How to Be a Pyrrhonist: The Practice and Significance of Pyrrhonian Skepticism - Hardcover

Bett, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1108471072 ISBN 13: 9781108471077

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2019

Synopsis

What was it like to be a practitioner of Pyrrhonist skepticism? This important volume brings together for the first time a selection of Richard Bett's essays on ancient Pyrrhonism, allowing readers a better understanding of the key aspects of this school of thought. The volume examines Pyrrhonism's manner of self-presentation, including its methods of writing, its desire to show how special it is, and its use of humor; it considers Pyrrhonism's argumentative procedures regarding specific topics, such as signs, space, or the Modes; and it explores what it meant in practice to live as a Pyrrhonist, including the kind of ethical outlook which Pyrrhonism might allow and, in general, the character of a skeptical life - and how far these might strike us as feasible or desirable. It also shows how Pyrrhonism often raises questions that matter to us today, both in our everyday lives and in our philosophical reflection.

About this title

Book Description

Explores what it was like to be a practitioner of Pyrrhonist skepticism, and to what extent anything like it might be feasible today. The book examines the Pyrrhonists' manner of self-presentation, their argumentative procedures as applied to specific topics, and what it meant in practice to live as a Pyrrhonist.

About the Author

Richard Bett is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at The Johns Hopkins University. His translations of works by Sextus Empiricus include Sextus Empiricus: Against the Logicians (Cambridge, 2005) and Sextus Empiricus: Against the Physicists (Cambridge, 2012), and he is also the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Scepticism (Cambridge, 2010).

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1108471072
• ISBN 13: 9781108471077
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 278