Excerpts from R. G. Bury's Loeb Classical Library translation.
23f
"Adhering, then, to appearances we live in accordance with the normal rules of life, undogmatically, seeing that we cannot remain wholly inactive. And it would seem that this regulation of life is fourfold, and that one part of it lies in the guidance of Nature, another in the constraint of the passions, another in the tradition of laws and customs, another in the instruction of the arts. Nature’s guidance is that by which we are naturally capable of sensation and thought; constraint of the passions is that whereby hunger drives us to food and thirst to drink; tradition of customs and laws, that whereby we regard piety in the conduct of life as good, but impiety as evil; instruction of the arts, that whereby we are not inactive in such arts as we adopt. But we make all these statements undogmatically."
31f
"We oppose either appearances to appearances or objects of thought to objects of thought or alternando. For instance, we oppose appearances to appearances when we say “The same tower appears round from a distance, but square from close at hand”; and thoughts to thoughts, when in answer to him who argues the existence of Providence from the order of the heavenly bodies we oppose the fact that often the good fare ill and the bad fare well, and draw from this the inference that Providence does not exist."
36-38
"The usual tradition amongst the older Sceptics is that the “modes” by which “suspension” is supposed to be brought about are ten in number; and they also give them the synonymous names of “arguments” and “positions.” They are these: the first, based on the variety in animals; the second, on the differences in human beings; the third, on the different structures of the organs of sense; the fourth, on the circumstantial conditions; the fifth, on positions and intervals and locations; the sixth, on intermixtures; the seventh, on the quantities and formations of the underlying objects; the eighth, on the fact of relativity; the ninth, on the frequency or rarity of occurrence; the tenth, on the disciplines and customs and laws, the legendary beliefs and the dogmatic convictions. This order, however, we adopt without prejudice."
98
"[T]here exists so much unresolved controversy amongst the Dogmatists concerning the reality which belongs to Nature. For he who decides the question as to the existence of Nature will be discredited by them if he is an ordinary person, while if he is a philosopher he will be a party to the controversy and therefore himself subject to judgement and not a judge."
141-144
"The Mode which, as we said, comes Ninth in order is based on constancy or rarity of occurrence, and we shall explain it as follows. The sun is, of course, much more amazing than a comet; yet because we see the sun constantly but the comet rarely we are so amazed by the comet that we even regard it as a divine portent, while the sun causes no amazement at all. If, however, we were to conceive of the sun as appearing but rarely and setting rarely, and illuminating everything all at once and throwing everything into shadow suddenly, then we should experience much amazement at the sight. An earthquake also does not cause the same alarm in those who experience it for the first time and those who have grown accustomed to such things. How much amazement, also, does the sea excite in the man who sees it for the first time! And indeed the beauty of a human body thrills us more at the first sudden view than when it becomes a customary spectacle. Rare things too we count as precious, but not what is familiar to us and easily got. Thus, if we should suppose water to be rare, how much more precious it would appear to us than all the things which are accounted precious! Or if we should imagine gold to be simply scattered in quantities over the earth like stones, to whom do we suppose it would then be precious and worth hoarding?
Since then, owing to the frequency or rarity of their occurrence, the same things seem at one time to be amazing or precious and at another time nothing of the sort, we infer that though we shall be able perhaps to say what nature appears to belong to each of these things in virtue of its frequent or rare occurrence, we are not able to state what nature absolutely belongs to each of the external objects. So because of this Mode also we suspend judgement regarding them."
145-163
"There is a Tenth Mode, which is mainly concerned with Ethics, being based on rules of conduct, habits, laws, legendary beliefs, and dogmatic conceptions. A rule of conduct is a choice of a way of life, or of a particular action, adopted by one person or many—by Diogenes, for instance, or the Laconians. A law is a written contract amongst the members of a State, the transgressor of which is punished. A habit or custom (the terms are equivalent) is the joint adoption of a certain kind of action by a number of men, the transgressor of which is not actually punished; for example, the law proscribes adultery, and custom with us forbids intercourse with a woman in public. Legendary belief is the acceptance of unhistorical and fictitious events, such as, amongst others, the legends about Cronos; for these stories win credence with many. Dogmatic conception is the acceptance of a fact which seems to be established by analogy or some form of demonstration, as, for example, that atoms are the elements of existing things, or homoeomeries, or minima, or something else.
And each of these we oppose now to itself, and now to each of the others. For example, we oppose habit to habit in this way: some of the Ethiopians tattoo their children, but we do not; and while the Persians think it seemly to wear a brightly dyed dress reaching to the feet, we think it unseemly; and whereas the Indians have intercourse with their women in public, most other races regard this as shameful. And law we oppose to law in this way: among the Romans the man who renounces his father’s property does not pay his father’s debts, but among the Rhodians he always pays them; and among the Scythian Tauric it was a law that strangers should be sacrificed to Artemis, but with us it is forbidden to slay a human being at the altar. And we oppose rule of conduct to rule of conduct, as when we oppose the rule of Diogenes to that of Aristippus or that of the Laconians to that of the Italians. And we oppose legendary belief to legendary belief when we say that whereas in one story the father of men and gods is alleged to be Zeus, in another he is Oceanos—“Ocean sire of the gods, and Tethys the mother that bare them.” And we oppose dogmatic conceptions to one another when we say that some declare that there is one element only, others an infinite number; some that the soul is mortal, others that it is immortal; and some that human affairs are controlled by divine Providence, others without Providence.
And we oppose habit to the other things, as for instance to law when we say that amongst the Persians it is the habit to indulge in intercourse with males, but amongst the Romans it is forbidden by law to do so; and that, whereas with us adultery is forbidden, amongst the Massagetae it is traditionally regarded as an indifferent custom, as Eudoxus of Cnidos relates in the first book of his Travels; and that, whereas intercourse with a mother is forbidden in our country, in Persia it is the general custom to form such marriages; and also among the Egyptians men marry their sisters, a thing forbidden by law amongst us. And habit is opposed to rule of conduct when, whereas most men have intercourse with their own wives in retirement, Crates did it in public with Hipparchia; and Diogenes went about with one shoulder bare, whereas we dress in the customary manner. It is opposed also to legendary belief, as when the legends say that Cronos devoured his own children, though it is our habit to protect our children; and whereas it is customary with us to revere the gods as being good and immune from evil, they are presented by the poets as suffering wounds and envying one another. And habit is opposed to dogmatic conception when, whereas it is our habit to pray to the gods for good things, Epicurus declares that the Divinity pays no heed to us; and when Aristippus considers the wearing of feminine attire a matter of indifference, though we consider it a disgraceful thing.
And we oppose rule of conduct to law when, though there is a law which forbids the striking of a free or well-born man, the pancratiasts strike one another because of the rule of life they follow; and when, though homicide is forbidden, gladiators destroy one another for the same reason. And we oppose legendary belief to rule of conduct when we say that the legends relate that Heracles in the house of Omphale “toiled at the spinning of wool, enduring slavery’s burden,” and did things which no one would have chosen to do even in a moderate degree, whereas the rule of life of Heracles was a noble one. And we oppose rule of conduct to dogmatic conception when, whereas athletes covet glory as something good and for its sake undertake a toilsome rule of life, many of the philosophers dogmatically assert that glory is a worthless thing. And we oppose law to legendary belief when the poets represent the gods as commiting adultery and practising intercourse with males, whereas the law with us forbids such actions; and we oppose it to dogmatic conception when Chrysippus says that intercourse with mothers or sisters is a thing indifferent, whereas the law forbids such things. And we oppose legendary belief to dogmatic conception when the poets say that Zeus came down and had intercourse with mortal women, but amongst the Dogmatists it is held that such a thing is impossible; and again, when the poet relates that because of his grief for Sarpedon Zeus “let fall upon the earth great gouts of blood,” whereas it is a dogma of the philosophers that the Deity is impassive; and when these same philosophers demolish the legend of the hippocentaurs, and offer us the hippocentaur as a type of unreality.
We might indeed have taken many other examples in connexion with each of the antitheses above mentioned; but in a concise account like ours, these will be sufficient. Only, since by means of this Mode also so much divergency is shown to exist in objects, we shall not be able to state what character belongs to the object in respect of its real essence, but only what belongs to it in respect of this particular rule of conduct, or law, or habit, and so on with each of the rest. So because of this Mode also we are compelled to suspend judgement regarding the real nature of external objects. And thus by means of all the Ten Modes we are finally led to suspension of judgement."
223-225
"And if Plato does really utter some statements in a sceptical way when he is, as they say, “exercising,” that will not make him a Sceptic; for the man that dogmatizes about a single thing, or ever prefers one impression to another in point of credibility or incredibility, or makes any assertion about any non-evident object, assumes the dogmatic character, as Timon also shows by his remarks about Xenophanes. For after praising him repeatedly, so that he even dedicated to him his Satires, he represented him as uttering this lamentation—
Would that I too had attained a mind compacted of wisdom,
Both ways casting my eyes; but the treacherous pathway deceived me,
Old that I was, and as yet unversed in the doubts of the Sceptic.
For in whatever direction I turned my mind in its questing
All was resolved into One and the Same; All ever-existing
Into one self-same nature returning shaped itself all ways.
So on this account he also calls him “semi-vain,” and not perfectly free from vanity, where he says—
Xenophanes semi-vain, derider of Homer’s deceptions,
Framed him a God far other than Man, self-equal in all ways,
Safe from shaking or scathe, surpassing thought in his thinking.
He called him “semi-vain” as being in some degree free from vanity, and “derider of Homer’s deceptions” because he censured the deceit mentioned in Homer. Xenophanes, contrary to the preconceptions of all other men, asserted dogmatically that the All is one, and that God is consubstantial (sumphuês) with all things, and is of spherical form and passionless and unchangeable and rational; and from this it is easy to show how Xenophanes differs from us. However, it is plain from what has been said that even if Plato evinces doubt about some matters, yet he cannot be a Sceptic inasmuch as he shows himself at times either making assertions about the reality of non-evident objects or preferring one non-evident thing to another in point of credibility."
This interpretation of Xenophanes depends on a projection of later Eleatic ideas onto this earlier thinker.
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen