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Against the ethicists : (Adversus mathematicos XI)

Author: Sextus, Empiricus.; Richard Arnot Home Bett
Publisher: Oxford : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1997.
Series: Clarendon later ancient philosophers.
Edition/Format:   Book : EnglishView all editions and formats
Summary:
In this unjustly neglected and misunderstood work Sextus sets out a distinctive Sceptic position in ethics. He discusses the concepts good and bad, and puts forward the sceptical argument that nothing is either good or bad by nature or intrinsically or invariably, but only relatively to persons and/or to circumstances. He then argues that the sceptic is better off than the non-sceptic. In the latter part of the
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Details

Named Person: Sextus, Empiricus.
Document Type: Book
All Authors / Contributors: Sextus, Empiricus.; Richard Arnot Home Bett
ISBN: 0198236204 9780198236207
OCLC Number: 34934120
Description: xxxiv, 302 p. ; 23 cm.
Series Title: Clarendon later ancient philosophers.
Other Titles: Pros ethikous.
Responsibility: Sextus Empiricus ; translation, commentary, and introduction by Richard Bett.
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Abstract:

In this unjustly neglected and misunderstood work Sextus sets out a distinctive Sceptic position in ethics. He discusses the concepts good and bad, and puts forward the sceptical argument that nothing is either good or bad by nature or intrinsically or invariably, but only relatively to persons and/or to circumstances. He then argues that the sceptic is better off than the non-sceptic. In the latter part of the book, Sextus attacks the Stoic view that there is such a thing as a 'skill for life'.

This volume contains a translation of Against the Ethicists into clear modern English, together with an introduction and a detailed commentary. Those who have discussed this work in the past have tended to underestimate it, often regarding its main position as essentially the same as that of Sextus' better-known Outlines of Pyrrhonism. Richard Bett shows that Against the Ethicists represents a quite distinct and coherent philosophical outlook, associated with a phase of Scepticism earlier than Sextus himself, an outlook of which little other evidence survives.

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