Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrhoniae Hypotyposes, Robert Gregg Bury (Translator), 3.7.52

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[52] But incorporeals are incapable of submitting to impression of this kind, so that they could not be apprehended by sense.

Nor yet by means of reason. For if the reason is ‟verbally expressible”¹ and incorporeal, as the Stoics assert, he who says that incorporeals are apprehended by means of reason is begging the question, For when our question is—‟Can an incorporeal object be apprehended?” he assumes an incorporeal object and then, by means of it alone, claims to effect the apprehension of incorporeals. Yet reason itself, if it is incorporeal, belongs to the class of things which are in question.

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.) — 3.7.52 focus

[52] τὰ δὲ ἀσώματα ἐπέρεισιν τοιαύτην ὑπομένειν οὐχ οἷά τέ ἐστιν, ὥστε οὐκ ἂν δύναιτο τῇ αἰσθήσει <ταῦτα> καταλαμβάνεσθαι. ἀλλ᾿ οὐδὲ διὰ λόγου. εἰ μὲν γὰρ λεκτόν ἐστιν ὁ λόγος καὶ ἀσώματος, ὡς οἱ Στωικοί φασιν (fr. ΙΙ 166 Α.), ὁ λέγων διὰ λόγου καταλαμβάνεσθαι τὰ ἀσώματα
τὸ ζητούμενον συναρπάζει. ζητούντων γὰρ ἡμῶν, εἰ δύναταί τι ἀσώματον καταλαμβάνεσθαι, αὐτ’ ὃς ἀσώματόν τι λαβὼν ἁπλῶς διὰ τούτου τὴν κατάληψιν τῶν ἀσωμάτων ποιεῖσθαι θέλει. καίτοι αὐτὸς ὁ λόγος, εἴπερ ἀσώματός ἐστι, τῆς τῶν ζητουμένων ἐστὶ μοίρας.

Notes on the current edition

Outlines of Pyrrhonism

1. For the Stoic theory of ‟expression” (λεκτόν) cf. ii. 81,104. Logos (‟reason” or ‟word”) is from the same stem as Lekton (‟what can be put into words” or ‟meaning”), which—as contrasted with ‟uttered words”—was termed by the Stoics ‟incorporeal.”

Sextus Empiricus Pyrrhoniae Hypotyposes 3.7.52

Robert Gregg Bury (Translator)

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