Pyrrhonism for Stoics

A booklet explaining Pyrrhonism for those already familiar with Stoicism

Pyrrho of Elis, founder of Pyrrhonism. Image based on an ancient sculpture

Introduction

Pyrrhonism is perhaps the subtlest and most difficult to grasp of the Hellenistic philosophies of life. Aenesidemus, who defected from Academic Skepticism to spark a revival of interest in Pyrrhonism, said in his book Pyrrhonian Discourses, that language lacked ways of expressing key elements of Pyrrhonism. These difficult-to-express elements seem to be shared with similar difficult-to-express elements of Buddhism, particularly in Buddhism’s Madhyamaka and Zen forms.

Exacerbating these difficulties in understanding is that a variety of modern interpretations of Pyrrhonism have been put forward. Most of these interpretations come from academics who are not Pyrrhonists. Worse, some of these academics are hostile to the idea that Pyrrhonism is a viable philosophy of life — most notably, Jonathan Barnes and Richard Bett. The academics who consider themselves to be Pyrrhonists have either mostly published only in Portuguese (e.g., Porchat, Smith), or whose approach to Pyrrhonism does not make it accessible as a philosophy of life for ordinary people (e.g., Foglein).

Despite there being a variety of interpretations of Pyrrhonism, the interpretations espoused by advocates of Pyrrhonism (e.g., Porchat, Smith, Kuzminski, Bates) are all in general…