Sextus Empiricus on How to Keep an Open Mind

Today’s episode is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of Richard Bett’s How to Keep an Open Mind: An Ancient Guide to Thinking Like a Skeptic published by Princeton University Press. How to Keep an Open Mind is a part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series and is a collection of Sextus Empiricus’ writings about how ancient skepticism can help you attain tranquility by learning to suspend judgment. This episode is brought to you by GoMacro. Go Macro is a family-owned maker of some of the finest protein bars around. They're vegan, non-GMO, and they come in a bunch of delicious flavors. Visit gomacro.com and use promo code STOIC for 30% off your order plus free shipping on all orders over $50. This episode is brought to you by Blinkist, the app that gets you fifteen-minute summaries of the best nonfiction books out there. Blinkist lets you get the topline information and the most important points from the most important nonfiction books out there, whether it’s Ryan’s own The Daily Stoic, Yuval Harari’s Sapiens, and more. Go to blinkist.com/stoic, try it free for 7 days, and save 25% off your new subscription, too.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Ryan Holiday?

  Bienvenidos a la edición de fin de semana del diario estoico. Cada viernes nos traemos una meditación inspirada por los antiguos estoicos, algo que te ayude a cumplir con esas cuatro virtudes estoicas de coraje, justicia, temperance y sabiduría. Y aquí en la fin de semana, exploramos más profundamente esos mismos temas. Intervemos a filósofos estoicos, exploramos a largo plazo cómo se pueden aplicar estas ideas estoicas a nuestras vidas y a los problemas desafiantes de nuestro tiempo. Aquí, en la fin de semana, cuando tienes un poco más de espacio, cuando las cosas se aceleran, asegúrate de tomarte un tiempo para pensar, para ir a caminar, para sentarte con tu diario

• 0:46Ryan Holiday?

  y, lo más importante, para prepararte para lo que puede traer la semana que viene. Hey, soy Ryan. Espero que hayan disfrutado estos extractos que hemos estado haciendo de la impresa de Princeton, la serie de "La sabiduría antigua para los lectores modernos". No solo quiero que este podcast sea algo para mí, pero quiero aprovechar libros, ideas geniales, presentar a ti y a mí, filósofos que no he leído mucho. Sextus Empiricus es uno de esos filósofos. Llega un poco después de los estoicos, nacido poco después de la muerte de Marcus Aurelius. Además del estoicismo y del epicurismo, el escepticismo es uno de los tres principales escuelas de filosofía antigua

• 1:31Ryan Holiday?

  que afirman ofrecer una forma de vida y de pensar. Y el extracto de hoy es de sus trabajos, y se titula "Cómo mantener una mente abierta". Es una traducción fresca y colección de algunos de los mejores pasajes de Sextus Empiricus, el único esquepico griego que sus trabajos han sobrevivido. Esto es del capítulo 2, donde Sextus habla de los cinco modos del escepticismo. Explica cómo llegamos, por qué son importantes, y cómo suspendimos algún nivel de juicio para llegar a este lugar de tranquilidad. No quiero que pienses que un esquepico es solo alguien que cuestiona todo, que todo es siempre incertio, que nunca hay paz, que no podría ser más... From the truth, here we have some writings from Sextus Empiricus, not the same Sextus

• 2:15Ryan Holiday?

  that Marcus mentions that he thanks in At the Beginning of Meditations, but nevertheless, here is a great selection from Princeton University Press's Ancient Wisdom for Modern Series. You can get the ebook and audiobook anywhere you get your digital books, and of course, I like the great hardcover versions as well. I was excited to get this one. Check it out. How to Keep an Open Mind: A Selection of Thoughts from the Great Sextus Empiricus.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  Chapter Two: Arguments to Have Up Your Sleeve: The Modes. Continuing in Book One of Outlines, Sextus immediately follows his general overview with a survey of the modes, which are ready-made forms of skeptical argument.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  On the General Modes of Suspension of Judgment.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  Section Thirty-One.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  Since we said that tranquility follows suspension of judgment about everything, the next thing for us to talk about would be how we get to suspension of judgment. It comes about to speak in rather general terms by putting things in opposition. We oppose things that appear to things that appear, or things thought to things thought, or interchanging them. Section Thirty-Two. For example, things that appear to things that appear when we say, "The same tower appears round from far away, but square when close up." Things thought to things thought, when in opposition to the person who maintains that there is providence given the order

• 3:55Speaker 01

  of the heavenly bodies. We put forward the fact that good people often do badly and bad people do well, and conclude from this that there is no providence. Section Thirty-Three. And things thought to things that appear, as when, in opposition to the fact that snow is white. An exagorous put it that snow is frozen water, and water is black, and therefore, snow is black.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Thinking of it in another way, we sometimes oppose present things to present things, like the ones just mentioned, but sometimes present things to past or future things. For instance, when someone confronts us with an argument that we cannot undo, Section 34, we say to him, "Just as before the birth of the person who founded the school you belong to, its reasoning was not yet apparent as being sound, even though from nature's perspective, it was actually there. So too it is possible that the argument opposing the one you have now presented is actually there, from nature's perspective, but is not yet apparent to us, so that we shouldn't yet assent to an argument that

• 5:08Speaker 01

  now seems to be strong." Section 35. But in order for us to get a more exact view of these oppositions, I am going to set out the modes by which suspension of judgment is produced. I don't insist on either their number or their force. It's possible they are unsound, or that there are more than the ones I'm going to speak of. Of the Ten Modes Section 36. The older skeptics hand down some modes, usually ten in number, by which suspension of judgment is thought to be produced.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Sextus now gives a list of the ten modes, and various ways of classifying them. He then dwells at some length on the first mode, which focuses on differences in how things appear to humans and to other animals. We pick up the story with the second mode. Section 79. The second one, we said, was based on the differences among humans. For, even if one agrees, for the sake of argument, that humans are to be trusted more than the non-rational animals, we shall find suspension of judgment coming on the scene as far as our own differences are concerned. The human being is said to be composed of two things, soul and body,

• 6:34Speaker 01

  and in both these respects, we differ from one another. With respect to the body, for example, in shape and in our individual mixtures.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  Section eighty. A Scythian's body differs in shape from an Indian's body. And what creates this diversity, so they say, is a difference in which humors are dominant. And corresponding to the difference in which humors are dominant, the appearances come to be different too. Hence, there is also a lot of difference among them in the choice and avoidance of things out there. Indians like some things, and we like others. And liking different things is an indication that we get diverse appearances from the actual objects. Section eighty-one. Our differences in terms of individual mixture mean that some of us digest beef more easily

• 7:26Speaker 01

  than rockfish and suffer diarrhea from the lousy wine of Lesbos. There was an old woman of Attica, they say, who consumed thirty drams of hemlock without ill effect, and Lysus took four drams of opium and came to no harm. Section eighty-two. Demiphone, Alexander Stewart, would shiver when he was in the sun or in the bath but was warm in the shade. Athenagoras of Argos was stung by scorpions and poisonous spiders and came to no harm. And the people called Seleans are not hurt when they are bitten by snakes or asps. Section eighty-three. Nor are the Tantyratai of Egypt hurt by crocodiles.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Moreover, the Ethiopians who live on the Estapa River, on the other side of Lake Merwe, eat scorpions and snakes and the like without ill effect. And Rufinus of Chalcis drank halibor but didn't vomit. In fact, there was no purging at all. He consumed and digested it just like something normal. Section eighty-four. Chrysirrmus, the Herophilian, risked heart trouble if he ever consumed pepper. And Satyrachus, the surgeon, had an attack of diarrhea if he ever smelled catfish frying. Andron of Argos was so immune from thirst that he could go through the Libyan desert without requiring a drink. The emperor Tiberius could see in the dark.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  And Aristotle tells of a Thasian who had the impression that a phantom person was going in front of him all the time. Section eighty-five. Since then, there is so much diversity among human beings in terms of their bodies, to make do with telling a few cases out of many. Chances are that humans also differ from one another in terms of the soul itself, for the body is a sort of replica of the soul, as the science of physiognomy shows. The biggest evidence of the great and endless difference in the thought of human beings is the disagreement in what is said by the dogmatists about, among other things, what we ought to choose and what we ought to avoid. Section 86.

• 9:37Speaker 01

  The pronouncements of the poets about these things are spot-on. Pindar says, "One delights in the honors and crowns he wins with his storm-footed horses; for others, it's living in gold-encrusted mansions. Some even find joy in speeding over the sea swell in a ship." And the poet says, "Different men delight in different deeds." Tragedy is also full of this kind of thing. For instance, "If fine and wise had the same nature for all, there wouldn't be conflict and strife among humans." And again, "Amazing that the same thing pleases some mortals while others hate it." Section 87.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  So, since choosing and avoiding are a matter of pleasure and displeasure, and pleasure and displeasure are a function of sense perception and appearance, we can validly infer, when the same things are chosen by some and avoided by others, that they are not affected alike by the same things, since in that case they would have acted alike by choosing or steering clear of the same things. But if the same things affect them differently, given the difference among humans, suspension of judgment will likely be introduced on this score too. We'll maybe be able to say how each of the actual objects appears from the standpoint

• 11:02Speaker 01

  of each difference, but what it is in respect of its nature, we will not be able to state. Section eighty-eight. For either we're going to trust all humans, or just some. But if we trust all, we'll be trying our hand at something impossible: accepting things that are opposed. But if it's just some, let them tell us who we must assent to. The Platonist will say Plato, the Epicurean Epicurus, and the others along the same lines. And so, being in a state of unresolved disagreement, they will again bring us round to suspension of judgment.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  Section eighty-nine. And a person who says that we must assent to the majority is proposing something childish. No one can consult all humanity and figure out what pleases the most. It could be that, among peoples we don't know, what for us is rare belongs to the majority, while what characterizes most of us is rare, such as most of them not feeling pain when bitten by poisonous spiders, while some of them feel pain just occasionally, and correspondingly with the other individual mixtures as mentioned before. Suspension of judgment, then, is also inevitably introduced because of the difference among humans.

• 12:28Speaker 01

  The ten modes continue with many other types of conflicting impressions designed to generate suspension of judgment. Modes three through nine focus on: Three: Differences among the senses. Four: Differences in circumstances. Five: Differences in positions, distances, and places. Six: Mixtures. Seven: Differences in the quantities and arrangements of things. Eight: Relativity. And nine: Frequent versus rare occurrence of things. It is perhaps the tenth mode that resonates most with contemporary concerns.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  Section 145. The tenth mode, which connects especially with ethical matters, is the one that connects ways of life, customs, laws, mythical beliefs, and dogmatic suppositions. A way of life is a choice of life, or of a certain practice, that involves one person or many. For example, Diogenes or the Spartans. Section 146. A law is a written agreement on the part of the citizens, which one is punished for contravening. A custom or habit, there's no difference, is a common acceptance by many people of a certain practice, which one is not always punished for contravening.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  For example, there is a law against committing adultery, but it is a custom with us not to have intercourse with a woman in public. Section 147. A mythical belief is an acceptance of things that didn't happen and are made up, such as, among others, the myth told about Cronus. Many people are drawn to a belief in these. And a dogmatic supposition is an acceptance of a matter that seems to be confirmed through reasoning by analogy or some kind of demonstration. For example, that there are elements of things, atomic, or like parted, or minimal, or something else. Section 148.

• 14:36Speaker 01

  We oppose each of these, sometimes with itself, and sometimes with each of the others. For example, custom to custom. Some Ethiopians tattoo their babies, but we don't. The Persians think it's appropriate to wear brightly colored clothing down to the ground, but we think it's inappropriate. And the Indians have intercourse with women in public, while most other people consider this to be shameful. Section 149. We oppose law to law, like this: Among the Romans, if you give up your father's property, you don't pay your father's debts; but among the Rhodians, you certainly do;

• 15:17Speaker 01

  and among the Tauri of Scythia, there was a law that foreigners should be sacrificed to Artemis, whereas with us, killing a human at a temple is forbidden. Section 150. We oppose way of life to way of life, when we oppose Diogenes' way of life to Aristippus, or the Spartans to the Italians.

• 15:37Ryan Holiday?

  Got a quick message from one of our sponsors here, and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned.

• 15:44Speaker 01

  We oppose mythical belief to mythical belief, when in one place we say that, as myth has it, Zeus is the father of gods and men, and in another place that it's ocean, as in ocean, source of the gods, and Thetis, their mother. Section 151. And we oppose dogmatic suppositions to one another, when we say that some declare that there is one element, others an infinite number, and some that the soul is mortal, others that it is immortal, and some that our affairs are managed by divine providence, others without providence. Section 152.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  We oppose custom to the others, for example, to law, when we say that among the Persians, homosexual behavior is the custom, whereas among the Romans, this practice is forbidden by law; and that, among us, adultery is forbidden, while among the Mesagete, it is allowed by custom as indifferent, as Eudoxus of Nidus recounts in the first book of his Circuit of the Earth; and that, among us, intercourse with mothers is forbidden, whereas among the Persians, this kind of marriage is most customary; and in Egypt, they marry their sisters, which with us is forbidden by law. Section 153.

• 17:07Speaker 01

  And custom is opposed to way of life, when most people have intercourse with their wives in private, but Crataus did it with Hipparchia in public, and Diogenes went around with clothes off the shoulder while we dress in the accustomed way. Section 154. It's opposed to mythical belief, when the myths say that Cronus ate his own children, while our custom is to take care of our children. And it's our habit to revere the gods as good and not subject to evils, but they are presented by the poets as getting wounded and being jealous of one another. Section 155. And it's opposed to dogmatic supposition, when it's our custom to ask for good things

• 17:52Speaker 01

  from the gods, but Epicurus says that the divine doesn't pay attention to us, and when Aristippus holds that wearing a woman's outfit is indifferent, whereas we hold that this is shameful. Section 156. We oppose way of life to law, when, though it's a law that you're not allowed to hit a free man of good birth, Pancration contestants hit each other because that's their way of life. And, though homicide is forbidden, gladiators do away with one another for the same reason. Section 157. We oppose mythical belief to way of life, when we say that the myths tell of Hercules

• 18:32Speaker 01

  at Umphal's place, carting wool and enduring slavery, and doing things that no one would have done by choice, even within limits, but Hercules' way of life was noble. Section 158. And way of life to dogmatic supposition, when athletes strive for celebrity as something good, and undertake a tough way of life because of it, yet many philosophers have the doctrine that celebrity is a trivial thing. Section 159.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  We oppose law to mythical belief when the poets present the gods committing adultery and engaging in homosexual behavior, but among us the law prohibits doing these things. Section 160. And to dogmatic supposition, when Chrysippus says that intercourse with mothers and sisters is indifferent, but the law prohibits this. Section 161. And we oppose mythical belief to dogmatic supposition, when the poets say that Zeus came down and had intercourse with mortal women, while among the dogmatists this is thought to be impossible. Section 162.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  And when the poet says that because of his grief over Sarpidin, Zeus poured down drops of blood towards the earth. Yet the philosopher's doctrine is that the divine is unaffected, and when they do away with the myth of the centaurs, bringing us the centaur as an example of non-existence. Section 163. Well, it would be possible to find many other examples under each of the oppositions we've mentioned, but for an abbreviated account, this will do. Now, since so much inconsistency in things has been shown by means of this mode too, we will not be able to say what the actual object is like in its nature, but only how

• 20:25Speaker 01

  it appears in relation to this way of life, or in relation to this law, or in relation to this custom, and so on. And for this reason, we have to suspend judgment about the nature of the actual objects out there. So this is how we end up at suspension of judgment via the Ten Modes. Sextus immediately follows with the Five Modes, which are much more general and, unlike the Ten, designed to fit together as a system.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  Of the Five Modes.

• 21:01Speaker 01

  Section 164.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  The more recent skeptics hand down five modes of suspension of judgment as follows: First, the one from dispute; Second, the one that throws you into an infinite regress; Third, the one from relativity; Fourth, the hypothetical one; And fifth, the reciprocal one. Section 165. The one from dispute works by our finding that an unresolved standoff is in place on the matter under consideration, both in ordinary life and among philosophers. Because of this, we can't choose or reject anything, and so we end up at suspension of judgment. Section 166.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  The one from infinite regress is where we say that what's brought forward as a guarantee on the matter under consideration is in need of a further guarantee, and that one is in need of another, and so on to infinity, so that we don't have anywhere from which to begin building things up, and suspension of judgment follows. Section 167. The one from relativity is where the actual object appears this way or that in relation to what's doing the judging and the things observed at the same time. But we suspend judgment on how it is in its nature. Section 168.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  The one from hypothesis is when, on being thrown into an infinite regress, the dogmatists start from something that they don't establish, but decide it's okay simply to assume as a matter of agreement without demonstration. Section 169. And the reciprocal mode arises when what is supposed to provide confirmation of the matter being investigated is in need of a guarantee from the thing under investigation. And so, being unable to assume either for the purpose of establishing the other, we suspend judgment about both. That it's possible to bring every object of investigation under these modes, we will show briefly as follows.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  Section 170. The point under consideration is either something perceived or something thought, and whichever it is, there is dispute about it; for some people say that it's only things perceived that are true, others that it's only things thought, and others that it's some things perceived and some things thought. So are they going to say that the dispute is decidable or undecidedable? If it's undecidedable, we have the result that we must suspend judgment. For about matters of unresolved dispute, it's not possible to take a position; but if it is decidable, we ask on what basis it is going to be decided.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  Section 171. For example, will the thing perceived, we'll set up the argument with this one first, be decided by a thing perceived or by a thing thought? If it's by a thing perceived, then since things perceived are what our investigation is about, that too will need something else as a guarantee; and if that too is a thing perceived, it will also need something else to provide a guarantee, and so on to infinity. Section 172. But if the thing perceived has to be decided on by a thing thought, then since things thought are also a matter of dispute, this too, being a thing thought, will need to

• 24:41Speaker 01

  be decided on and guaranteed. Where then will the guarantee come from? If it's from a thing thought, there will be a similar infinite regress; but if it's from a thing perceived, then since a thing thought was taken on as a guarantee for the thing perceived, and a thing perceived as a guarantee for the thing thought, the reciprocal mode is introduced. Section 173. But if, to avoid this, the person talking to us decides it's okay to assume something as a matter of agreement without demonstration, for the purpose of demonstrating the things that come next, the hypothetical mode will be introduced, and that's a dead end.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  For if the person giving the hypothesis is trustworthy, we will be no less trustworthy whenever we give the opposite hypothesis. And if the hypothesis the person gives is something true, he makes it suspect by taking it as a hypothesis instead of establishing it, while if it's false, the foundation of the things being established will be unsound. Section 174. Besides, if giving a hypothesis gets us somewhere in creating trust, let's give as a hypothesis the very thing being investigated, not something else by means of which the matter we're arguing about is going to be established.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  But if giving as a hypothesis the thing being investigated is absurd, it will also be absurd to give as a hypothesis something higher up. Section 175. And that everything perceived as relative is clear. It's relative to the perceivers. It's obvious, then, that whatever perceived object is proposed to us, it's easy to bring this under the five modes, and we reason in the same way about what is thought. If it is said to be an object of unresolved dispute, we have to suspend judgment about it. That will have been conceded. Section 176. But if the dispute is going to be decided,

• 26:53Speaker 01

  then if it's by means of a thing thought, we'll throw them into an infinite regress, and if it's by means of a thing perceived, into the reciprocal mode. For since what is perceived is in turn a matter of dispute and cannot be decided by means of itself because of the infinite regress, it will need what is thought, just as what is thought needs what is perceived. Section 177. For these reasons, assuming something by hypothesis will again be absurd. And things thought are also relative. It's relative to the thinker that they get their name. And if they were by nature such as they are said to be, they would not have been an object of dispute.

• 27:37Speaker 01

  What is thought, then, has also been brought under the five modes, which means that it is necessary all around for us to suspend judgment about the matter under consideration.

• 27:49Speaker 01

  So this is what the five modes handed down by the more recent skeptics are like. They set them out not in rejection of the 10 modes, but in order to broaden the variety of ways they catch out the dogmatist rashness by means of these ones together with those. Sextus now gives the two modes, which are a compressed version of the five, and then lists a group of more specialized modes dealing with causation.

• 28:17Ryan Holiday?

  Thanks for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Just a reminder, we've got signed copies of all my books in the Daily Stoic store. You can get them personalized, you can get them sent to a friend, whatever you want. We'd love for you to have a copy. I know I love signed copies of some of my favorite books. If you love a signed copy of The Obstacle is the Way, You Go is the Enemy, Stillness is the Key, the leather-bound edition of the Daily Stoic, we have them all in the Daily Stoic store, which you can check out at store.dailystoic.com.