The systematic use of the five modes for the suspension of judgement

Manuscrito 42 (3):47-85 (2019)
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Abstract

The five modes are a list of tools used by ancient sceptics to guide dogmatic people towards suspending their judgement. Attributed to Agrippa and used extensively by Sextus Empiricus, these modes are still widely discussed today by epistemologists and specialists in ancient philosophy. Scholars disagree, however, on how to understand the way the five modes are used together and what the logical form of the sceptical strategy behind their deployment is. This paper offers a reconstruction of the system of the five modes that avoids these problems. In specific, unlike previous reconstructions, it includes a non-trivial version of the mode of relativity, avoids committing the sceptic to a normative principle and follows the textual evidence more closely. Moreover, I argue that the system can be better understood as a list of steps in a process, whose underlying logic can be expressed by a single algorithm.

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Daniel Vázquez
Mary Immaculate College

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References found in this work

the pyrrhonian problematic.Markus Lammenranta - 2008 - In John Greco (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Skepticism. Oxford University Press. pp. 9--33.
The Pyrrhonian Argument from Possible Disagreement.Diego E. Machuca - 2011 - Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 93 (2):148-161.
Virtue, Luck and the Pyrrhonian Problematic.John Greco - 2006 - Philosophical Studies 130 (1):9-34.
Scepticism as a kind of philosophy.Gisela Striker - 2001 - Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 83 (2):113-129.

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