Pyrrhonian suspension
from 300 BCE Pyrrho taught around 300 BCE and wrote nothing; the only full account of the procedure is Sextus Empiricus, around 200 CE
Set an appearance against an equally strong opposing appearance, find no way to decide between them, and stop trying — the stopping is the method, not its failure.
- Active
- from 300 BCE
- Where
- Elis, later Alexandria
- Also
- epochē
- Status
- In use
- Tradition
- Classical procedures
What it is
Pyrrhonian suspension is a procedure for producing a state rather than a conclusion. For any claim, the sceptic assembles the case against it until the two sides are of equal weight — equipollent, in the term of art — and at that point judgement suspends itself. It is not decided against; it simply has nothing to rest on.
The procedure has a purpose beyond argument. Sextus reports that the tranquillity the sceptics were after followed the suspension the way a shadow follows a body, and that they had gone looking for it in the opposite direction, by trying to settle the questions.
How it works
Take the appearance as given — the honey seems sweet, and nothing in the method denies it. Then attend to the claim underneath, that the honey is sweet, and set against it the modes: the same thing appears differently to different animals, to different people, at different distances, in different customs.
When the opposing case is as strong as the original, stop. Do not conclude that nothing can be known; that is a claim like any other. Suspend, and go on living by appearances and custom, which never required the judgement in the first place.
The moves, in order
- Take a claim that goes beyond how things appear
- Assemble the strongest opposing case, using the modes of relativity, disagreement and circumstance
- Weigh the two and find them equal
- Suspend judgement rather than deciding
- Continue to act on appearances and custom, which never required the judgement in the first place
The procedure
Proposition The gearbox needs replacing rather than repairing.
- One mechanic, forty years in the trade, says the gearbox is finished and a replacement is the only honest answer. A second, equally experienced, says it is a selector fork and a day's work.
- Set the two against each other and look for a criterion. Experience does not decide it — they have the same amount. Reputation does not decide it, since each is recommended by people the other would not consult.
- The modes bite: the fault presents differently cold and warm, differently under load and idling, and each mechanic drove it in the condition that suits his own diagnosis.
- A third opinion would not settle it either. It would either agree with one of them, and the disagreement remains, or introduce a third position, and the disagreement widens.
- So the claim about what the gearbox is is suspended. What is not suspended is the appearance: the car crunches into second when cold.
Therefore Judgement on the diagnosis is suspended, and the decision is made on appearances and cost — the cheaper repair is attempted first, because that is what one does when there is no criterion, and it settles the question by outcome rather than by argument.
Note what was not concluded. The sceptic does not say the gearbox is unknowable, and does not refuse to act. Acting on appearances without the belief underneath is the whole of the sceptical life, and Sextus insists it is a perfectly ordinary way to live.
What it is good for
Disagreements between equally qualified people where no criterion is available, which is more of life than anyone likes to admit. It is also the sharpest instrument in philosophy for exposing that a criterion being appealed to is itself one of the things in dispute.
Where it fails
The old charge is apraxia: that a person who genuinely suspends judgement about everything cannot act, and would walk off cliffs and into traffic. Sextus answers that appearances and custom are enough to steer by, and the answer works better for honey than for the cliff.
There is also the self-refutation problem. If nothing can be asserted, the sceptic has just asserted something. Sextus's reply is that the sceptical formulae are like a purgative that expels itself along with the contents of the stomach, which is a fine image and not obviously an argument.
And the equipollence is doing more work than it can bear. Two cases are almost never exactly equal, and calling them equal is itself a judgement of the kind the method was supposed to suspend.
Common misconceptions
That scepticism means denying that anything can be known. That is the Academic position, and Sextus attacks it as a form of dogmatism — the Academics had settled a question the Pyrrhonists were still leaving open.
Where it came from
Pyrrho of Elis, who travelled to India with Alexander's army and returned with a practice rather than a doctrine. He wrote nothing. The tradition runs through Aenesidemus and reaches us almost entirely through Sextus Empiricus, a physician writing five centuries later.
What became of it
Buried, then detonated. The Outlines of Pyrrhonism was printed in Latin in 1562 and its arrival in early modern Europe is the direct cause of the crisis that Descartes set out to answer — the sceptical arguments in Meditation One are Sextus's arguments, borrowed wholesale.
Lasting influence
It supplies the standing challenge that modern epistemology was built to answer, and it is the origin of the observation that a dispute about criteria cannot be settled by appeal to a criterion.
Why it still matters
Wherever expert disagreement is genuine and symmetrical, the sceptical response is more honest than picking the expert whose manner is more confident. It is also the correct diagnosis of most contested questions where each side takes the other's evidence to be contaminated.
Put another way
A pair of scales built so precisely that it will not settle, used by someone who wanted to stop weighing.
Texts
Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism
Book One sets out the modes and the formulae; the later books apply them to the specialist disciplines and can be sampled rather than read through.
Where to start
Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Book One, chapters 1 to 15. Short chapters, plain prose, and the ten modes are laid out one after another.
The surprising bit
The goal was never truth. Sextus presents suspension as a medical treatment for the distress of trying to settle things, and the whole apparatus of argument exists to produce peace of mind.
In their own words
To every argument an equal argument is opposed
Who held it
Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Book One
Connections
- Relies on
- Aporia
- Set against
- Methodic doubt, Apodeixis
- Influenced
- Methodic doubt, The epoche
- Parallel to
- Catuṣkoṭi
The verdict
Unbeatable as a demolition of criteria and impossible to live in for long, which its own defenders more or less concede.