a form of
extreme scepticism. Yet Sextus is far from a naïve or simplistic
thinker who rejects all firm belief out of hand and adopts a
position of doubt regarding every question. The sceptic does not
have “doctrines”, a term which implies not an entrenched belief, but
rather a conclusion or set of conclusions about matters which do not
lend themselves to easy resolution. To put this in modern terms
(those proposed by Chomsky, for example) it could be said he is
pushing at the limits of human cognition. Yet, the sceptic does
accept what is forced on the mind by “appearance”, or what we would
call evidence. Pyrrhonism might be said to adumbrate Hume’s
observation that “a wise man will proportion his belief to the
evidence.” The Pyrronhist accepts the world as it is: the sun warms
us, frost makes us cold, jump off a tall building you will be likely
to injure yourself, consume poison and you will be ill or die.
Scepticism doesn’t drive the Pyrrhonist to a rejection of all
conclusions, rather it permits a relaxed acceptance of what can’t be
denied, even though an explanation may not be available. Where the
refusal to believe enters, is the point at which conclusions are
reached about what is not clear. The dogmatist makes assertions. We
might find examples in our commonplace political discourse: “there
is no such thing as society” or “the Central Committee expresses the
will of the people”. The slogans from Nineteen Eighty-Four are
typical of the dogmatist. The Pyrrhonist is comfortable with
accepting the world as it is, but refuses to claim an ability to
offer a definitive view on what is unclear.
This orientation implies a use of language which avoids
disproving what you try to assert: “Nothing is true” denies its own
truth. The sceptic belongs to a school of thought in the sense that
she has “an approach which obeys a certain rationale.” The rationale
of the Pyrrhonist is to live “properly”, which implies not only a
virtuous life but the ease which comes from being able to accept
what is but defies explanation.
The Pyrrhonist lives according to “the routine of life” by
which are meant four principles: the
guidance of nature; the necessity of
how we are affected; the handing down of laws and customs;
and the teaching of skills. The first ( suggestive of Chomsky again)
recognises that nature has made us “thinkers and perceivers”; the
second shows us how hunger makes us eat and thirst drink; the third
directs us to good rather than bad behaviour and the last involves
us in avoiding laziness or inappropriate choice of occupation. All
this operates without the need for opinions. This may seem odd to
us, inhabitants of a culture where being opinionated is taken for
granted, but that is perhaps just where the value of rational
scepticism lies: there is no need to be opinionated about what is a
matter of evidence; we can get on with our lives calmly as we accept
that salt makes us thirsty and physical effort tires us. On the
other hand, it is supremely foolish to be opinionated about what is
in doubt. A simple example could be the question of the existence of
a deity. The question is beyond our knowledge. Of course, the right
to freedom of belief is a different matter. Pyrrhonism prohibits no
belief, while it encourages rational people to hold back from fixed
positions. A Pyrrhonist would counter the deist’s arguments without
drawing a conclusion about the existence of a supernatural
intelligence. Scepticism permits lively debate without falling into
bigotry, which makes it of great value to democracy.
Scepticism’s aim is said to be tranquillity. Like anyone, a
sceptic may suffer thirst, but doesn’t trouble her head over what a
bad thing thirst is; by acceptance, tranquillity is attained. When
it comes to contentious questions, the sceptic will set one argument
against another but will restrain the impulse to draw final
conclusions, which equally results in tranquillity.
Sextus is aware of his position among philosophers and takes
some pains to prove himself as a logician. He discusses what he
calls “signs”, which we would term evidence, some of which are
apparent other indicative: smoke is evidence of fire, thus an
apparent sign for example. He is drawn into a discussion of
inductive and deductive logic, essentially rejecting both. Some of
the discussion in which he attacks what he calls the dogmatists,
particularly for their argument that if he has demonstrated there is
no such thing as demonstration then he has proven there is, gets
entangled:
And if the argument against demonstration is agreed to do the
job of demonstration, the dogmatists are not helped on this account
toward their being demonstration…; for it concludes that there is
not demonstration, and if this is true it becomes false that there
is demonstration…
Nonetheless, Bett has made a judicious selection and is an expert
guide. There are, of course, easy ways in which Sextus can be
challenged: science has advanced so dramatically since the days of
somewhat hit and miss natural philosophy, for example, and we know
that science defies logic. Sextus might have been alarmed to
discover particles really do seem to be able to be in two places at
once. Yet there is wisdom at heart of his scepticism: what we can’t
confirm by evidence we have grounds for not drawing conclusions
about. That begs the question of just what constitutes evidence, but
perhaps that requires another volume.
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