Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrhoniae Hypotyposes, Robert Gregg Bury (Translator), 3.24.200

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[200] And what wonder, when both the adherents of the Cynic philosophy and the followers of Zeno of Citium, Cleanthes and Chrysippus, declare that this practice is indifferent?¹ Having intercourse with a woman, too, in public, although deemed by us to be shameful, is not thought to be shameful by some of the Indians; at any rate they couple publicly with indifference, like the philosopher Crates, as the story goes.

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.) — 3.24.200 focus

[200] καὶ τί θαυμαστόν, ὅπου γε καὶ οἱ ἀπὸ τῆς κυνικῆς φιλο σοφίας καὶ οἱ περὶ τὸν Κιτιέα Ζήνωνα καὶ Κλεάνθην καὶ Χρύσιππον (fr. Stoic. I, 256 Arn.) ἀδιάφορον
τοῦτο εἶναί φασιν; καὶ τὸ δημοσίᾳ γυναικὶ μίγνυσθαι, καίτοι παρ’ ἡμῖν αἰσχρὸν εἶναι δοκοῦν, παρά τισι τῶν Ἰνδῶν οὐκ αἰσχρὸν εἶναι νομίζεται· μίγνυνται γοῦν ἀδιαφόρως δημοσίᾳ, καθάπερ καὶ περὶ τοῦ φιλοσόφου Κράτητος ἀκηκόαμεν.

Notes on the current edition

Outlines of Pyrrhonism

1. Cf. §§ 205, 245; and i. 148, 153, 160 for what follows. The repellent features of Stoic ethical theory mentioned in this chapter are passed over in most expositions of Stoicism, though confirmed by Plutarch (De Stoic. repugn.). We may ascribe them to the ‟Back to Nature” movement, which the early Stoics shared with the Cynics. The dictum ‟Live according to Nature” might be taken to mean ‟Disregard conventional morals,” ‟Cease to repress your natural instincts.” But, as Sextus says in § 249, they did not (like some of the Cynics) carry out in practice these shocking theories.

Sextus Empiricus Pyrrhoniae Hypotyposes 3.24.200

Robert Gregg Bury (Translator)

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