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AGRIPPA

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Originally appearing in Volume V01, Page 425 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.

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AGRIPPA , a sceptical philosopher, whose date cannot be accurately determined. He must have lived later than See also:

AENESIDEMUS

Aenesidemus, who is generally said to have been a contemporary of See also:

CICERO

Cicero. To him are ascribed the five tropes (7Evm epoaoi) which, according to Sextus Empiricus, summarize the attitude of the later See also:

ancient sceptics. The first trope emphasizes the disagreement of philosophers on all fundamental points; know-ledge comes either from the senses or from See also:

REASON (Lat. ratio, through French raison)

reason. Some thinkers hold that nothing is known but the things of sense; others that the things of reason alone are known; and so on. It follows that the only See also:

wise course is to be content with an attitude of indifference, neither to affirm nor to deny. The second trope deals with the validity of See also:

PROOF (in M. Eng. preove, proeve, preve, &°c., from O. Fr . prueve, proeve, &c., mod. preuve, Late. Lat. proba, probate, to prove, to test the goodness of anything, probus, good)

proof; the proof of one so-called fact depends on another fact which itself needs demonstration, and so on ad infinitum. The third points out that the data of sense are relative to the sentient being, those of reason to the intelligent mind; that in different conditions things themselves are seen or thought to be different. Where, then, is the See also:

ABSOLUTE (Lat. absolvere, to loose, set free)

absolute criterion? Fourthly, if we examine things fairly, we see that in point of fact all knowledge depends on certain hypotheses, or facts taken for granted. Such knowledge is fundamentally hypothetical, and might well be accepted as such without the labour of a demonstration which is logically invalid. The fifth trope points out the impossibility of proving the sensible by the intelligible inasmuch as it remains to establish the intelligible in its turn by the sensible.

Such a See also:

PROCESS

process is a vicious circle and has no logical validity. A comparison of these tropes with the ten tropes enumerated in the See also:

ARTICLE (from Lat. articulus, a joint)

article AENESIDEMUS shows that See also:

SCEPTICISM (o-Kesrroµai, I consider, reflect, hesitate, doubt)

scepticism has made an advance into the more abtruse questions of See also:

metaphysics. The first and the third include all the ideas expressed in the ten tropes, and the other three systematize the more profound difficulties which new thinkers had See also:

DEVELOPED

developed. Aenesidemus was content to attack the validity of sense-given knowledge; Agrippa goes further and impugns the possibility of all truth whatever. His reasons are those of See also:

MODERN

modern scepticism, the reasons which by their very nature are not susceptible of disproof. See See also:

DIOGENES

Diogenes Laertius x. 88, and See also:

ZELLER, EDUARD (1814-1908)

Zeller's See also:

Greek See also:

PHILOSOPHY (Gr. gthos, fond of, and vo4 (a, wisdom)

Philosophy. Also the articles SCEPTICISM; AENESIDEMUS.

End of Article: AGRIPPA

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