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Sextus Empiricus and Modern Empiricism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Roderick M. Chisholm
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Extract

Although it is difficult to exaggerate the similarities between the philosophical doctrines of contemporary scientific empiricists and those which were expounded by Sextus Empiricus, the Greek physician and sceptic of the third century A. D., Sextus seems to have been neglected by most historians of empiricism. An account of his position may be of some pertinence at the present time, for a striking parallel can be drawn without any distortion. His most significant contributions are: first, the positivistic and behavioristic theory of signs which he opposed to the metaphysical theory of the Stoics; secondly, his discussion of phenomenalism and its relation to common sense claims to knowledge; and, thirdly, his account of the controversy over the principle of extensionality in logic, where the anticipation of contemporary doctrines is perhaps most remarkable.

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Type
Research Article
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Philosophy of Science , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , July 1941, pp. 371 - 384
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association 1941

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References

1 I am indebted to Professor Raphael Demos for a number of helpful suggestions.

2 References are to pages in the three-volume edition of Sextus Empiricus in the Loeb Classical Library.

3 Cf. i, 225-7; ii, 317, 325-7.

4 Foundations of Logic and Mathematics, International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Volume I, No. 3, p. 9.

5 The Stoics believed that in addition to the vocal sounds and the facts indicated there is a proposition which is an “incorporeal” entity lying between them. They held that truth and falsity are strictly predicable only of this proposition. Sextus denied the need for positing such an entity and Epicurus apparently maintained that truth is predicable of the sound itself (cf. ii, 245-7, 271 ff.).

6 Cf. Plato, the Sophist, 263 ff.

7 The Stoics appealed to “internal reason” to distinguish man from the animals, but Sextus held that we have as much evidence for attributing it to the animals, since in either case we always appeal to the manner in which the creature behaves (cf. i, 39 ff.).

8 Cf. Plato, Theatetus, 152.

9 Cf. i, 8-9, 139, 143; ii, 235. It is interesting to note that, although Sextus held that life is guided by inductions and that they are not certain, he did not speak of some as being more probable than others.

10 “The adherent of Sceptic principles does not scruple to propound at one time arguments that are weighty in their persuasiveness, and at another time such as appear less impressive,—and he does so on purpose, as the latter are frequently sufficient to enable him to effect his object.” (i, 153.) Sextus was more interested in combatting dogmatism than in advocating any particular doctrine. He even opposed the empirical physicians because they were dogmatic in their empiricism (cf. i, 256 ff.).

11 Cf. Collected Papers, Vol. II, p. 199; Vol. III, pp. 279-280.

12 Academica, II, xlvii.

13 Sextus and the Diodorans also rejected the extensional interpretation of some of the other types of statement composition. The Philonians held that a conjunction is true if all the component propositions are true and that it is false if any one of them is false. Sextus objected that, if we are “to give heed to the real nature of things, it is surely logical to say that the conjunctive which has one part true and one part false is no more true than false ... just as what is compounded of white and black is nor more white than black” (ii, 305). Moreover, he claimed to detect metaphysical difficulties in the matrix-definition of “not-p”. for it rendered the negative such that it could make the true false and the false true (ii, 291, f.).