RICHARD BETT

THE SCEPTICS AND THE EMOTIONS

The Stoics proposed a complex and highly controversial account of what a

pathos is and how it comes about. 1 One might expect that the sceptics
would have gleefully fastened upon this as material for sceptical scrutiny.
Galen certainly found the Stoic analysis of the pathe philosophically
objectionable; 2 it would be entirely understandable if the sceptics had
subjected it to similar kinds of attacks. And they might have extended their
attacks to the Epicureans as well; for the Epicureans, though nowhere near
as explicit on the subject as the Stoics (at least in the surviving sources),
also appear to have had views on the nature of the pathe. 3 Yet we find very
little evidence, in any of the sources for Greek scepticism, of arguments
specifically targeting such views for criticism.
The Stoics also claimed that the sage, the ideal figure to whom they
themselves strove to approximate, will be free frompathe (D.L. 7.117; Cic.
Fin. 3.35). The Epicureans did not go as far as this; but it is clear that the
theory and practice of Epicureanism, too, is supposed to produce major
transformations for the better in one's emotionallife. Here again, one might
expect the sceptics to take issue with these claims; and here the expectation
is to some degree satisfied. Not that our evidence shows the Stoic and
Epicurean views in this area being confronted by the sceptics in any explicit
way. But at least in the Pyrrhonian tradition, we do find views expressed
about the preferable emotional condition experienced by the sceptic as
compared with the dogmatist. And these views may plausibly be read - and
in the case of Sextus Empiricus, may plausibly be thought to have been
designed - as rivals to claims by the Stoics and the Epicureans about the
preferable emotional conditions engendered by their own philosophies.
In what follows, I shall explore the two matters just raised. On these
issues as on many others, the situation is by no means uniform for the
whole history of Greek scepticism. For our purposes I distinguish three
groups: 1) Pyrrho of Elis (c. 360-270 BC) and his disciple and biographer
Timon of Phlius (c. 325-235 BC), 2) the sceptical Academy, represented
primarily by Arcesilaus (c. 315-240 BC) and Cameades (214-129/8 BC),
and 3) the later tradition initiated by Aenesidemus (1st century BC) and
calling itself "Pyrrhonian", whose best known member is Sextus Empiricus

Juha Sihvola and Troels Engberg-Pedersen (eds.), The Emotions in HeUenistic Philosophy,
197-218.
© 1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
198 RICHARD BETT

(probably 2nd century AD). As will already have become apparent, I treat
the Stoics as the sceptics' main dogmatic foil for the subjects considered
here. This is partly because the Stoics are always, for both the Academics
and for Sextus, the preeminent dogmatists. But it is also because, as already
suggested, the Stoic analysis of the pathe, and of the appropriate attitude to
take towards them, is by far the most articulated, and the most striking, of
any in antiquity. Hence questions about the relations between the sceptics
and the Stoics in this area admit of far more focused answers than do
questions about the relations between the sceptics and the dogmatists in
generat - even though, as we shall see, the same answers do often apply,
at least to some extent, in the moregenerat case as weil. I intend to sidestep
almost entirely the difficult question of how the term pathos should be
translated in this context- in particular, whether "emotion" is an accept-
able translation. Since the sceptics themselves do not use the term in any
precise or technical sense,4 and since, as has been observed, very few texts
show any of them actually discussing a dogmatic theory of the pathe, 5 it is
not important that we fix upon a translation. Clearly the Stoic pathe at least
overlap with what we would call emotions; thus we can talk about the
Pyrrhonian sceptics' claims concerning (what we may reasonably call) the
emotional conditions of themselves and of the dogmatists, and usefully
compare these claims with Stoic claims about the pathe and the sage's
freedom from them, without having to decide what the best English
rendering of the term pathos might be.

The only texts clearly indicating that any ancient sceptic explicitly devoted
attention to dogmatic accounts of the character of the pathe are three brief
passages relating to Carneades. From these passages it is clear that
Carneades was involved in a debate on the topic with the Stoics. None of
the three suggests that Carneades specifically challenged the Stoic analysis
of the pathe as a certain species of mistaken beliefs; instead, they concern
the causes of and the remedies for pathe. But the three passages give us
only a glimpse of what was probably a much more wide-ranging argument.
We may begin with a passage of Plutarch (De tranq. an. 474E-F), in
which we are told that "In matters of importance, Carneades remarked that
unexpectedness is the whole and entire cause of grief and dejection. " 6 This,
as it happens, is virtually identical with a view attributed by Cicero to the
Cyrenaics (Tusc. 3.28, 31, 52, 59, 76). 7 But the role of the unexpected in
generating pathe was also a subject to which the Stoics paid some attention.
 THE SCEPTICS AND THE EMOTIONS 199

In mentioning the Cyrenaic view, Cicero at one point also says that
Chrysippus held a different view, to the effect that unexpectedness can
exacerbate the effect on us of some distressing event, but that it is not the
sole cause of grief (Tusc. 3.52); and a similar sentiment is attributed by
Galen either to Chrysippus or to Posidonius (PHP 5.417 K [EK fr.165.24-
28]). 8 Cameades seems, therefore, to be adopting, at least for the purposes
of argument, a Cyrenaic position, and thereby to be taking issue with the
Stoics.
In the same part of the Tusculans in which he reports the Cyrenaic view,
Cicero also offers more direct evidence that Cameades argued with the
Stoics on questions having to do with the pathe and unexpectedness.
Cameades, we are told, used to criticize Chrysippus for his approval of a
passage of Euripides emphasizing the inevitability of suffering (3.59-60).
It is clear from the context that Chrysippus expressed this approval as part
of an argument to the effect that no misfortune need be, or should be,
unexpected - and that reflection on this fact can alleviate our reactions to
those misfortunes which actually befall us. Cameades' claim, on the
contrary, is that reflection on this inevitability, so far from alleviating grief,
is itself a cause for grief. Notice that there is no suggestion here that
Cameades adhered to the Cyrenaic view that only the unexpected is a cause
for grief. In fact, the argument here attributed to him seems to be at odds
with that view; it is precisely the fact that suffering can be expected that is
here presented as a cause for grief. 9
Finally, a little earlier in the same passage (3.54), Cicero tells us that
Cameades argued against the claim that the sage would feel distress at the
fall of his country to enemy forces. And here it Iooks as if Cameades is
agreeing with the Stoics. The term "the sage" (sapientem) already suggests
that we are dealing with Stoic ideas; but the connection with Stoicism is
made more secure by the choice of example. Elsewhere Cicero cites the
same case, the fall of one's country, as one creating particular difficulties
for the Stoic thesis that the sage will be free from pathe (Acad. 2.135); 10
the conclusion that the sage will not be grieved at this eventuality is said to
be a hard one, but one to which Zeno is committed by his adoption of this
generat thesis.
The fact that Cameades argued for a conclusion to which the Stoics
assented does not, of course, mean that Cameades assented to that conclu-
sion also. Besides marking a connection with Stoicism, the term "the sage"
suggests that Cameades is not speaking in his own voice; for the Academics
themselves were not prepared to admit that there was any such person as
"the sage" as depicted in Stoicism. As one might anyway expect, given our
200 RICHARD BETT

other evidence about him, Carneades is surely engaged here in some

dialectical procedure; and it is entirely possible, as others have observed, 11
that on another occasion he argued for the opposite conclusion, that the sage
would feel distress at the fall of his country. Again, the apparent conflict
noted earlier, between the first and the second reports on Carneades'
remarks, suggests that these remarks should also be understood as dialectical
maneuvers, rather than as views to which he hirnself subscribed; he supports
the Cyrenaic view, very possibly for the purpose of discomfiting the Stoics,
but is quite willing to oppose the Stoics elsewhere by means of a rather
different view. As always, he rigorously avoids assenting to any of these
views. 12 Or at any rate, this seerns the easiest explanation of the evidence
- in light both of numerous features of this evidence itself and of what we
know about Carneades from other sources.
Attempts have recently been made to reconstruct Carneades' debate with
the Stoics on these matters in greater detail. I will not try to improve on the
efforts of other scholars in this area; 13 the enterprise is surely worthwhile,
but necessarily more than a little speculative. This situation is not unusual
with Carneades; in several other cases we have isolated or scattered pieces
of evidence indicating that Carneades treated some topic, but the context of
the debate is difficult, or sometimes even impossible, to fill in with any
confidence. 14 But whatever exactly Carneades was up to, the texts I have
mentioned are important for our subject because they are the only clear
indication of a debate engaged in by any sceptic on the character and the
causes of the pathe. Carneades seerns to meet the expectation mentioned in
my opening paragraph; this is not so - or at least, we have no reason to
suspect that it is so - for any other Greek sceptic.
In a number of cases this is not surprising. It is not surprising, first, that
there is no comparable evidence for Carneades' predecessor Arcesilaus. For
Arcesilaus' philosophical ambitions seem in general to have been far less
comprehensive than those of Carneades; we have very little evidence of his
having addressed any questions outside epistemology and the subject of how
one can act without holding beliefs. 15 In the case of Pyrrho, again, the
lack of any detailed attention to dogmatic accounts of the nature of the pathe
is no surprise. While it would be a mistake to think of Pyrrho as entirely
untheoretical - most obviously, there is a passage of Aristocles, preserved
in Eusebius, 16 which summarizes a set of general philosophical attitudes
attributed to Pyrrho by Timon - it is at least clear that detailed examination
of and argument against the theories of non-sceptics, on any topic, had no
place in his activities; no trace of any such examination survives, and Timon
praises him precisely for not concerning hirnself with the speculations of
 THE SCEPTICS AND THE EMOTIONS 201

others. 17 As for Aenesidemus, or any other Pyrrhonians between Timon

and Sextus, there is simply no evidence at all in this area. 18
What is surprising, and deserves more attention, is the neglect of this
topic by Sextus. Wehave voluminous surviving writings by Sextus, and of
these a considerable proportion is specifically devoted to arguing against the
views of the dogmatists; 19 there are two books Against the Logicians, two
Against the Physicists and one Against the Ethicists, as well as abbreviated
versions of the same material in books 2-3 of Outlines of Pyrrhonism. In
the Stoic system, the pathe constituted a recognized major topic within the
area of ethics (D.L. 7.84). So one might very well expect to fmd a detailed
dissection of the Stoic conception of the pathe - perhaps alongside other
dogmatic conceptions - and one would expect to find it, if anywhere, in
Against the Ethicists. 20
It is conceivable that the reason why no such treatment occurs in Against
the Ethicists is that Sextus had already discussed dogmatic conceptions of
the pathe in his lost earlier treatise On the Soul (referred back to at Math.
10.284). Butthisexplanation is unsatisfying. Apart from the absence of any
indications to this effect, Sextus often repeats in one book arguments already
employed in another; so even if he had already discussed the pathe in
another work, this would not be a sufficient explanation of his not having
done so in Against the Ethicists. A better explanation has to do with the
distinctive character of Against the Ethicists itself. Of the eight main topics
in ethics listed in Diagenes Laertius' summary of Stoic doctrines (7.84),
Against the Ethicists confronts the dogmatists on only one- namely, "good
and bad things. "21 The question whether there are, as the dogmatists
maintain, certain things that are by nature good, and certain others that are
by nature bad, occupies roughly the first two fifths of the book (3 -109).
The remainder is devoted to two other topics. First, there is a discussion of
why the sceptic is better off than the dogmatist (110-167). Here it is not
the correctness of the dogmatists' views that is under examination, but the
consequences of holding them; and the particular belief that is argued to be
deleterious to the dogmatists is the belief that some things are in reality
good and that others are in reality bad. After this comes a consideration of
whether there is any suchthing as a "skill relating to life" (techne peri ton
bion), and whether, if there were, it could be taught (168-257); while the
Stoics explicitly, and the Epicureans perhaps implicitly, did maintain that
there was such a skill22 - and the character of this skill is certainly a
suitable subject for the ethical part of philosophy - Sextus' approaches to
this topic involve him in very little specific engagement with dogmatic
ethical theories. Indeed, given the way he approaches the topic, there is
202 RICHARD BETT

little reason why this part of the book should belong in a treatise on ethics
at all, rather than, say, a treatise on the general notion of a skill.
There are, then, many other issues in ethics, besides the nature of the
pathe, that receive no systematic treatment in Against the Ethicists. There is
no discussion of the nature of virtue, or of the identity of the virtues, or of
the telos; the Iist could be extended. This is not necessarily an oversight on
Sextus' part, or a sign of his Iack of interest in ethics. For the topic of good
and bad may fairly be regarded as the one on which all other topics in ethics
depend; if, as Sextus argues, nothing is in reality good or bad, 23 the
subject cannot reasonably be expected to get off the ground. 24 It will, for
example, follow, if nothing is really good or bad, that there are no virtues
and that there is no telos. 25 And it will follow, in particular, that the
Stoics' idiosyncratic conception of the pathe, though not perhaps refuted,
will entirely lose its point within the Stoic system. The pathe are conceived
by the Stoics as essentially irrational, and specifically, as consisting in false
beliefs (Stob. 2.88.22-89.3; Cic. Fin. 3.35); and the four major varieties
of Stoic pathe- appetite, fear, pain and pleasure - are themselves each
characterized as a (deluded) belief to the effect that something is good or is
bad (Stob. 2.90.7-18; cf. D.L. 7.111). However, ifSextus' conclusion is
correct, the Stoics' own belief that virtue is good and vice bad will also be
deluded to the same degree and in the same way; and hence, it may
plausibly be argued, this belief will be no less deserving of the Iabel pathos
than are the ordinary beliefs stigmatized with this Iabel by the Stoics
themselves. The central purpose of the Stoic doctrine of the pathe is to spell
out the ways in which the state of mind of the ordinary person is defective
with respect to that of the sage; but Sextus' argument obliterates the central
distinction upon which this invidious comparison depends.
Sextus thus undermines dogmatic ethical theories at the most general
Ievel; though he could have explored the consequences of his general
arguments for various more specific issues in ethics - including issues
surrounding the pathe - he does not do so, and the omission is at least not
obviously culpable. 26 At any rate, it is not because of some blind spot
having to do specifically with the pathe that Sextus nowhere offers argu-
ments against Stoic or other dogmatic theories about them.

II

So much for the issue of the nature of the pathe, and of how far dogmatic
theories on this topic figured as the subject-matter of sceptical argumenta-
tion. I move now to the sceptics' promotion of their own emotional
 THE SCEPTICS AND THE EMOTIONS 203

conditions as preferable to those of the dogmatists, and to the relation

between this and comparable claims made by the dogmatists themselves.
Here it is Pyrrho and the later Pyrrhonians with whom we will be con-
cerned; according to them, the sceptical attitude towards theorizing and
towards the nature of things frees one from various disturbing emotional
states - states which are bound to afflict one if one is a dogmatist - and
this is why the sceptic is better off than the dogmatist. I have already
mentioned Carneades' engagement with the Stoic view that the sage will be
free from pathe. With this exception, the Academics are, as far as we can
teil, silent on the emotional conditions of themselves and of the dogmatists.
And this is readily explicable by the fact that (again, as far as our evidence
allows us to say) it is no part of the Academics' intention to show that the
sceptic is better off than the dogmatist - or to address in any other way the
question of the relative desirability of these two figures' Jives. Both
Arcesilaus and Carneades go to some length to show that living, and even
living happily, is perfectly possible for a sceptic;27 for it is assumed quite
generally in the ancient world that a philosophy must be Iiveahle in order to
be taken seriously.28 But neither says anything to suggest that the sceptic's
life is preferable to that of the dogmatist, whether because of its freedom
from emotional disturbance or for any other reason. Indeed, their motivation
for maintaining a sceptical attitude has nothing to do with the desirability of
the life that results; at any rate, there is no hint that such considerations
played any role in their thinking. Rather, they apparently consider this
attitude to be dictated by considerations of intellectual integrity; if one
examines epistemological and other philosophical issues seriously and with
an unprejudiced eye, they suppose, one cannot but suspend judgement on
the merits of competing claims. 29 Both Pyrrho and the later Pyrrhonians,
on the other hand, promote the sceptical attitude for the ataraxia, the relief
from unwelcome emotional states, that it affords.
I have already mentioned the passage of Aristocles which promises to
shed light on the philosophy ofPyrrho (Euseb. Praep. evang. 14.18.1-5).
According to this passage, Pyrrho recommended that one not trust sensa-
tions and opinions; rather, one should be "without opinions and without
inclinations and without wavering, saying about each single thing that it no
more is than is not or both is and is not or neither is nor is not" (3). There
is room for discussion about what exactly this "unopinionated" attitude
amounts to, and about how far it approximates to the suspension of
judgement adopted by later sceptics. 30 Whatever the truth of this, the
attitude in question is then said to give rise to ataraxia, "freedom from
disturbance" (4). The character of the "disturbance" from which the
204 RICHARD BETT

foilower of Pyrrho is supposed to be free receives a little elaboration in a

fragment of Timon, which portrays Pyrrho as "unconceited and unbroken
by ail the pressures that have subdued the famed and unfamed alike,
unstable bands of people, weighed down on this side and on that by
pathe6n, opinion and pointless laying-down-of-the-law. " 31 The term
pathe6n here is translated "passions" by Lang and Sedley; if they are right,
Timon is explicitly telling us that disturbing emotional states - states
connected with the holding of opinions and the futile attempt to "lay down
the law" about the nature of things32 - are among the disturbances from
which the sceptical attitude releases us. But pathe6n may here refer much
more generaily to any psychological "affection", including ordinary sensory
experience. For the fragment emphasizes the instability to which most
people are subject ("weighed down on this side and that"); and the
instability of our sense-experience, as weil as of our opinions, might weil be
considered a source of "pressures" - at least, if one takes sense-experience
or opinions as a guide to how things reaily are, the course Pyrrho recom-
mends against. Nonetheless, even if the ward patheon does not itself refer
to emotions, it is clear that the instability that comes with the holding of
opinions is being represented in this passage as emotionally abhorrent; and
it is this abhorrent emotional condition to which Pyrrho, because of bis
"unopinionated" attitude, is said not to be subject.
A more general immunity to emotions - or at least, an ideal of such an
immunity - is suggested by several anecdotes about Pyrrho. While on a
ship in a storm, Pyrrho is said to have pointed to a pig calmly eating its
food, describing it as a model for humanity to emulate; according to one
source, it is a model of ataraxia for the wise (sophon) to follow (D.L.
9.68), and according to another, it is a model of apatheia, "impassivity", a
state which one should secure through "reasoning and philosophy" (Plut.
Prof Virt. 82E- F). Other stories depict Pyrrho as succumbing, against bis
ideal, to the emotions of fear and anger (D.L. 9.66; Aristocles apud
Eusebium Praep. evang. 14.18.26). Again, the ideal which he here fails to
achieve is referred to as apatheia, but also as "stripping off one's hu-
manity" (ekdunai ton anthropon). Fear, anger and no doubt other emotions
are here conceived of as part of what it is to be human, but are not
therefore acquiesced in; rather, philosophy, engaged in as Pyrrho recom-
mends it, allows one to escape, at least to the greatest extent possible, from
the natural human tendency towards disturbing emotions. lt is not explained
how philosophy is supposed to facilitate this escape. But it is tempting to
connect this with the passages referred to in the previous paragraph, and to
fill out the picture in the following way. Fear or anger come about because
 THE SCEPTICS AND THE EMOTIONS 205

of the opinion that what is happening to one really is a bad thing; if one
arrives at the globally "unopinionated" attitude presented by Pyrrho as the
result of proper philosophizing, one will shed this opinion, and hence the
emotions of which it is the necessary condition. This, at any rate, is the
direction pursued by Sextus.
By far the most helpful account of Sextus' attitude towards emotions
occurs in chapters 4 and 5 of Against the Ethicists. In this respect - though
not, I would argue, in others33 - the picture in Outlines of Pyrrhonism
seems to be the same, but it is much less detailed and informative. In any
case, the view is as follows. The dogmatists pursue obsessively or "intense-
ly" (suntonos) the things to which they are attracted, and avoid obsessively
the things by which they are repelled, and this obsessive pursuit and
avoidance is connected with their belief that the things in question are by
nature, or in reality, good or bad (Math. 11.112-113, 121). The pursuit,
the avoidance, the attainment and the non-attainment of these things all
bring deleterious emotional effects. The pursuit of what one takestobe by
nature good, and the avoidance of what one takes to be by nature bad, are
necessarily conducted in a state of turmoil or frenzy, because it matters
terribly that one have, or not have, the item in question (Math. 11.116-
117, 128 -129, 146). But if one achieves what one takes to be by nature
good, the turmoil is not over. On the contrary, one is obsessed with taking
all measures possible to retain it, hounded by the prospect of losing it, and
jealous of other people who have as much or more of the same commodity
(Math. 11.116, 127, 146). And, mutatis mutandis, similar obsessions beset
the person who has for the moment succeeded in avoiding what is taken to
be by nature bad (Math. 11.117, 129). With regard to what one takestobe
by nature good, one's joy at currently having it is also boundless, and this
itself is yet an additional source of disturbance (Math. 11.116, 146). If, on
the other band, one gets what one takestobe by nature bad, one's grief at
having it, and one's efforts to be rid of it, are similarly frenzied and
obsessive (Math. 11.117, 129, 158 -160). Allofthis the sceptic manages to
avoid, because the sceptic Iacks the initial belief that the things in question
are by nature good or bad (Math. 11.118, 130, 140). This is not to say that
the sceptic is wholly without disturbance. Whatever beliefs one has or does
not have, one is bound to be affected by pain, hunger and the other types of
unpleasant experience to which physical beings are subject (Math. 11.148-
149). But even in these cases, the sceptic is better off than the dogmatist.
For the sceptic just feels pain, hunger or whatever the affliction may be.
The dogmatist, on the other band, holds the additional belief that pain,
hunger and the like are among the things that are by nature bad, and hence
206 RICHARD BETT

is additionally subject to the emotional distresses outlined above (Math.

11.158 -161).
A number of questions might be raised about this account. First, it is by
no means clear that the shedding of evaluative commitments necessarily
releases one from disturbance; it seems at least quite possible that the result
would be feelings of rootlessness and insecurity, which might well be
expected to Iead to turmoils of their own. Whether or not the result is as
Sextus describes would probably depend on the temperament of the
individuals involved; but at any rate, he seems to have no good argument to
show that the result must be this way. Second, and conversely, it is far from
obvious that obsession and turmoil is necessarily the result of believing that
things are in reality good and bad, and of trying to attain the good and
avoid the bad. One is inclined to object that some of us are quite capable of
pursuing what we take to be genuinely good without tearing ourselves to
pieces over it; again, Sextus makes no effort to show that this impression is
mistaken. In particular, it seems that the extent to which the frenzied
attitudes Sextus describes are liable to ensue may depend in part on the
nature of the items being pursued. The examples he mostly focuses on are
wealth, glory and pleasure (Math. 11.119-130), and the obsessive pursuit
of these things, as Sextus describes it, certainly seems to be a recognizable
phenomenon. But even if the pursuit of these things was bound to be
conducted in this obsessive fashion, it would not at all follow that the same
must be true of the pursuit of virtue, as conceived by the Stoics - or even
of the pursuit of Epicurean "katastematic" pleasure (which is certainly not
the variety of pleasure Sextus is here referring to). lndeed, as has recently
been noted, 34 wealth, glory and pleasure (at least in the vulgar conception)
would not be considered by the dogmatists as goods at all; Sextus' choice of
examples seems to be not merely narrow, but thoroughly ill-suited to their
intended targets. 35 At one point he insists that it makes no difference
which things one pursues as goods, and illustrates this by a hypothetical
shift from the pursuit of wealth to the pursuit of virtue (Math. 11.131 -
140); but in the end the claim that it makes no difference is asserted rather
than argued for.
These points no doubt admit of much more discussion.36 But on this
occasion I want to leave them aside, and concentrate on a number of
respects in which Sextus' conception37 agrees with those of the dogmatists
- most obviously with the Stoics' conception, but not always with theirs
alone. The extent of common ground between them may seem surprising in
view of the wide gulf Sextus seeks to depict between the states of mind, and
the Ievels of contentment, of the sceptic and of the dogmatist. But it is no
 THE SCEPTICS AND THE EMOTIONS 207

news that the Hellenistic philosophers shared many common assumptions, in

spite of important disagreements.
First, there is the question of a connection between emotions (or at least,
a certain broad range of emotions) and beliefs, and especially beliefs to the
effect that certain things are good or bad. Wehave already mentioned the
Stoics' views in this area, and it seems clear that the Epicureans also posit
an intimate connection between the two. 38 But, as the account sketched
above should have made clear, Sextus does the same thing with respect to
the emotional states he ascribes to the dogmatists. It is not that Sextus
conceives of emotions as essentially including beliefs (about good or bad or
about anything else), stillless as consisting in beliefs, as the Stoics held of
the pathe. As befits a sceptic, Sextus does not offer or imply any particular
technical analysis of what an emotion is; that would itself constitute an
attempt to specify the way things are by nature. But it is clear that he
conceives of the relevant beliefs as being both necessary and sufficient
conditions of the dogmatists' emotional states: necessary conditions, since
the sceptic can avoid these states by not having the beliefs, and sufficient
conditions, since the dogmatist is subject to these states on account of
having the beliefs. (lt might be objected that these latter claims, too, are
inconsistent with a rigorous scepticism. But here Sextus would surely reply
that he is simply reporting what can be observed to happen - or what has
been observed to happen achri nun, "so far" (cf. Pyr. 1.25 for this typically
sceptical qualification) - to the dogmatist and the sceptic respectively; he
is not offering any account of the essential natures of these various psycho-
logical states, nor any theory of the mechanisms by which they come into
being. The apparent use of causal notions may seem to get him into trouble
here ("on account of having the beliefs", etc.). But Humean constant
conjunction - or again, constant conjunction as observed so far - would
be sufficient for what he wants to say, and would involve him in no
commitments concerning the real nature of anything.)
There are other points of contact between Sextus' picture and at least that
of the Stoics. First, there is the assumption that, with the possible exception
of certain types of favored state experienced by the sceptic and by the Stoic
sage respectively (we shall retum to this in a moment), emotions are things
which one is better off without. The Stoic sage, as we have noted already,
is without pathe; and Sextus simply assumes that it would be preferable to
be without the emotional effects he claims to be consequent upon the belief
that things are by nature good or bad. In most cases we would probably
agree; but even extreme joy is assumed by Sextus to be objectionable. It is
their excessiveness which, on the Stoic view, is one of the main reasons
208 RICHARD BETT

why the pathe are to be avoided (Stob. 2.88.8-12, 89.6-12, 90.2-6;

D.L. 7.110; Plut. De Virt. Mor. 449C; Gal. PHP 4.2.10-18 [LS 65J]); 39
it Iooks as if Sextus would say much the same thing about the states he
ascribes to the dogmatists.40
Another reason, noted earlier, why the sage willlack pathe, on the Stoic
view, is that the beliefs of which they consist are false; the things which, if
one is in the grip of a pathos, one believes to be good or bad are not really
so. And here again, Sextus' outlook is not so very different. I have argued
elsewhere that, in Against the Ethicists, Sextus too regards the belief that
there are things by nature good or bad - the belief which Ieads to the
deleterious emotional effects he describes - as false; he does not, as one
might expect, suggest that this belief is one about whose truth the sceptic
will suspend judgement, but argues that nothing is by nature good or bad,
and claims that the acceptance of this conclusion is indispensable to the
sceptic's attainment of happiness. 41 The picture in Outlines of Pyrrhonism
is not the same; here, at least officially, the sceptic is portrayed as one who
suspends judgement about the truth of this belief (3.235). 42 But even here
(as weil as in Against the Ethicists, on more standard interpretations of that
work), Sextus is in line with the Stoics to the extent of representing those
who hold the belief as in a clear sense misguided; though he will not declare
this belief to be false, he will maintain that those who hold the belief do so
without (what they themselves would accept as) adequate justification, and
because of their failure to submit themselves to the sceptic's intellectual
procedures.
The difference is that in neither of Sextus' works is it suggested that the
misguidedness or falsehood of the belief is in any way responsible for the
disturbing emotional effects. In the Stoic view, it seems clear that the
excessiveness of the impulses which are the pathe is due, precisely, to their
being "disobedient to reason" (apeithe Iogoi). In the sage, who sees the
world aright, and whose well-ordered reason is in control, the impulses are
kept within their natural bounds; but the fool's impulsesarenot subject to
any such restraining and ordering influence. (Again, see Stob. 2.88.8-90.6;
Gal. PHP 4.2.10-18 [LS 65J]). However, in the passages in Sextus in
which the emotional effects are described, the focus is entirely on what
happens to those who have the beliefthat things are by nature good or bad,
and not at all on the belief's Iack of justification; for all that is said in these
passages, the dogmatist might be correct in holding that certain things are
by nature good or bad, and still be worse off than the sceptic in emotional
terms. Sextus portrays the dogmatist as misguided43 in holding the belief
that things are by nature good or bad; and he portrays the sceptic as better
 THE SCEPTICS AND THE EMOTIONS 209

off than the dogmatist because the former is free from the various types of
emotional disturbances to which the latter is subject. But these two points
arenot connected in the way that the analogous points are for the Stoics. 44
What is the emotional condition of the sceptics themselves? It may sound
so far as if Sextus presents the sceptic as wholly without emotion. But this
is by no means obviously so. At any rate, it appears that the sceptic, on
Sextus' account, will experience feelings of various kinds other than the
merely physical. In defending hirnself against the charge that the sceptic has
no basis on which to make choices, Sextus tells us that the sceptic will act
"by the preconception which accords with his ancestrallaws and customs"
(Math. 11.166, cf. Pyr. 2.246). One might well wish that he had spelled out
what this involves.45 But the centrat point must be this: 46 as a result of
having been raised in a particular culture, the sceptic will have a set of
attitudes, pro or contra, towards the performance of various types of
actions, and towards the outcomes that each of these types of actions is
liable to produce. Now, culturally induced attitudes of this kind typically
have an emotional component - at any rate, when they apply to momentous
choices (such as whether or not to commit some atrocious deed on the
orders of a tyrant, which is Sextus' example in this passage). For instance,
if raised in a culture which places a high value on the preservation of human
life, one feels revulsion at the prospect of killing another human being; or,
if raised in a culture which places a high value on serving one's country,
one feels elated at, or at least resolutely accepting of, the prospect of going
into battle and possibly dying. When a choice, or at least an important
choice, presents itself, one has feelings, of a particular color, for or against
the possible alternatives; and the particular character of these feelings will
be due to the way one was shaped by the society in which one grew up. So
if these are the types of attitudes Sextus is talking about, it seems clear that,
in any normalusage of the term, they are, or include, emotions. They are
psychological events having motivational force and containing an affective
element, and they have the requisite cognitive complexity to be plausibly
counted as emotions; they are not some kind of "raw feels", but have
intentional objects - they are feelings about killing, dying for one's
country, etc.
Where the sceptic's attitudes must presumably differ from those of
ordinary people raised in the same culture (though again, it is frustrating
that so much of the picture is left for us to infer) isthat they do not include,
nor do they presuppose, any belief to the effect that things really are any
particular way. Most people raised in a culture in which killing another
human being is regarded as very wrong will come to believe that killing
210 RICHARD BETT

another human being really is very wrong, and will feel revulsion at the
prospect of doing so because of having the belief. The sceptic, by contrast,
feels revulsion purely because of having been raised in the culture, not
because of having been raised in the culture and so holding the belief. (He
may have held the belief at one time, before becoming a sceptic; but the
depth of his cultural conditioning ensures that the disposition to feel
revulsion persists even after the belief is shed.) Some contemporary
philosophers appear to talk as if emotions by definition presuppose beliefs;
and if this is so, the sceptic's "preconceptions" will not, I take it, count as
emotions. 47 But the applicability of the label "emotion" really does not
much matter; what counts is that the sceptic's actions are shaped by
culturally conditioned states that would seem tobe, at least in part, affective
states.
Because the sceptic's "preconceptions" are unencumbered by any belief
about how things really are, they also lack the obsessive or "intense"
character of the non-sceptic's attitudes. And here is yet another similarity
with Stoicism. Forinthis respect the sceptic's "preconceptions" are akin to
the attitudes that are the Stoic sage's counterpart of the pathe, the eupa-
theiai, "good feelings" (D.L. 7.116). As with the sceptic's "preconcep-
tions", it is not quite clear whether to call these emotions; but again, that is
not particularly important. The key point is that, like the sceptic on Sextus'
account, the Stoic sage lacks certain damaging beliefs (beliefs by which
other people are afflicted), and thus experiences feelings quite distinct in
kind from the excessive ones experienced by others. Of course, in their
broader pictures of the appropriate philosophical attitude to take, beyond the
lack of misguided beliefs about good and bad, Sextus and the Stoics are
poles apart; but that does not obviate the present point.
The various similarities noted between Sextus and the Stoics, and to some
extent the Epicureans, prompt one to suppose that Sextus' view of the
attitude to take towards the emotions is framed as a deliberate rival to those
of these dogmatic schools.48 If so, then although Sextus never explicitly
discusses the Stoics' and the Epicureans' views of these things, he does self-
consciously react to them (and the reaction constitutes an important aspect
of his own outlook). The same is probably not the case with Pyrrho. I
earlier hazarded the suggestion that Pyrrho's attitude towards emotion
foreshadows Sextus' - and in a way which, as can now be seen, again
involves some common ground with dogmatic attitudes. But here the
supposition of a deliberate response to the dogmatists is far less plausible.
For one thing, Pyrrho predates the Hellenistic dogmatists, and it is in the
Hellenistic period that attitudes towards emotion become especially explicit
 THE SCEPTICS AND THE EMOTIONS 211

in, and an especially important component of, philosophy. 49 But in any

case, as we noted earlier, Pyrrho seems in generat to eschew deliberate
responses to the doctrines of other philosophers. Later reporters on Pyrrho's
views, who chose to Iabel his preferred attitude apatheia, "Iack of feel-
ing, " 50 may weil have conceived of this attitude as a rival to those of the
Hellenistic dogmatists and particularly the Stoics; for the term apatheia,
whatever its philosophical origins, was primarily associated with Stoi-
cism.51 Butthereis no reason to suppose that Pyrrho hirnself saw it in this
light.
One might also wish to distinguish between Pyrrho and Sextus in the
following way. It Iooks as if Pyrrho's aim was to reduce his feelings, and
reactions to the world around him, to as muted a Ievel as possible - to
avoid being human as much as possible, as he is said to have put it. Sextus,
on the other band, appears concemed to show that the sceptic is entitled to
a considerable range of normal human feelings and reactions; indeed, he
sometimes seems to exaggerate the extent to which the sceptic is akin to the
ordinary person, and this applies to the antecedents of action as much as to
other areas. 52 He is clear that "intense" emotional states are ones which a
person is better off without; and sometimes, at least, he is clear that
ordinary people as weil as dogmatists are subject to such states (e.g., Pyr.
1.30). But while certain kinds of withdrawal, both practical and theoretical,
are essential to his variety of scepticism, it is not at all evident that he
regards a complete Iack of feeling as a desirable ideal, the unattainability of
which is a cause for regret. Wehave virtually no evidence of the attitudes
on these issues of any Pyrrhonians between Pyrrho hirnself and Sextus.53
But it is likely enough that the radical ideal of "stripping off one's hu-
manity" was unique to Pyrrho.
Despite these possible or probable differences, though, the ideas of
Pyrrho and of Sextus on the main topic considered in this section seem to be
recognizably of the same family. And it may be this which, more than
anything eise, constitutes the common thread running through the history of
Pyrrhonism, and justifying its being considered a single tradition - despite
substantial questions about its continuity, either chronologically or doctri-
nally. Suspension of judgement is usually taken to be the centerpiece of
Greek scepticism. Yet there is room for considerable dispute about whether
Pyrrho and all those later called Pyrrhonists suspended judgement in the
same sense, or in any significant sense.54 Both Pyrrho and Sextus, on the
other band, hold out the hope of freedom from disturbing emotional
conditions; and crucially, both present this freedom from disturbance as a
consequence of their withdrawal, in whatever sense it may have been, from
212 RICHARD BETT

any pretensions to offer a determinate description of the nature of things. It

appears that Aenesidemus, too, did both these things; indeed, this is almost
the only thing we know about Aenesidemus' ideas on our current subject.
According to the passage of Photius' Bibliotheca which is our most
substantial single source for the ideas of Aenesidemus (169b18-170b35), he
maintained that other philosophers are subject to "continual torments"
(sunechesin aniais, 169b24 [LS 71C2]), butthat "the person who philoso-
phizes in the manner of Pyrrho is happy both in other respects and also in
the wisdom, especially, of knowing that nothing has been firmly appre-
hended by him" (169b26-29). The Stoics and the Epicureans both aspire to
achieve certain kinds of tranquil conditions by achieving a clear and definite
grasp of the true nature of things. The Pyrrhonians aspire to what is plainly
a similar kind of tranquillity. But their route to it is exactly the opposite;
and this, it may plausibly be contended, is what both sets them apart from
their contemporaries (and in fact, from other Greek philosophers in
general), and unites them, whatever other differences there may have been
between them, as a single philosophical movement.

Johns Hopkins University

NOTES
1 For the most important evidence, and introductory discussion, see Long and Sedley 1987,

section 65. (This work will be referred to hereafter as LS.)

2 The main text is On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and P/ato (PHP). SVF2.881-909 and
3.460-467, 471-473, 475-476, 478-482 contain most of the passages relevant to this
topic; see also LS 650, H- R, T. For discussion of Galen's own view of the pathe and its
relation to the Stoic view, see Hankinson 1993.
3 See especially Philodemus' On Anger. For discussion of this text and its antecedents in
Epicurus' own writings, see Annas 1989, Annas 1992a, eh. 9.
4 In Sextus' usage, pathos can refer to a great range of experiences or conditions, both
physical and mental (and the following Iist does not purport to be complete): sensory
experiences (Pyr. 1.13, 22; Math. 1.161, and cf. the following note), other physical feelings
such as hunger, thirst and pain (Pyr. 1.23-24, 237 -239; Math. 11.143, 148), the mental
attitudes of which various stock sceptical phrases are the expression (Pyr. 1.187, 197-8,
203), bodily conditions of a kind needing medical treatment (Pyr. 3.280), or the delight,
contentment or other pleasing states of mind we derive from being with our friends, children,
etc. (Math. 11.83, 86). A pathos in Sextus, as in ordinary Greek, is anything that may
happen to someone or something. Some of the things that happen to us are emotions (as
illustrated by the last category just cited); but Sextus' usage of the term has no particular
emotional or affective connotations. Moreover, in the passages which will be our subject for
much of section II, he does not use the term pathos to refer to the comparative emotional
conditions of the sceptic and of the dogmatist.
 THE SCEPTICS AND THE EMOTIONS 213

s Or at any rate, a dogmatic theory in which pathos is used in an affective sense. Sextus
does, of course, discuss the Cyrenaic view that only the pathi are apprehensible (Pyr. 1.215;
Math. 7.190-200). But here the termpathos clearly refers to sensory experience.
6 Translation adapted from Stevens 1993, 304.
7 It is claimed in Mannebach 1961, 96 that this view is incompatible with ideas elsewhere
attributed to the Cyrenaics; for this reason Mannebach declines to print these passages of
Cicero in bis collection of fragments and testimonia. But he offers no basis for this claim,
and it is quite unclear that there is any incompatibility; see Giannantoni 1983, who rejects
Mannebach's view (vol. 4, 169-170) and includes the passages in bis collection.
8 lt is not immediately obvious who is the subject of phisi, "he says", in this passage; for
contrasting views see Kidd 1988, vol. 2 (ii), 601 (Posidonius) and Ioppolo 1980, 81-82
(Chrysippus).
9 This point seems tobe neglected by Stevens 1993, 307-308.
10 Hence this piece of evidence strictly belongs under the second of the two main topics I

introduced at the outset, rather than the first. But the division between the two would be
highly artificial in considering Cameades; it is primarily with the Pyrrhonians in mind -
where a division between these two topics is far more natural, and where there is consider-
ably more to say about the second - that I have chosen to split the subject-matter in this
way.
11 See Glucker 1978, 393-394, Ioppolo 1980, 90-91.
12 On Cameades' uncompromising opposition to assent, see Cic. Acad. 2.108.
13 See Ioppolo 1980, Stevens 1993.
14 See Porphyry Abst. 3.20.1,3 [LS 54P] (on teleology); Sextus, Math. 9.139-141, 182-
184; Cic. De nat. D. 3.43-44 (on the gods); Div. 2.9-10 (on divination); Lactantius Div.
inst. 5.14.3-5 [LS 68M] (on justice); Gal. Opt. Doctr. 2 [I 45 Kühn] (on mathematical
equality). There are, of course, exceptions to this pattem; our evidence for Cameades'
arguments on free will, on the ethical end, and especially on epistemological and action-
theoretic issues is much more substantial.
1S An exception is Plutarch Comm. not. 1087B- D, which presents him as arguing with the
Stoics on mixture.
16 Praeparatio Evangelica 14.18.1-5 [LS 1F].
17 D.L. 9.64 [LS 2C]; Aristocles apud Eusebium Praep. evang. 14.18.19 [LS 2B]. Weshall
retum to the latter passage in section II.
18 And virtually none on the topics addressed in section II - but see n. 53 and the closing

paragraph.
19 This is what Sextus calls the "special" part of philosophy, as opposed to the "general"

part (Pyr. 1.5-6).

20 The Epicureans do not, in general, have such a sharp sense as the Stoics of the divisions
and subdivisions of philosophy. But the two main varieties of pathi, pleasure and pain (D .L.
10.34), are obviously centrat to their philosophy, and are universally treated, implicitly or
explicitly, as betonging to ethics- beginning with Epicurus' own ethicalletter, the Letter
to Menoeceus.
21 By contrast, Against the Physicists discusses numerous different topics, and addresses
most of those listed by D.L. (7.132) as the centrat topics of Stoic physics. (The position of
Against the Logicians is more complicated; here Sextus deals with a relatively restricted
range of topics - the corresponding part of Pyr., Book 2, covers a number of topics not
addressed at all in Math. 7- 8 - but grammar and rhetoric, which belong for the Stoics
214 RICHARD BETT

under Iogic, are instead treated in the first two books of Sextus' third work, on the
specialized sciences (Math. 1-6).)
22 Math. 11.169-170; for discussion see Commentary ad loc. in Bett 1997. For the Stoic
use of the term, cf. Stobaeus 2.66.19-67.2; Cic. Fin. 4.16.
23 That Sextus does argue for this conclusion in bis own person (rather than suspending

judgement about the topic, as one might expect a Pyrrhonian sceptic to do) is maintained in
Bett 1994b and in Bett 1997; I also touch on the matter in section ll below. But for the
present purpose, it does not matter if I am wrong about this; the point is that, in whatever
way the existence of anything really good or bad is in doubt, the whole of ethics is in doubt
in the same way.
24 Again compare the case of physics (cf. n. 21 above): it does not Iook as if there is any
single concept in physics on which the whole of the rest of the subject depends.
25 At any rate, in the normative sense in which the term is typically employed by

dogmatists. Sextus himself, of course, is quite prepared to talk of the sceptic's telos (Pyr.
1.25-30). But this can be understood as simply the goal that the sceptics do in fact aim for,
without any implication that they or anyone eise ought to aim for it.
26 Sextus several times expresses a preference for general arguments over specific ones; see
Math. 7.162, 8.337a-338, 9.1 (3.18), and for discussion see Decleva Caizzi 1992.1n view
of this methodological point, the complaint of Annas 1993, 356-357 and Annas 1992b,
206-207, that Sextus fails to discuss the details of the ethical theories he opposes, is not one
that need have troubled him.
27 See especially Sextus Math. 7.158 (Arcesilaus), Math. 7.166-189 (Cameades), Cic.

Acad. 2.104 (Cameades); for discussion see Bett 1989, Bett 1990.
28 On this see Bett 1993, esp. section ll.
29 According to Cicero (Acad. 2.77), it seemed to Arcesilaus that the view that one can and

should refrain from opinions was "a true view, also a respectable one and one worthy of a
wise man" (cum vera sententia tum honesta et digna sapiente); and Arcesilaus is said to have
maintained that "it would be extreme rashness to approve something false or not known"
(Acad. 1.45). I agree with Hankinson 1995, 86 that these and similar passages suggest that,
for Arcesilaus, "epoche follows from akatalepsia, not merely as a psychological fact (as it
does for the Pyrrhonists from isostheneia), but as a rationally compelled manoeuvre." The
position of Cameades is Iess obvious; but he too is said to have condemned assent as a form
of "rashness" (temeritatem, Acad. 2.108)- cf. n. 12 and accompanying text.
30 The interpretation of the whole passage is highly controversial; the controversy extends

to the translation of certain portions, including the excerpt just quoted. I have discussed the
whole passage, and argued for this translation of the quoted excerpt, in Bett 1994a.
31 Aristocles apud Eusebium, Praep. evang. 14.18.19 [LS 2B]. The translation is that of
LS, slightly altered.
32 That this is at least part of what is meant by "laying-down-of-the-law" (notr!{Jthekes) is
favored by Epicurus' use of the closely related word nomothesia to refer to baseless physical
theorizing (Ep. Pyth. apud D.L. 10.87).
33 On the differences between the two works see Bett 1994b, esp. section V, and Bett 1997.
34 By Striker 1990, 103 -104; Annas 1993, 360.
3S It is argued in Spinelli 1995, 299-306 that Sextus actually distinguishes between two sets
of targets: ordinary people who believe that such things as wealth, glory and (vulgar)
pleasure are in reality goods, and dogmatic philosophers. On this view, it is the former
group, and not the latter, who are addressed in the passage where wealth, glory and pleasure
 THE SCEPTICS AND THE EMOTIONS 215

are the focus of attention (Math. 11.119 -130). This is an intriguing suggestion, which would
absolve Sextus of the apparently rather glaring error just mentioned. However, Sextus gives
no explicit indication that he is talking at 119 -130 about ordinary people rather than
philosophers. On the contrary, 124 refers to "the things thought good by some of the
philosophers" (Spinelli speculates that this may be a mistaken gloss); and the whole
discussion appears to be set up from the start as a confrontation specifically between sceptics
and dogmatic philosophers (11 0 -113).
36 I have considered them in more detail in Bett 1997, Commentary on chs. 4 and 5.
37 That we are dealing here with Sextus' own conception seems to be ensured by the fact
that he is describing the sceptic's own states of mind. Modeminterpreters frequently seek to
absolve Sextus of any conceptions or assumptions of his own, and to understand the
assumptions he appears to be employing at any given time as merely borrowed from the
dogmatists, for the purpose of maneuvering them into some awkward position. But this is
Sextus' account of the benefits he and his friends experience from adopting the sceptical
outlook, and so cannot easily be understood otherwise than as delivered in propria persona.
1t may of course be wondered whether a sceptic is entitled to deliver a positive account even
of the benefits of scepticism. I would argue that Sextus is entitled to do so as long as the
account commits him to no specification of the way things are by nature - and that it is at
least arguable that he succeeds in avoiding any such commitment. See Bett 1997, Commen-
tary on section 118.
38 On this see Nussbaum 1994, eh. 4.11; Annas 1992a, eh. 9.
39 The Epicureans would be in at least partial agreement. Epicurus clearly regards the

"intense" pursuit ofthings as very dangerous (KD 30, which uses the same word, suntonos,
as Sextus), and strongly disapproves of erotic Iove for this reason (Hermias in PI. Phdr.
p. 76; Alexander in Ar. Top. p. 75; Cic. Tusc. 4.10- and cf. Lucretius Bk. 4). But he does
not, like the Stoics, condemn all pathe as necessarily violent and excessive.
40 Though he does not, of course, have any theory of what constitutes excessiveness, as do

the Stoics; I retum to this in a moment.

41 See Bett 1994b and Bett 1997.
42 I say "officially" because some elements of the argument in the ethical portion of Pyr. 3

seem to be in tension with this position, and more akin to that of Math. 11; on this, see Bett
1994b, section V.
43 Misguided, that is, for reasons independent of the emotional effects of holding the belief.
44 Indeed, it is not easy to imagine how Sextus could have made a connection of this kind.

In order to make plausible the idea that the falsehood or misguidedness of a belief could of
itself be responsible for emotional disturbance, it seems likely that one would need to
introduce a considerable body of psychological and even metaphysical doctrine - as the
Stoics themselves do.
45 His use of the term prolepsis, "preconception", is of little help here. The term has a
precise technical usage in both Stoicism (Aetius 4.11.1-4 [LS 39E]) and Epicureanism
(D.L. 10.33). However, Sextus frequently uses it loosely and non-technically- and in a
manner distinct from that of the Stoics and Epicureans - to denote generally shared attitudes
or opinions (e.g. Math. 7.443; Pyr. 1.211, 225; 2.246). This is clearly true of the present
passage; the occurrence of the term prolepsis is thus no guide to precisely how Sextus
conceives of the attitudes in question (if, indeed, he conceives of them in any precise
fashion). (lt is suggested in Hankinson 1995, 351 that Sextus is following dogmatic usage
here; but in dogmatic usage, prolepsis refers to general concepts which are formed naturally
216 RICHARD BETT

(and which are therefore uniform for all human beings), whereas the attitudes Sextus is
referring to are culturally induced and variable.)
46 For further details on this passage, see Bett 1997, Commentary on sections 162 -167.
47 Unless there is some sense, short of a commitment to specitications of the way things

really are, in which the sceptic, even in experiencing these "preconceptions", does after all
have beliefs. On the general question whether the sceptic has beliefs, there has been much
discussion in recent years; see Frede 1987b; Frede 1987c; Bames 1982; Bumyeat 1980;
Morrison 1990; Brennan 1994. I shall not pursue this issue; again, it tums at least in part on
what one is prepared to count as having a belief.
48 In the case of our attitudes to physical pain, hunger, etc. - the category of disturbances
that are not purely the product of beliefs- Sextus' intention to set up bis account as a rival
to dogmatic accounts seems clear from the fact that part of it is taken over wholesale from
the Epicureans (Math. 11.152-155, and see Striker 1990, 104; Annas 1993, 361), while
another part appears designed to answer the Epicurean position (Math. 11.148 -149, and see
Nussbaum 1994, 289-290). There is nothing quite as overt as this in the case of those types
of attitudes which are our main subject; but the overt reminiscences just noted encourage
what is already an appealing speculation, that Sextus' entire account of how the sceptic is
better off than the dogmatist, including that aspect of it having to do with the emotions, is
constructed in deliberate opposition to the dogmatists' positions on the same topics.
49 This point should not, however, be exaggerated. Aristotle's ethical works clearly contain
much profound reflection on the roJe of the emotions in the ethically admirable character; see
Shennan 1993; Sherman 1989.
so In addition to the texts cited earlier, see Cic. Acad. 2.130.
SI See Spanneut 1994.
sz Math. 11.165-166, for example, appears to suggest that the sceptic's way of acting is
the same as that of ordinary non-philosophical people; Sextus says that the sceptic is able to
make choices "in accordance with non-philosophical practice" (kata ten aphilosophon
teresin). Since ordinary people certainly have the beliefthat certain things really are good or
bad, this is disingenuous. See Bett 1997, Commentary ad loc., and cf. n. 35 above; on the
general issue, again see Bames 1982; Brennan 1994.
SJ Apart from the points mentioned in the next paragraph, the only thing we are told about
Aenesidemus in this area is that he named pleasure as one of the results of adopting the
unopinionated attitude characteristic of Pyrrhonists (Aristocles apud Eusebium, Praep. evang.
14.18.4); it is difficult to know what to make of this. D.L. 9.108 also teils us that, while
some sceptics proposed apatheia as the end, others proposed praotes, "gentleness." As
Brunschwig 1992 points out, the latter tenn does not, like the fonner, suggest a complete
absence of feeling, but calm and moderate feeling - something closer to the attitude which,
I am claiming, is recommended by Sextus. Brunschwig suggests that these rival designations
of the end may reflect rival conceptions of Pyrrho within the sceptical tradition. Since, as we
have seen, apatheia is elsewhere used as a name for Pyrrho's ideal, and since Sextus never
uses it in the context of the sceptic' s end, this speculation has some plausibility. However,
we do not know who the authors of these competing views were, or when they lived.
S4 A number of differences among Pyrrhonists in this respect are emphasized in Hankinson
1995; see also Bett 1994a; Bett 1994b.
 THE SCEPTICS AND THE EMOTIONS 217

REFERENCES

Annas, J. 1989 'Epicurean Emotions,' Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 30, 145-164.
Annas, J. 1992a Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind. Berkeley/Los Angeles/Oxford: University
of Califomia Press.
Annas, J. 1992b 'Sextus Empiricus and the Peripatetics,' Elenchos 13, 203-231.
Annas, J. 1993 The Morality of Happiness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Barnes, J. 1982 'The Beliefsofa Pyrrhonist,' Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological
Society 208, 1-29.
Bett, R. 1989 'Cameades' Pithanon: A Reappraisal of its RoJe and Status,' Oxford Studies
in Ancient Philosophy 1, 59-94.
Bett, R. 1990 'Cameades' Distinction Between Assent and Approval,' The Monist 13, 3-20.
Bett, R. 1993 'Scepticism and Everyday Attitudes in Ancient and Moaern Philosophy,'
Metaphilosophy 24, 363-381.
Bett, R. 1994a 'Aristocles on Timon on Pyrrho: The Text, its Logic, and its Credibility,'
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 12, 137-181.
Bett, R. 1994b 'Sextus' Against the Ethicists: Scepticism, Relativism or Both?,' Apeiron 21,
123-161.
Bett, R. 1997 Sextus Empiricus' Against the Ethicists: Translation and Commentary. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Brennan, T. 1994 'Criterion and Appearance in Sextus Empiricus: The Scope of Sceptical
Doubt, the Status of Sceptical Belief,' Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 39,
151-169.
Brunschwig, J. 1992 'Pyrrhon et Philista,' in: Goulet-Caze, Madec and O'Brien 1992, 133-
146.
Brunschwig, J. and M.C. Nussbaum (eds.) 1993 Passions and Perceptions: Studies in
Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press/Paris: Editions
de Ia Maison des Seiences de L'Homme.
Bumyeat, M.F. 1980 'Can the Sceptic Live His Scepticism? ,' in: Schofield, Bumyeat and
Bames 1980, 20-53.
Decleva Caizzi, F. 1992 'Sesto e gli scettici,' Elenchos 13, 279-327.
Frede, M. 1987a Essays in Ancient Philosophy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Frede, M. 1987b 'The Skeptic's Beliefs,' in: Frede 1987a, 179-200. (Originally published
1979 as 'Des Skeptikers Meinungen', Neue Hefte für Philosophie 15/16, 102-129.)
Frede, M. 1987c 'The Skeptic's Two Kinds of Assent and the Question ofthe Possibility of
Knowledge,' in: Frede 1987a, 201-222.
Giannantoni, G. 1983 Socraticorum Reliquiae. Naples: Bibliopolis.
Glucker, J. 1978 Antiochus and the Late Academy. Hypomnemata 56. Göttingen: Vanden-
hoeck and Ruprecht.
Goulet-Caze, M.-0., G. Madec and D. O'Brien (eds.) 1992 'Chercheurs de Sagesse':
Hommage a Jean Pepin. Paris: Institut d'etudes augustiniennes.
Hankinson, R.J. 1993 'Actions and Passions: Affection, Emotion, and Moral Self-Manage-
ment in Galen's Philosophical Psychology,' in: Brunschwig and Nussbaum 1993, 184-
222.
Hankinson, R.J. 1995 The Sceptics. London: Routledge.
loppolo, A.-M. 1980 'Cameade eil terzo libro delle Tusculanae,' Elenchos 1, 76-91.
218 RICHARD BETT

Kidd, I.G. 1988 Posidonius Volume II. The Commentary, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Long, A.A. and D.N. Sedley 1987 The Hellenistic Philosophers. 1-ß, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Mannebach, E. 1961 Aristippi et Cyrenaicorum Fragmenta. Leiden: Brill.
Morrison, D. 1990 'The Ancient Skeptic's Way of Life,' Metaphilosophy 21, 204-222.
Nussbaum, M.C. 1994 The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Schofield, M., M. Burnyeat and J. Barnes (eds.) 1980 Doubt and Dogmatism: Studies in
Hellenistic Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sherman, N. 1989 The Fabric of Character: Aristotle's Theory of Virtue. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Sherman, N. 1993 'The Role ofEmotions in Aristotelian Virtue,' Proceedings ofthe Boston
Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 9, 1 -33.
Spanneut, M. 1994 'L'apatheia ancienne,' Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt
36.7, 4641-4717.
Spinelli, E. 1995 Sesto Empirico contro gli etici: Introduzione, edizione, traduzione e
commento. Napoli: Bibliopolis.
Stevens, J. 1993 'Posidonian Polemic and Academic Dialectic: The Impact of Carneades
upon Posidonius' Peri PathOn,' Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 34, 229-323.
Striker, G. 1990 'Ataraxia: Happinessas Tranquillity,' Monist13, 97-110.