Philosophy Atlas Locate in atlas →

Thinker · fl. 1st century BCE

Aenesidemus

Aenesidemus revived Pyrrhonian skepticism by cataloguing modes that set opposed appearances and judgments against one another, encouraging suspension of assent.

Intellectual setting

He is traditionally placed after Academic skepticism and before Sextus, though dates and institutional affiliations remain uncertain.

Key ideas

Ten modes

Differences among animals, people, circumstances, and mixtures make claims about things as they are appear underdetermined.

Against dogmatism

Skeptical argument opposes claims to discover hidden reality while retaining attention to how things appear in ordinary life.

Legacy

The modes credited to Aenesidemus gave later skepticism a portable argumentative repertoire against claims of certainty.