Pyrrhonist Maxims

The use of maxims can serve as a reminder to prevent belief formation and to suspend judgment.

The "Not More" Maxim

This maxim is also said as "nothing more" with identical meaning. It is a shortened form of a longer maxim: "not more this than that, up than down" that originated with Pyrrho. It can also be said as "why more this than that?" or "why this and not that?" - stating the maxim as a question rather than an assertion. It is a refusal to define or assent to a non-evident proposition.

Another variation of the maxim, one that originates with Pyrrho, is, "it no more is than it is not or it both is and is not or it neither is nor is not." By "it" this maxim refers to any non-evident matter. This version of the maxim is prone to being misunderstood. Some take it as a dogmatic statement denying the law of non-contradiction. This is not what we take it to mean. We take it to reflect the practitioner's state of mind, indicating that the matter at hand cannot be determined, and that one has exhausted all of the possibilities that appear for doing so.

The maxim "not more this than that" makes our feelings clear about how we reach equilibrium through equipollence of opposed arguments and ideas. We use the term "equipollence" with regard to a kind of equality between things that appear persuasive to us, and "equilibrium" to refer to not assenting to either alternative, as a balance on an old-fashioned scale would be with equal weights on each side.

More than any other image, such a scale can be considered the symbol of Pyrrhonism. The Pyrrhonist philosopher, Michel de Montaigne, had this image put on the wall of his study, captioned by the Pyrrhonist maxim he invented.

Montaigne's Maxim -- "What do I know?" -- shown with the traditional Pyrrhonist logo of weighing scales

It may appear that the maxim "nothing more" looks like it could be a denial, but Pyrrhonists do not use it with that meaning or intent. We take it as an abbreviated way of saying: "I don't know which of these I ought to give assent to and which I should deny assent to." This maxim, like all of the other Pyrrhonist maxims, serves to affect our state of mind. The maxims are not something we say to indicate something entirely true and firm. They just represent what appears to us. The maxims are reminders, not truth claims.

The "Non-Assertion" Maxim

The term "assertion" has two senses: a narrow one and a broad one. In the broader sense an "assertion" indicates affirmation or negation, such as "it is daytime," or "it is not daytime." In the narrower sense it is used just to indicate affirmation only. Pyrrhonists use "non-assertion" in the broader sense, to cover statements of either affirmation or negation.

Pyrrhonists practice non-assertion about the non-evident. We don't affirm or deny anything non-evident. In using the maxim, we are not making an assertion that assertions cannot be made about things. We are just expressing our own feelings about our own abilities to make assertions about non-evident things.

To be clear about what things we're talking about, by "assertions" we mean dogmatic statements about the non-evident - statements of belief about non-evident things. These are what we neither affirm nor deny. We do make assertions about evident matters, such as "the language of this website is English," or "this website is about Pyrrhonism." By "evident" here we are referring to things that affect our senses and our feelings such that they force us to assent to them.

The Greek term for "non-assertion" is "aphasia" (pronounced uh-FAZE-e-uh). In Greek the term also has the meaning of "speechlessness" or "wordlessness." Another way to work with this maxim is to take it to mean "say nothing," "be silent." Voicing opinions makes them stronger than merely thinking about them. Using "aphasia" as the maxim can help with this form of practice.

The Maxims: "Perhaps," "Possibly," "Maybe"

These belong to the following set of maxims which are all variations on the same theme:

• Perhaps
• Perhaps not
• Possibly
• Possibly not
• Maybe
• Maybe not

These maxims represent shorter versions of the following maxims:

• Perhaps it is the case
• Perhaps it is not the case
• Possibly it is the case
• Possibly it is not the case
• Maybe it is the case
• Maybe it is not the case

Again, these maxims are not statements of what one believes, but statements that one doesn't have beliefs. They are expressions that one finds the state of affairs about non-evident matters to be undecided.

The "I Withhold Assent" Maxim

"I withhold assent" is short for "I am unable to say which of the alternatives proposed I ought to believe and which I ought not to believe." By saying this, we mean that the arguments for affirming or denying the matter at hand appear equal in terms of credibility. As to whether they actually are equal, we have no firm opinion. We just state what appears to us to be the case about them.

The "I Determine Nothing" Maxim

By "determine" here we use the word in the sense of assenting to something non-evident. In using this maxim, a Pyrrhonist is saying that they are in a state of mind such that they neither dogmatically affirm nor deny the matter in question. This is not a dogmatic statement about the role of the Pyrrhonist. It is just a description of the Pyrrhonist's state of mind and their feelings.

The "Everything Is Indeterminate" Maxim

Indeterminateness is a state of mind in which one takes neither an affirmative nor a negative position.

The use of the word "is" here has the benefit of brevity, but it is not appropriately used. What should be used is "appears to be." The word "everything" is also sloppy. By "everything" we are not referring to all things that exist. We are referring just to all non-evident things. For example, the matter of whether you are reading a website right now is evident, but the matter of whether this is the best website about Pyrrhonism is non-evident. By "indeterminate" we mean that among the non-evident things that are opposite or mutually inconsistent none of them are clearly more credible or clearly less credible.

Essentially, this maxim is a short way of saying "all of the non-evident matters that I have considered appear to me to be such that not one of them is of superior credibility or of inferior credibility relative to anything that is inconsistent with it."

The "Everything Is Non-Apprehensible" Maxim

This maxim is similar to "everything is indeterminate." The issues with wording and meaning are the same except that the topic is apprehension - whether something can be grasped or understood -- rather than determination.

This maxim is a way of saying "all of the non-evident matters that I have considered appear to me to be non-apprehensible." In saying this, we are not saying that those matters are inherently non-apprehensible. We are saying that this is simply our experience about those matters. Dogmatists try to refute what we say by insisting that maxims such as these are dogmatic statements, but their arguments are irrelevant to what we are reporting. We are reporting about our experience of equipollence, which is leading us to find things to be non-apprehensive. We are not making dogmatic assertions about the state of reality.

The Maxims: "I Am Non-Apprehensive" and "I Do Not Apprehend"

Again, each of these maxims expresses our personal experience. This experience causes us to decline to take an affirmative or negative position on non-evident matters.

The "To Every Argument an Equal Argument Is Opposed" Maxim

By "every argument" we mean only the arguments we have considered. We don't mean every argument that has been or could ever be made. By "argument" we mean only the sense of the term that applies to establishing dogmatically something not evident. Further, we don't limit "argument" to meaning putting forth by means of premises and conclusions. We also include any method of persuading one to adopt a belief about the non-evident.

By "equal" we mean with regard to credibility or lack thereof. As before, for "is" we tacitly mean "appears to me." Thus, by this maxim we mean "for every argument I have examined for establishing a belief about something non-evident there appears to me to be another argument in opposition, and that argument appears to me to be equally credible."

Again this maxim is not making a dogmatic statement about the nature of arguments. It is just describing what we experience.

An alternative version of this maxim is: "to every argument an equal argument is to be opposed." This turns the maxim into an admonition meaning "to every argument attempting to establish a belief about the non-evident we are to oppose some conflicting argument that is equally credible." The purpose of stating the maxim this way is to encourage the practitioner to resist being tricked by the arguments of the dogmatists in to ceasing to raise questions and to rashly give in. This would cause the practitioner to lose the ataraxia that is prone to following suspension of judgment about everything.

The "What Do I Know?" Maxim

This maxim was created by the Pyrrhonist philosopher Michel de Montaigne, which he adopted as his motto. It is perhaps the single statement for which he is most known for. Montaigne's Essays were a rambling inquiry into a vast array of subject matters in which Montaigne freely entertained doubt, and, like Plutarch, who was his primary inspiration, endeavored to look at each issue from multiple perspectives, finding great variety, volatility, and fallibility to be the basic features of human nature. The longest and most influential of his essays, Apology for Raymond Sebond, marks his adoption of Pyrrhonism and the creation of this maxim that Montaigne used to remind himself that he, like all other humans, was incapable of attaining truth.