Ancient Scepticism (Volume 5) (Ancient Philosophies)

Thorough and interesting survey of ancient scepticism.

Harald Thorsrud gives a good look at ancient skepticism and importantly looks at their arguments. He goes through the history of skepticism that includes its interactions with stoicism and the peripatetic schools of thought. The arguments that he looks at are detailed and are done in accessible but deep way. He explores some of the controversies such as whether Cicero was a skeptic. This text also is one of the few to take a look at some of the skeptics that are often forgotten otherwise such as Timon and Carnedes. Often left out due to the sources being fragments, Thorsgrud presents them in a developmental way that takes into account those problems. Even though it is out of the purview of Ancient Skepticism, it would have been good if this developmental account had gone into the rediscovery of skepticism in the latin west.

I was disappointed with this book. The conceptual arguments of each of the philosophers were not articulated well. The author was too abstract in his expression of their ideas. The fact that there was a lack of good concrete expression of these philosophical ideas was due to a failure of effective communication rather than complexity of subject matter. A writer who is, by nature, more concrete in the way he expresses himself or others would have done a better job with the content of the subject matter. I am sure Mr. Thorsrud understands the subject matter; unfortunately he leaves his readers- at least this one- struggling to form lucid impressions of the ideas he attempts to explain.

This book covers "academic scepticism" as well as "real" ancient Scepticism. The author presents the major characters as well as a coherent theoretical framework and how a Sceptic could actually walk the earth without falling apart. The book also describes some techniques the Sceptics developed and used against the dogmatists.

Ambrose Bierce in his "Devil's Dictionary" defined Pyrrhonism thus: "An ancient philosophy, named for its inventor. It consisted of an absolute disbelief in everything but Pyrrhonism. Its modern professors have added that." Satire maybe, but it does pose an important question about the self-consistency of Scepticism. Harald Thorsrud has here made a valiant attempt to describe the thought of the ancient Sceptics, both Academic and Pyrrhonian, trying to make the best of in many cases scant sources. These books in the "Ancient Philosophies" series usually serve as readable introductions suitable for the non-specialist as well as students, but this particular one I found quite hard going and dense. It is often forgotten that in antiquity philosophy was about a way of life, and whilst Scepticism is often seen as an abstruse and esoteric purely academic subject, fortunately Thorsrud has not neglected the real-life aspect and concluded with a chapter entitled "The (ordinary) life of a Pyrrhonist".