Person · philosopher · Greece
Pyrrho of Elis
The Greek philosopher who travelled east with Alexander's army, met Indian ascetics — the gymnosophists of the Greek accounts — and returned to found the sceptical tradition that bears his name, teaching suspension of judgement and the tranquillity that follows from it.
- Date
- -360–-270
- Function
- Learning & scholarship
- Confidence
- Not assessed
Worth knowing
The resemblance between Pyrrhonist ataraxia and Buddhist or Jain positions on the undecidability of metaphysical claims has been argued over for a century. Diogenes Laertius states the Indian encounter plainly; whether it caused the philosophy is a different question.
Connections (1)
- Traveller routeTakshashilā / Taxila
Diogenes Laertius states that Pyrrho went east with Alexander's army and met the Indian gymnosophists — the naked philosophers the Greek accounts describe at Taxila — and that he took his philosophy from them. What he taught on returning was the suspension of judgement about all claims, and the tranquillity that follows. The resemblance to Buddhist and Jain positions on undecidable questions has been argued over for a century; the encounter itself is not in doubt, only what it caused.
Sources
Wikipedia, “Pyrrho”. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers IX; Christopher Beckwith, Greek Buddha (2015).
Open Pyrrho of Elis in the repository →