Defensive Function of Pyrrhonic Dialectical Strategy

The concept "dialectical strategy" has recently gained a wide acceptance among the researchers of Ancient Pyrrhonism, particularly pertaining to Sextus Empiricus. The core premises of the strategy are claimed to have been elaborated by Socrates and were probably inherited by Sextus through Arcesilaus. The strategy consists, roughly, in taking the opponents' premises, concepts and theories in order to criticize them with their own means in a dialectical, polemical context. Nevertheless, the strategy was reshaped by Sextus for his own goal. Several antiskeptic arguments were created with a purpose to bring Sextus's skepticism to self-refutation by showing that arguments he used would inevitably lead him to self-refutation. In face of this situation, the author's aim is to uncover the defensive function of the dialectical strategy and its application, which, on the one hand, enables to dissolve antiskeptic arguments and, on the other, helps to distinguish Sextus's variant of the strategy from those in Socrates and Arcecilaus. Methodologically, the author was guided by a "problematic approach" according to which an argumentation is to be taken into the polemical context for uncovering the motivational source and aims Sextus had pursued. The author brings three antiskeptic arguments into consideration. In the first section, he outlines the strategy and argues that defensive function rests on a principle of the strategy that he calls an "opposition principle". In the second section, the author presents an argument claiming that Sextus is obliged to accept premises and conclusions of arguments he uses. The author come to the conclusion, that, according to the strategy, Sextus does not have to do this for he just dialectically borrows concepts of dogmatists and applies them against themselves. The third section represents the conception of the "self-bracketing" character of skeptical utterances suggested by Luca Castagnoli. This researcher dismantles the underlying logic of skeptical utterances that provides support against the charge of the self-refuting character of Pyrrhonism. He argues against an argument that deems skeptical utterances self-refuting. Utterances thought dogmatically as being true function as purgatives that evacuate themselves and all other content from the skeptic's mind. As Castagnoli puts it, they are cancelled along with other content or enclose themselves in brackets. Finally, in the fourth and last section, the author argues on the basis of an example of an argument against proof that opposition of contradictory arguments is the way how Sextus conquers not only opponents' arguments, but also his own arguments that threaten to render him dogmatic as well. The persuasive force of utterances and argument against proof are neutralized by their being opposed to dogmatists' arguments. Thus, the author comes to an overall conclusion that the opposition principle of the strategy successfully manages to put the antiskeptic arguments presented out of force.

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