310 /l/-27
it is said that Democritus reasons that honey itself is neither sweet nor
bitter and because of this makes the sceptical utterance "no more this than
that." The sceptics and Democriteans, however, employ the utterance "no
more this than that" differently. Whereas they deploy the utterance to
indicate that [the honey] is neither [sweet nor bitter], we deploy it to
indicate our ignorance of whether it is really both or neither of the things
it appears to be. 214. So, we differ in this respect too, a disagreement
that becomes perfectly self-evident whenever Democritus says "In reality
atoms and void." He says, "in reality" instead of "in truth" and, it is
needless to say, I think, that he differs from us when he says that it is
in truth that atoms and the void exist, even though he does start from
the inconsistency of appearances.
Ch. xxxi In What Respect Scepticism Differs from
Cyrenaicism
- Some say that the Cyrenaic approach is the same as scepticism,
since that approach says that only our [subjective] states are grasped.
But it differs from scepticism, since it says that the goal [of life] is
pleasure and the smooth motion of the flesh, whereas we say that the
goal is freedom from disturbance, which is opposite to their goal. For a
man who asserts definitely that pleasure is the goal experiences distur-
bances, whether pleasure is or is not present, as I argued in the chapter
on the goal of scepticism.^26 Further, whereas we suspend judgement as
far as regards the essence of external things, the Cyrenaics pronounce
them to have a nature which is ungraspable.
Ch. xxxii In What Respect Scepticism Differs from the
Protagorean Approach
- Now Protagoras wants to say that man is the measure of all things,
of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not. By 'measure' he
means the 'criterion'; by 'things' he means 'objects'; so, in effect, he is
saying that man is the criterion of all objects, of those that are that they
are and of those that are not that they are not. For this reason he
posits only what appears to each and thus he introduces relativity. 217.
Therefore, he seems to have some association with the Pyrrhonists. He
differs from them, however, and we shall understand the difference,
when we have given a reasonably full account of Protagoras' view.
The man says that matter is flowing, that while it is flowing additions
are continuously made to replace that which is carried away, and that
the senses are rearranged and altered according to ages and the other
- III-26 (25-30; also 12).
