Vitae philosophorum

Diogenes Laertius

Diogenes Laertius. Hicks, R. D., editor. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1925.

Some call Homer the founder of this school, for to the same questions he more than anyone else is

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always giving different answers at different times, and is never definite or dogmatic about the answer. The maxims of the Seven Wise Men, too, they call sceptical; for instance, Observe the Golden Mean, and A pledge is a curse at one’s elbow, meaning that whoever plights his troth steadfastly and trustfully brings a curse on his own head. Sceptically minded, again, were Archilochus and Euripides, for Archilochus says[*](Fr. 70 B.):

Man’s soul, O Glaucus, son of Leptines,
Is but as one short day that Zeus sends down.

And Euripides[*](Supplices, 735-737.):

Great God ! how can they say poor mortal men
Have minds and think? Hang we not on thy will?
Do we not what it pleaseth thee to wish?

Furthermore, they find Xenophanes, Zeno of Elea, and Democritus to be sceptics: Xenophanes because he says,[*](Fr. 34 D.)

Clear truth hath no man seen nor e’er shall know;

and Zeno because he would destroy motion, saying, A moving body moves neither where it is nor where it is not; Democritus because he rejects qualities, saying, Opinion says hot or cold, but the reality is atoms and empty space, and again, Of a truth we know nothing, for truth is in a well.[*](This proverbial expression is inadequate; a more literal rendering of ἐν βύθῳ would be in an abyss.) Plato, too, leaves the truth to gods and sons of gods, and seeks after the probable explanation.[*](Tim. 40 d.) Euripides says[*](Nauck, T.G.F.2, Eur. 638; Polyid. Fr. 7.):

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Who knoweth if to die be but to live,
And that called life by mortals be but death?

So too Empedocles[*](Fr. 2, l. 7.):

So to these mortal may not list nor look
Nor yet conceive them in his mind;

and before that[*](Ib. l. 5.):

Each believes naught but his experience.

And even Heraclitus: Let us not conjecture on deepest questions what is likely.[*](Fr. 47 D., 48 B.) Then again Hippocrates showed himself two-sided and but human. And before them all Homer[*](Il. xx. 248-250.):

Pliant is the tongue of mortals; numberless the tales within it;

and

Ample is of words the pasture, hither thither widely ranging;

and

And the saying which thou sayest, back it cometh later on thee,

here he is speaking of the equal value of contradictory sayings.

The Sceptics, then, were constantly engaged[*](διετέλουν, imperfect.) in overthrowing the dogmas of all schools, but enuntiated none themselves; and though they would go so far as to bring forward and expound the dogmas of the others, they themselves laid down nothing definitely, not even the laying down of nothing. So much so that they even refuted their laying down of nothing, saying, for instance, We determine nothing, since otherwise they would have been betrayed into determining[*](Inf. § 104.); but we put forward, say they, all

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the theories for the purpose of indicating our unprecipitate attitude, precisely as we might have done if we had actually assented to them. Thus by the expression We determine nothing is indicated their state of even balance; which is similarly indicated by the other expressions, Not more (one thing than another), Every saying has its corresponding opposite, and the like.

But Not more (one thing than another) can also be taken positively, indicating that two things are alike; for example, The pirate is no more wicked than the liar. But the Sceptics meant it not positively but negatively, as when, in refuting an argument, one says, Neither had more existence, Scylla or the Chimaera. And More so itself is sometimes comparative, as when we say that Honey is more sweet than grapes; sometimes both positive and negative, as when we say, Virtue profits more than it harms, for in this phrase we indicate that virtue profits and does not harm.

But the Sceptics even refute the statement Not more (one thing than another). For, as forethought is no more existent than non-existent, so Not more (one thing than another) is no more existent than not. Thus, as Timon says in the Pytho, the statement means just absence of all determination and withholding of assent. The other statement, Every saying, etc.,[*](i.e.Every saying has its corresponding opposite (supra, § 74).) equally compels suspension of judgement; when facts disagree, but the contradictory statements have exactly the same weight, ignorance of the truth is the necessary consequence. But even this statement has its corresponding antithesis, so that after destroying others it turns round and destroys itself, like a purge which drives the substance

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out and then in its turn is itself eliminated and destroyed.

This the dogmatists answer by saying that they do [not merely] not deny the statement, but even plainly assert it. So they were merely using the words as servants, as it was not possible not to refute one statement by another; just as we[*](Here (as in § 104) the writer, whether D. L or his source, seems to pose as a Sceptic himself; cf. Introd. p. xiii.) are accustomed to say there is no such thing as space, and yet we have no alternative but to speak of space for the purpose of argument, though not of positive doctrine, and just as we say nothing comes about by necessity and yet have to speak of necessity. This was the sort of interpretation they used to give; though things appear to be such and such, they are not such in reality but only appear such. And they would say that they sought, not thoughts, since thoughts are evidently thought, but the things in which sensation plays a part.