Episode 357 - "A Brief Word On Sextus Empiricus And The Goal of Skepticism"

Listen to “Episode 357 - A Brief Word On Sextus Empiricus And The Goal of Skepticism” on Spreaker.

Welcome to Episode 357 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote “On The Nature of Things,” the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.

This week we are continuing our series reviewing Cicero’s “Academic Questions” from an Epicurean perspective, which gives us an overview of the issues that split Plato’s Academy and helps us understand Epicurus’ position on the same issues. This week will continue in Section 18 of Book Two.

Our text will come from
Cicero - Academic Questions - Yonge We’ll likely stick with Yonge primarily, but we’ll also refer to the Rackham translation here: Cicero On Nature Of Gods Academica Loeb Rackham : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Summary

With Joshua and Kalosyni away this week, Cassius records a short solo episode before Section 19 of Book Two of Cicero’s Academic Questions. He first gives background on Antiochus of Ascalon and Philo of Larissa from David Sedley’s 1981 review “The End of the Academy.” In 87 BC, at Alexandria, Antiochus, traveling with the quaestor Lucullus, received a new work of Philo’s that so outraged him that he pretended to doubt it was genuine, and two of Cicero’s own teachers were set against each other over whether knowledge is possible. Cassius then looks ahead to Sextus Empiricus. In Outlines of Pyrrhonism I.12 the Skeptic’s end is “quietude in respect of matters of opinion,” with no mention of pleasure or pain, and it comes by accident when he gives up the search for truth, like the painter who threw his materials at the picture and got the horse’s foam. In I.31 Sextus says this quietude is “the opposite” of the Cyrenaic end of pleasure. Cassius reads the abstract of an article asking whether a Greek skeptic can be eudaimon, and the lyrics of Ray Davies’s song “Quiet Life,” posted in a forum thread, as a picture of the skeptical attitude: “No ambition to rock the boat.” He argues that this is the reverse of Epicurus, who questioned Chaos from his youth, took firm positions in the Letter to Menoeceus, built a school, and, as Lucian’s Alexander the Oracle-Monger shows, stood up to frauds when others did not. Ataraxia is one pleasure among others, not the goal; the goal is pleasure, and pursuing it requires taking positions on the hard questions of life.

Transcript

Cassius:

Welcome to Episode 357 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote On the Nature of Things, the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.

This week we’re continuing in our series reviewing Cicero’s Academic Questions from an Epicurean perspective. Last week we finished Section 18 of Book Two, and we would be going into Section 19 this week, but for the fact that both Joshua and Kalosyni are unavailable this week. So I’m just going to say a few words about where we are. We’ll have a very short episode, and then come back next week to continue on into 19, complete Lucullus, and get started with Cicero’s defense of the skeptic position.

One bit of background I’d like to add about the material that we’ve been covering is in regard to Antiochus of Ascalon and Philo of Larissa, who we’ve mentioned in past episodes. These are not particularly important characters in the great scheme of things, but knowing a little about their background may be helpful in terms of where we’re going. Most of us don’t need to know too much about them, but those who are interested can pursue a review by David Sedley, published in 1981, entitled “The End of the Academy,” which was a review of the book Antiochus and the Late Academy by John Glucker. Dr. Sedley says, quote:

“In 87 BC, the upheavals of the First Mithridatic War had driven Philo of Larissa, scholarch of the Athenian Academy, to exile in Rome. Meanwhile, his pupils Antiochus of Ascalon and Heraclitus of Tyre were to be found in the eastern Mediterranean with the entourage of the quaestor Lucullus.”

And that Lucullus, of course, is the Lucullus who is speaking here in Academic Questions for the Stoics.

“It was while the party was at Alexandria that there occurred the celebrated furore described by Cicero at Academic Questions II.11–12. Antiochus received from Rome a copy of Philo’s latest work, the contents of which so outraged him that he pretended to doubt their authenticity. Heraclitus, when challenged on this, could cite no Academic precedent for them. Yet the work’s authenticity was confirmed by two witnesses who had recently been with Philo in Rome. This scene of discord between his two revered masters, Antiochus and Philo, must have been distressing to Cicero.”

Dr. Sedley says it must have been distressing to Cicero to see two of his own teachers fighting among themselves, and fighting over this issue of the possibility of knowledge and how to construct a criterion of truth to decide whether anything can be judged to be true or false. That’s the issue that we’ll be addressing as we continue through Academic Questions.

But as we’ve also said before, we’re doing that in preparation for Philodemus’s On Signs. And that will also enable us to eventually take up maybe one of the most important summaries of the skeptical school that’s available to us today, and that’s in the surviving works of Sextus Empiricus.

To briefly touch on Sextus, I’m going to turn to his Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Book One, Chapter 12, which is entitled “What Is the End of Scepticism?”, the end in the sense of the goal. Let me read just a little bit of that, because that will help us identify the direction in which Cicero’s skepticism eventually leads. Here’s what Sextus says in Chapter 12, quote:

“Our next subject will be the End of the Sceptic system. Now an ‘End’ is ‘that for which all actions or reasonings are undertaken, while it exists for the sake of none.’”

Now, let me insert here that that’s almost exactly the way that Torquatus starts off his introduction to Epicurus’s ethics in Cicero’s On Ends: the same kind of statement, that the end is that which you do for itself and not for the sake of anything else. Continuing on, Sextus says:

“We assert still that the Sceptic’s End is quietude in respect of matters of opinion and moderate feeling in respect of things unavoidable.”

So there are two categories there that Sextus is addressing. For things that are unavoidable, he says, he wants moderate feeling. But for those things that are avoidable, which he calls “matters of opinion,” his goal is quietude. Notice there’s no mention whatsoever of pleasure or pain in this discussion. Continuing on, quote:

“For the Sceptic, having set out to philosophize with the object of passing judgement on the sense-impressions and ascertaining which of them are true and which false, so as to attain quietude thereby, found himself involved in contradictions of equal weight, and being unable to decide between them suspended judgement; and as he was thus in suspense there followed, as it happened, the state of quietude in respect of matters of opinion.

“For the man who opines that anything is by nature good or bad is for ever being disquieted: when he is without the things which he deems good he believes himself to be tormented by things naturally bad and he pursues after the things which are, as he thinks, good; which when he has obtained he keeps falling into still more perturbations because of his irrational and immoderate elation, and in his dread of a change of fortune he uses every endeavour to avoid losing the things which he deems good.

“On the other hand, the man who determines nothing as to what is naturally good or bad neither shuns nor pursues anything eagerly; and, in consequence, he is unperturbed.”

So this is a clear statement of where the skeptics are going. Their goal is quietude. They aren’t going to concern themselves with whether something is good or bad. They aren’t going to concern themselves with anything that they don’t have to concern themselves with. Further on, Sextus admits that pain, at least, is something that can’t be avoided, so he does have to concern himself with it to some extent. But he’s not going to take a position on whether anything, including pain, is good or bad, because doing so is basically impossible from his skeptical position, and that just leads to disquiet. So he’s going to give up the entire search for truth and just accept that it’s all a matter of opinion that can’t be resolved. And that leads, in his skeptical mind, to quietude.

The parallels between this type of quietude and certain types of tranquility advocated by some people who think they like Epicurus should be clear by now.

Further on, Sextus gives the example of an artist who was frustrated at his inability to portray accurately the foam in a horse’s mouth. The artist ended up, in frustration, throwing his materials at the artwork, and simply by accident, he saw that what resulted looked better as a representation of the foam than anything he had done intentionally. This is the analogy that Sextus embraces for the happy accident that he thinks arises from the decision not to care about whether anything is true or false. You end up with quietude by abandoning your search for truth. By abandoning your attempt to get it right, you accidentally end up where you wanted to be. That’s the skeptical attitude that Sextus is embracing after hundreds of years of development of the skeptical school.

And this is exactly the result that you might predict, because over in Chapter 31, where Sextus addresses the Cyrenaics, Sextus says this:

“Some assert that the Cyrenaic doctrine is identical with Scepticism since it too affirms that only mental states are apprehended. But it differs from Scepticism inasmuch as it says that the End is pleasure and the smooth motion of the flesh, whereas we [the Skeptics] say it is ‘quietude,’ which is the opposite of their End; for whether pleasure be present or not present the man who positively affirms pleasure to be the End undergoes perturbations, as I have argued in my chapter ‘Of the End.’”

So this is all about as clear as it could possibly be: the end of skepticism that they pursue is not pleasure but quietude, a version of ataraxia, if you want to use that word, in which you dismiss any concern about the truth or falsity or goodness or badness of anything, and simply put the question out of your mind to the extent that you can.

And of course, nothing could be further from Epicurus’s pursuit of pleasure and the happy life through truth, through proper attitudes about the gods and death and what the real goal of life is. And so, of course, with the skeptics, what does it mean to them to pursue truth or falsity, or find out the goodness or badness of something, but to take a position on those things? That’s something that comes under the category of dogmatism, and that category of dogmatism is where Sextus places Epicurus, as someone who is able to say that he has discovered certain things to be true.

So Epicurus is concerned about finding answers to questions. He’s not about suspending judgment and giving up on everything he possibly can. Again, Epicurus is focused on finding answers to the most important questions of life, answers that will allow us to live successfully in the best way possible.

We have a thread on this aspect of Sextus Empiricus on the EpicureanFriends forum, and one person posted to that thread a link to a Ray Davies song entitled “Quiet Life,” the lyrics of which provide a good way of examining the issues that are involved in this question. We also have in the same thread another link, this time to an article from the Journal of Ancient Philosophy entitled “Can an Ancient Greek Skeptic Be Eudaimon, or Happy? And What Difference Does the Answer Make to Us?” That’s the title of the article because the writer acknowledges that if you’re a skeptic, what sense does it make to aim to be happy, when you have to take a position on what happiness is?

Let me read briefly the abstract of that article to give a flavor for why this question is so important. Here’s the abstract, quote:

“This paper explores how far the Greek skeptics in fact accept, and how far they should accept, the central Greek ethical notion of eudaimonia, usually translated ‘happiness,’ and what, if anything, the answers may tell us today.

“The first section shows that skeptics of both the Academic and Pyrrhonist traditions frequently employ the notion of eudaimonia, apparently without discomfort.

“The second section draws attention to a contrast within the relevant works of Sextus Empiricus, one of them being willing to speak of the skeptic’s eudaimonia, and the other entirely avoiding this, and considers some possible reasons why, at some point in his life, Sextus might have found the notion problematic. The answers suggested are, first, that the term eudaimonia, at least as normally used by non-skeptical philosophers, presupposes that it is possible to rank human lives objectively in terms of their levels of well-being; and second, that the term standardly carries with it a commitment to a certain kind of long-term structure in one’s life. There is at least a serious question whether either of these is consistent with the skeptical suspension of judgment.

“The third section examines how far a skeptic could aspire to happiness, where this is not assumed to be the equivalent of eudaimonia, and touches on several modern philosophers who have focused on happiness or, more generally, on well-being.

“The conclusions are that the notions of happiness and eudaimonia are closer in their presuppositions than one might have expected, that a skeptic would be well advised to avoid either one, and that this constitutes a sobering lesson for anyone today who regards values as in some sense subjective, but who aims to construct a satisfactory conception of happiness.”

Now, I’d recommend that entire article to anyone who’s interested in this subject, because it points out the critical issue, which is consistent with the direction we’ve been going in our podcast for many weeks: skeptics, by fundamental commitment, are not going to be able to say that there is anything certain, such as eudaimonia or happiness or any other word, which they can clearly identify and set forth as their goal. It’s the nature of skepticism to say that nothing can be known. The true skeptic suspends judgment on everything, including eudaimonia, including happiness, and that’s exactly what Epicurus does not do, and tells everyone not to do, as the worst thing you could possibly do. You can’t be happy unless you have that as your goal.

The Letter to Menoeceus, for example, is not a document that says “it’s possible this, it’s possible that, some people say this, some people say that,” and sets people against each other in an argument. Epicurus clearly says in the Letter to Menoeceus what he believes happiness and pleasure are and how they interact with each other, and he takes a firm position on these things. He’s not suspending judgment on the key questions of life, like a skeptic will.

So that’s what’s going on in the background here, and why it’s so important for us to go through Academic Questions as we continue to do, because skepticism is a major infection that many people have. They think it’s the proper, reasonable thing not to take a position unless they absolutely have to. Cicero himself gave in to this despite his Stoic leanings, and that’s why Cicero ends up arguing against the Stoics in Academic Questions, even though Cicero is widely acknowledged to be heavily influenced by the ethics of the Stoics.

So the song “Quiet Life,” posted in our thread, does a good job of representing some of these issues in today’s world. Let me quote a couple of its lyrics, again by Ray Davies, and it goes like this, quote:

“Something’s happening, but I’m just going to turn a blind eye. If I see no evil, ask no questions, and I hear no lies…

“I can’t communicate with minds that are small. With some people, it’s like talking to the wall. But a fellow who walks away lives to battle another day, and I’ve really got no appetite for a fight, not tonight.

“All I want is a quiet life, anything for a quiet life. No ambition to rock the boat when I can just stay afloat. Be content with a quiet life. All I want is a quiet life, anything for a quiet life.

“Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil at all. Confidentially, between these walls, I’m on top of it all. I’d rather have them think I’m deaf, dumb, and blind than aggravation every time I speak my mind. Keep it a quiet life, anything for a quiet life.

“I could easily blow my top, start a row, but why start now? Give your daddy a quiet life. Give your mother a quiet life. Anything for a quiet life.”

That’s the end of the lyrics, and I want to say again, I really appreciate the posting of that, because I think it does a great job of dramatizing exactly what’s at stake. This is not Epicurus’s position about how to live your life. Epicurus lived his life confronting issues, confronting questions, looking for answers, and talking about what he thought those answers were. The idea that Epicurus would walk away, that he had no appetite for a fight, that he didn’t want to rock the boat, is contrary to everything we know about the life of Epicurus.

His life was dedicated to searching for the truth from the time he was young, questioning Chaos. He then moved forward assembling friends, building a school, recruiting friends to help him write against the other schools he was campaigning against, and doing what he could to take the positions that he thought were correct to the people, in the face of those positions that he thought were wrong. That’s the very opposite of what Ray Davies is describing in “Quiet Life.”

So what I think this gives us is a lot of food for thought about where the skeptics are really going, what quietude ends up really meaning in terms of practical reality if it is warped into something that Epicurus would not approve of, and why it’s so important not to set up quietude or tranquility, or any version of terms such as ataraxia, in a way that eliminates and ignores the fundamental direction that Epicurus was going in: pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain, all of which requires you to take positions on the hard questions of life, and not just close your eyes and go along with the crowd.

Epicurus talks about ataraxia in the context of pleasure. It’s clearly pleasure that’s the goal for Epicurus. Ataraxia is a pleasure, but it is certainly not the only pleasure, nor is it the highest pleasure in the sense of something that should be put ahead of everything else. Epicurus makes clear that when pleasure requires pain, we undergo that pain. We are more than willing to accept what it takes to live the happiest life possible. That includes having disputes with other people who disagree, or who try to prevent us from searching for the truth, who try to get in our way of discovering the truth. We’re not going to simply walk away from every controversy, and certainly not take the position that by walking away you live to battle another day, when you’ve set the goal of never participating in a battle in the first place.

Some battles you certainly walk away from, and we have an example of that in Lucian’s Alexander the Oracle-Monger, where an Epicurean was about to get himself stoned to death for making accusations against the oracle Alexander, who was claiming to be able to foretell the future. As Lucian reports there, the Stoics, the Christians, and others had no problem with Alexander being a fraud in predicting the future. But the Epicureans were the ones who stood up to him and attempted to tell the people that it was a fraud.

If you take it as a matter of philosophy that you’re never going to fight about anything, then it makes no sense to say that you’re walking away to live to fight another day. Epicurus did not walk away from the philosophical fights of his time, and that’s the example that I’d submit we need to follow ourselves.

So I don’t want to go too much further today without Joshua and Kalosyni present to help make sure we cover everything that’s important in Section 19. So therefore, we’ll bring today’s episode to a conclusion and come back next week and pick up with Section 19. We’ll continue to not just discuss these issues and say how interesting they are, but we will take positions and point out where Epicurus said something was true and something was false on these important questions that are vital to living the best life possible.

So with that, as always, we invite everyone to drop by the EpicureanFriends forum and let us know if you have any questions or comments about our discussions of Epicurus. Thanks for your time today, and we’ll be back again soon. See you then. Bye.