Encyclopedia of Philosophy: SCEPTICISM

The English language preserves traces of both Epicureanism and Stoicism, but with different degrees of accuracy. An epicure would find little satisfaction in the bread and cheese diet of Epicurus; but a stoic attitude to suffering and death fairly reflects one aspect of Stoic philosophy. A third contemporary school, however, made its mark on the language unambiguously: the basic meaning of Scepticism has not changed since the Sceptics of the third century BC.  The founder of Scepticism was Pyrrho of Elis, a soldier in Alexander’s army, who was an older contemporary of Epicurus. Pyrrho taught that nothing could be known and, consistently with that view, wrote no books; but his teaching was brought to Athens in the early years of the third century by his pupils Timon and Arcesilaus. Timon denied the possibility of finding any self-evident principles to serve as the foundation of sciences: and in the absence of such axioms, all lines of reasoning must be either circular or endless. Arcesilaus became head of the Platonic Academy about 273 and turned its attention from the later dogmatic works of Plato to the earlier Socratic dialogues. He himself, like Socrates, used to demolish theses put forward by his pupils; the proper attitude for the philosopher was to suspend judgement on all important topics. Arcesilaus’ impact on the Academy was great, and it remained the home of Scepticism for two hundred years.