We focus on the question of how expertise as conceived by the Stoics interacts with the content of impressions. In Section 1, we situate the evidence concerning expert perception within the Stoic account of cognitive development. In Section 2, we argue that the content of rational impressions, and notably of expert impressions, is not exhausted by the relevant propositions. In Section 3, we argue that expert impressions are a subtype of kataleptic impressions which achieve their level of clarity and distinctness (...) due to the contribution of expertise. In Section 4, we argue that the expertise in living well not only allows the wise person to assent correctly but also affects the content of her impressions. We suggest that these two models – one’s attitude toward an impression being informed by expertise, and one’s impressions being affected by expertise – might characterize distinct stages of cognitive development. Stoic wisdom is not only a matter of the way one assents to one’s impressions but also a matter of the condition of one’s soul and, consequently, of the kinds of impressions one even entertains. Expertise offers a model of how cognitive and discriminatory improvement through practice and effort can transform the non-wise into the wise. A reading on which the content of impressions is not exclusively propositional illuminates a further aspect of this transformation. If the same propositions are accessible through impressions with different non-propositional content, we can account for cases in which the novice and the expert entertain the same proposition. (shrink)

It has been argued that Pyrrhonists will have trouble acquiescing in the religious practices of their compatriots, since those practices depend on beliefs that are supposedly eliminated by suspension of judgement. According to this objection ..., the Sceptic’s religious behaviour will be inescapably disingenuous. As a way out of this predicament, some interpreters have suggested that the sort of religion that Sextus was familiar with did not require the kind of belief that is subjected to Sceptical examination. This, however, acquits (...) Sextus of the charge of insincerity at the price of taking religious behaviour to be a culturally contingent exception to, rather than a standard case of, Pyrrhonian conduct. Another worry concerns the fixity of Sextus’ philosophical agenda. The argument in PH 3 concludes that, if one goes by what dogmatic philosophers have to say, one will be forced to think that god is inconceivable. By contrast, the first part of the M 9 section on theology argues not for suspension of judgement across the board, but only for the more modest claim that several noteworthy explanations of the emergence of religious belief are unsatisfactory. Insofar as this is the case, M 9 fails to live up to the standard set by PH 3, a failure due either to authorial incompetence or to a difference in philosophical objective. If that is the case, then the two discussions cannot be read as successful examples of the same philosophical outlook. In this paper, I argue for a comprehensive reading of Sextus’ take on religious matters that responds to these worries. In the first half of the paper, I present the two caveats as formulating a uniform agenda concerning theology (Section 1) which is further consistent with the Pyrrhonian stance as presented in PH 1 (Section 2). I show not only that Sextan Sceptics are able to engage in ordinary religious practices, but also that they can do so whether or not their cultural environment takes these practices to depend on holding dogmatic beliefs. In the second half of the paper, I argue by way of a detailed analysis that both PH 3 and M 9 are intended to motivate suspension of judgement about highly specific dogmatic tenets, and while their sources and targets might change, their intended outcome remains the same. The argument in PH 3, often understood as a sort of ‘master argument’ aimed at disarming a broad theistic consensus, depends in fact on peculiar commitments concerning the nature of inquiry (Section 3). The conceptual section of M 9 incorporates explicitly dogmatic—and quite plausibly Epicurean—material in order to argue for suspension of judgement about yet another issue, namely, the question of the natural or conventional origin of the concept of god (Section 4). (shrink)

Pyrrhonian inquiry responds to the hope of intellectual tranquillity, and aims at the achievement and maintenance of said tranquillity. According to the Tranquillity Charge, philosophical inquiry aims at the truth; hence, insofar as Pyrrhonian inquiry aims at tranquillity, it does not qualify as philosophical inquiry. Furthermore, Pyrrhonian philanthropy rests on the Partisan Premise, i.e. the claim that all philosophers aim at the removal of psychological disturbance. I show that the origin-story of Pyrrhonism evades the Tranquillity Charge, and that the Partisan (...) Premise is not as partisan as it seems. Unlike previous attempts, my reconstruction preserves all tranquillity-related features of Sextan Pyrrhonism. (shrink)

In Against the Musicologists (Math. 6), Sextus uses two types of arguments against musicology. Some would argue that a science of music – does not contribute to a happy life, while others deny that such a science has ever been established. Since the respective beliefs that musicology exists and that it benefits those who have mastered it are fine specimens of dogmatism, all Sextus has to do is to set the naysayers and the believers against each other in good Pyrrhonian (...) fashion. If their accounts balance each other out, he can go on to suggest that reasonable inquirers will suspend judgement as to the truth about these matters, while leaving everyday musical practice intact. Against the Musicologists thus lends itself to being read as an attempt to display the Sceptical capacity to motivate suspension of judgement in a specific domain where the Sceptic has detected dogmatic belief. -/- In what follows, I develop a reading of the treatise along these lines. In Section 5.1, I argue that Sextus’ polemical engagement with philosophical musicology sits well with the project of the treatise to which it belongs, and with a plausible understanding of his philosophical position as presented in the Outlines of Pyrrhonism (Pyr.). Then I turn to the two kinds of arguments that are contrasted by Sextus as being ‘more dogmatic’ and ‘more aporetic’ in spirit. After their brief presentation in Section 5.2, explaining the nature of their contrast by pointing to the diverging agendas that they originally served, I give an overview of both as ultimately aiming at epochē in Sections 5.3 and 5.4. Finally, in Section 5.5, I push back against readings that take the treatise to present a deviation from the suspensive outlook. (shrink)

The evidence concerning the existence of Epicurean gods has invited ever-growing attention, and has resulted in discussions of increasing sophistication. I aim to provide a roadmap to this controversy, and to argue for the following three claims. First, in the debate concerning ‘realist’ and ‘idealist’ readings of the Epicurean thesis that gods exist, there is no principled way of deciding which one to favour without having to compromise on some aspect of a minimally Epicurean position. Second, positing an innate disposition (...) to form the concept of god is not going to carry the day for an ‘idealist’ reading, though it does capture an important insight about the ethical orientation of the Epicurean theory. Third, in accor- dance with this ethical orientation, we have reason to suspect that Epicurus was genuinely uninterested in what the correct ontological position might be. (shrink)

In this special issue, our goal is to ... show that the distinguished history of philosophical reflection on attention, insofar as the Western tradition is concerned, has at least some of its roots in Classical Greek and Roman philosophy. This is offered as a partial corrective to historical overviews of the Western discourse, which rarely reach further back than René Descartes. Furthermore, we wish to emphasize that ancient treatments of attention are especially concerned with its role in the context of (...) ethics and human agency. Even when they take their departure from an analysis of selective perceptual attention, their intention is not only to account for this phenomenon as part of a naturalistic science of the mind but also to motivate the view that the capacity to focus or to shift our attention is indispensable to human flourishing. Moral training is to a large extent conceived of as a matter of acquiring and sustaining the mental strength required for maintaining an attentive state of mind while resisting the interference of competing stimuli. -/- TABLE OF CONTENTS Pauliina Remes: From Natural Tendencies to Perceptual Interests and Motivation in Plato’s Timaeus Voula Tsouna: The Epicurean Notion of epibolê Katerina Ierodiakonou: The Stoic Provenance of the Notion of Prosochê Charles Brittain: A Stoic Ethics for Attention (Seneca Letter 56) Lenka Karfíková: Attention in Augustine. (shrink)

The majority of the excerpts traditionally taken to derive from a planned book 8 of Clement of Alexandria’s Stromateis concern the theory of demonstration (apodeixis) and related matters of logic. The suspension of judgement (epochē), a recognisably sceptical response to disagreement and a lack of demonstrative certainty, receives two brief treatments in this context. Apart from an attempted refutation of scepticism which points to the allegedly self-refuting character of universal epochē (5.15.2–16.3), the text also includes an account of the causes (...) that lead one to suspend judgement (7.22.1–4). ... First, I will give a brief overview of both the argument from self-refutation employed in the first Clementine excerpt and Sextus Empiricus' rejection of a related argument. I will argue that the comparison does not support definite claims about the origin of the Clementine material (section 1). Then I will discuss the second excerpt, which offers a series of remarks on the causal origin of epochē (section 2). I will then contrast it to Sextus’s account of the origin of suspensive disposition in terms of originative principles (archai) rather than causes (aitiai), arguing that Sextus’s formulation allows for a more nuanced sceptical position (section 3). In conclusion, I will briefly consider possible views on the relevance of this material, or the lack thereof, for Clement’s Christian project (section 4). (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Emperor Julian’s use of the theory of common concepts is evidence for a general strategy of Platonist anti-Christian discourse: the attempt at showing that Christianity, as opposed to pagan philosophy, fails to live up to the commonly available standards of truth. After the introduction (§ 1), the paper offers a short summary of the Stoic theory of common concepts and their Platonist appropriation (§ 2). Then it turns to Julian’s account of the naturally arising (...) concept of god, offering an analysis of its Stoic and Platonist resonances (§3). Finally, I consider possible motivations for Julian’s formulation of anti-Christian polemics within this framework (§ 4). A few concluding paragraphs (§ 5) intend to situate this claim in Julian’s overall position and to point out its wider relevance for anti-Christian polemics. (shrink)