Pyrrhonism, or Pyrrhonian skepticism, was a school of skepticism founded by Pyrrho in the fourth century BC. Believing that "knowledge of things is impossible and that we must assume an attitude of reserve", his school's existence was brief. It was revived by Aenesidemus in the first century BC and recorded by Sextus Empiricus in the late second century or early third century AD. A revival of the use of "Pyrrhonism" as a synonym for "skepticism" occurred during the seventeenth century.
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Ancient Pyrrhonism
Pyrrho of Elis (c. 360-c. 270 BCE) usually is credited with founding this school of philosophy. He traveled to India and studied with the "gymnosophists". From there, he brought back the idea that nothing can be known for certain. The senses are easily fooled, and reason follows too easily our desires. Pyrrhonism was a school of skepticism founded by his follower Aenesidemus in the first century BCE and recorded by Sextus Empiricus, who wrote the book series Against the Mathematicians (by some translated ‘Against the Professors’), in the late second century or early third century CE.
The New Academy Arcesilaus (c. 315-241 BCE) and Carneades (c. 213-129 BCE) developed more theoretical perspectives by which conceptions of absolute truth and falsity were refuted as uncertain. Carneades criticized the views of the Dogmatists, especially supporters of Stoicism, asserting that absolute certainty of knowledge is impossible. Sextus Empiricus (c. CE 200), the main authority we have for Greek skepticism, developed the position further, incorporating aspects of empiricism into the basis for asserting knowledge.
Whereas academic skepticism, with Carneades as its most famous adherent, claims that "nothing can be known, not even this", Pyrrhonian skeptics withhold any assent with regard to non-evident propositions and remain in a state of perpetual inquiry. They disputed the possibility of attaining truth by sensory apprehension, reason, or the two combined, and thence, inferred the need for total suspension of judgment (epoché) on non-evident matters. For any non-evident matter, a Pyrrhonist tries to make the arguments for and against such that the matter cannot be concluded, thus suspending belief. According to Pyrrhonism, even the statement that nothing can be known is dogmatic. They thus attempted to make their skepticism universal, and to escape the reproach of basing it upon a fresh dogmatism. Mental imperturbability (ataraxia) was the result to be attained by cultivating such a frame of mind.
As in Stoicism and Epicureanism, the happiness or satisfaction of the individual was the goal of life, and all three philosophies placed it in tranquility or indifference. According to the Pyrrhonists, it is our opinions or unwarranted judgments about things that turn them into desires, painful effort, and disappointment. From all this a person is delivered who abstains from judging one state to be preferable to another, but, as complete inactivity would have been synonymous with death, the skeptic, while retaining his consciousness of the complete uncertainty enveloping every step, might follow custom (or nature) in the ordinary affairs of life.
The second debate of Pyrrhonism in the early modern period: problems with historical knowledge
The traditions of ancient skepticism found a new reception in the early modern era climaxing in the eighteenth century, especially under the influence of the Empiricists (especially under the influence of David Hume (1711-1776) – see An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding) in the discussion of historical doubt: Pyrrhonismus historicus and Fides historica: the "faith" in recorded history. The fundamental question of the debate could not, and cannot, be solved: how can we prove historical data? History is a realm that does not allow experimental proofs. Questions such as with how many stabs was Julius Caesar killed, can only be discussed on the basis of documents. If they contradict each other historians can try to balance them against each other. Do certain documents have precedence over others as eye witness reports, can they be validated through experience, or do they include unlikely, marvelous incidents one should disqualify as legend?
The result of the debate was not a final solution of the inherent problem, but the implementation of a new science of critical analysis of documents. The questions had a potential to destabilize religious histories. Diderot, in a passage from his Encyclopedie originally censored by Le Breton, states of Pyrrhonism, "Since the time of Huet, theologians seem to have been conspiring to discredit the use of reason. Do they not realize how difficult most of the questions are that pertain to the experience of God, the immortality of the soul, the need of ritual, the truth of the Christian religion? Do they desire a belief that is blind or one that is enlightened? If it is the former, let them admit it in good faith. If it is the latter, let them convince us, by all kinds of measures, of the feebleness of our mind. The way they are going about it, they will produce more skeptics than Christians," expressing both Diderot's unique anti-clericism, and the rising role of skeptical thought about religion and historical data throughout the eighteenth century. They lost much of their momentum with the transformation of history from a narrative project to a project of critical debate and with the nineteenth-century implementation of archaeology as a comparatively objective and experimental science.
The "philosophical" skepticism of Kant and its influence on classical German philosophy
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) tried to provide a ground for empirical science against David Hume's skeptical treatment of the notion of cause and effect. Hume (1711-1776) argued that for the notion of cause and effect, no analysis is possible that also is acceptable to the empiricist program primarily outlined by John Locke (1632-1704). Kant's attempt to give a ground to knowledge in the empirical sciences at the same time, however, cut off the possibility of knowledge of any other knowledge, especially what Kant called "metaphysical knowledge". So, for Kant, empirical science was legitimate, but metaphysics and philosophy were mostly illegitimate. The most important exception to this demarcation of the legitimate from the illegitimate was ethics, the principles of which Kant argued can be known by pure reason without appeal to the principles required for empirical knowledge.
Thus, with respect to metaphysics and philosophy general (ethics being the exception), Kant was a skeptic. This skepticism as well as the explicit skepticism of G. E. Schulze gave rise to a robust discussion of skepticism in classical German philosophy, especially by Hegel. Kant's idea was that the real world (the noumenon or thing-in-itself) was inaccessible to human reason (although the empirical world of nature can be known to human understanding) and therefore, we can never know anything about the ultimate reality of the world. Hegel argued against Kant, that although Kant was correct that using what Hegel called "finite" concepts of "the understanding" precluded knowledge of reality, we were not constrained to use only "finite" concepts and could acquire knowledge of reality using "infinite concepts" that arise from self-consciousness.
Fallibilism
Fallibilism is a modern, fundamental perspective of the scientific method, as put forth by Karl Popper and Charles Sanders Peirce, that all knowledge is, at best, an approximation, and that any scientist always must stipulate this in her or his research and findings. It is, in effect, a modernized extension of Pyrrhonism. Indeed, historic Pyrrhonists sometimes are described by modern authors as fallibilists and modern fallibilists sometimes are described as pyrrhonists.
The Devil's Dictionary defines Pyrrhonism as "An ancient philosophy, named for its inventor. It consisted of an absolute disbelief in everything but Pyrrhonism. Its modern professors have added that."