Sextus Empiricus

Sextus Empiricus, flourishing in the mid-to-late 2nd century CE, was a Greek Pyrrhonist philosopher and physician with Roman citizenship. His writings represent the most comprehensive extant record of ancient Greek and Roman Pyrrhonism. Due to their critical arguments against other Hellenistic philosophies, his works also serve as a crucial source of information regarding those schools of thought. Little is definitively known about his life, though he is thought to have lived in Alexandria, Rome, or Athens. His Roman name suggests he held Roman citizenship. While tradition places him within the Empiric school of medicine, where Pyrrhonism was prevalent, some of his writings hint at an affiliation with the Methodic school. As a skeptic, Sextus questioned the validity of induction and posed the regress argument against reasoning, advocating for the suspension of judgment (epoché) to achieve peace of mind (ataraxia).