Greek philosopher
Pyrrhon also spelled Pyrrho
born c. 360 bc
died c. 272
Main
Greek philosopher from whom Pyrrhonism takes its name; he is
generally accepted as the father of Skepticism.
Pyrrhon was a pupil of Anaxarchus of Abdera and in about
330 established himself as a teacher at Elis. Believing that
equal arguments can be offered on both sides of any
proposition, he dismissed the search for truth as a vain
endeavour. While traveling with an expedition under
Alexander the Great, Pyrrhon saw in the fakirs of India an
example of happiness flowing from indifference to
circumstances. He concluded that man must suspend judgment
(practice epochē) on the reliability of sense perceptions
and simply live according to reality as it appears.
Pyrrhonism permeated the Middle and New Academy of Athens
and strongly influenced philosophical thought in
17th-century Europe with the republication of the Skeptical
works of Sextus Empiricus, who had codified Greek Skepticism
in the 3rd century ad. Pyrrhon’s teaching was preserved in
the poems of Timon of Phlius, who studied with him.
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