Pyrrho and the Practice of Ancient Skepticism

Pyrrho of Elis (c. 360–270 BCE) is traditionally credited as the founder of the skeptical tradition that later bore his name, "Pyrrhonism," yet he left no writings of his own, so his teaching survives only at second hand. The principal ancient source is Book IX of Diogenes Laertius's Lives of Eminent Philosophers (early 3rd century CE), supplemented by fragments of the satirical poems (the Silloi, or "Lampoons") composed by his most important pupil, Timon of Phlius (c. 320–230 BCE), and by a summary of Pyrrho's doctrine attributed to Aristocles of Messene (1st century CE), preserved in turn by the Christian apologist Eusebius in his Praeparatio Evangelica (early 4th century CE). This layered, indirect transmission means that reconstructing Pyrrho's actual views requires constant inference through hostile or paraphrasing intermediaries, a problem that recurs throughout the historiography of ancient skepticism.