Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism by Mary Mills Patrick
page 39 of 196 (19%)
page 39 of 196 (19%)
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[2] _Hyp._ I. 30. [3] _Hyp._ I. 30; Diog. IX. 11, 61. [4] _Adv. Math._ XI. 146-160. [5] _Hyp._ I. 27. [6] _Hyp._ I. 28. Ataraxia came to the Sceptic as success in painting the foam on a horse's mouth came to Apelles the painter. After many attempts to do this, and many failures, he gave up in despair, and threw the sponge at the picture that he had used to wipe the colors from the painting with. As soon as it touched the picture it produced a representation of the foam.[1] Thus the Sceptics were never able to attain to ataraxia by examining the anomaly between the phenomena and the things of thought, but it came to them of its own accord just when they despaired of finding it. The intellectual preparation for producing ataraxia, consists in placing arguments in opposition to each other, both in regard to phenomena, and to things of the intellect. By placing the phenomenal in opposition to the phenomenal, the intellectual to the intellectual, and the phenomenal to the intellectual, and _vice versa_, the present to the present, past, and future, one will find that no argument exists that is incontrovertible. It is not necessary to accept any statement whatever as true, and consequently a state of [Greek: epochĂȘ] may always be |
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