Birth
Born
Born somewhere in the Greek-speaking world; the details of his life are almost wholly lost.
Words
“To every argument an equal argument is opposed; and so we suspend judgment, and tranquility follows.”
1/4
A physician of the Empiric school, Sextus wrote the only complete account of ancient skepticism to survive. For every claim, he showed, an equal and opposite claim can be raised, so the wise response is epoche, suspension of judgment. The surprise is that this brings not anxiety but peace: stop straining to possess the truth and you stop being tormented by it. He aimed his arguments at the dogmatists of every school, and when his books were rediscovered in the sixteenth century they detonated under Descartes and the whole modern project of certainty.
