Sextus was a physician who wrote in Greek and lived in the 2nd or 3rd century CE.

He worked in a
tradition that originated with the Greek philosopher Pyrrho, a contemporary of Aristotle. Outlines of
Pyrrhonism, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, is ‘the best and fullest account we
have of Pyrrhonian scepticism’. In The History of Scepticism (1960), Richard Popkin identifies the
beginning of modern scepticism with the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola’s decision to have Sextus
translated from Greek to Latin. Sceptics could dethrone pagan philosophers who extolled the powers of
reason; sceptics could also, it became clear, raise doubts about religious claims.

The sceptical way of life, on Sextus’ presentation, follows a certain rhythm. You feel puzzlement about
something. You search for knowledge about it. You arrive at two equally weighty considerations about
what is happening. You let go trying to find an answer. And once you recognise that you might not find a
solution, it brings some mental tranquility.

An early biographer said that Pyrrho needed his friends to help him avoid wagons, dogs and cliffs
because he would not commit to the knowledge of his senses. Diogenes Laertius also said Pyrrho would
not help a friend who had fallen into a pond, suggesting that sceptics doubt our moral commitments. A
perennial objection to scepticism is that one cannot live a recognisably human life and doubt the
existence of physical objects or moral criteria. In his book Sextus, Montaigne, Hume: Pyrrhonizers
(2021), the philosopher Brian C Ribeiro reveals how sceptics throughout history have responded to this
charge. Sceptics acknowledge that human beings perceive things with their senses, feel bodily impulses,
learn useful skills, and follow laws and customs. Sceptical philosophers make different ‘sceptical
cartographies’ – that is, maps of the boundary between sceptical doubts and the bedrock of human life
that repels doubt. Sceptics work for a living, participate in family and community life, and can be as kind
and generous as anyone else. What sceptics strive to avoid is making claims about the nature of reality
beyond how things appear to them.