Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism by Mary Mills Patrick
page 25 of 196 (12%)
page 25 of 196 (12%)
|
He finds no proof of the influence of Scepticism in Rome, as
Cicero remarks that Pyrrhonism is extinct,[2] and he also gives weight to the well-known sarcastic saying of Seneca, _Quis est qui tradat praecepta Pyrrhonis!_[3] While Haas claims that Sextus would naturally seek one of the centres of dogmatism, in order most effectively to combat it, Pappenheim, on the contrary, contends that it would have been foolishness on the part of Sextus to think of starting the Sceptical School in Rome, where Stoicism was the favored philosophy of the Roman Emperors; and when either for the possible reason of strife between the Empirical and Methodical Schools, or for some other cause, the Pyrrhonean School was removed from Alexandria, Pappenheim claims that all testimony points to the conclusion that it was founded in some city of the East. The name of Sextus is never known in Roman literature, but in the East, on the contrary, literature speaks for centuries of Sextus and Pyrrho. The _Hypotyposes_, especially, were well-known in the East, and references to Sextus are found there in philosophical and religious dogmatic writings. The Emperor Julian makes use of the works of Sextus, and he is frequently quoted by the Church Fathers of the Eastern Church.[4] Pappenheim accordingly concludes that the seat of Pyrrhonism after the school was removed from Alexandria, was in some unknown city of the East. [1] Pappenheim _Sitz der Skeptischen Schule. Archiv für Geschichte der Phil._ 1888. [2] Cicero _De Orat._ III. 17, 62. [3] Seneca _nat. qu._ VII. 32. 2. |
|