Skepticism

Pyrrhus of Elis

The founder of skepticism was ^^Pyrrhus of Elis^^, who lived between the 4th and 3rd centuries b.c. Like Socrates, he left no writings, and what we know of his thought is due to the records of his disciples. One of them, Arcesilau, took over the Academy founded by Plato around 264 b.c. and turned it into a center of skepticism that lasted for about two centuries.

Sixtus Empiricus

One of the most famous skeptics was the Greek Sixtus Empiricus, who lived between the 3rd and 2nd centuries b.c. Like Epicureanism and Stoicism, skepticism was also influential in Rome.

The concept of skepticism

^^The central point of skepticism arises from the distinction^^, already traditional in Greek philosophy, ^^between appearance and reality^^. Skeptics point to what we perceive through our senses and often do not allow us to say anything about the reality behind that perception. Since our choices depend on what gives us the most pleasure, and what gives us the most pleasure depends on how we perceive things, it follows that different people perceive the same thing from different perspectives. So, none of these perceptions represents the reality of that object.
One can conclude that no matter how things appear to us in a certain way, we cannot know whether this appearance corresponds to reality. All that is known are appearances, so the truth is not accessible to us. ^^The attitude must be epoché^^, an important concept associated with skeptics, which means "suspension of judgment," that is, I affirm neither that it is nor that it is not.
Another way to understand the skeptical position is to say that its philosophy is centered on the ^^problem of criteria^^: it is impossible to find a standard to determine what is true when we have two contradictory statements. If we choose a measure, we have to ask what is the standard for picking another one. And then the problem becomes, what is the measure for selecting the 2nd standard, which would take us back to infinity. The question then becomes: how does the skeptic live? He can suspend judgment about the nature of reality, but he must make choices about how to act.
^^Pyrrhus was radical in his skeptical conceptions^^. He took skepticism so seriously that he claimed that even the basics are not possible to have any certainty. Pyrrhus did not get scared or desperate even in the greatest of dangers.
^^Sexto Empiricus^^, on the other hand, ^^understood that everyday decisions had to be based on the only thing we have: appearances^^. Sexto made decisions based on what seemed to work or be most beneficial, but he refused to evaluate matters as good or bad. This brings back the relativism that Socrates and Plato were keen to eliminate: we can call it practical relativism.

Conclusion

To conclude, we can say that there is a common element between skepticism and stoicism: ^^both proposed an ideal of tranquility, identified with happiness^^.
For the Stoics, the fact that we cannot control events. But only our emotions are the path to happiness.
For skeptics, this path is determined by the fact that we know nothing, not even whether what happens is good or bad. Life can become simpler and happier if we recognize the limits of what we can know and accept what happens.