Aenesidemus 301
or false, plausible or implausible, existing or not; rather, the same thing,
so to say, is no more true than false, plausible than implausible, is than
is not; or, at one time is like this and at another is like that; or is like
this to one person and not like this to another.
Generally, the Pyrrhonist determines nothing, not even this, namely,
that he determines nothing. We speak in this way, he says, not having
any other way to tell what we think. The Academics, he says, especially
the ones now, sometimes agree with Stoic opinions and, to tell the truth,
appear to be just Stoics in conflict with Stoics.
Second, they [the Academics] dogmatize about many things. They
introduce "virtue" and "imprudence" and postulate such things as good
and bad, truth and falsity, plausibility and implausibility, being and non-
being, and determine many things with assurance, saying that they only
dispute about the graspable presentation. This is why the Pyrrhonists,
in determining nothing, remain altogether beyond reproach, although
the Academics, he says, are subject to the same critical examination as
the other philosophers; the most important point is that those who doubt
every thesis both guard their ground and do not conflict with themselves,
while the Academics are not aware that they are in conflict with them-
selves. For when they posit and refute something unqualifiedly and at
the same time say that there exist things graspable by all, they introduce
an obvious contradiction. For how is it possible that one should know
that one thing is true and another false and still doubt and be puzzled
and not decisively choose the one and reject the other? If one is ignorant
that this is good or bad, or that this is true and that false, that this exists
and that does not, one ought to be in total agreement that each of these
is ungraspable. On the other hand, if each of these is grasped with the
senses or thought, it should be said to be graspable.
At the beginning of his book, Aenesidemus from Aigai [in Macedonia]
records these and other such arguments, to describe the difference be-
tween Pyrrhonists and Academics. (170b) Immediately after, in the same
first book, he gives a sketch of the chief parts of the whole approach of
Pyrrhonian arguments.
In the second book he begins with a detailed discussion of that which
was previously sketched, and considers separately truths, causes, states,
motion, generation and destruction, and their contraries, showing, so he
thinks, with close reasoning that there is doubt about all of these and
that they are ungraspable.
The third book is a discussion of motion and sense-perception and of
their properties; it makes a fuss over the same contradictions and relegates
these things too to the [status of the] unattainable and ungraspable.
In the fourth book he speaks about signs, in the sense, for instance,