Pyrrho

Pyrrho of Elis (c. 360-270 BCE) was a Greek philosopher of classical antiquity, regarded as the first sceptic in the Greek tradition and the inspiration behind Pyrrhonism, one of the major sceptical schools of the Hellenistic period. He matters because he proposed a way of life built on suspending judgment about disputed questions, with the aim of reaching inner calm.

He was born in Elis, possibly into a family of seers linked to the temple of Zeus at Olympia. Before turning to philosophy he was reportedly trained as a painter under Apelles. He then studied with Bryson of Achaea, of the Megarian school, and later with the Democritean Anaxarchus, with whom he joined Alexander the Great's campaign in India. There, according to Diogenes Laertius, he encountered the gymnosophists and the Persian Magi, an experience that probably shaped him, although scholars dispute how far that influence went. Back home he settled in Elis and earned a reputation for imperturbability. Many of the anecdotes about his temperament are probably legendary; other accounts describe a sober and ordinary man. He is said to have lived ninety years, and his city reportedly raised a statue in his honour.

Pyrrho left no writings, apart from perhaps a poem addressed to Alexander. What we know of his teaching comes mainly through his disciple Timon of Phlius, whose works survive only in fragments. The most quoted passage, preserved by Eusebius of Caesarea, describes things as undifferentiated, unstable and indeterminate, so that our perceptions and opinions are neither true nor false. One should therefore not trust them, but answer each question without judgment, which would lead first to silence and then to ataraxia. Interpreters still debate whether these adjectives describe the limits of human knowledge or the nature of things themselves, and that difference decides whether he is seen as a proto-sceptic or a dogmatist.

Pyrrho seems never to have founded a lasting school. Two centuries later Aenesidemus of Cnossus revived him in Alexandria with his Pyrrhonian Discourses, and the movement developed until Sextus Empiricus, today the main source on Pyrrhonism. After a long eclipse in late antiquity and the Middle Ages, his ideas returned in early modern Europe through Latin translations of Sextus, and shaped thinkers such as Montaigne, Hume and Hegel.