I wonder if we may distinguish between something like “epistemological relativism” and “metaphysical relativism”. The former would be relativism of the sort described in the article, whereby how we understand reality is relative to us as individuals. The latter would then be a more objective relativism where reality really is different for everyone. Of course, this latter position is quite extreme and I do not think many hold to it (perhaps some do when looking at morality in particular though).
Given your other posts about possible two-way interaction between Pyrrhonism and Buddhism, it's not very surprising that this reminds me of the approach promoted by some Buddhist Madhyamika philosophers, notably Chandrakirti, of suspending judgment on anything beyond "the common opinion of cowherds". Everybody knows that the Sun rises in the East every morning, so we don't deny that, but we don't bother to speculate further.
Now this is probably quite good for your mental peace, but the obvious criticism is that if people thought like that, even the most basic science would never have happened. You need to be able to speculate on patterns *beyond* the obviously empirical, in order to formulate ideas that can be further checked. Did the Pyrrhonian school ever go into this question?
On the Buddhist side, to a certain extent they did, and it brought many controversies; the Prasangika / Svatantrika divide is directly about how much 'explaining' can be done by one who suspends judgment in the Madhyamika style, and later attempts to synthesize Madhyamika with Dharmakirti's pramana are also all about being more precise about what can be known about anything.
If anyone is interested, a group of scholars calling themselves the Cowherds wrote a whole book about this question, called Moonshadows. A quick google search finds that the entire PDF is currently posted in some blog, and one of the chapters is specifically about Pyrrhonian parallels.
I've heard of that book, but I've not gotten around to reading it. I didn't know that it contained a chapter on Pyrrhonism. I must now prioritize it.
I've been meaning for a long time to write an article on Pyrrhonism and science. I even have a partial draft of one, but I've not been happy enough with it to publish it. Pyrrhonism is in large degree a critique of the methods used in ancient science. The objective of modern scientific methodology was to fix those methodological flaws. Tackling this from a Pyrrhonist perspective is complex. Hence why I keep finding I'm dissatisfied with my draft. It's also hard to prioritize this, because I think what I do is philosophical self-help, and that's what I think my readers are looking for.
the quote which contains the remarks "since everything is in relation to something, we shall suspend judgment as to what things are in themselves and in their nature" Seems to me, to be alleging that everything is in relation to other 'things'. this implies that nothing exists by itself but in relation, perhaps a version of Buddhist Dependent Causation???? There is perhaps no essence other than the interaction....
This seems slightly different from the later assertions that "for they are relative to whoever does the sensing…." That makes the relativity a matter of 'subjectivity,' which is not quite the same.
Obviously these two positions are reconcilable, as they both assert that existence or appearance is a matter of interaction.
Yes. I consider it to be the Pyrrhonist version of Buddhist dependent causation. The key difference is that the Pyrrhonists eschew claims of causation.
thank you. I've actually wondered about the translation of 'causation' in dependent causation, but i'm not capable of resolving that. I just remembered that some people translate it as dependent arising.... Do you think that would be better? is mutual dependence better, or would that still have the wrong implications?
Yes, "dependent arising" is much more common. So, too, is "dependent origination."
From a Pyrrhonist perspective, the interesting thing may be that while it endorses the idea of causation (which Sextus also endorses), it implies that causation is tremendously complex, which implies that it is ungraspable.
relative because of relation…—ships, there are things going on well before we have objects to harden our judgement against….
it is a double-faced bounded rationality, one face bounded by the POV we have as a confounded individual with constitutive biases (wisdom about which allows the relative-ness if not the relativity to appear to us), the other face is bounded by the social learning we inherit (institutions and what-not) and grow up in with our constitutive biases, such that they are hard to tell apart (narcissists by definition can never tell them apart) and this is the interaction of which we speak (among all that other interactions about which we must remain silent).
I wonder if we may distinguish between something like “epistemological relativism” and “metaphysical relativism”. The former would be relativism of the sort described in the article, whereby how we understand reality is relative to us as individuals. The latter would then be a more objective relativism where reality really is different for everyone. Of course, this latter position is quite extreme and I do not think many hold to it (perhaps some do when looking at morality in particular though).
Given your other posts about possible two-way interaction between Pyrrhonism and Buddhism, it's not very surprising that this reminds me of the approach promoted by some Buddhist Madhyamika philosophers, notably Chandrakirti, of suspending judgment on anything beyond "the common opinion of cowherds". Everybody knows that the Sun rises in the East every morning, so we don't deny that, but we don't bother to speculate further.
Now this is probably quite good for your mental peace, but the obvious criticism is that if people thought like that, even the most basic science would never have happened. You need to be able to speculate on patterns *beyond* the obviously empirical, in order to formulate ideas that can be further checked. Did the Pyrrhonian school ever go into this question?
On the Buddhist side, to a certain extent they did, and it brought many controversies; the Prasangika / Svatantrika divide is directly about how much 'explaining' can be done by one who suspends judgment in the Madhyamika style, and later attempts to synthesize Madhyamika with Dharmakirti's pramana are also all about being more precise about what can be known about anything.
If anyone is interested, a group of scholars calling themselves the Cowherds wrote a whole book about this question, called Moonshadows. A quick google search finds that the entire PDF is currently posted in some blog, and one of the chapters is specifically about Pyrrhonian parallels.
I've heard of that book, but I've not gotten around to reading it. I didn't know that it contained a chapter on Pyrrhonism. I must now prioritize it.
I've been meaning for a long time to write an article on Pyrrhonism and science. I even have a partial draft of one, but I've not been happy enough with it to publish it. Pyrrhonism is in large degree a critique of the methods used in ancient science. The objective of modern scientific methodology was to fix those methodological flaws. Tackling this from a Pyrrhonist perspective is complex. Hence why I keep finding I'm dissatisfied with my draft. It's also hard to prioritize this, because I think what I do is philosophical self-help, and that's what I think my readers are looking for.
Thank you as always
A trivial point here
the quote which contains the remarks "since everything is in relation to something, we shall suspend judgment as to what things are in themselves and in their nature" Seems to me, to be alleging that everything is in relation to other 'things'. this implies that nothing exists by itself but in relation, perhaps a version of Buddhist Dependent Causation???? There is perhaps no essence other than the interaction....
This seems slightly different from the later assertions that "for they are relative to whoever does the sensing…." That makes the relativity a matter of 'subjectivity,' which is not quite the same.
Obviously these two positions are reconcilable, as they both assert that existence or appearance is a matter of interaction.
Yes. I consider it to be the Pyrrhonist version of Buddhist dependent causation. The key difference is that the Pyrrhonists eschew claims of causation.
thank you. I've actually wondered about the translation of 'causation' in dependent causation, but i'm not capable of resolving that. I just remembered that some people translate it as dependent arising.... Do you think that would be better? is mutual dependence better, or would that still have the wrong implications?
Yes, "dependent arising" is much more common. So, too, is "dependent origination."
From a Pyrrhonist perspective, the interesting thing may be that while it endorses the idea of causation (which Sextus also endorses), it implies that causation is tremendously complex, which implies that it is ungraspable.
yes, a matter of interaction, so they are
relative because of relation…—ships, there are things going on well before we have objects to harden our judgement against….
it is a double-faced bounded rationality, one face bounded by the POV we have as a confounded individual with constitutive biases (wisdom about which allows the relative-ness if not the relativity to appear to us), the other face is bounded by the social learning we inherit (institutions and what-not) and grow up in with our constitutive biases, such that they are hard to tell apart (narcissists by definition can never tell them apart) and this is the interaction of which we speak (among all that other interactions about which we must remain silent).
Janus dances.