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Sextus Empiricus
Sextus Empiricus
Against Those in the Disciplines
Translated with introduction and notes by

Richard Bett
1
3
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Contents
List of Abbreviations vii
Introduction 1
Note on the Text and Translation 25
Outline of Argument 30
Sextus Empiricus: Against Those in the Disciplines

Book 1 39
Introduction to the entire work 39
General arguments against the disciplines 41
Against the Grammarians 49
Book 2: Against the Rhetoricians 127
Book 3: Against the Geometers 155
Book 4: Against the Arithmeticians 184
Book 5: Against the Astrologers 194
Book 6: Against the Musicians 219
Persons Referred to in Against Those in the Disciplines 237

Glossary 247
Parallels between Against Those in the Disciplines
and Other Works of Sextus 253
Bibliography 255
Index 261
List of Abbreviations
Note: proposals for changes to the Greek text that are attributed in the
notes to scholars by last name alone, where those names are not included
in this list, are recorded in Mau’s apparatus criticus. Scholarly works
cited by author and date are included in the Bibliography.
Bekker Sextus Empiricus, ex recensione Immanuelis

Bekkeri (Berlin: Reimer, 1842)
Blank Sextus Empiricus, Against the Grammarians,
translated with an introduction and commentary
by David Blank (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998)
Bury Sextus Empiricus, Against the Professors, with an
English translation by the Rev. R.G. Bury
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1949—vol. 4 of complete Loeb series of Sextus)
CAG Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca (Berlin:
Reimer, 1882–1909, multiple volumes)
Davidson Greaves Sextus Empiricus, Against the Musicians: a new
critical text and translation on facing pages, with
an introduction, annotations, and indices
verborum and nominum et rerum by Denise
Davidson Greaves (Lincoln, NE: University of
Nebraska Press, 1986)
Diels Doxographi Graeci, collegit, recensuit,
prolegomenis indicibusque instruxit Hermannus
Diels (Berlin: Reimer, 1879)
DK H. Diels and W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der
Vorsokratiker (Berlin: Weidmann, 6th edition
1951)
Fabricius Sexti Empirici Opera Graece et Latine:
Pyrrhoniarum institutionum libri III cum Henrici
Stephani versione et notis, Contra mathematicos
viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
sive disciplinarum professores, libri VI, Contra

philosophos libri V, cum versione Gentiani
Herveti, Graeca ex mss. codicibus castigavit,
versiones emendavit supplevitque et toti operi
notas addidit Johannis Albertus Fabricius (Leipzig:
Kuehniana, revised edition 1840–1—originally
published 1718)
Heintz Werner Heintz, Studien zu Sextus Empiricus
(Halle: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1932)
Helmreich Claudii Galeni Pergameni Scripta Minora, vol. 3,
ed. Georg Helmreich (Leipzig: Teubner, 1893)
Jürß Sextus Empiricus, Gegen die Wissenschaftler Buch
1–6, aus dem Griechischen übersetzt, eingeleitet
und kommentiert von Fritz Jürß (Würzburg:
Königshausen & Neumann, 2001)
Kassel-Austin Poetae Comici Graeci, ed. R. Kassel and C. Austin
(Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1983)
Kock Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta, ed. Theodor
Kock, 3 vols. (Leipzig: Teubner, 1880–8)
Kühn Galeni Opera Omnia, 20 vols. (Leipzig, 1819–33;
reissued 1965, Hildesheim)
LS A.A. Long and D.N. Sedley, The Hellenistic
Philosophers, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1987)
LSJ Liddell–Scott–Jones, A Greek–English Lexicon
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968 and subsequent
printings—revised supplement, 1996)
M Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos
(see Introduction, Section 1)
Mau Sexti Empirici Opera, vol. 3 (Leipzig: Teubner,
1961)
Nauck August Nauck, Tragicorum Graecorum
Fragmenta, 2nd edition 1889, reprinted with a
supplement by Bruno Snell (Hildesheim: Georg
Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1964)
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ix
OCD S. Hornblower, A. Spawforth, and E. Edinow

(eds.), The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th edition
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012)
OED The Compact Edition of the Oxford English
Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1971)
Pellegrin et al. Sextus Empiricus, Contre les professeurs:
introduction, glossaire et index par Pierre
Pellegrin, traduction par Catherine Dalimier,
Daniel Delattre, Joëlle Delattre, et Brigitte Pérez,
sous la direction de Pierre Pellegrin (Paris:
Éditions du Seuil, 2002)
Pfeiffer Callimachus, ed. Rudolf Pfeiffer (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1949–53)
PH Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism (see
Introduction, Section 1)
Spinelli Sesto Empirico, Contro gli astrologi, a cura di
Emidio Spinelli (Naples: Bibliopolis, 2000)
SVF H. von Arnim, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta,
3 vols. (Leipzig: Teubner, 1903–5)
TLG Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (searchable online
corpus of all ancient Greek texts)
West² M.L. West, Iambi et elegi graeci, 2nd edition
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989–92)
Introduction
1. Life and works

Sextus Empiricus is the only ancient Greek skeptic who composed
written works some of which have survived. The Greek word skeptikos
literally means “inquirer”, and that is what Sextus and those in his tra-
dition called themselves; another label they used for themselves was
“Pyrrhonist”, after Pyrrho of Elis, from whom they claimed inspiration.
Sextus stands near the end of this tradition, which lasted intermittently for
several centuries; we hear of a pupil of his named Saturninus (Diogenes
Laertius 9.116), but after that there are no identifiable Pyrrhonists in
antiquity. He is generally placed in the second century CE, but the complete
lack of reference to him in Galen (129–216 CE) suggests a slightly later
floruit, perhaps in the early third century. This is because he was a doctor—
that is the only really solid piece of autobiographical information he
gives us (PH 2.238, M 1.260, M 11.47)—and, to judge from his title, a
member of the Empiric school of medicine (as were other Pyrrhonists);
Diogenes Laertius also calls him “Sextus the Empiricist” (9.116), and the
pseudo-Galenic Introduction or Doctor actually refers to him as a head of
the school (Kühn XIV, 683–4). The matter is complicated by the fact that in
the one place in his surviving works where he actually discusses medical
Empiricism (PH 1.236–41), Sextus seems to distance himself from it and to
claim a closer affinity to skepticism for another school of medicine, the
Methodic school. But whatever the resolution of that issue,¹ Sextus was
clearly involved not just in medical practice, but in debates about medicine;
¹ The question is well treated in Allen 2010. One possibility is that Sextus does not mean
to repudiate Empiricism as a whole, but only one variety of Empiricism. But while the text
admits of this reading, that still leaves the preference for Methodism (rather than an
another, favored variety of Empiricism) to be accounted for.
 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES
besides the passage just mentioned, he refers to (now lost) works of his
called Medical Treatises (M 7.202) and Empirical Treatises (M 1.61).² Galen
wrote about both Empiricism and Methodism,³ had voluminous know-
ledge of the medical discussions of his time, and was not shy about naming
those whose ideas he was considering; for him to have had nothing to say
about Sextus would be very surprising—unless Sextus postdated him.
Beyond this (which is already more definite than many scholars would
be comfortable with), we really know nothing about Sextus the man.⁴
There are very few references to him by name in antiquity, and very few
indications of his works being read. Another curious point is that these
works seem to show no awareness of the philosophy of Sextus’ own day.
Even if one discounts Galen’s silence, Sextus refers in the past tense to the
emperor Tiberius (PH 1.84), which puts him no earlier than the middle
of the first century CE; and yet his knowledge of the history of philosophy,
to judge from those he names, seems to end in the early first century BCE.⁵
The revived Platonism and Aristotelianism that dominated late antiquity
were underway in Sextus’ lifetime (whenever precisely that was), but one
gets no hint of this from his works. This is just one of many questions
about Sextus that are likely to remain unanswered.⁶ In any case, his own
² These may or may not be distinct; they may be the same work under alternative titles,
or the latter may be a part of the former.
³ A good introduction is Frede 1985.
⁴ House 1980 details our comprehensive ignorance, and is also much more non-
committal about Sextus’ dates. On the latter, I have been influenced by Jouanna 2009;
although the argument from Galen’s silence is not new, and although arguments from
silence are never conclusive, Jouanna makes a strong case for how unlikely it would be for
Galen not to refer to Sextus if they were contemporaries. He also sets a terminus ante quem
by the dates of Hippolytus (c.170–c.236 CE), whose Refutation of all Heresies includes text
that is very close to a considerable amount of Sextus’ Against the Astrologers (M 5) and has
generally been thought to be copied from it with insignificant changes. But this is more
questionable; Hippolytus and Sextus could each be drawing on some now lost common
source. This has been argued for in particular by Janáček 1959, 1964 (although Janáček’s
case depends on a highly disputable view of Sextus’ stylistic development; see n. 13).
⁵ The Stoic Basilides is a possible exception (see M 8.258); a Stoic of this name is attested
as a teacher of Marcus Aurelius. But we also have a list of Stoics, seemingly ordered by
chronology, in which a Stoic Basilides shows up in a group from the second century BCE (see
Rose 1866, 370–1). Sextus could be referring to either one.
⁶ Sedley 2003 shows that Sextus was by no means alone in treating philosophy as
extending no later than the early first century BCE, and posits a major transformation of
philosophy, in the mid-first century BCE, towards a project of “recovering and understand-
ing the wisdom of the ancients” (36)—rather than oneself contributing new wisdom, as it
had been previously conceived. Sedley’s case is powerful and intriguing, but I do not think it
fully accounts for the case of Sextus. For Sextus clearly does not think of himself as
INTRODUCTION 
obscurity was not permanent. Since the revival of interest in antiquity in

the Renaissance, his works have attracted much more attention; to pick
out just two points in what could be a long history of his reception, there
were Latin translations of all of them by the 1560s,⁷ and there is consid-
erable interest in them among contemporary epistemologists.
Of these works, the one presented in this volume is undoubtedly the
least well known, at any rate among philosophers. The reason for this is
no doubt because its subject matter is not directly philosophical. Sextus’
best-known work, Outlines of Pyrrhonism (abbreviated as PH, the trans-
literated initials of the Greek title), consists of one book expounding the
skeptical outlook in general terms, and two books examining the theories
of non-skeptics in the three traditional divisions of philosophy: logic,
physics, and ethics. Another work, consisting of two books Against the
Logicians, two Against the Physicists, and one Against the Ethicists, does
the second of these things at much greater length, but was also almost
certainly preceded by a lost book or books of general exposition, paral-
leling the first book of PH.⁸ In contrast to both these works, Against Those
in the Disciplines consists of six books, each dealing with a different
specialized non-philosophical field: grammar, rhetoric, geometry, arith-
metic, astrology, and music. As one might expect, Sextus frequently refers
to theories and ideas in these fields in the course of his treatment; the level
of technicality varies from one book to another, the first and by far the
longest book, Against the Grammarians, being the most challenging in this
respect. One of the functions of my notes to the translation is to aid the
reader in comprehending the details of the subjects under discussion.
recovering ancient wisdom; while he talks a lot about earlier philosophies, this is always in
the service of his own present brand of Pyrrhonism. Indeed, when it comes to documenting
the relations between earlier philosophers (even earlier Pyrrhonists) and his own thought,
he seems to go out of his way to distance them all from himself; this may even be a reaction
against the tendency in his day to appeal to founding figures from the past (on this, see Bett
2015a). If so, of course, he does have at least a general awareness of the contemporary
philosophical zeitgeist. However, since one of his goals is clearly to promote and publicize
Pyrrhonism, his lack of direct engagement with the alternative philosophies of his contem-
poraries is still very surprising.
⁷ See Floridi 2010.
⁸ The first sentence of Against the Logicians (M 7.1) refers back to just such a general
exposition. This was long thought to be a back-reference to PH. But PH as a whole is not a
general exposition—only its first book is; the reference must therefore be to a general
exposition originally preceding Against the Logicians as part of the same work. This was
established by Janáček 1963.
 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES
However, one does not need to be an expert in these fields in order

to appreciate that here, as in his more straightforwardly philosophical
works, Sextus is espousing a skeptical outlook of considerable interest.
The Greek title of this work, Pros mathêmatikous, or its Latinized
equivalent Adversus mathematicos (standardly abbreviated as M or, to
indicate its six books,⁹ M 1–6), has sometimes been rendered Against the
Professors. But the title “professor” has no exact equivalent in the ancient
world and may have misleading associations. In the past I have used
Against the Learned, appealing to the basic meaning (“learn”) of the root
math-. But I now prefer a translation picking up on the word that is the
immediate basis of mathêmatikos: the word mathêma, “discipline” or
“field of study” (literally, “thing learned”), which is much appealed to
in the introduction to the whole work (M 1.1–8). Sextus emphasizes here
that it is these disciplines, and their practitioners the mathêmatikoi,
that he is going to be dealing with;¹⁰ it seems appropriate for the title to
reflect that.
The order of composition of Sextus’ works has been a topic of con-
siderable debate, mostly centering around the question whether PH was
written before or after the longer work that covers broadly the same
ground.¹¹ Concerning M 1–6, it clearly comes after the longer of those
two works; it contains specific back references to Against the Physicists
(M 1.35, 3.116), and also references to identifiable passages of this work
under what is presumably Sextus’ title for the whole work: Skeptika
Hupomnêmata, Skeptical Treatises (M 1.26, 29, 6.52).¹² Since a number
of passages in M 1–6 have close parallels in this work, it may be of
interest to bear in mind which came first. The relation between M 1–6
and PH is much less clear; there are no explicit references to PH in M 1–6
⁹ Also to distinguish it from Against the Logicians, Physicists, and Ethicists; see n. 12.
¹⁰ Mathêma can sometimes refer to mathematical disciplines in particular, and we shall
see a few cases, in the context of the mathematical books (3 and 4), where this is probably
what Sextus means by the term. But the more general sense is the usual one in this work.
¹¹ I have discussed this question in the introductions to Bett 1997, Bett 2005, and Bett
2012.
¹² Perhaps because of the loss of the opening general book or books, the surviving books
of Skeptical Treatises came to be regarded as a continuation of M 1–6; hence Against the
Logicians is standardly abbreviated as M 7–8, Against the Physicists as M 9–10, and Against
the Ethicists as M 11. Although this makes no sense at all, since M 1–6 is a complete and
self-contained work on a quite distinct subject, this standard nomenclature is entrenched
and I shall adhere to it for purposes of reference.
INTRODUCTION 
or vice versa.¹³ There are some passages where the same topics are treated
in both works, but with the possible exception of some general arguments
against teaching and learning—versions of which appear in all three
works (M 1.9–40, M 11.216–57, PH 3.252–72)—the parallels between M
1–6 and PH are less close than between M 1–6 and the longer work.
Nevertheless, PH, being the only one of Sextus’ three surviving works¹⁴ to
contain a general account of the skeptical outlook, is important for our
understanding of what his brand of Pyrrhonist skepticism is. I turn to this
matter next, before focusing on a number of key features of M 1–6 itself.
2. Sextus’ Pyrrhonist skepticism

Pyrrhonist skepticism is not the only variety of skepticism in ancient
Greek and Roman philosophy. The Academy, the school founded by
Plato, was for most of the Hellenistic period dominated by a skeptical
outlook; though these Academics did not call themselves skeptics—the
term itself seems to originate with the Pyrrhonists—their attitudes were
already recognized in antiquity as having much in common with
Pyrrhonism. The relations between Academic and Pyrrhonist skepticism
are complicated and, since Sextus discusses the Academics not infre-
quently, can sometimes be important for understanding what he is saying.
However, in M 1–6 the Academics make only one appearance—Sextus
appeals to their views on the uselessness of rhetoric (M 2.20–43)—and
they need not be further considered here.
As noted earlier, the Pyrrhonist tradition starts with Pyrrho of Elis
(c.360–c.270 BCE). Pyrrho wrote nothing, but his ideas and lifestyle were
recorded by his disciple Timon of Phlius (c.320–c.230 BCE) and perhaps
¹³ PH has generally been regarded as the earliest of the three works. But this view arose as
a result of a mistake; cf. n. 8. Karel Janáček, having exposed the mistake (see Janáček 1963),
nonetheless continued to argue on stylistic grounds that PH was written first; see Janáček
1972 and Janáček 2008 (a posthumous compilation of his smaller essays on Sextus and
skepticism). These studies are important in establishing stylistic differences among the
works—differences of a kind that do indeed point to their having been composed at
different times (on this point, see Bett 2015b, 35). But that does not tell us the order of
the works, and Janáček’s chronological suppositions are a house of cards; see Bett 1997,
Appendix C. In the commentary on chapter VII (with Appendix A) of the same work,
I argued on the basis of parallel passages that PH is the latest of the three works, but the case
is not conclusive.
¹⁴ Besides the lost medical works referred to earlier, Sextus also refers to a now lost work
of his On the Soul (M 6.55, M 10.284).
 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES
others. Timon’s writings have survived only in fragments, and the

reconstruction of Pyrrho’s thought is, to say the least, difficult and
controversial.¹⁵ In M 1–6 Sextus refers a few times to both Pyrrho and
Timon (M 1.53, 281–2, 305–6, 3.2, 6.66), generally signaling his agree-
ment with their approach to some topic; but neither here nor elsewhere
does he tell us in any detail what they said or thought. From his perspec-
tive, indeed, they are probably rather remote figures having no deep
connection with his own skeptical practice. The historical link itself is
somewhat tenuous. After a generation or so of immediate followers,
interest in Pyrrho seems to have lapsed until, in the early first century
BCE, he was adopted as a figurehead for a new skeptical movement by
Aenesidemus of Cnossos, himself a former member of the Academy. Our
information on Aenesidemus is also scanty (though we know that, unlike
Pyrrho, he did write books);¹⁶ but there is no clear evidence that Aene-
sidemus’ choice to call himself and his colleagues “followers of Pyrrho”
(hoi apo Purrônos) was based on detailed consideration of Pyrrho’s
thought, rather than a general sense of common attitudes and demeanor.
In any case, the movement started by Aenesidemus is the Pyrrhonism to
which Sextus later belonged. We have no other writings from it besides
those of Sextus—beyond our very limited evidence on Aenesidemus,
virtually all we know about this Pyrrhonism prior to Sextus are the
names of a few other adherents.
As suggested earlier, Sextus’ version of Pyrrhonism is best approached
by way of the first book of PH. Early in this book Sextus offers and
explains the following one-sentence description of what skepticism is:
“The skeptical ability is one that produces oppositions among things that
appear and things that are thought in any way whatsoever, one from
which, because of the equal strength in the opposing objects and
accounts, we come first to suspension of judgement, and after that to
tranquility” (PH 1.8). A three-stage procedure is sketched here. In the
first stage, one collects impressions (“things that appear”, which may
refer to sensory impressions or more generally to any way in which
things strike one unreflectively) and opinions or arguments (“things
that are thought”) on any given question. These impressions, opinions,
¹⁵ For a brief account of the issues, see Bett 2014a.

¹⁶ Our access to this evidence has been greatly improved by Polito 2014.
INTRODUCTION 
and arguments exhibit oppositions among one another; there may be

contradictory impressions of the same thing, or contradictory arguments
about it, or an unreflective impression may be contradicted by an argu-
ment on the same subject—this multiplicity is the force of “in any way
whatsoever”. Now, faced with such oppositions among the impressions,
opinions, and arguments on any given question, what is one to do? One
might try to decide among them and so discover the truth about the
matter. But according to Sextus, this will not succeed. This is because the
opposing perspectives exhibit the feature of “equal strength” (isostheneia).
That is, one has no greater inclination to opt for any one of them than
for any other; each one strikes one as having equal weight. In this
situation, the only possible result is that one suspends judgement; this is
the second stage.
The third stage, tranquility, can wait for a moment; several questions
need to be addressed about the story so far. First, how are we to understand
this notion of “equal strength”? Is it that one judges the opposing positions
to be of equal rational merit, and one suspends judgement because one
draws the conclusion that one ought rationally to do so? Or is it a purely
psychological process, where one simply finds oneself equally inclined or
disinclined towards either side (or every side) of the case, and given that
situation, finds oneself declining to assent to any of the alternatives? Both
interpretations have their adherents.¹⁷ A difficulty for the first, rational
interpretation is that the standards of rationality appealed to would seem
themselves to be fodder for the skeptic’s “ability” at assembling opposi-
tions. On the other hand, Sextus does talk of the necessity of suspending
judgement, and this is at times hard not to read as referring to rational
necessity, a necessity imposed by the merit of the arguments. This is
particularly true when it comes to the groups of standardized arguments
known as the Modes (PH 1.35–179).¹⁸
Second, whichever reading of “equal strength” we adopt, why is Sextus
so sure that “equal strength” will in fact be produced on every topic? The
answer, I take it, has to do with the skeptic’s “ability” (dunamis): the skeptic
¹⁷ For the first, rational interpretation see Perin 2010, chapter 2; Vogt 2012, chapter 5.3.
For the second, psychological interpretation see Williams 2010.
¹⁸ See Bett 2011a. Here I illustrate why the Modes are hard to fit with the psychological
interpretation, while also expressing a general preference for that interpretation.
 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES
is someone who is very good at accumulating opposing perspectives in

such a way that they exhibit such “equal strength”. Of course, a set of
oppositions that one audience finds of “equal strength”, another audience
may not; hence it seems that the procedure will need to be sensitive to
whom one is talking to, and Sextus confirms this point (PH 3.280–1).
A natural worry is that there is liable to be a large measure of contrivance
or manipulation in this process; the skeptic is set on generating a certain
type of attitude, regardless of the actual merits of the issue under discus-
sion. But the skeptic’s response would no doubt be to challenge the norms
of rationality, logical validity, etc. on which this worry depends.
Third, I have said that the procedure can be applied “on any given
question”, but what is the scope of this? One thing that is clear is that
Pyrrhonist skepticism is not a stance specifically within epistemology, as
are most forms of skepticism in contemporary philosophy. One can, of
course, apply the procedure to questions concerning the nature and
extent of our knowledge, and at times Sextus does so (in the ancient
taxonomy what we call epistemology falls under logic). But there is no
inherent limitation to this or to any other particular subject matter, and
the subjects considered in M 1–6 are a good example of this. A more
controversial matter is, as one might put it, the level at which these
questions are to be addressed. Does Pyrrhonist skepticism apply only to
the intellectual postures of philosophers or other theorists, or also to the
non-theoretical beliefs of ordinary people? Sextus sometimes suggests
that he is a supporter of everyday attitudes or practices as against the
abstractions of theorists, and, as we shall see, M 1–6 includes several
examples of this tendency. But sometimes ordinary people’s views them-
selves figure among the items placed in opposition. It may be that Sextus
vacillates on this question.
Finally, Sextus’ characterization of skepticism as an ability points
to another important contrast with the way skepticism is understood
in philosophy today. Pyrrhonist skepticism is not a theory or a conclu-
sion but, as I have called it several times, a process or a procedure. The
Pyrrhonist skeptic does not assert or deny some set of propositions, but
does something—namely, brings about suspension of judgement. And
this, incidentally, is an activity that has to be kept up; whereas one might
develop some theory or reach some conclusion and be done with the
matter, suspension of judgement needs to be maintained over time (in
oneself or in others) by ever-renewed exercise of the “ability”.
INTRODUCTION 
The effect of this activity, as Sextus concludes by saying, is tranquility

(ataraxia). More specifically, as he tells us elsewhere (PH 1.25–30,
M 11.141–4), he is talking about tranquility in matters of opinion. All
of us, skeptics included, suffer hunger, thirst, pain, etc. (although skep-
tics, it turns out, are better off than others even here—the reasons would
take us too far afield). But the holding of opinions can also be a source of
disturbance, and suspension of judgement—which is, precisely, the
withdrawal from opinions—can therefore release one from disturbance.
As for why this should be, Sextus seems to tell two somewhat different
stories. His initial mention of ataraxia suggests that suspension of
judgement quite generally brings tranquility, and the following sections
shed a little more light on this. He tells us that the skeptic is someone
who initially tries to discover the truth, thinking to attain ataraxia in
that way (PH 1.26, 28–9, cf. 12). But this does not happen; being faced
with the “equal strength” of the opposing considerations, he is forced to
suspend judgement instead. However, it turns out that this suspension
of judgement produces the very tranquility he was seeking in the first
place.¹⁹ It sounds, then, as if wanting to discover the truth but being
unsure about it is upsetting; one initially tries to achieve tranquility
through discovery, but one actually achieves it by suspending judge-
ment and thus giving up on the worrisome and unsuccessful search.
And all this applies regardless of the subject matter. On the other hand,
whenever Sextus explicitly addresses the question why suspension of
judgement yields tranquility, his answer always concerns beliefs about
one specific subject matter: whether or not certain things are by nature
good and others by nature bad. Beliefs to the effect that there are such
things, he claims, make one care far too much about getting the good
and avoiding the bad (PH 1.27–8, 30, 3.235–8, M 11.110–67). The
skeptic, by contrast, is tranquil because of not having these beliefs;
if one does not hold that anything is good or bad by nature, the stakes
are just much lower. It may be possible to reconcile these two stories,
but one might wish Sextus had done more to explain how they relate
¹⁹ Of course, a further account would be needed of how this initial attainment of

tranquility through suspension of judgement is transformed into the skeptic’s settled
“ability” to generate suspension of judgement (and thereby tranquility). Sextus does
not supply this, but I think it is not too hard to imagine an account that would fill
the gap.
 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES
to one another.²⁰ In any case, suspension of judgement is supposed to

improve one’s life, so that the skeptic is better off than the non-skeptical
philosopher—or “dogmatist”, to use Sextus’ language—and perhaps
also than ordinary people, since they too are said to hold that certain
things are by nature good or bad (PH 1.30).
So skepticism is not a threat to be warded off, as it is typically viewed
in contemporary philosophy; on the contrary, it is to be embraced as
freeing one from worry. Nor are its benefits confined to the purely
intellectual realm; skepticism is a way of life, whose benefits are quite
practical. We may or may not find all of this believable, but this is the
picture Sextus offers us.
Now, I have relied on PH 1 for this exposition of Sextus’ skepticism
because it is by far the fullest and most explicit surviving text in which
he explains his outlook. But his one really clear programmatic remark in
the introductory section of M 1–6 seems precisely in line with the ideas
we have just been considering. Sextus says that “the same sort of thing
happened to [the Pyrrhonists] in the case of the disciplines as it did in the
case of philosophy as a whole. For just as they went after it with a longing
to attain the truth, but after encountering conflict of equal strength and
lack of uniformity in the objects they suspended judgement, so too in the
case of the disciplines they set out to pick them up, here too seeking to
learn the truth, but on discovering equal impasses they did not conceal
them” (M 1.6). The focus is on the initial search for the truth and its
outcome in suspension of judgement, rather than the ongoing project of
generating suspension of judgement to which that leads. But Sextus is
very deliberately telling us that his procedure here is the same as his usual
one, and his description of that procedure is entirely recognizable from
the account we have looked at in PH. In fact, some of the language is
virtually identical in both works: “lack of uniformity in the objects”
occurs in both texts (anômaliai tôn pragmatôn, M 1.6; tên en tois
pragmasi anômalian, PH 1.12), and “conflict of equal strength” (isosthe-
nei machêi, M 1.6) echoes “dispute of equal strength” in the other work
(isosthenê diaphônian, PH 1.26). Thus Sextus’ preview at the opening of
M 1–6 seems clear: he is going to create oppositions among theories and
²⁰ I have discussed this matter in Bett 2010 (esp. 189–90) and Bett 2011b (esp. 7–9). It is
notable that in one passage, PH 1.25–30, he seems to switch freely between the two, as if
there was no difference between them.
INTRODUCTION 
contentions in the disciplines, oppositions that, because of their “equal

strength”, will result in suspension of judgement—just as he does in the
more strictly philosophical subjects that are addressed in PH. There is no
mention here of ataraxia, but that is no surprise; in general Sextus
confines his discussions of ataraxia to his basic exposition of Pyrrhonism
in PH 1 and his writings on ethics. The focus here, as it is throughout
Sextus’ works, is on generating suspension of judgement, and ataraxia,
its by-product, does not need to be mentioned.
3. Negative dogmatism?
So everything looks in order. But there is a complication. Once M 1–6
gets underway, it often does not look as if Sextus is doing what he said he
was going to do. To repeat, Sextus’ self-description has the Pyrrhonist
skeptic suspending judgement, not arguing for definite conclusions—
even negative ones. Thus arguments to the effect that nothing in a certain
domain can be known, or that a certain item does not exist, or that a
certain activity is useless, do not count as skepticism according to the
Pyrrhonist; instead, they are just another form of dogmatism—“negative
dogmatism”, as modern scholarship has called it. (We see here another
contrast with skepticism as discussed in modern philosophy, where
“the skeptic” is usually someone who makes negative knowledge or
existence claims.) And yet negative dogmatism is precisely what Sextus
seems to be engaging in at many points in M 1–6.
The very first phrase of the whole work—“the counter-argument
against those in the disciplines”—already brings the matter into focus.
Sextus says that the Epicureans and the Pyrrhonists both made such
“counter-arguments”, though of different kinds (M 1.1). But although he
criticizes the Epicureans for being dogmatic in criticizing the disciplines
for their uselessness (M 1.5), and this is repeated in a later book (M 6.4),
he does not back away from the idea that the Pyrrhonist is in the business
of issuing counter-arguments. Even after having spoken of the skeptical
enterprise of suspension of judgement, in the passage we considered at
the end of Section 2, he immediately reverts to repeated talk of assem-
bling arguments against the disciplines, and the introductory section ends,
as it began, with the word “counter-argument” (antirrêsin, M 1.7–8). And
this really sets the tone for much of the work. For example, in the middle
books on geometry and arithmetic, Sextus argues that lines, points,
 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES
circles, etc.—the basic entities of geometry—do not exist (M 3.92), and

that there is no such thing as number, the starting point of arithmetic
(M 4.34). In the final book, too, music is argued to be non-existent
(M 6.38). Sometimes, despite his criticism of the Epicureans, he
argues that something is useless; this is his final verdict on grammar
(M 1.320). And sometimes the two kinds of argument are merged, as
when he argues that rhetoric is non-existent (M 2.60, 88), but the
arguments prominently include the idea that if there is to be any
such thing as rhetoric, an expertise (technê) of public speaking, it
must be useful—which it is not (M 2.26–43, 49). There is no mention
of suspension of judgement; indeed, Sextus’ usual noun and verb for
suspending judgement (epochê, epechô) make virtually no appearance
after the introductory remarks, and never again in programmatic contexts
(M 1.28, 157, 2.99).²¹ Instead, every single book is summed up by saying
that arguments have been conducted against the things believed in by the
disciplines in question.²²
How are we to account for this discrepancy? An easy answer goes as
follows. Of course Sextus’ discussion is going to consist largely of argu-
ments against the disciplines under consideration. The arguments for
those disciplines are supplied by the disciplines themselves. In supplying
negative arguments, Sextus is simply doing what he always claimed to be
doing: bringing about a situation of “equal strength”. The positive side of
the case is already present, so “equal strength” demands precisely what
Sextus in fact gives us—a heavy dose of the negative side.
I think that this answer is ultimately the correct answer, but that it is
not quite enough by itself. One point is that the consistency, the fre-
quency, and the tone of the references to counter-argument, argument
against, argument for something’s non-existence or uselessness, and
so on, certainly make it sound as if Sextus’ aim in M 1–6 is to win the
debate, not to bring it to a stalemate in suspension of judgement.
Admittedly, there are numerous cases in his other works where one
might be led to think that his goal is to show that the dogmatists are
²¹ See also isologias, “equal arguments”, at M 1.144, referring to arguments of equal

strength. But this too is a passing mention, not addressing Sextus’ general intentions.
²² Sextus says this about geometry and arithmetic together, at the close of Against the
Arithmeticians (M 4.34); this is one reason why these two books have sometimes been
thought to have originally been a single book. In every other case, a summary comment of
this kind, about the discipline just discussed, appears in the final sentences of the book.
INTRODUCTION 
wrong; the long stretches of negative argument in Against the Logicians

and Against the Physicists are good examples. But in those cases Sextus
regularly makes clear that he is not endorsing the conclusions of these
negative arguments, but using them to balance the positive arguments
of the dogmatists (which he often supplies in his own text);²³ at one point
he actually says that in order to produce this balance, the skeptic may
very well need to concentrate on the more counter-intuitive side of an
issue (M 7.443)—and this will very often be the negative side. Here, by
contrast, there is absolutely no reference after the introductory section
to suspension of judgement as the skeptic’s goal, and the sole reference to
that goal is actually preceded by reference to counter-arguments. At the
very least, Sextus may be accused of not being as clear about his inten-
tions as he might have been.
A second point is that there is good reason to think that at some stage
in its history, Pyrrhonism was prepared to endorse negative arguments
of some kind. The clearest case of this is in Sextus’ own Against the
Ethicists, which contains several arguments to the effect that nothing is
by nature good or bad (M 11.68–95). Not only is there absolutely no
indication that we are supposed to suspend judgement about this
conclusion—not even an introductory one such as is offered in M 1–6;
Sextus tells us several times that acceptance of that conclusion—not
suspension of judgement about it—is the route to ataraxia. Speaking
about things that might be considered good or bad, he says that “when
reason has established that none of these things is by nature good or by
nature bad, there will be a release from disturbance and a peaceful life
will await us” (M 11.130); “that there is nothing good or bad by nature” is
something we need to “show” (hupodeixaimen) to the person troubled by
believing the opposite (M 11.140); and the skeptic’s freedom from worry
is something that “will come to him from his thinking nothing good or
bad by nature” (M 11.118).²⁴ A case can be made that the endorsement of
²³ M 7.443, 8.2, 159–60, 298, 476–7, 9.59, 137, 191, 192, 194, 10.168.
²⁴ Concerning these passages, Benjamin Morison says “The way to avoid saddling Sextus
with an inconsistency is to see that Sextus is not suggesting that the Skeptic must believe that
nothing is good or bad by nature, but rather that the Skeptic must have equally convincing
arguments up his sleeve that conclude that nothing is by nature good or bad” (Morison 2014,
section 4.2, his emphasis). I simply fail to see how the text can be read in this way; that the
skeptic (or anyone else who wants to avoid trouble) must believe this is exactly what Sextus
says here. It does not follow that he must be accused of inconsistency; in Bett 1997 I argue
that in Against the Ethicists Sextus is offering a consistent variety of skepticism distinct from
 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES
negative arguments was much more extensive than this; one can find it in
the evidence for Aenesidemus, and also in the life of Pyrrho by Diogenes
Laertius (9.61–108), much of which summarizes a form of Pyrrhonism
from some time subsequent to Aenesidemus.²⁵ But these issues are
complex and controversial, and it would be too much of a distraction
to embark upon them here. What we can say is that if there was any
phase of Pyrrhonism in which the endorsement of negative conclusions
was considered acceptable—and Sextus’ own Against the Ethicists alone
is enough to make this plausible—then the very strong emphasis on
“counter-argument” in M 1–6 becomes less surprising. We know that
Sextus drew extensively on earlier sources in his writing, often without
making much change to them; this is clear from the many close verbal
parallels between passages of Sextus and of Diogenes Laertius, which
must be drawing on earlier (now lost) Pyrrhonist writings.²⁶ If, as is likely
enough, M 1–6 uses material from such writings, then it would not be a
great surprise if this material included negative arguments that the
original author endorsed, and if Sextus did not do much to adapt this
material to suit the form of Pyrrhonism he officially professes.
And in this case, we do not need to accuse Sextus of negative dogma-
tism in M 1–6.²⁷ As the earlier “easy answer” suggested, we can under-
stand the strongly negative thrust of Sextus’ argumentation as designed
to cancel out the positive cases for the disciplines made by their propon-
ents, resulting in just the suspension of judgement he says he is aiming for.
It may be that, had he been composing this work from scratch, rather than
drawing on earlier sources, he would not have framed these arguments in
what we find in PH. (This does, of course, require us to posit a change of mind, but that is
not the same thing.) Since in Against the Ethicists, as in PH, he calls himself a skeptic and he
speaks of suspension of judgement, I refrain from calling this position negative dogmatism.
But this does mean that some key notions, including suspension of judgement itself, have to
be interpreted in a different way from usual.
²⁵ I have argued this case in Bett 2000, chapter 4; see also Woodruff 1988. Other readings
of Aenesidemus, which put him much closer to the Pyrrhonism of PH, are Schofield 2007
and Hankinson 2010. On Diogenes, see also Vogt 2015.
²⁶ On this see Barnes 1992, esp. section X.
²⁷ In Bett 2006 I concluded that the negative argumentation could not be reconciled
with Sextus’ official purpose in M 1–6. I now think that this went too far, and that, without
giving up the idea of an earlier phase of Pyrrhonism where negative argumentation was
accepted, or the idea that M 1–6 shows traces of that earlier phase, we can give a consistent
account of the work on its own terms. For a little more on Sextus’ mindset in this work, see
Bett 2013, section 2.
INTRODUCTION 
such uncompromisingly negative terms; perhaps they derive from an

earlier phase of Pyrrhonism in which negative arguments of certain
kinds were perfectly acceptable, and so are not ready-made to be clearly
compatible with Sextus’ official outlook. In this case the impression of
negativity has a historical explanation, without our needing to conclude
that Sextus himself means to endorse the conclusions of the negative
arguments. Once again, we may wish that he had reminded us a little
more often (as he does in other works) that suspension of judgement is
the actual goal—or, in other words, if my hypothesis is right, done a little
more to bring his source material into line with his own approach.
Nonetheless, we are at liberty to understand suspension of judgement as
the consistent purpose of the work.
4. Other notable features of M 1–6

As has often been noticed, Sextus’ six subjects are close to the seven
“liberal arts” that formed the standard basic curriculum at medieval
universities: the trivium, consisting of grammar, logic, and rhetoric,
followed by the quadrivium, consisting of arithmetic, geometry, astron-
omy, and music. One obvious difference is the omission of logic, but that
is easily explained by the fact that logic was also one of the three standard
parts of philosophy, and is dealt with at length in the more strictly
philosophical parts of Sextus’ oeuvre—in the two books Against the
Logicians and in book 2 of PH. In his introduction Sextus refers to
these fields as the “cyclical” (egkuklia) disciplines (M 1.7). The phrase
“cyclical education” (egkuklios paideia) is not unusual,²⁸ and we learn
from Seneca (Letter 88.23) that it is the Greek equivalent of the Latin
artes liberales, meaning the fields of study appropriate for “free” people
(i.e. people who do not need to make money). Although Sextus speaks of
the term as well understood (and declines for that reason to tell us
anything about it), the meaning of the term “cyclical” in this context is
in fact not entirely obvious; but one explanation would bring it close to
our notion of a “rounded” education.²⁹ In any case, the phrase seems to
²⁸ E.g. Athenaeus 184b, [Plutarch] On Music 1135d.

²⁹ See Blank, 84–5 for references and an alternative explanation, and, for a somewhat
different perspective, pp. 27–32 of Pellegrin et al.’s Introduction. (For other editions,
translations, or commentaries of/on M 1–6 as a whole or individual books, I use abbreviated
 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES
refer to a standard group of subjects in which a generally educated

person should have some training. Sextus also suggests that the identity
and number of these are fixed by his time. This may not be entirely
true;³⁰ but Philo of Alexandria (De congressu eruditionis gratia 11–12),
probably more than a century before Sextus, already identifies them as
grammar, geometry, astronomy, rhetoric, and music, which is close to
Sextus’ list. Of course, an early version of the quadrivium can be found as
far back as Plato’s Republic, in the mathematical disciplines that are the
prelude to dialectic in the higher education of the eventual philosopher
rulers, and its origins may be Pythagorean.
Another apparent difference between Sextus’ list of subjects and
those in the quadrivium is that he deals with astrology rather than
astronomy. Now this by itself may not be as significant as it sounds,
since astronomy and astrology were not definitively separated from one
another until the modern period. But the way in which Sextus himself
distinguishes the two opens up some new issues about his approach to
his subjects in this work.
Several times Sextus mentions an everyday, practical counterpart of
the field whose credentials he is attacking, saying that he has nothing
against it. In the case of grammar, he distinguishes between the ordinary
ability to read and write and the theoretical study of the nature of
language engaged in by the grammarians—something that he sarcastic-
ally calls a “deeper power” (M 1.49); his critique is to be directed towards
the latter, not the former.³¹ Similarly, at the opening of the last book he
makes clear that there is nothing wrong with the ability to play musical
instruments; what he is suspicious of is the science (epistêmê) that
purports to analyze music into its basic elements and explain their nature
(M 6.1). This may seem disingenuous, since only the second half of the
book (39–68) deals with music theory of that kind; the first half has to do,
rather, with whether or not music is conducive to happiness, and most of
the time “music” in this context means ordinary playing or singing, not
music theory. But in Sextus’ defense, the material in the first half is
citations; see the List of Abbreviations for the full bibliographical information, and the Note
on the Text and Translation for further details.)
³⁰ The Athenaeus passage (cf. n. 28), among others, suggests some fluidity.
³¹ Though the point is not as prominent, there are at least hints of the same kind of
contrast in the book on rhetoric; ordinary language can do as well as, or often better than,
the highfalutin language the rhetoricians teach (M 2.57–9, 74–7).
INTRODUCTION 
explicitly said to be “more dogmatic” than he would like, and he seems to

be getting it from the Epicureans (M 6.4—I touched on this in Section 3);
he says that he is including it for the sake of completeness (M 6.6), and
although it is not entirely clear why he feels obliged to include material
with which he is not really comfortable, the fact is that it is the second
half of the book with which he fully identifies.³² In addition, one might
say that even in the first half it is not the playing and singing themselves,
or their practitioners, that are put in question, but the overenthusiastic
claims made by others on their behalf.³³
Now, a third case where Sextus contrasts a practical employment of
some subject with an abstruse, theoretical counterpart—with the latter
rather than the former being the object of his critique—is astronomy
versus astrology at the opening of the fifth book. He says that he is not
going to raise any difficulties for astronomy as practiced by Eudoxus,
Hipparchus, and others: “for, like farming and navigation, it is an obser-
vation applied to apparent things, from which it is possible to prophesy
droughts and downpours, plagues, and earthquakes and other changes in
the environment of a similar kind” (M 5.2). By contrast, astrology is cast
as positively pernicious, and this is what he is going to talk about. What is
puzzling about this—and seems to set it apart from the cases of grammar
and music just mentioned—is that the astronomy of experts like Eudoxus
and Hipparchus seems like an excellent example of a theoretical science.
However, what seems to matter to Sextus here is the fact that astronomy
of this kind is “an observation applied to apparent things” (têrêsis . . . epi
phainomenois), whereas astrology’s theoretical structure is pure fantasy
and its alleged observational element—establishing the state of the sky at
the time of a person’s birth—is absolutely unworkable (which is the
central point of his counter-argument). As a fine recent article on Sextus’
approach in this work has rightly emphasized, the apparent is a very
important category for Sextus.³⁴ As Sextus explains in the first book of PH
(1.21–4), the skeptic makes choices and, quite generally, lives life on the
³² I have discussed this further in Bett 2013, section 2.

³³ And even here, both the positive and the negative sides are outlined, so that the entire
passage can be seen as a standard skeptical exercise in suspension of judgement. On the
other hand, in keeping with his tone in the entire work following the introduction (as noted
in Section 3), the explicit methodological remarks in this book focus entirely on counter-
argument, not on the equal strength of opposing arguments.
³⁴ Corti 2015a, from which I have learned a lot, despite a minor reservation noted in n. 36.
 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES
basis of appearances; and it is the dogmatists’ claim to have penetrated to

the real nature of things behind the appearances that arouses Sextus’
greatest suspicion. That astronomy is at least grounded in the appear-
ances, whereas astrology, whatever its pretensions, floats free of them,
thus seems to him a very important point in astronomy’s favor, even if
this requires him to downplay rather radically the aspects of astronomy
that one might think would put it, too, in the objectionably dogmatic
column for him.
Interestingly, no comparable contrasts are mentioned in the books on
geometry and arithmetic, even though one might have thought it would
be just as pertinent to contrast these fields of study with the every-
day, practical use of triangles, squares, etc. in carpentry or indeed “land
measurement” (the etymological origin of the word “geometry”, as Sextus
himself observes at one point—M 1.46), or of numbers in all kinds of
commerce.³⁵ But maybe Sextus thinks we will get the point regardless.³⁶
Be that as it may, these two books seem in another respect rather different
from one another. The third book deals with a broadly Euclidean con-
ception of geometry, whereas the fourth book deals not with Euclidean
number theory, but with a Pythagorean conception of numbers according
to which they are principles of nature. I am not sure that this can be fully
explained, given our ignorance of Sextus’ working habits and the sources
available to him. But one thing that unites these choices of material is
³⁵ He does make a contrast of this kind at the start of his treatment of number in PH
(3.151).
³⁶ Corti 2015a, 142–3 argues that practical counterparts are not mentioned in these two
books because of the nature of the entities examined. The abstract points and lines of
geometry “cannot do any appearing”, nor can the numbers that the Pythagoreans take to
govern the universe; hence there cannot be any practical, observation-based activity using
such objects. It is true that geometrical lines and points are not observable, nor are
Pythagorean-style numbers. But I do not see why this should rule out the measurement
of fields, using rough-and-ready devices that in normal language would be called lines and
points, as a practical counterpart of geometry, or the counting of change, using the numbers
we are taught as children, as a practical counterpart of arithmetic. Why should the entities
dealt with be exactly the same in both the theoretical and the practical cases? Arguably, in
fact, they are not exactly the same in the case of astrology and the approved form of
astronomy; the zodiac signs play no role in astronomy. Arguably, too, the numbers we are
taught as children do not “do any appearing” either, any more than the beings in which the
Pythagoreans believed. Or, if the reply is that numbers do “appear”, in the sense that they
mentally occur to us, well, in that same sense the entities posited by the geometer “appear”
to the geometer. Hence I am not convinced that Corti’s appeal to the importance for Sextus of
observation and appearance, valuable as it is in this context, has quite as much explanatory
power as he accords it.
INTRODUCTION 
that in one way or another, and for whatever reason, each of the
two books assimilates the mathematical subject with which it deals to
physical inquiry.
This is perhaps more obvious in the case of Against the Arithmeticians;
the Pythagoreans considered numbers to be in some sense the principles
of the cosmos, and so in addressing their view of numbers, Sextus is
taking on a position that belongs in cosmology as much as in mathematics.
It is no accident that his treatment of number in Against the Physicists
(M 10.248–309) includes quite a few close parallels with passages in
Against the Arithmeticians.³⁷ But the same is true of Against the Physicists’
treatment of body (M 9.366–439) and passages in Against the Geometers.
And although, as I said, the geometry discussed is generally Euclidean in
style, with a number of definitions that closely track those in Euclid, a good
case can be made that the real target of the book is not Euclid or his
followers, but “geometry as a means of modeling the physical world”, and
that Sextus’ goal here was “ruining the support geometry was intended to
bring to the physical part of dogmatic philosophy”.³⁸ Many of the argu-
ments in this book depend on attempts to conceive geometrical objects in
physical terms. Naturally, the attempts fail, but a pure geometer would be
unconcerned by this. If, however, Sextus is going after geometry as used in
physics, these arguments might seem a good deal more troublesome.
I have drawn attention to Sextus’ acceptance of everyday practical
activities corresponding to several of the disciplines that are the subject
of his scrutiny; and this, as I suggested earlier, is of a piece with his more
general tendency to portray himself as being on the side of common
sense, and against the theoretical abstractions of the dogmatists. Yet
Sextus himself was a doctor, which raises the question what kinds of
discipline the skeptical stance of M 1–6 can countenance; presumably the
answer cannot be “none”.³⁹ However, the opening portion of the first book
might seem to suggest that “none” is indeed the answer, and certainly puts
³⁷ For the details, see the list of parallels between this and other works of Sextus at the
end of the volume.
³⁸ The case is well made in Dye and Vitrac 2009; I quote from the opening abstract in
English.
³⁹ This matter is explored in detail in Bullock 2015. Bullock is a little more accommo-
dating to the notion of a “skeptical science” than I would wish to be, for reasons that
perhaps have more to do with the philosophy of science than with the interpretation of
Sextus. But his basic idea that such a science would have to avoid definite beliefs about the
nature of things seems absolutely right.
 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES
the issue in sharp focus. Following the brief introduction to the whole
work, but before the first discipline, grammar, is considered, there is a
series of arguments for the non-existence of teaching and learning in
general (M 1.9–40). Yet in PH (1.23–4) Sextus himself lists “the teaching
of expertises” (didaskalia technôn)—including, we must assume, the teach-
ing of his own expertise, medicine—as one of the four main categories of
appearances on which the skeptic can rely for choice and action. One
might add that teaching and learning, including of forms of expertise, are
surely an important part of ordinary life as well.
Sextus does not address the question explicitly in M 1–6. But an
answer may be constructed on his behalf, as follows. The kind of teaching
that he will not countenance, and that he would assume to be rampant in
the disciplines he attacks, is the imparting of bodies of theoretical
knowledge. The kind of teaching that he will allow is the inculcation of
abilities, or systematic sets of activities, through supervised practice.
Recall that skepticism itself is called an “ability” in PH 1—that is,
know-how rather than theory or doctrine; and this no doubt affects
how it can or should be taught. Medicine, Sextus’ own expertise, might
seem at least a partial counter-example to this conception of teaching;
surely, one might say, while learning to be a doctor involves acquiring a
great deal of know-how, it also involves coming to understand the inner
workings of the body. But the Empiric school of medicine, to which
Sextus seems to have belonged, rejected precisely this; their form of
medicine was simply a set of routines that have been found effective by
experience—techniques for setting bones, treating wounds, and so on—
with no further account of why those routines worked. And when he
criticizes Empiricism in the puzzling chapter referred to above (PH
1.236–41), it is for negative dogmatism, that is, for asserting that the
inner workings of the body are unknowable; Methodism comes off
better, according to him, because it does confine itself to treatments
guided by appearances and avoids any claims about the underlying
processes, or about whether or not they are knowable. Again, we may
find this conception of medicine hard to accept—or, even if we accept
that Sextus can consistently give this account, we may feel that nothing
like it could be accepted by anyone today. But this is the most natural
way to show how he can both attack the disciplines (and teaching and
learning in general), and also accept the practices of ordinary life and
acquire and pass on his own forms of expertise.
INTRODUCTION 
I close with a brief look at three additional features of M 1–6 that

deserve comment. First, the curious sense of anachronism that I noted in
Sextus’ work as a whole seems to be present in M 1–6 as well. The
practicing orators named in Against the Rhetoricians are all from the fifth
and fourth centuries BCE,⁴⁰ and the latest named figures in the book are
the second-century BCE rhetorical theorists Hermagoras and Athenaeus
(M 2.62) and the late second-century BCE Academics Clitomachus and
Charmadas (M 2.20).⁴¹ None of the many grammarians referred to in
Against the Grammarians can be clearly dated later than the early first
century BCE. Against the Astrologers has no inkling of the sophisticated
defense of astrology mounted by Ptolemy, who was earlier than Sextus, if
the argument on his dating in Section 1 was correct, and contemporary
with him on several other reconstructions; its target, as has been well
said, is “something much more primitive”.⁴² And while Against the
Musicians shows numerous parallels with Philodemus’ On Music,
which is perhaps to be explained by Sextus’ drawing on Philodemus,⁴³
that would still only bring his knowledge of previous thinkers up to the
middle of the first century BCE.
Second, the focus of Sextus’ discussion leans heavily towards the
principles of the subjects dealt with. This is explicitly justified on the
ground that if you do away with the principles of a subject, everything
else in the subject comes down with them (M 1.40); this method is thus
more effective, because more all-encompassing, than a piecemeal atten-
tion to its finer details. But there are several other references to an attack
on principles (e.g. M 3.18, 92, 6.38, 68), and this is borne out by
Sextus’ approach in much of the work. We might think of the principles
of a subject as its fundamental axioms, a set of propositions on which
everything else in the field is grounded; and Sextus’ attack on the method
of hypothesis at the start of Against the Geometers seems to conform to
this expectation.⁴⁴ But what Sextus more often seems to have in mind by
“principles” (archai) are rather the basic entities with which the field is
⁴⁰ Demades (M 2.16), Demosthenes and Aeschines (M 2.40), Corax (M 2.96–9).

⁴¹ I have discussed this, with reference to Sextus’ apparent ignorance of the Second
Sophistic, in Bett 2017.
⁴² Long 1982, p. 186. This article is a valuable survey of arguments for and against
astrology in later antiquity, which nicely puts Sextus’ treatment into context.
⁴³ On this see D. Delattre 2006 and Bett 2013, section 3.
⁴⁴ See especially M 3.1, 4–5, 17 with notes.
 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES
concerned. Thus most of Against the Geometers argues for the non-
existence of lines, points, bodies, etc.; Against the Arithmeticians argues
for the non-existence of numbers; the second half of Against the Musicians
(the part that, as I said, Sextus seems to claim as his own, M 6.38–68)
argues for the non-existence of sound and time, hence of notes and
rhythms; and a substantial portion of Against the Grammarians raises
difficulties concerning the basic building blocks of grammar: letters, syl-
lables, words, and the discourse composed of them (M 1.97–158). This
focus on principles in Sextus is not limited to the present work. The
same justification for it (with the same appeal to similes involving siege
warfare) appears in both of Sextus’ other works (PH 2.84, M 9.1–3). In PH
this is connected with the “outline” character of the work; Sextus wants to
dispatch the dogmatists as expeditiously as possible. But the appearance of
the same point in Skeptical Treatises, which is much more discursive, as
well as in the present work, shows that his liking for it extends beyond this
question of efficiency. One result of this in the present work is that there
is less concentration than one might have expected on the specifics of
the disciplines under discussion. In Against the Musicians, for example,
the arguments against sound and time have nothing to do with music
per se, but appeal to much more general philosophical considerations—
indeed, they are close to material from Against the Logicians and Against
the Physicists.⁴⁵ Sextus briefly summarizes some elements of musical
theory (M 6.39–51), but these are simply forgotten once the counter-
arguments begin. And one learns virtually nothing about the actual
practice of geometry and arithmetic from the books on these subjects;
arguments against the very existence of lines, points, bodies, and numbers
are not likely to cross paths with anything a practicing mathematician
might say, since (as Plato already made clear in the Republic, 510c) a
mathematician takes these things for granted.
Finally, there is the surprising level of indebtedness in this work to
Epicurean material. I have already mentioned that Sextus accuses the
Epicureans of dogmatism when they claim the disciplines are useless,
and yet at times employs arguments from uselessness himself, sometimes
openly appealing to an Epicurean source.⁴⁶ There are also places where
⁴⁵ I have discussed this in more detail in Bett 2013.

⁴⁶ E.g. M 1.277–99. This passage ends by indicating that the preceding material is “said
about this topic by others, and especially by the Epicureans” (M 1.299), and Sextus then
INTRODUCTION 
an Epicurean source is detectable, but where usefulness or its absence is

not at issue. The most obvious cases are near the end of Against the
Geometers; in one place the Epicureans are explicitly cited, and in others
there is direct or indirect reason to infer that Sextus is using Epicurean
source material.⁴⁷ I have drawn attention to Epicurean parallels and pos-
sible Epicurean sources in a number of notes to the translation in several
of the six books.⁴⁸
It emerges, then, that Sextus’ relation to Epicureanism (as revealed
particularly, but perhaps not exclusively, in this work) is somewhat
peculiar. He can hardly avoid labeling it as a form of dogmatism; after
all, it puts forward very definite physical and ethical theories. And yet he
seems to have a kind of sympathy for it that is rather different from his
scathing and dismissive attitudes towards Stoicism or Aristotelianism.⁴⁹
One reason is perhaps that there is what we might call a minimalism to
the Epicurean philosophy, which means that it engages in far fewer
flights of philosophical fancy (as Sextus would no doubt regard them)
than these other philosophies. For the Epicureans, the world does not
hang together in any fundamentally ordered way; it is just a collection of
atoms that happens to have come together as it did—and we ourselves
are just collections of atoms of which the same is true. Of course, that is a
dogmatic claim, but a claim that leads to far fewer additional elaborate
and ambitious doctrines being erected than in the Stoic or Aristotelian
worldviews.⁵⁰ In addition, the dogmatism of Epicureanism, at least in
proceeds to a different line of argument. But the beginning of the passage has no such
qualification; Sextus simply says that having laid out various claims for the usefulness of
grammar, “let us . . . speak against each of them” (M 1.277)—though the Epicurean prov-
enance of what follows is clear. And even at the end, while attributing the arguments to
others, he is no less happy to borrow them for his own purposes; there is none of the stand-
offish attitude that we have seen elsewhere.
⁴⁷ See M 3.98, 100–1, 108 with accompanying notes.
⁴⁸ More extensive documentation (or postulation) of Epicurean sources can be found in
Blank’s commentary for M 1, and the notes of Davidson Greaves and of Pellegrin et al. for
M 6. Davidson Greaves is less useful than it might be because of a peculiar numbering
system, quite different from the usual one for Sextus’ texts. The translator and annotator for
M 6 in Pellegrin et al. is Daniel Delattre, an expert on the fragmentary On Music by the
Epicurean Philodemus; see especially Delattre 2007.
⁴⁹ This is well discussed in Marchand 2013.
⁵⁰ For Epicureanism versus Stoicism, one rough indication of this is a simple page count
of the space given to each in LS. In both volumes, the Stoic portion is about twice as long as
the Epicurean portion.
 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES
physics, is tempered in a certain respect. The Epicureans do not claim to

have pinned down the precise nature of things; in many cases they are
prepared to admit (or even insist that we must allow) multiple possible
explanations of phenomena, not caring which of them is correct.⁵¹ The only
thing that matters is that they all be equally conducive to ataraxia (which
in their view means that they must be consistent with the basic atomic
theory). This is about as close to suspension of judgement as one can get,
within a dogmatic framework. In addition, of course, the goal of ataraxia is
one that the Epicureans share with the Pyrrhonists, even if their route to it
is very different.
As regards the specific theme of the present work, it is perhaps also
relevant that the Epicureans’ lifestyle is also minimalist—a non-accidental
result of ataraxia being their goal (rather than, say, the much more
energetic Aristotelian “activity of soul in keeping with virtue”, Nicoma-
chean Ethics 1098a16–17). If you have decided that you are just a collection
of atoms, and that the most important thing to do is to hold on to that fact
and to the release from trouble that it affords, then a simple life in a
community of like-minded friends, such as Epicurus’ own Garden, makes
very good sense. What does not make such good sense is to cultivate a
range of disciplines that suit one to become a respected member of the
turmoil-filled and anxiety-inducing society outside, as the “liberal arts”
were supposed to do. Besides, some of these disciplines—I am thinking
particularly of geometry—may have been antithetical to Epicurean phys-
ical principles; if reality consists of atoms and void, the geometrical figures
are simply fictions.⁵² Hence it is quite consistent with the Epicurean
philosophy and way of life that they should have had a critical attitude
towards the disciplines. And so, even apart from the (admittedly limited)
philosophical affinity that Sextus may have felt with them, it would be no
surprise if they generated a range of arguments against these disciplines
that Sextus would have found especially useful in his own Against Those
in the Disciplines.
⁵¹ This is a recurring theme in Epicurus’ Letter to Pythocles (DL 10.83–116).

⁵² This is powerfully argued in Netz 2015; one small piece of the evidence is the
Epicurean material at the end of M 3, referred to just above.
Note on the Text

and Translation
The translation follows the text of J. Mau, Sexti Empirici Opera, vol. III
(Leipzig: Teubner, 1961), except where indicated in the notes. When
I follow a different text from Mau, the alternative is generally one
proposed by some other scholar, and this too is detailed in the notes.
Often these textual proposals are given in Mau’s apparatus criticus, but
there are several types of exceptions: I sometimes follow (or consider, but
do not follow) (1) the proposals of other translators, on whom more
below; (2) the proposals of Werner Heintz (cited as “Heintz”—see List of
Abbreviations for bibliographical details); and (3) the proposals of Jerker
Blomqvist and Michelangelo Giusta in articles on the text of Sextus
(Blomqvist 1968 and 1971, Giusta 1962). Diagonal brackets < > inserted
in the translation indicate a lacuna; that is, a gap in the Greek text, where
the sense is incomplete and some words must be missing. If there are no
words within the brackets, this is because, in my judgement, it is too
unclear what is missing; if there are words within them, I have accepted
some scholarly conjecture and translated accordingly. Whether or not a
lacuna is present—and if it is, how to fill it—are of course debatable
questions; sometimes I decline to follow Mau or other scholars who posit
lacunae. All these matters are explained in the notes. I do not mark the
lacunae posited by Mau if his supplements to the Greek seem clearly
acceptable, unless they raise some point worth noting.
Centered headings in bold type in the translation are chapter titles in the
manuscripts, which are generally thought to derive from Sextus himself.¹
¹ These appear only in books 1 and 6. Both in this and in Sextus’ other works, the use
of these titles is somewhat haphazard and inconsistent. For this reason my Outline of
 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES
Other headings follow the schema in my Outline of Argument, immedi-

ately preceding the translation. The numbers in square brackets [] inserted
in the translation are the long-established section numbers that are stand-
ard in editions of Sextus. In the notes, cross-references to other passages in
this work use section numbers alone if the reference is to another passage
in the same book, book and section numbers if the reference is to another
book: e.g. [47] or 2.47. References to other works of Sextus follow the
standard abbreviations as explained in the Introduction: PH or M (7–11),
followed by book and section number. References to the works of other
ancient authors follow the usual scholarly conventions (but avoid abbre-
viated names and titles), in some cases citing standard editions of a text; in
the case of ancient grammarians, technical authors in other fields, and
scholia I have generally followed the numbering system in TLG, which is
sometimes not the only one in use.
Like many translators today, I translate Greek terms that are import-
ant to Sextus’ message as much as possible by the same English terms
throughout. In some cases I have explained these choices in the notes; the
notes also sometimes explain instances where I have felt the need to
deviate from a standard translation of some term. In addition, a list of
important Greek terms and my English renderings of them appear in the
Glossary. In my earlier translations of Against the Logicians and Against
the Physicists, similar glossaries indicated where my translations diverged
from those of the most widely used English translation of PH, that of
Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes.² However, since M 1–6 has much less
overlap in subject matter with PH than do those other books, I have not
continued that practice here.
As in my other translations of the works of Sextus, I have followed a
policy of transliterating Greek whenever possible. In the case of the first
book of this work, Against the Grammarians, which deals with a great
many details concerning the Greek language itself, it has not always been
possible. A translation should obviously be intelligible to someone who
does not know the original language. However, in some parts of Against
the Grammarians, any reader who wishes to understand the specifics
of what Sextus is saying will have to be prepared to learn the Greek
Argument proceeds independently of them, despite the duplication that this causes in
some places.
² Annas and Barnes 1994/2000.
NOTE ON THE TEXT AND TRANSLATION 
alphabet, as well as some other points about the language. I have done
my best to explain the latter in the notes wherever needed, but it must be
admitted that these passages will sometimes be heavy going for non-
classicists. On the other hand, even when linguistic matters are at issue,
I have transliterated if Sextus’ point does not depend on something
specifically to do with the Greek alphabet. The other five books do not
present a similar linguistic problem. But here too, there are often points
about the ancient disciplines Sextus is discussing that contemporary
readers not versed in ancient Greek culture (and even many who are)
could not possibly be expected to know. Again I have used the notes to
make matters as easily intelligible as possible. I must confess that the
number and size of the notes are considerably greater than I anticipated
when I started this project; but if ready comprehension is the goal, I think
their extent is justified.
Another reason for the relatively voluminous notes is that although in
recent decades Sextus Empiricus has attracted considerable scholarly and
philosophical interest, M 1–6 remains far less studied than his other two
works. I think it is worth trying to change this state of affairs, and in the
notes I have both attempted to contribute to the scholarship on it myself
and drawn attention to existing scholarship;³ if this helps to shine a
greater light on Against Those in the Disciplines, I shall be well pleased.
Among the scholars who have not neglected the work are, of course,
its previous translators and commentators. I have learned a lot from
them, and this debt is recorded many times in the notes. The only other
currently available (or, as far as I know, ever completed⁴) full translation
of the work into English is the 1949 translation of R.G. Bury. Like his
other Sextus translations (he did the entire corpus in the Loeb series),
this is both a little archaic to the contemporary ear and sometimes
insensitive to philosophical nuance. Nonetheless, I have often benefited
from it in seeing how to parse a sentence or capture an idiom. In cases
where Sextus’ meaning was either unclear or difficult to reproduce,
³ For those who can read French, J. Delattre 2006 is a useful volume; I have elsewhere
cited a couple of essays from it, but not the volume as a whole. Another volume I have not
found a place to mention in the notes is Magrin 2003 (in Italian), which examines Sextus’
reliance on the appearances, but with a particular focus on Against the Grammarians and
Against the Rhetoricians.
⁴ Floridi 2002, which includes a seemingly exhaustive list of translations of Sextus,
mentions no other English translation of M 1–6.
 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES
I have also profited from the complete French translation, under the
general editorship of Pierre Pellegrin but with several translators (cited as
“Pellegrin et al.”); from the complete German translation of Fritz Jürß;
occasionally from the complete 1718 Latin translation of Johann Albert
Fabricius, itself a revised version of the 1569 translation by Gentianus
Hervetus; and from the Italian translation of Against the Astrologers by
Emidio Spinelli, and the English translation of Against the Musicians by
Denise Davidson Greaves.⁵ All these scholars add notes, comments, etc.
in varying amounts to their translations, and I have also made grateful
use of these, both as guides to translation and in my own notes. These
previous translations and commentaries are listed with full bibliograph-
ical details in the List of Abbreviations, and are cited in the notes by
simple last name.
I have left to the end one other translation and commentary (listed
and cited in the same fashion) that deserves special mention: David
Blank’s 1998 translation, with introduction and commentary, of Against
the Grammarians, in the Clarendon Later Ancient Philosophers series.
I was for some time convinced that the presence of this fine translation,
not to mention the very full and authoritative commentary, meant
that there was simply no place for a new English translation of this
book (at least for another generation or two). At one point I was actually
considering doing a translation of just books 2–6, so as not to enter
the territory covered by Blank. But that would have been a ridiculous
undertaking, given that the six books undoubtedly belong together
and that the beginning of book 1 clearly serves as an introduction to
the whole work. And so I was eventually persuaded that a translation of
the whole work (most of which does not have an up-to-date English
translation) was worth embarking on⁶—for an audience that, it might be
hoped, would be less specialized than Blank’s. Nonetheless, I have felt the
shadow of Blank throughout my work on the first book (in a good way,
let me add). The point about learning from other translations applies
⁵ Also to be mentioned here is the English translation of Against the Arithmeticians by

Lorenzo Corti. As of the time of writing, this is still a work in progress. I am grateful to
Lorenzo Corti for allowing me to see parts of his translation and commentary prior to
publication, and for fruitful discussions of Against the Arithmeticians.
⁶ Thanks are due to Charles Brittain for pushing me in this direction (though he may not
remember doing so).
NOTE ON THE TEXT AND TRANSLATION 
especially to his. This may not always be readily apparent, since our
translating styles are not the same; but his pointers to Sextus’ meaning
have served me well in more cases than I could count. At the same time,
my debt to his commentary will be obvious on virtually every page of my
notes on the first book.
Outline of Argument
Against Those in the Disciplines

Book 1
A. Introduction to the entire work (1–8)
B. General arguments against the disciplines (9–40)
1. Introduction (9)
2. Arguments against anything being taught (10–30)
3. Arguments against there being teachers or learners (31–5)
4. Arguments against the means of learning (36–8)
5. Transition to treatment of specific disciplines (39–40)
C. Against the Grammarians (41–320)
1. Introduction; distinction between basic literacy and technical
grammar, and approval of the former (41–56)
2. Scrutiny of prevailing conceptions of grammar (57–90)
a. Dionysius of Thrace’s definition (57–60)
b. Initial objections to the definition (60–5)
c. A more serious objection: hazards in the phrase “for the
most part” (65–72)
d. Asclepiades’ definition, and how it fares no better (72–5)
e. Chaeris’ definition, and its merits and defects (76–83)
f. Definition of Demetrios and others, and how it fails like the
others (84–9)
g. Transition from the conception of grammar to its content (90)
3. Distinction among three main parts of grammar: expert, his-
torical, and special (91–6)
4. The expert part of grammar (97–247)
a. Introduction (97–9)
b. The elements of grammar, and problems with them (99–120)
c. Syllables, and problems with them (121–30)
OUTLINE OF ARGUMENT 
d. General problems with the parts of discourse (131–41)

e. Names: problems concerning their gender and number
(142–54)
f. Discourse: problems with its being either corporeal or incor-
poreal (154–8)
g. Problems in how to partition discourse (159–68)
h. Correct writing: overview and two doubts (169–75)
i. Good Greek: ordinary usage versus analogy (176–9)
j. Good Greek: usage to be preferred to the expertise involving
analogy (180–96)
k. Good Greek: further unwelcome consequences of the gram-
marians’ claims (196–208)
l. Good Greek: difficulties in the definitions of barbarism and
solecism (209–16)
m. Good Greek: further difficulties with analogy or “transition in
virtue of similarity” (216–20)
n. Good Greek: difficulties in the purported universality of the
grammarians’ claims (221–7)
o. Good Greek: an attempted response from the grammarians,
and its failure (227–40)
p. Good Greek: etymology as a criterion, and its failure (241–7)
5. The historical part of grammar (248–69)
a. The status of the historical part within grammar, and its
sub-parts (248–53)
b. The randomness of the historical part’s material, and the
unsuitability of expertise to address it (253–62)
c. The falsehood of most of the historical part’s material, and
the uncertain status of the rest—which again disqualify it
as a subject for expertise (263–8)
d. Conclusion (268–9)
6. The special part of grammar (270–320)
a. The case for the value of poetry, and of grammar as its
interpreter (270–6)
b. Arguments on the other side (277–95)
c. The superiority of prose writers over poets in this respect
(296–8)
d. The objects treated in poetry better addressed by other exper-
tises than by grammar (299–312)
 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES
e. The lack of an expertise for reliably comprehending words

(313–17)
f. Final thoughts on the worthlessness of this part of grammar
(318–20)
7. Transition to Against the Rhetoricians (320)
Book 2: Against the Rhetoricians

1. Three definitions of rhetoric (1–9)
2. Problems with rhetoric’s status as an expertise (10–47)
a. Expertises do not deal in falsehoods, as rhetoric does (10–12)
b. Expertises reliably achieve their ends, as rhetoric does not
(13–15)
c. Those without training in rhetoric can be at least as effective in
oratory as those with it, which counts against rhetoric being an
expertise (16–19)
d. Cities have evicted rhetoricians, which they would not do if
rhetoric were an expertise (20–5)
e. Expertises are useful to their possessors or to cities, as rhetoric is
not (26–42)
f. An attempted response based on a distinction between two
kinds of rhetoric, and its failure (43–7)
3. Problems stemming from rhetoric’s subject matter (48–59)
a. A cluster of varied objections (48–51)
b. Rhetoric fails in its aim of constructing fine speech (52–9)
4. Problems stemming from rhetoric’s end (60–88)
a. Persuasion as the agreed end of rhetoric (60–2)
b. The elusiveness of a determinate and manageable scope for an
expertise of “the persuasive” (63–71)
c. Rhetoric’s lack of a monopoly on persuasion, and lack of success
compared with ordinary speech (72–8)
d. Alternative possible ends for rhetoric, and arguments against
them (78–87)
e. Interim conclusion (88)
5. Problems concerning the parts of rhetoric (89–105)
a. The three parts of rhetoric, and the incompatibility of their ends
(89–92)
b. Arguments against the just as the aim of the judicial part (93–9)
OUTLINE OF ARGUMENT 
c. Suggestion that the other two parts are vulnerable to analogous

arguments (100)
d. The lack of any systematic procedure in the laudatory part (101–5)
6. Arguments for the non-existence of demonstration (106–12)
7. Transition to Against the Geometers (113)
Book 3: Against the Geometers

1. Hypothesis in geometry (1–17)
a. Three senses of “hypothesis”, and proposal to concentrate on
the geometrical sense (1–6)
b. Difficulties with hypothesis so understood (7–17)
2. Transition to focus on the principles of geometry; the objects to be
discussed, and in what order (17–21)
3. The point, and its inconceivability (22–8)
4. The line (29–59)
a. The impossibility of generating a line out of points (29–36)
b. The inconceivability of the line as a “breadthless length” (37–50)
c. The geometers’ appeal to “intensification”, and its failure (51–6)
d. Aristotle’s rescue attempt, and its failure (57–9)
5. Problems in conceiving of a surface, based in large part on the
previous conception of the line (60–4)
6. Further difficulties stemming from the geometers’ own theories
(65–91)
a. Incompatibility of their claim that “the straight line describes
circles with all its parts when rotated” and their conception of
the line as a “breadthless length” (65–73)
b. Similar arguments using other geometrical figures (74–6)
c. Problems in making sense of surfaces and bodies if the line is a
“breadthless length” (77–82)
d. Problems in conceiving of body as “what has the three dimen-
sions” (83–91)
7. Transition from principles to the things that supposedly follow
from them (92–3)
8. Interim project of addressing “lower-level principles” (94–107)
a. Problems with the straight line (94–9)
b. Problems with the angle (100–6)
c. The hopelessness of the circle, given the foregoing arguments
(106–7)
 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES
9. The promised focus on “the theories that come after their prin-
ciples” (108–16)
a. Recalling of previously announced plan (108)
b. Problems in bisecting a straight line (109–11)
c. Problems in cutting a circle into equal parts (112–15)
d. Final problems concerning subtraction (116)
Book 4: Against the Arithmeticians

1. Transition from Against the Geometers (1)
2. Pythagorean account of numbers and their importance (2–9)
3. Transition to counter-argument, to be centered around the unit (10)
4. Platonic conception of the one and the things that participate in it
(11–13)
5. Arguments against this picture (14–20)
6. Further arguments, inspired by Plato, against the dyad (20–2)
7. Arguments against subtraction and addition, both essential to
arithmetic (23–33)
8. Conclusion to this book and to Against the Geometers, and transi-
tion to Against the Astrologers (34)
Book 5: Against the Astrologers

1. Introduction (1–3)
2. Outline of astrological method (4–42)
a. Initial classification of zodiac signs (4–11)
b. Further details on their interrelations and influence (12–22)
c. Method of dividing the zodiac circle (22–6)
d. Method of establishing the ascendant at a person’s birth (26–8)
e. Influence of the “stars” (i.e. planets, sun, and moon) in various
positions (29–40)
f. Two different types of astrological predictions (41–2)
3. Some counter-arguments by others (43–8)
4. The Pyrrhonists’ own counter-arguments (49–105)
a. Introduction: three possible sources of error in setting the
ascendant (49–55)
b. Difficulties in establishing the time of birth (55–67)
c. Difficulties in synchronizing time of birth and observation of
the sky (67–72)
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Sextus Empiricus Against Those in The Disciplines Translated With Introduction and Notes Sextus Empiricus All Chapter

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Sextus Empiricus Against Those in The Disciplines Translated With Introduction and Notes Sextus Empiricus All Chapter

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Sextus Empiricus: Against Those in the

Disciplines: Translated with

Translated with introduction and notes by

List of Abbreviations vii

Sextus Empiricus: Against Those in the Disciplines

Persons Referred to in Against Those in the Disciplines 237

Bekker Sextus Empiricus, ex recensione Immanuelis

viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

sive disciplinarum professores, libri VI, Contra

OCD S. Hornblower, A. Spawforth, and E. Edinow

1. Life and works

 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES

obscurity was not permanent. Since the revival of interest in antiquity in

 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES

However, one does not need to be an expert in these ﬁelds in order

2. Sextus’ Pyrrhonist skepticism

 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES

others. Timon’s writings have survived only in fragments, and the

¹⁵ For a brief account of the issues, see Bett 2014a.

and arguments exhibit oppositions among one another; there may be

 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES

is someone who is very good at accumulating opposing perspectives in

The effect of this activity, as Sextus concludes by saying, is tranquility

¹⁹ Of course, a further account would be needed of how this initial attainment of

 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES

to one another.²⁰ In any case, suspension of judgement is supposed to

contentions in the disciplines, oppositions that, because of their “equal

 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES

circles, etc.—the basic entities of geometry—do not exist (M 3.92), and

²¹ See also isologias, “equal arguments”, at M 1.144, referring to arguments of equal

wrong; the long stretches of negative argument in Against the Logicians

 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES

such uncompromisingly negative terms; perhaps they derive from an

4. Other notable features of M 1–6

²⁸ E.g. Athenaeus 184b, [Plutarch] On Music 1135d.

 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES

refer to a standard group of subjects in which a generally educated

explicitly said to be “more dogmatic” than he would like, and he seems to

³² I have discussed this further in Bett 2013, section 2.

 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES

basis of appearances; and it is the dogmatists’ claim to have penetrated to

 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES

I close with a brief look at three additional features of M 1–6 that

⁴⁰ Demades (M 2.16), Demosthenes and Aeschines (M 2.40), Corax (M 2.96–9).

 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES

⁴⁵ I have discussed this in more detail in Bett 2013.

an Epicurean source is detectable, but where usefulness or its absence is

 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES

physics, is tempered in a certain respect. The Epicureans do not claim to

⁵¹ This is a recurring theme in Epicurus’ Letter to Pythocles (DL 10.83–116).

Note on the Text

 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES

Other headings follow the schema in my Outline of Argument, immedi-

NOTE ON THE TEXT AND TRANSLATION 

 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES

⁵ Also to be mentioned here is the English translation of Against the Arithmeticians by

NOTE ON THE TEXT AND TRANSLATION 

Against Those in the Disciplines

d. General problems with the parts of discourse (131–41)

 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES

e. The lack of an expertise for reliably comprehending words

Book 2: Against the Rhetoricians

c. Suggestion that the other two parts are vulnerable to analogous