Within the depth-psychology and allied philosophical corpus, Skepticism appears not as a mere epistemological posture but as a sustained therapeutic and existential practice with far-reaching consequences for the self. Nussbaum's extended treatment in The Therapy of Desire is the corpus's most sustained engagement: there, Pyrrhonian Skepticism is anatomized as a dunamis — a cultivated capability for generating equipoise through the systematic opposition of impressions — whose ultimate aim is ataraxia, freedom from the disturbance that belief itself produces. The Skeptic emerges as a physician of the soul whose purgative arguments act on themselves as much as on the patient's convictions, vanishing once their therapeutic work is complete. Long and Sedley situate this within the broader Hellenistic contest between Pyrrhonism and Academic Skepticism, the latter accused of covert dogmatism. William James, by contrast, rehabilitates a limited, non-wanton skepticism as epistemically honest: to acknowledge the fallibility of one's instrument is superior to claiming infallibility. Cicero's Academica presses the practical problem — can the Skeptic act at all without assent? — while Plato's Theaetetus traces the reductio of radical perceptual skepticism. The corpus as a whole treats Skepticism as a pressure point between the demands of truth, action, tranquility, and the psychological costs of committed belief.
In the library
16 substantive passages
Skepticism is a technë, and art or science, an organized body of knowledge. How can Skepticism be anything, one might ask, if the Skeptic has no beliefs? What is one learning, when one learns to be a Skeptic?
Nussbaum, following Sextus, argues that Skepticism is best understood not as a doctrine but as a cultivated capability — a know-how for generating oppositions among impressions — thereby sidestepping the paradox of a belief-free discipline.
Martha C. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics, 1994thesis
At the end of the Skeptical process (should it ever be finally ended — a thing the Skeptic doubts), Skepticism itself has vanished. Strictly speaking, Skeptical argument opposes only that which has been asserted and believed.
Nussbaum articulates the self-consuming logic of Pyrrhonian purgation: Skeptical arguments dissolve the very dogmatic attachments they oppose and, having no assertoric content themselves, ultimately extinguish themselves.
Martha C. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics, 1994thesis
Skepticism has in it none of the dogmatic sense of correctness and authority that shape Epicurean society. Since what we all aim at is to go in the flow of life, free of belief's crushing weight, then none of us is higher or better than any other.
Nussbaum contrasts Skepticism's radically egalitarian social vision — grounded in freedom from belief rather than possession of truth — with the authoritarian hierarchy latent in Epicurean therapeutic practice.
Martha C. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics, 1994thesis
Why does the Skeptic have a Skeptical attitude to ataraxia? According to him, because he must have this attitude, if he is to avoid disturbance and attain ataraxia.
Nussbaum exposes the structural tension in Pyrrhonism: the Skeptic appears to be covertly committed to ataraxia as a positive end, thereby undermining the very non-commitment that defines Skeptical practice.
Martha C. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics, 1994thesis
For the Pyrrhonist determines absolutely nothing, not even this very claim that nothing is determined. (We put it this way, he says, for lack of a way to express the thought.)
Long and Sedley present the radical self-referential logic of Pyrrhonism, distinguishing it sharply from Academic Skepticism, which they characterize as cryptically dogmatic in its very opposition to Stoic epistemology.
A.A. Long and D.N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1987thesis
Skepticism cannot, therefore, be ruled out by any set of thinkers as a possibility against which their conclusions are secure; and no empiricist ought to claim exemption from this universal liability.
James argues that universal susceptibility to skeptical correction is the honest condition of empirical inquiry, distinguishing productive acknowledgment of fallibility from the reckless 'wanton doubt' that discredits genuine skeptical practice.
James, William, The Varieties of Religious Experience Amazon, 1902thesis
Skepticism taught him composure and good temper. In fact, Diogenes tells us revealingly, some Skeptics actually say that their end, ataraxia, can also be called gentleness, praotës.
Nussbaum documents the Skeptical tradition's claim that suspension of belief yields not merely tranquility but positive social virtues — composure, tolerance, and freedom from the arrogance endemic to dogmatic commitment.
Martha C. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics, 1994supporting
Through the entire range of her beliefs she will be led into suspension — until there is no thesis she cares to defend, no belief (as Sextus says) whose answer means more to her than the answer to the question whether the number of the stars is odd or even.
Nussbaum reconstructs the Skeptical pedagogical process as the systematic induction of equipoise across all beliefs, rendering each conviction equally unimportant through the opposition of equally persuasive counterarguments.
Martha C. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics, 1994supporting
He holds the one plan in theory, so that he never assents, but the other in practice, so that he is guided by probability, and wherever this confronts him or is wanting he can answer 'yes' or 'no' accordingly.
Cicero presents the Academic Skeptic's practical solution to the problem of action without assent: probability guides conduct, even as theoretical suspension of judgment is maintained, revealing the pragmatic compromise at the heart of Academic Skepticism.
Cicero, Marcus Tullius, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), -45supporting
If percipi nihil potest quod utrique visum est, tollendus adsensus est; quid enim est tam futtile quam quicquid adprobare non cognitum?
Cicero articulates, through the Academic argument, that if nothing can be cognitively grasped, assent must be withheld entirely — a position he associates with Arcesilaus and contrasts with Carneades' willingness to countenance probabilism.
Cicero, Marcus Tullius, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), -45supporting
Is there any proposition that he can either reject or approve, but is not able to doubt? will you be able to do so with sorites arguments when you wish, but he not be able to call a similar halt in everything else?
Cicero's Lucullus raises the question of whether universal suspension of assent is consistent with purposeful philosophical action, pressing the Skeptic on whether doubt can itself be selectively deployed.
Cicero, Marcus Tullius, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), -45supporting
Nikidion will acquire no new ethical beliefs. But she will also not struggle against the ones she has. She will simply stop caring about whether they are true, treat them as impressions whose truth value is indeterminate.
Nussbaum illustrates the Skeptic's therapeutic target: not the replacement of false beliefs with true ones, but the dissolution of caring about truth-value itself, so that surviving impressions cease to function as beliefs.
Martha C. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics, 1994supporting
The Skeptic will argue in exactly the way suited to the nature of the pupil's disease. A good doctor will not give the patient an overdose but will carefully calibrate the dose of medicine to the magnitude of the disease.
Nussbaum highlights the Skeptic's medical analogy: the therapeutic dosing of Skeptical argument is individualized to the particular degree of dogmatic attachment in the student, avoiding overdose just as a physician would.
Martha C. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics, 1994supporting
We may carry this scepticism a step further, and deny, not only objects of sense, but the continuity of our sensations themselves. We may say with Protagoras and Hume that what is appears, and that what appears appears only to individuals.
The Theaetetus commentary traces radical perceptual skepticism to its limit in Protagoras and Hume, showing that the denial of continuous sensation collapses the very notion of a mind capable of entertaining skeptical conclusions.
My goal here is not to engage in postmodernist skepticism about holistic concepts of groups and culture against Lemkin.
In a discussion of genocide law, the author brackets postmodernist skepticism about holistic cultural concepts as a methodological move, using the term to demarcate the limits of the present inquiry rather than as a subject in its own right.
Hannah, Barbara, Encounters with the Soul: Active Imagination as Developed by C. G. Jung, 1981aside
Arcesilaus says 'assent to the incognitive is opinion' and not 'opinion is assent to the incognitive', which leaves it open that some opinions may involve assent to cognitive impressions.
Long and Sedley parse the logical precision of Arcesilaus' formulation in his debate with Zeno, illustrating how Academic Skepticism exploited ambiguities in Stoic epistemology to mount its arguments against cognitive impression.
A.A. Long and D.N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1987aside