Precis of Pyrrhonian Reflections on Knowledge and Justification

Abstract

Pyrrhonian Reflections on Knowledge and Justification (PR) is an examination of contemporary work in theory of knowledge, written from what I call a neo-Pyrrhonian standpoint. This work is Pyrrhonian because it echoes in many ways Sextus Empiricus' Outlines of Pyrrhonism. I call this standpoint neo-Pyrrhonism because I have tried to update the methods of Sextus Empiricus to make them applicable to contemporary debates. The fundamental question of PR is this: How would contemporary practitioners of epistemology fare if a Pyrrhonist is made a party to the discussion? The conclusion arrived at: Not at all well. The suitability of calling these reflections Pyrrhonian depends upon the correctness of a particular reading of the Outlines of Pyrrhonism. Pyrrhonists are often pictured as calling for a suspension of all beliefs whatsoever. Hume attributed such a view to them, as do such contemporary scholars as Jonathan Barnes and Miles Burnyeat.1 This reading is often presented as a prelude to dismissing Pyrrhonism on the grounds that, taken seriously, it would make life unlivable-a line taken explicitly by both Hume and Burnyeat. An alternative reading is that Pyrrhonists did not call for the suspension of belief in all areas, but targeted only dogmatic philosophy and other theoretical activities akin to dogmatic philosophy-where an attempt is made to transcend our customary modes of fixing beliefs in order to achieve something higher. On this reading, the Pyrrhonists imposed no standards of their own. They simply took dogmatists at their word and showed that, by their own standards, their projects failed. The call for suspension of belief had dogmatic philosophy as its primary target, theoretical activities akin to dogmatic philosophy as its secondary target, but was not concerned with common beliefs arrived at in customary ways. This reading has, it seems to me, been given decisive scholarly support