TIMON… OF ATHENS?

Timon of Phlius (320-235 BC) was a follower of Pyrrho the Skeptic, and he flourished long after Timon of Athens, who had lived during the Peloponnesian War, in the fifth century BC, and was mentioned both by Plutarch and Lucian as a separate historical figure. It is mainly the older Timon the misanthrope, who was made the central character of Shakespeare’s play Timon of Athens, although certain parts of Shakespeare’s hero’s persona have been casually appropriated from the Skeptic.

This little known, and even less cared about, case of occasionally confused identity, adds a certain spice to my choice of the subject of this entry, who is, of course, the Skeptic. Ironically, having been born in Phlius, and lived for some time in Elis, he eventually moved to Athens, where he died in very old age, making him, to some extent, and to promote further confusion, another Timon of Athens.

Unlike Stoicism, Greek Skepticism is a relatively minor philosophical event,  and, unlike Diogenes of Sinope and Epicurus, the founders of Skepticism Pyrrho and Timon are rather minor historical figures. There are a few nuances, however, justifying the writing of this short entry, one of them admittedly superficial,--- referring to the confusion between my subject and Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens, which, by itself, would have been demonstrably insufficient.

Among other nuances is the famous catchphrase, always rendered in Latin as Ignoramus et Ignorabimus. It catches the essence of philosophical skepticism, and, like a single mathematical hypothesis at the basis of a comprehensive theory, allows everything skeptical that has ever been uttered, to be logically and very easily reduced to it.

Unlike the somewhat skeptical Sophists, who had expressed their utter mistrust for sensory perception, but preferred to stop there, the Skeptics, starting with their founding father Pyrrho, pushed Skepticism beyond that limit, expressing complete mistrust for ethical and logical rules and norms of behavior. There was not a shred of evidence to put one norm above another, thus the guiding principle of morality was adhering to the customs of the country wherever one happened to reside at that particular time. Moving from one place to another, obligated the individual to reshape his behavior, sometimes quite radically, in order to conform to the new surroundings.

Another logical consequence of Skepticism, which was promoted by the Skeptics and was sure to generate some public appeal, was that one should never worry about the future, which was totally unpredictable, but live in the present, enjoying it as much as one could, while the moment lasted. This of course smacks of too much pandering to the lower affects, and too little philosophy, a dirty trick that effectively handicapped the competition.

But there was also an interesting philosophical reasoning, apparently belonging to Timon, which denied the possibility of finding general principles for all deductive doctrines. This impossible to refute argument hit Aristotle’s doctrine of “aprioris” straight in the face, and was also one that the great old Kant was himself never able to overcome, but, rather disingenuously, tried to get around. This intellectual challenge is still very relevant in modern philosophical-scientific thinking, and, for being the first to bring it up, Timon objectively deserves to be awarded his own entry.

In summary of all of the above, neither Skepticism nor the Skeptics are interesting enough to devote much time to their study, but certain things about them surely merit our very brief attention.