Sextus Empiricus Pyrrhoniae Hypotyposes 2.11.130

1. Cf. Adv. Log. ii. 279. The meaning of these sections, 130–133, is briefly this: The Dogmatists argue (§§ 130–131) (1) that the Sceptics’ objections to ‟sign” must signify either something or nothing; if nothing, they have no force against it, while if they signify something they are signs themselves and so prove sign’s existence; (2) the arguments (λόγοι) against ‟sign” prove either something or nothing; if nothing, they fail to prove the non-existence of ‟sign,” while if they prove something, they are ‟proofs,” i.e. a species of ‟sign,” and thus prove sign’s existence. Hence, whichever view we take—the Dogmatists’ that ‟sign exists,” or the Sceptics’ that ‟sign exists not”—we arrive at the same conclusion that ‟sign exists.” In § 132 we have the counter-argument of the Sceptics, ‟reversing” that of the Dogmatists.