Against the logicians.
Beautiful Letters| N° d'inventaire | 21994 |
| Format | 13.5 x 21 |
| Détails | 416 p., paperback. |
| Publication | Paris, 2019 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782251449760 |
Introduction and notes by: René Lefebvre Sextus Empiricus (2nd-3rd centuries AD) is the last skeptical philosopher of Antiquity and the only one whose work is largely preserved. His Against the Dogmatics takes philosophical knowledge as its target. This very well-argued set of treatises is structured according to the Hellenistic distinction between three parts of philosophy: logic, physics, and ethics. This is the first French translation of the first and most important part of this work, Against the Logicians, which challenges the very possibility of knowledge. Drawing on the distinction between "apparent things" and "hidden things," Sextus Empiricus first deals with the "criterion of truth or the ways of accessing the knowledge of apparent things." A long doxographical development that leads from the pre-Socratic philosophers to the Stoics, the Epicureans, and the Academicians precedes the presentation of the arguments that plead in favor of the non-existence of such a criterion. In Book II, Sextus Empiricus questions, with regard to hidden things, the "truth itself, before highlighting the weakness of semiotic inference and that of demonstration. The work thus brings to our attention both dogmatic doctrines—such as Stoic logic—to which we would have less access without his testimony, and a good part of the skeptical argument deployed since the revival of Pyrrhonism, at the time of Aenesidemus, which would otherwise be lost.
Introduction and notes by: René Lefebvre Sextus Empiricus (2nd-3rd centuries AD) is the last skeptical philosopher of Antiquity and the only one whose work is largely preserved. His Against the Dogmatics takes philosophical knowledge as its target. This very well-argued set of treatises is structured according to the Hellenistic distinction between three parts of philosophy: logic, physics, and ethics. This is the first French translation of the first and most important part of this work, Against the Logicians, which challenges the very possibility of knowledge. Drawing on the distinction between "apparent things" and "hidden things," Sextus Empiricus first deals with the "criterion of truth or the ways of accessing the knowledge of apparent things." A long doxographical development that leads from the pre-Socratic philosophers to the Stoics, the Epicureans, and the Academicians precedes the presentation of the arguments that plead in favor of the non-existence of such a criterion. In Book II, Sextus Empiricus questions, with regard to hidden things, the "truth itself, before highlighting the weakness of semiotic inference and that of demonstration. The work thus brings to our attention both dogmatic doctrines—such as Stoic logic—to which we would have less access without his testimony, and a good part of the skeptical argument deployed since the revival of Pyrrhonism, at the time of Aenesidemus, which would otherwise be lost.