ANCIENT VERSUS MODERN SCEPTICISM

This volume focuses on scepticism as it was understood and practised in the ancient Greek and subsequently the ancient Greco-Roman world. The title of the volume is therefore less than ideal. “Ancient” should not in general be used as a shorthand for “ancient Greek” or “ancient Roman,” as if the rest of the world did not exist. And there is a particular reason for unease in this case, seeing that a plausible case can be made for regarding some figures and movements in ancient Indian philosophy as sceptical. For this reason I originally proposed “Ancient Greek Scepticism” as the title. But it was correctly pointed out that some important figures to be discussed - most obviously Cicero - were definitely not Greek, and that it is by no means certain even that Sextus Empiricus, the one Pyrrhonist sceptic of whom we have substantial surviving writings, was Greek. My second proposal, “Greco-Roman Scepticism,” was in turn subject to quite reasonable criticism on grounds of its unfamiliarity. So with some reluctance I had to agree that “Ancient Scepticism” was the best title available.

The sceptical philosophers and traditions to be discussed are, then, firmly located in the history of Western philosophy. And it is of course also true that scepticism has been a topic of central importance in modern Western philosophy at least since Descartes, and continues to excite widespread interest today. But “scepticism” means rather different things in the two periods.