Book One Of Sextus Empiricus's Skepticism, Man And God
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In Book one of “Skepticism, Man and God”, Sextus Empiricus a skeptic himself argues that the skeptic’s position leads the best life. In his opinion, a best life is characterized by mental tranquility and peaceful happiness. His method to reach the skeptic’s end is achieved by doubting and suspending judgment, in which he holds no assertion of things. In this paper, I will argue against Sextus’ skeptic method. I will demonstrate that by explaining the important role that beliefs play in people’s lives.
As opposed to dogmatists, Sextus says that Skeptics are not concerned with affirming or with denying. They do not assert truth or falsehood in things, they are just observers that point out conflicting arguments, thus only holding and suspending their judgments. They make no positive assumptions whatsoever, which means that they don’t take any stand on any matter.…show more content… He mainly focuses on opposing appearances vs. appearances. He illustrated this point by giving the example of a tower appearing cylindrical from a far away distance yet appearing quadrilateral up close. In addition, he opposes thoughts vs. thoughts giving the example of the existence of God vs. the non-existence of God. Finally , he opposes appearances vs. thoughts and gives the example of the illusion of stars and what they are thought to be versus their appearance, given their size and their light seen from