How to Be a Pyrrhonist: The Practice and Significance of Pyrrhonian Skepticism

by Richard Bett

These oppositions may be due to differences in the perceivers – different animals (Mode 1), different humans (Mode 2), the different senses of a single human (Mode 3), or the different conditions (such as healthy or sick, young or old) in which the perceiver approaches the object (Mode 4) – or to differences in the things perceived – different quantities (Mode 7) or different cultural mores (Mode 10) – or to differences in both of these – different positions of observation (Mode 5), different mixtures (in the objects perceived and in the bodies of the perceivers) (Mode 6), or different frequencies of something’s occurrence (in the perceiver’s experience) (Mode 9).9

Indeed, the Pyrrhonists’ stock phrase “up to now” indicates precisely the opposite of a concern for long-term structure in one’s life; Pyrrhonists act according to how things have struck them so far, without assuming that things will continue in an orderly way as before. (Such