Sextus Empiricus: General Principles 321
have an agreed upon criterion by means of which we will be able to judge
it; and in order to have an agreed upon criterion one must first have
decided on the disagreement about the criterion. Thus the argument falls
into the mode based on circular reasoning and the discovery of the
criterion becomes doubtful, since we do not permit them to adopt their
criterion by hypothesis and if they wish to judge the criterion by means
of a criterion we drive them into an infinite regress. Moreover, since
demonstration requires a criterion which has been demonstrated, and
the criterion requires a demonstration which has been judged [to be
valid] they are driven into the mode based on circular reasoning.
- So we think that even these points suffice to show the rashness of
the dogmatists in their discussion of the criterion; but it is not out of
place to forge on with the theme in order to be able to refute them in
various ways. Nevertheless, we do not intend to contest every single one
of their particular opinions about the criterion-for the disagreement is
unutterably [complicated] and if we do this we too would have to fall
into an unmethodical form of argument-but since the criterion we are
investigating seems to be threefold (including that by whom, that by
means of which and that according to which) let us deal with each of
these in turn and establish its ungraspability. For in this manner our
discussion will be methodical and at the same time complete ....
Sextus PH 1.196-208 [III-33]
Ch. xxii On the Utterance 'I Suspend Judgement'- We use the utterance 'I suspend judgement' in place of 'I cannot
say which of the objects before me I should put my trust in and which
not', making clear that things appear equal to us with respect to reliability
and unreliability. And we do not commit ourselves to the claim that they
are equal, but simply say what appears to us about those things, when
they strike us. And the utterance 'suspension of judgement' comes from
checking one's intellect [i.e., suspending its judgemental activity] so that
it neither posits nor abolishes anything because of the equal strength of
the matters under investigation.
Ch. xxiii On the Utterance 'I Determine Nothing' - We say this about the utterance 'I determine nothing'. We say
that determining is not simply saying something, but that it is making
an utterance about a non-apparent thing with assent. In this sense the
sceptic will perhaps be found to determine nothing, not even the [princi-
ple] 'I determine nothing' itself; for it is not a dogmatic supposition, i.e.,
assent to something non-evident, but [just] an utterance which reveals