He was the compiler of the ten Tropes of
[Greek: epoche], and perhaps in part their author, and the
author of the eight Tropes against aetiology.[1] He develops his
Scepticism from the standpoint that neither the senses nor the
intellect can give us any certain knowledge of reality.[2] He
denied the possibility of studying phenomena as signs of the
unknown.[3] He denied all possibility of truth, and the reality
of motion, origin and decay. There was according to his teaching
no pleasure or happiness, and no wisdom or supreme good. He
denied the possibility of finding out the nature of things, or
of proving the existence of the gods, and finally he declared
that no ethical aim is possible.
[1] _Hyp._ I. 180.
[2] Photius 170, B. 12.
[3] _Adv. Math._ VIII. 40.
The picture on the other hand, presented to us by Sextus and
Tertullian, is that of a man with a system of beliefs and
dogmas, which lead, he says, to the philosophy of Heraclitus. In
strange contradiction to his assertion of the impossibility of
all knowledge, he advocates a theory that the original substance
is air,[1] which is most certainly a dogma, although indeed a
deviation from the teachings of Heraclitus, of which Sextus
seemed unconscious, as he says, [Greek: to te on kata ton
Herakleiton aer estin, hos physin ho Ainesidemos]. Aenesidemus
dogmatised also regarding number and time and unity of the
original world-stuff.[2] He seems to have dogmatised further
about motion,[3] and about the soul.
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