Pyrrhonian

Part of speech: adjective, noun

Definitions

1. Relating to Pyrrho of Elis or to the ancient school of skepticism that holds certainty is impossible ; a person who adopts this school and withholds judgment on every claim
2. Of or belonging to the ancient Greek skeptical philosophy founded by Pyrrho ; an adherent of that philosophy who refrains from asserting any belief as definitely true
3. Describing the ancient skeptical doctrine that suspends all firm opinion ; one who follows this doctrine and declines to affirm any dogmatic conclusion

Etymology: Pyrrho of Elis, a Greek philosopher who lived around 360 to 270 BCE, reportedly travelled with Alexander the Great's army to India and came back convinced that no belief about the world could be known for certain. He taught that the sensible response was suspension of judgment, or "epoche," a word that originally meant holding back or stopping. His followers, the Pyrrhonists, are remembered mainly through the writings of Sextus Empiricus, a physician of the late second and early third century CE, whose works are the main surviving source on the school. Pyrrho himself wrote nothing that survives. The English adjective and noun come straight from his name, formed with the suffix "-ian," which marks a person or thing connected with someone. English speakers coined "Pyrrhonism" and related forms in the early modern period, when Sextus's works were rediscovered and printed in Latin translation in the 1560s, and the Renaissance thinker Montaigne did much to popularise the school's doubts. The adjective and the noun for a follower therefore date from that revival, not from ancient Greek.

Synonyms: pyrrhonist, skeptic, skeptical

Antonyms: dogmatic