Suspension of judgement — the epochē of ancient scepticism — occupies a pivotal and contested position in the depth-psychology corpus as that corpus engages the Hellenistic philosophical tradition. The term names the deliberate withholding of assent from any impression whose cognitive credentials cannot be secured, and its treatment in these texts ranges across three interlocking debates. First, there is the historical and dialectical question of whether Arcesilaus and the New Academy developed epochē as a genuine epistemological doctrine or as a polemical instrument against Stoic cognitivism — a weapon forged from Zeno’s own premises. Second, the Pyrrhonist tradition, reconstituted by Aenesidemus and codified by Sextus Empiricus through the Ten Modes, presents suspension not as a thesis but as the natural outcome of systematically opposing appearances to appearances and ideas to ideas. Third, the practical and therapeutic question — raised most sharply by the Stoic charge of ‘inactivity’ (apraxia) — concerns how a life regulated by suspended judgement can remain liveable, a problem Carneades addressed through the criterion of the ‘convincing impression.’ For depth psychology, the term matters as a model of psychic restraint prior to cognition: the refusal to fix meaning prematurely, a stance that recurs in later treatments of equanimity, therapeutic neutrality, and the ethics of uncertainty.
suspension of judgement about everything comes about because of the setting of things in opposition. We oppose either appearances to appearances, or ideas to ideas, or appearances to ideas.
Sextus Empiricus provides the canonical Pyrrhonist account of how systematic opposition of appearances and ideas mechanically produces suspension of judgement across all domains.
, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1987thesis
Arcesilaus proposed what would come to be called in Pyrrhonism the epochē or suspension of judgement as the key to wisdom: a refusal to assent t
Sharpe and Ure identify Arcesilaus as the originator of epochē understood as a practical, wisdom-defining refusal of assent rooted in Socratic acknowledgement of ignorance.
, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021thesis
Arcesilaus proposed what would come to be called in Pyrrhonism the epochē or suspension of judgement as the key to wisdom: a refusal to assent t
Confirming the Sharpe account, this passage establishes the historical lineage of epochē from Academic scepticism to Pyrrhonism and frames it as a constitutive feature of the philosophical way of life.
, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021thesis
suspension of judgement about everything was not disturbed by those who toiled away and wrote lengthy arguments against it. But having finally confronted it from the Stoa with ‘inactivity, like a Gorgon, they faded away, since for all their twisting and turning, impulse refused to become assent
Plutarch’s defence of the New Academy argues that suspension of judgement survives the Stoic apraxia objection because impulse can motivate action independently of assent.
, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1987thesis
if you adopt a doctrinal stance like Stoicism, it will follow from premises to which this stance commits you, in conjunction with its inability to resist 7, that you should suspend judgement. Hence whatever philosophical positions you adopt or avoid adopting, you will, if wise, suspend judgement.
Long and Sedley articulate Arcesilaus’ dialectical master-strategy: every dogmatic position, including Stoicism on its own terms, entails the wise man’s suspension of judgement.
, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1987thesis
The subtlety of his argument consists in the fact that it allows the Stoics to retain their doctrines on the connexion between happiness, prudence and right action, while denying that all three of these depend upon knowledge.
Long and Sedley show how Arcesilaus argued that suspension of judgement is compatible with right action by divorcing the Stoic criterion of ‘reasonable justification’ from knowledge.
, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1987thesis
he who restrains himself from assent about all things nevertheless does move and does act, he does not remove those impressions which impel us to act, or, likewise, answers pro or contra, that we can give to questions merely by following our impression, provided that we do so without assent.
The Carneadean response to the apraxia charge: suspension of assent does not prevent action because the agent may follow convincing impressions without endorsing them as epistemically certified.
, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1987thesis
Arcesilaus was so far from loving any reputation for novelty or arrogating to himself anything belonging to the ancients, that the sophists of his time accused him of rubbing off his doctrines about suspension of judgement and non-cognition on Socrates, Plato, Parmenides and Heraclitus
Plutarch documents the ancient controversy over whether Arcesilaus’ doctrine of suspension of judgement was genuinely novel or a retroactive attribution to canonical predecessors.
, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1987supporting
if impressions differ depending on the divergences between animals, and there is no way of adjudicating between them, it is necessary to suspend judgement about external objects.
Sextus Empiricus derives the necessity of suspending judgement about external objects from the first two Pyrrhonist modes, grounding epochē in the irreducible divergence of animal and human sense-impressions.
, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1987supporting
since this mode too reveals such a great disparity among things, we will not be able to say what each object is like in its nature, but just how it appears in relation to this way of life, to this law, to this custom
The tenth Pyrrhonist mode — opposition of customs and doctrines — yields the same result: suspension of judgement about the intrinsic nature of things, leaving only phenomenal appearance as a guide.
, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1987supporting
Pyrrhonist neutrality is achieved by close attention to the inarbitrability principle which underlies the modes. But if a doctrinaire philosopher comes up with a second-order doctrine … to react by merely suspending judgement about whether there are such signs may seem altogether inadequate to safeguard your neutrality.
Long and Sedley identify a tension within Pyrrhonism between merely suspending judgement and actively denying doctrines, showing how Aenesidemus sometimes went further than epochē warranted.
, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1987supporting
through the entire range of her beliefs she will be led into suspension — until there is no thesis she can 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 Sextus’ therapeutic pedagogy: the systematic application of opposing arguments leads the student into total suspension of judgement, rendering all propositions equally indifferent.
, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics, 1994supporting
one is learning a capability, a know-how; one learns how to do something, namely, to set up oppositions among impressions and beliefs.
Nussbaum characterises Sextean scepticism as a learned practical capability — the skill of constructing oppositions — rather than a doctrine, which is itself the precondition for inducing suspension.
, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics, 1994supporting
The recommendations of F, covering the attitude appropriate to an indeterminable world, can also be described as ‘suspension of judgement’ (A 2, G). Timon insists that this does not involve the Pyrrhonist in differing from convention in his responses to ‘appearance’
Long and Sedley trace suspension of judgement back to Pyrrho’s earliest ethical orientation toward an indeterminable world, linking it to equanimity and conventional behaviour through Timon’s testimony.
, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1987supporting
suspension of judgement: (Pyr.), 13, 17-18, 468-88; (St.), 255, 446-7; (Ac), 255, 258, 438-60
The index of topics maps suspension of judgement across all three Hellenistic schools — Pyrrhonist, Stoic, and Academic — indicating the term’s cross-traditional significance in the corpus.
, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1987supporting
adsensionis retentio, in qua melius sibi constitit Arcesilas … sapientem nihil opinari, id est numquam adsentiri rei vel falsae vel incognitae.
Cicero’s Academica identifies the withholding of assent (adsensionis retentio) as the cornerstone of Arcesilean wisdom: the sage never assents to anything false or incognitive.
, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), -45supporting
he who restrains himself from assent about all things nevertheless does move and does act, the view is that there remain presentations of a sort that arouse us to action … provided that we answer without actual assent
Cicero’s De Natura Deorum rehearses the Academic reconciliation of total suspension of judgement with practical agency through the criterion of probability, separating action from epistemic assent.
, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), -45supporting
he restrains himself from assent, which he can do even about things that his own teachers held to be certain, why should not the wise man be able to do so about everything else?
Cicero argues by analogy from the Stoic sage’s own selective withholding of assent on contested questions to the full Carneadean position that the wise man may suspend judgement universally.
, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), -45supporting
we adopt in addition the fourth mode. This is the one which we say depends on ‘situations’ … things strike us differently depending on whether our state is natural or unnatural
Sextus’ fourth mode grounds suspension of judgement in the variability of perceptual states across health, madness, intoxication, and emotion, showing that no single impression can claim privileged veracity.
, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1987supporting
Chrysippus regarded all dialectic as integral to the whole of Stoicism. In practice … He will use ‘argument on the opposite side,’ as an educational device, and not to induce suspension of judgement.
Long and Sedley document the Stoic counter-position: Chrysippus deployed dialectical opposition as pedagogy, explicitly distinguishing it from the Academic and Pyrrhonist use of the same technique to induce suspension of judgement.
, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1987supporting
even though inwardly the Pyrrhonist insulates himself from assent in a way which results in supreme tranquillity, to all outward appearances he leads a quite conventional life.
Long and Sedley describe the practical consequence of sustained suspension of assent for the Pyrrhonist: inner tranquillity coexisting with outward conventional behaviour, a model linking epochē to ataraxia.
, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1987supporting
When an inner psychological conflict gets too bad, life gets suspended; the two opposites are equal, the yes and the no are equally strong, and life cannot go on.
Von Franz offers a depth-psychological analogue to epochē: suspension as a psychic condition of paralysis when opposed forces reach equipoise, here treated as suffering rather than as a path to tranquillity.
, Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales, 1974aside
that it is possible for a human being to hold no opinions, and not only possible but that it is necessary for the wise man to do so; this seemed to Arcesilaus both a true view and one honourable and worthy of a wise man.
Cicero reconstructs Arcesilaus’ response to Zeno as establishing that universal suspension of judgement is not merely possible but the normative condition of the sage, grounded in the absence of any truly cognitive impression.
, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), -45supporting