Dogma: The Disease of the Mind

What Do Pyrrhonists Mean By “Dogma”?

This is the second of two articles promised in my review of Plínio Junqueira Smith’s book, Sextus Empiricus’ Neo-Pyrrhonism. As the book is expensive and dense, but its ideas are tremendously valuable for understanding Pyrrhonism, this is one in a series of articles to expand upon and unpack those ideas for people who are interested in understanding the practice of Pyrrhonism — a practice that reduces distress and anxiety and helps one lead the best life possible. The prior article is here, but this article may be read independently of that article.

—

In the previous article about the Pyrrhonist logos (method of reasoning), it was noted that in Outlines of Pyrrhonism the discussion of the principles of Pyrrhonism (1.12–15) contained an unnecessary section heading: “Does the Pyrrhonist dogmatize?” Unnecessary subsection headings were shown in the previous article to create mistaken understandings of the Pyrrhonist logos. In a less severe way, this heading has also led to mistaken understandings, as the question — what do the Pyrrhonists mean when they talk about “dogma” and “dogmatizing”? — is the point of the biggest debates and misunderstandings of Pyrrhonism.

Somehow a mountain of scholarly literature has arisen insisting that by dogma Sextus meant “beliefs.” On top of this, somehow we are also all supposed to know what we’re talking about when we talk about “beliefs.” The matter is quite a bit more complicated.

Smith plunges into clearing up the matter of whether Pyrrhonists have “beliefs.” A major issue here is that the ancient Greek terms Sextus uses do not map directly to words used in English, and in both languages the possible word choices have multiple meanings. As Smith is a native speaker of Portuguese and can read translations of Sextus in several languages, he appears to be particularly sensitive to this critical translation issue.

Smith points out Sextus uses the term pistis in the context of what we call a “belief.” Pistis is a word heavily used in the Bible where it is usually translated as “faith. Sextus’ usage of pistis indicates that he is using dogma to mean something narrower than belief. Sextus even clarifies this for us. When he first brings up the term dogma he promptly qualifies what he means by it, pointing out that he’s using it as a technical term and that there are other, broader usages of the word that he does not mean, such as merely agreeing to something. Sextus tells us that a distinguishing mark of what he means by dogma is assent to a proposition about something “non-evident.” Defining “evident” and “non-evident” is tricky, but to avoid digressing, it’s close to what we mean by “empirical” and “non-empirical.”

A few pages later Sextus qualifies the term again:

A mythic belief (pistis) is the acceptance of things that are not the case and are fictional — such as, among others, the myths about Cronus — and in which many people place credence. And a dogmatic supposition is the acceptance of something that seems to be established by analogy or some kind of proof….(Outlines 1.147)

Smith points out another, less obvious distinguishing mark in Sextus’ definition: whether something has been investigated or not. Investigation is, of course, central to Pyrrhonism. That’s why they called themselves “skeptics,” as skepsis (investigation) is what they did. So, to elaborate on Smith’s observation, this gives us a 2x2 matrix:

Dogma = investigated, non-evident

Doxa (opinion) = not investigated, not-evident

Phantasiai (“appearances” feelings/sensations) = not investigated, evident

Unnamed = investigated, evident

Much later in the Outlines, Sextus talks about things that could be said to be in this unnamed category. He talks about how Pyrrhonists accept ideas such as where there is smoke there is fire and where there is a scar there was once a wound. These evident things have been investigated. The term Sextus uses for evident things which can be investigated is phainomena — the term from which we have “phenomena.”

Just a few sentences after Sextus introduces the term dogma he tells us that Pyrrhonists accept the acquisition of know-how and skills for engaging in a profession and for ordinary life. The Greek word for this is techne. So, experientially derived techne is included in this unnamed quadrant. Techne derived from dogma, such as the techne of astrology, would be included only with respect to knowing what such dogmatists say and do, and not with respect to believing in their dogmatic system.

At the beginning of Against the Professors, Sextus describes Pyrrho’s student Nausiphanes and other Pyrrhonists as being of wide learning. So, there must be something they learned: something evident that they investigated. Sextus gives an example of an investigation in Against the Logicians:

For our feelings do not respond in the same way, at the present moment, to the judgement “it is day” and to the judgement “it is night,” or to “Socrates is alive” and “Socrates is dead,” nor do these judgements bring with them equally clear evidence, but “it is now day” and “Socrates is dead” seem to be credible, whereas “it is night” and “Socrates is alive” are not equally credible but appear not to be actual facts. (1.391)

So, the Pyrrhonist logos (method of reasoning) is to sweep dogma and doxa out of the mind, leaving the mind to attend to phantasiai and phainomena, and from investigations of these, techne. This is what the Pyrrhonist system does. All of this scholarly babble about what kinds of “beliefs” Pyrrhonists have seem to be based on misreadings of the text, exacerbated by a misleading section title.

Interested in more on this subject? See my book Pyrrho’s Way. Read the introduction to that book here.