Abstract
After describing the main steps in becoming a skeptic (as stated in PH 1.12, PH 1.26, and PH 1.29), this chapter is devoted to an analysis of the initial ones, focusing on those steps taken before one starts to investigate philosophically (PH 1.12). Who is the person who eventually becomes a skeptic? Sextus tells us that he is a talented person (magalophueis), but which talents must he have? And what moves him to philosophy in the first place? Here, the notion of irregularity (anomalía) is crucial, and I try to clarify it. An irregularity is something the talented person encounters in the world and is part of our everyday life. It concerns both ethical issues and perception about how things are. Next, I discuss whether other disturbances may lead to philosophy, and reject this possibility. Why irregularity disturbs the talented person is another important question addressed in this first chapter. Finally, I describe the attraction exerted by philosophy on the talented person, for perhaps not all talented people come to philosophize.
We are only expressing this puzzlement by asking a slightly misleading question, the question: ‘What is…?’ This question is an utterance of unclarity, of mental discomfort.
Wittgenstein (1984, p. 26)
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Notes
- 1.
Aristotle (Pol. 1455a32; Ret. 1390b28) used this expression in the sense of a man of genius.
- 2.
Bett suggested to me that anômalia is an Aenesidemian term. It is a pity that Polito (2004), a book entirely devoted to Aenesidemus’ appropriation of Heraclitus, does not even mention anômalia. New skeptics prefer diaphônia. But, as we shall see in the next chapter, they do not have the same meaning, nor do they play the same role in the skeptical path.
- 3.
- 4.
I follow the explanation given in the Liddell-Scott-Jones Ancient Greek lexicon.
- 5.
Mates (1996, p. 63) says that “the Greek anômalia means irregularity, or, more generally, seeming incapability of being brought under a coherent account.”
- 6.
Sextus himself sometimes uses phainomenon as equivalent to sense-perception, following Aenesidemus. As is well-known, ‘what appears’ was used in PH 1.9 in this restricted sense, meaning only the objects of sense-perception. By thus restricting its sense in this passage, Sextus appears to be implying that he has a wider sense in mind in other passages, which indeed he does.
- 7.
Hegel (1995, p. 335) says that Pyrrho’s skepticism “aimed against the immediate truth both of the senses and of morality.” If that is true, perhaps the priority of the fourth and tenth of the Ten Modes in raising questions in or from everyday life dates back to Pyrrho. But he thought that Pyrrho was the author of the Ten Modes. This comment certainly applies to Aenesidemus.
- 8.
I will deal with diaphonia as a different concept in the next chapter.
- 9.
Unless otherwise indicated, I will be referring exclusively to the Ten Modes.
- 10.
For an analysis of the Ten Modes in Diogenes, see Sedley (2015).
- 11.
Sextus may mean something broader: philosophical investigation begins with irregularity in the phainomena, irrespective of being sensible or intellectual.
- 12.
Note that everyday people, though they are conscious of irregularity, do not feel disturbed by it and, therefore, do not feel inclined to philosophize.
- 13.
Plato, in the Theaetetus (158b), refers to arguments about knowing whether we are dreaming or awake as if everybody had heard of them; the context suggests that other conditions of perception, similar to those discussed in connection with Mode Four, were equally ordinary. Plato even suggests that reflection on irregularities, or opposites, is what produces philosophical theories (160d–e).
- 14.
Some commentators seem to exaggerate the extent to which irregularities occur in everyday life. Tad Brennan (1999, p. 63) attributes to Sextus the idea of “the chaos of everyday life.” Striker (2001, p. 117) thinks there is, for Sextus, “a general disorder of things” or “ubiquitous conflicts.” In my view, they overestimate the extent of anômalia in everyday life. Language is a good example: there are irregularities, but most of the time rules apply. This idea seems to be behind Sextus’ view on language in M 1.
- 15.
I will resume this topic in Chap. 9, where a different picture of (dogmatic) philosophy will emerge.
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Smith, P.J. (2022). Megalophueis and anômalia: The Talented Person, Conflicts in Everyday Life, and the Attraction of Philosophy. In: Sextus Empiricus’ Neo-Pyrrhonism. Synthese Library, vol 457. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94518-3_2
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