Aenesidemus, the (re-)founder of Pyrrhonian skepticism, is usually said to have begun his career by breaking away from the Academy. This assertion rests on the word “συναιρεσιώτῃ” as it appears in Photius’ summary of Aenesidemus’ Pyrrhonian Discourses. I argue that Photius’ probable understanding of the Academy’s history undermines this traditional reading. I then examine the evidence external to Photius and conclude that it also speaks against the traditional narrative.

G.E. Schulze's Aenesidemus, despite its importance for the development of post-Kantian idealism, has not been fully translated into English. Now and then, when I have time, I will upload draft translations of parts of the text here, with the goal of, at some point, providing a complete translation. These drafts will be rough and I welcome feedback! This document contains only the Title page, Schulze's indication of the contents of the work, and the preface.

This is a translation of the short, third letter in G.E. Schulze's Aenesidemus, without its lengthy appendix. Excerpts of the appendix which follows this letter have been translated into English by George di Giovanni in Between Kant and Hegel, eds. G. di Giovanni and H.S. Harris, (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company Inc., 2000).

This book provides the first edition of all the testimonia on the Sceptic philosopher Aenesidemus of Cnossus, who is deemed to be the source of Sextus Empiricus, the main surviving authority on ancient Scepticism. It provides an extensive philosophical and historical commentary, and throws light on a series of questions concerning the philosophy of the late Academy, Stoic Heracliteanism, and the interaction between medicine and philosophy in the late Hellenistic era. It will be an essential reference work for all (...) those scholars and students dealing with the history of ancient Scepticism. (shrink)

The importance of Gottlob Ernst Schulze's Aenesidemus 1 for the history of German Idealism has been widely recognized. Much as Hume had awoken Kant, Aenesidemus jolted the young Fichte out of his slumbering adherence to Reinhold's formulation of Kant's philosophy, leading him to re-evaluate the claims, methods, and foundations of the Critical philosophy. In his "Review of the Aenesidemus" 2 Fichte set out the results of this re-evaluation, which included his doctrine of intellectual intuition with remarkable and (...) uncharacteristic clarity. 3 According to a widely accepted story about the genesis of Fichte's Jena Wissenschaftslehre, the early Fichte was largely sympathetic to .. (shrink)

This is a draft translation of the fourth letter of G.E. Schulze's Aenesidemus. Comments and corrections welcome.

This is a draft translation of the first letter of G.E. Schulze's Aenesidemus. Comments and corrections welcome.

The book addresses the question of the alleged Heracliteanism of the Sceptic philosopher Aenesidemus of Cnossus.

In cod. 212 of his Bibliotheca, Photius provides some information of great importance for our scanty knowledge of Pyrrhonian scepticism between Timon and Sextus.

IN 1792 there appeared anonymously a book entitled, Aenesidemus, or Concerning the Foundations of the Elementary Philosophy Propounded in Jena by Professor Reinhold, including a Defense of Skepticism against the Pretensions of the Critique of Reason. This curious work, which takes the form of series of letter exchanged between an enthusiastic champion of the new transcendental philosophy and a skeptical critic of this same philosophy, created something of a sensation, appearing as it did at the height of the first (...) wave of general enthusiasm for the Critical Philosophy. Though by no means the first published attack on Kantianism, Aenesidemus was distinguished from most of the other early criticisms by the detailed character of its scrutiny as well as by its willingness to examine the Critical Philosophy not only in its original form, but also in the more "advanced" version represented by K. L. Reinhold’s Elementary Philosophy. Aenesidemus claimed to be nothing less than a demonstration of the untenability of the new philosophy, specifically, of its failure to refute what the anonymous author called "Humean skepticism.". (shrink)

This article explores Fichte’s and Hegel’s reception of the sceptic Gottlob Ernst Schulze, who wrote in the style of the pyrrhonian sceptic Ainesidemos and who went by the name of Aenesidemus-Schulze. In the first part of the article I investigate Schulze’s influence on the development of Fichte’s Science of Knowledge (Wissenschaftslehre) in order then, in part two, to reconstruct Hegel’s critique of Schulze’s natural realism. In the third part, via a brief comparison, I examine the differences between Fichte’s and (...) Hegel’s views of Schulze. A particular aim here is to show how Fichte and Hegel define the relationship between scepticism and system. (shrink)

RESUMO O presente ensaio aborda o período anterior às obras tidas como as diferentes reescrições da Doutrina da Ciência, de J. G. Fichte, e aí tenta não só perceber a origem da necessidade de um princípio da identidade, como ela surge aquando das primeiras ocorrências do mesmo, mas também discernir os primeiros passos de todo o problema da possibilidade de um princípio absoluto de toda a filosofia, que sempre animaria a empresa. O foco em questão é a «Aenesidemus-Rezension», onde (...) Fichte junta a sua voz ao aceso diálogo já anteriormente entabulado por K. L. Reinhold e G. E. Schulze, e, na necessidade de repensar o princípio da consciência do primeiro, e as críticas a este feitas pelo segundo, é trazido à convicção da necessidade de um novo princípio absoluto; mas onde, e é este o fulcro do presente ensaio, Fichte percebe a insuficiência filososófica do sistema reinholdiano como uma insuficiência de linguagem, e portanto todo o problema como um problema que depende intimamente de uma apoditicidade linguística, e daí parte para a proposta de uma nova terminologia nacional, uma linguagem filosófica sistematicamente certa e inequívoca, à altura de um sistema filosófico regido por um princípio absoluto – um problema que viria a ocupar as cogitações de toda a geração de jovens pensadores em torno do professor de Jena. ABSTRACT This essay approaches the period prior to the works considered as the different versions of the Doctrine of Science, by J. G. Fichte, and aims not only at discerning the origin of the need for a principle of identity, but also at retracing the first steps of the whole problem of the possibility of an absolute principle of all philosophy. The focus shall be the «Aenesidemus-Rezension», where Fichte joins his voice to the heated argument previously struck by K. L. Reinhold and G. E. Schulze, and, urged to rethink Reinhold's principle of consciousness and the criticism raised by Schulze, is brought to believe the necessity for a new absolute principle; but where, and this is the fundamental idea of this essay, Fichte realizes the philosophical insufficiency of Reinhold's system as a language-related insufficiency, and therefore the whole problem as one intimately dependent on a linguistic apodicticity, and moves on to propose a new national terminology, a systematically certain and unequivocal philosophical language, which might meet the demands of a philosophical system ruled by an absolute principle – a problem which would soon be in the agenda of a whole generation of young idealists around the Professor of Jena. (shrink)

피론주의를 부활시켰던 아이네시데모스는 고대 회의주의 역사에서 독특한 위치를 차지하고 있다. 처음에는 아카데미 학파의 일원이었으나, 독단주의로 경도된 아카데미학파를 떠나 회의주의자인 피론에게서 새로운 철학의 가능성을 찾았기 때문이다. 그가 부활시킨 피론주의는 크게 다음 3가지 특징을 가진다.BR 첫째, 아이네시데모스의 주저는 『피론의 담화』이나 현존하지는 않는다. 그 대신, 디오게네스 라에르티오스의 『철학자 열전』, 섹스투스의 『피론주의 개요』, 에우세비오스의 『복음의 준비』에 등장하는 아리스토클레스의 언급 그리고 포티우스의 『도서관』등에 이 책의 단편적인 내용들이 존재한다. 섹스투스와 라에르티오스의 보고는 정당하나, 아리스토클레스와 포티우스의 보고는 많은 문제점을 안고 있다. 특히, 후자들은 그의 회의주의를 소개하면서 그의 철학적 (...) 목적을 인식론적 토대의 부재성에 찾고 있으나, 그의 철학을 인식론적인 것으로 한정하고, 그의 회의주의적 태도를 자기모순적인 것으로 이해하는 오류를 범하였다. 그러기에, 아이네시데모스의 회의주의에 대한 논의는 라에르티오스와 섹스투스의 기록에 힘입어 재구성되어야 한다.BR 둘째, 아이네시데모스의 회의주의에는 “이소스테네이아(isostheneia)”에 근거한 양립화의 기술이 있다. 이 기술을 통하여, 그는 모든 문제에 있어서 긍정적인 논증과 부정적인 논증이 동시적으로 성립될 수 있는 가능성을 보여준다. 하나의 이슈에 동일한 힘을 가지고 있는 대립항을 성립시키고 인식론적 판단유보를 이끌어냄으로써, 그는 사물의 한쪽 면만을 절대시하는 인식론적 독단주의로부터 자유로워지고, 마음의 평안(ataraxia)을 획득할 것을 강조하였다.BR 셋째, 아이네시데모스 회의주의의 중심에는 10개의 논증방식들(tropen)이 있다. 10개의 논증방식들은 ‘주체에 기인한 논증방식’, ‘판단되는 대상에 기인한 논증방식’ 그리고 ‘주체와 객체 양자에 기인한 논증방식’이 있으며, 3개의 상위 논증방식들은 다시 1개의 최상위 논증방식인 ‘상대성에 기인한 논증방식’으로 수렴된다. 그의 논증방식들은 딜레마적인 형태를 갖춘 10가지 파괴적인 논증방식으로, 판단의 가능성에 대한 그의 논증의 형태이자 체계적인 이해의 산물이다. 아이네시데모스는 이 파괴적인 논증방식들을 사용함으로써, 그는 인식론적 독단주의를 제거하고, 마음의 혼란을 잠재우고자 하였다.BR 결론적으로, 아이네시데모스는 새롭게 부활한 피론주의에 최고의 논증방식을 제공한 최초의 피론주의자였다. 물론, 그의 철학에 대한 많은 오해가 있음에도 불구하고, 그는 초기 피론주의를 확립하는데 부족함이 없었다. 이후, 섹스투스는 이러한 아이네시데모스의 성과에 힙 입어 성숙한 피론주의를 완성한다. (shrink)

In Aenesidemus, G.E. Schulze adopts the skeptical voice of Aenesidemus and engages in critical dialogue with Hermias, a Kantian, in the hopes of laying bare what he views as the fundamental issues of K.L. Reinhold’s version of critical philosophy. While some attacks reveal a deep misunderstanding of Reinhold’s Elementarphilosophie on Schulze’s part, others hit their mark. In the Aenesidemus Review (1794), J.G. Fichte at times agrees with criticisms raised by Aenesidemus and at times defends Reinhold against (...) them. On Fichte’s view, Schulze succeeds in proving that the first principle of Reinhold’s Elementarphilosophie, the principle of consciousness (Satz des Bewußtseins), is neither self-evident nor self-determining. Therefore, it cannot be the first principle of philosophy. However, Schulze fails to dissuade Fichte from viewing Reinhold’s principle of consciousness as the pithiest expression of human consciousness of the time. For these reasons, Fichte holds that Reinhold’s principle of consciousness must be deduced from an even higher principle. The goal of this paper is to assess whether Fichte puts forth his own candidate for the first principle of philosophy in his Aenesidemus Review. (shrink)

L’importance d’une édition des témoignages d’Énésidème s’impose de toute évidence pour tous ceux qui s’occupent du scepticisme grec. Le problème est bien connu : le pyrrhonisme constitue un des mouvements philosophiques les plus intéressants de l’Antiquité et son influence a traversé les siècles jusqu’aujourd’hui. Mais qu’est-ce que le pyrrhonisme, quels sont ses origines et son développement? Nous sommes informés sur les deux extrêmes de cette histoire, Pyrrhon et Sextus Empiricus. Mais Pyr...

In replying to Schulze’s criticisms of both Kant’s Critical philosophy and Reinhold’s Elementary Philosophy, Fichte concedes many of Schulze’s explicit points, concerning, for example, the inadmissibility of the thing in itself and the illicit association of “form” with thinking and “content” with sensibility, and the inadequacy of Reinhold’s “principle of consciousness” as the starting-point of a complete system of philosophy. At the same time he sought to defend the overall project of transcendental philosophy and sketch out a plan for a (...) new presentation of the same, beginning not with any “fact” of consciousness but with the self-productive _Tathandlung_ of the pure I, and thus with an “intellectual intuition.” Fichte emphasizes that no philosophy can escape that “circle” within which all consciousness is confined, according to which all being is being for consciousness. The root of skepticism lies in the skeptic’s failure to grasp this and in his disappointed demand for knowledge of things as they are apart from consciousness. (shrink)

This chapter reviews existing information about Sextus' personal life and extant writings. There appears to be satisfactory evidence that Sextus was a doctor; and this is a valuable conclusion in light of the earlier suggestion that a Pyrrhonist who gave his allegiance to the Empiricist school of medicine rather than the Methodist school would not have been expressing a preference for the general account of the art of medicine offered by the Empiricists, but would have been responding instead to the (...) details of therapeutic and diagnostic methods employed by the two schools. The supposition that Sextus composed his works on Pyrrhonean scepticism in the early years of the 3rd century ad also possesses marginally greater plausibility than the more popular supposition that he wrote those works in the second half of the 2nd century. (shrink)

In my essay I try to show, how in his reaction to Schulze’s sceptical critique of Reinhold’s philosophy Fichte attempted to achieve the basic premisses of his own program of Wissenschaftslehre. In dem Beitrag wird gezeigt, auf welche Weise Fichte in der Auseinandersetzung mit der skeptischen Herausforderung, die Schulzes Kritik der Reinholdschen Elementarphilosophie darstellte, versuchte, sein eigenes Programm der Wissenschaftslehre in seinen grundsätzlichen Prämissen zu profilieren.

The importance of skepticism for the development of German Idealism is by now widely acknowledged. But the history of Idealism has been narrated chiefly by scholars sympathetic to its ambitions and arguments. To that extent, it has been an _interested_ history, constructed in a predominantly apologetic spirit. Historical work pursued in this spirit, however, runs the risk of producing (and reproducing) _vindicating_ narratives, whose dominance can obscure the visibility and downplay the viability of competing (in this case, skeptical) positions. This (...) chapter challenges the soundness of the vindicating narrative by examining the impact and significance of the polemical work _Aenesidemus_, published anonymously in 1792 by G. E. Schulze, which reanimated a form of Greek skepticism uniquely outfitted to cut to the very heart of German Idealism. Schulze not only disputed the success of its arguments, but called into question fundamental, guiding presuppositions that the Idealists were not obviously equipped to defend. (shrink)

Pyrrhonism was one of the two main ancient skeptical traditions. In this second paper of the three‐part series devoted to ancient skepticism, I present and discuss some of the issues on Pyrrhonian skepticism which have been the focus of much attention in the recent literature. The topics to be addressed concern the outlooks of Pyrrho, Aenesidemus, and Sextus Empiricus.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Pyrrho and Timon From Timon to Aenesidemus Agrippa Sextus Empiricus Bibliography.

This essay explores the notion that Barry Stroud, in _The Quest for Reality_, treats the contemporary dispute between realists and antirealists concerning the status of colors in a way that is strikingly similar to the basic moves in the Ten Modes attributed to Aenesidemus. The central strategy in the opening four modes is to point to the apparent diversity in the ways in which creatures perceive the world, and then ask: Which of these standpoints (if any) provides a correct (...) representation of reality? The question seems, in principle, unanswerable, for there seems to be no privileged perceptual standpoint from which this dispute can be settled. In a parallel way, Stroud argues that there is no privileged conceptual standpoint from which one can settle the dispute between the realists and the antirealists with respect to the ontological status of colors. This result, Stroud thinks, sheds important light on our perceptual concepts. (shrink)

This chapter offers an interpretation of the philosophy of Aenesidemus and of the ways in which it differs from that of the later phase known primarily through Sextus. It considers the extent to which Aenesidemus' version of Pyrrhonism is discernible even in some parts of Sextusʼ own writings, despite its incompatibility with the Pyrrhonism to which Sextus himself mostly claims allegiance. It explains the connection between the ideas of Pyrrho and Aenesidemus, as well as the connection between (...) the initial and terminal phases of later Pyrrhonism. The chapter also examines a connection between Aenesidemus and Heraclitus that is apparently alluded to in a number of places by Sextus. A Heraclitean view attacked by Plato seemed to be of some importance in the discussion of Pyrrho's antecedents. Hence, it is natural to wonder whether the alleged ‘Heracliteanism’ of Aenesidemus may also have some bearing on the question why he regarded himself as following in Pyrrho's footsteps. (shrink)

In this chapter, Hankinson discusses the sceptical attacks on dogmatic accounts of cause and explanation, beginning with the Eight Modes of Aenesidemus, before moving on to discuss Sextus Empiricus’ general attack on the very coherence of the notions of causation. Aenesidemus’ Eight Modes (or _tropoi_, i.e. general patterns of argument) are a set of arguments of varying scope and power against the Aetiology of the Dogmatists; they demonstrate the fundamental difficulties in any attempt to investigate the hidden structures (...) of things, and also raise methodological difficulties. Sextus Empiricus argues that the very concepts of cause and effect are incoherent, and he also criticizes the notions of agent and patient, and the dogmatist account of sign‐inference. Hankinson also discusses the Modes of Agrippa, according to which an explanation is either circular, infinitely regressive, or arbitrary. The sceptical attacks on astrology and divination are also important in that they undermine the claims of pseudo‐science; such arguments, Hankinson adds, contribute to the understanding of the standards towards which genuine science must strive. (shrink)

Was Pyrrho a sceptic according to the later Pyrrhonist mould? It must be admitted that some evidence seems to support this verdict; some texts do speak of Pyrrho and Sextus in the same breath, and a number do attribute to Pyrrho himself very much the same kind of outlook as this book finds in later Pyrrhonism. On the other hand, none of these texts predates the revival of Pyrrho by Aenesidemus; thus it is at least possible that this interpretation (...) of Pyrrho results from anachronistically reading back onto Pyrrho himself ideas that in fact appeared only much later. This chapter argues that this can indeed be done, and that this untainted evidence, derived from Timon, suggests that Pyrrho's own position was by no means the same as the later Pyrrhonism familiar to us from Sextusʼ Outlines of Pyrrhonism. (shrink)

Pyrrhonian skepticism has roots in metaphysical discussions relevant to relativism. The chapter reconstructs these discussions in Plato's _Theaetetus_, and explores how different versions of Pyrrhonian skepticism—the skepticism of Pyrrho, of Aenesidemus, and of Sextus Empiricus—compare to Protagorean relativism. The chapter begins with a sketch of why Plato interprets Protagoras' Measure Doctrine as _global_ relativism rather than relativism about a particular domain. Pyrrhonian skepticism, it is argued, inherits this global scope. But Pyrrhonian responses to disagreement differ importantly from the responses (...) Protagorean relativism envisages. Skepticism suggests that, when encountering disagreement, it is rational to step back from one's view and investigate, rather than simply hold on to one's view, as presumably the relativist does. The chapter defends skepticism's response to disagreement as construed by Sextus Empiricus as superior to earlier proposals. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on the succession of philosophers set out by Laertius as linking Pyrrho to Sextus and his pupil Saturninus. Although we have dismissed the notion that a series of master—pupil relationships genuinely links Pyrrho and Sextus, Sextus' own writings yield abundant evidence that Aenesidemus of Cnossus, who is one of the philosophers mentioned in Laertius' succession, did exercise a major influence on Sextus' scepticism.