Skepticism

Even though recent research has discovered a web of connections and uses of skepticism that preceded the reemergence of the work of Sextus Empiricus in Europe, ¹ it is clear that the revival of Pyrrhonism, due to the manuscripts and the editions related to the Hellenistic philosopher, imparted new strength and original directions to early modern skepticism. ² Whereas Academic skepticism’s fundamental sources – Cicero’s Academica and Augustine’s Contra Academicos – were always, including during the Middle Ages, at people’s disposal and known in the West, the few manuscripts of Sextus Empiricus’s works that were available in European libraries apparently did not leave significant traces before the sixteenth century. Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola (1469–1533) was the first to make extensive use of Sextus Empiricus. In his Examen vanitatis doctrinae gentium (1520), Pico della Mirandola presented a Christianized and apologetic image of Sextus Empiricus. ³ Wider first-hand knowledge and a stronger impact of Sextus Empiricus’s work on Western scholars became possible only later, by Henri Estienne’s Pyrrhoniae hypotyposes (1562) and Gentian Hervet’s Adversus mathematicos (1569), both Latin translations. ⁴ Finally, in 1570 Diogenes Laertius’s edition was published. This was the primary source for Pyrrho’s life and doctrines. Thus, in the case of skepticism, there is no question that the philological rediscovery preceded and made possible the philosophical reunderstanding of skepticism and especially Pyrrhonism. ⁵ This does not mean, however, that what happened was only an episode inside the studia humanitatis tradition. Once rediscovered, ancient skepticism was immediately exposed to a subtle enterprise of reinterpretation.