Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrhoniae Hypotyposes, Robert Gregg Bury (Translator), 3.10.76

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[76] We should also propound the following argument.¹ If a thing moves it moves either by way of orderly, or gradual, progression or by occupying the divisible interval all at once; but in neither of these ways can a thing move, as we shall prove; so that it does not move at all.

Now that a thing can not move in orderly progression is plain on the face of it. For if bodies, and also the places and the times in which the bodies are said to move, are divided to infinity, motion will not occur, it being impossible to discover amongst the infinite any first thing wherefrom the object said to move will derive its initial movement.

Pyrrhoniae Hypotyposes. Sextus Empiricus. Robert Gregg Bury (Translator). London. 1933.

Funding provided by Tisch Library, Tufts University.

Current edition First1KGreek

Outlines of Pyrrhonism (English) (Sextus Empiricus, Vol. 1. Bury, Robert Gregg, translator. London: William Heinemann Ltd.; New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1933.)

Editions (1)

Pyrrhoniae Hypotyposes First1KGreek (Sextus Empiricus. Sexti Empiricii Opera, Volume 1. Mutschmann, Hermann, editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1912.) — 3.10.76 focus

[76] Ερωτητέον δὲ κἀκεῖνον τὸν λόγον. εἰ κινεῖταί τι, ἤτοι κατὰ τὸ πρότερον <πρότερον> κινεῖται ἢ κατὰ
μεριστὸν διάστημα· οὔτε δὲ κατὰ τὸ πρότερον πρότερον δύναταί τι κινεῖσθαι, οὔτε κατὰ τὸ ἄθρουν μεριστὸν διάστημα, ὡς δείξομεν· οὐδὲ κινεῖταί τι ἄρα. ὅτι μὲν οὖν κατὰ τὸ πρότερον πρότερον οὐκ ἐνδέχεταί τι κινεῖσθαι,
αὐτόθεν δῆλον. εἰ μὲν γὰρ εἰς ἄπειρον τέμνονται τά σώματα καὶ οἱ τόποι καὶ οἱ χρόνοι οἷς κινεῖσθαι λέγεται ¹²³ τὰ σώματα, οὐ γενήσεται κίνησις, ἀδυνάτου ὄντος τοῦ πρῶτόν τι ἐν ἀπείροις εὑρεθῆναι, ἀφ’ οὗ πρώτου κινήσεται τὸ κινεῖσθαι λεγόμενον.

Notes on the current edition

Outlines of Pyrrhonism

1. The following sections, 76–80, criticize two kinds of motion, (1) successive motion, by which the moving body occupies the first part of the intervening space first with its own first part, next with its second part, and so on till all its parts have passed through all the parts of the ‟interval.” (Here it is assumed that both the moving body and the spatial distance, or ‟interval,” are divisible; but, argues Sextus, whether they are infinitely divisible or divisible only into a limited number of indivisible parts, in either case motion is found to be impossible.) (2) Momentaneous motion (§§ 78–79), by which the moving body passes into the whole of the interval in a single moment of time.

Sextus Empiricus Pyrrhoniae Hypotyposes 3.10.76

Robert Gregg Bury (Translator)

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