Pyrrhonism
/ˈpɪrənɪz(ə)m/noun
The radical sceptical tradition that suspends judgement on all claims about how things really are, aiming at tranquillity through that suspension.
The Greek roots
Literally: “the way of Pyrrho”
The story of the word
Pyrrho of Elis travelled east with Alexander's army and wrote nothing; everything we have comes through Sextus Empiricus centuries later. The goal was not doubt for its own sake but ataraxia, an untroubled mind reached by refusing to commit. When Latin translations of Sextus circulated in the sixteenth century they detonated under European philosophy, and Descartes built his method as an answer to them. Do not confuse it with Pyrrhic victory, which honours a different man, King Pyrrhus of Epirus.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
Same family
In a sentence
Montaigne's essays are soaked in Pyrrhonism.
He mistook Pyrrhonism for cynicism, which is a different school entirely.