Thinker · TH-0031
Agrippa
Agrippa was a Pyrrhonian skeptic, probably of the first century CE, about whom almost nothing is known beyond his name. Diogenes Laërtius credits him…
Also known as Agrippa the Skeptic
c. 1st century CE · Unknown; the Greek-speaking Roman world
Traditions: Greek & Roman
Schools: Skepticism (Pyrrhonian & Academic)
Agrippa was a Pyrrhonian skeptic, probably of the first century CE, about whom almost nothing is known beyond his name. Diogenes Laërtius credits him with the Five Modes, a set of argument patterns for inducing suspension of judgement; Sextus Empiricus presents the same modes as the work of 'the more recent skeptics'. Three of them form what is now called Agrippa's trilemma: any attempt to justify a belief ends in infinite regress, circular reasoning or an arbitrary stopping point.
Key ideas
- Any claim can be met with conflicting claims of apparently equal weight.
- Justification threatens to run into infinite regress, circularity or unsupported assumption.
- Appearances are always relative to the observer and circumstances.
- Faced with these modes, the skeptic suspends judgement rather than asserting or denying.
Major works
- Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book IX (records him; no writings survive)
- Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Book I (records the Five Modes)
In the conversation
- Question I know within ten seconds whether a room will laugh, but I can’t say how. Does that count as knowing?
- Question Why does asking “how do you know?” three times end every argument in our house?
- Discussion Why debates about first principles never end: notes from the high-school tournament circuit
- Question Nāgārjuna asked what proves the means of knowledge. Is that Agrippa’s trilemma in Sanskrit?
- Debate An infinite chain of reasons is not a defect: the case for infinitism deserves more than a smirk