Sextus Empiricus c. 160 – c. 210

Sextus Empiricus was a Greek physician and philosopher of the second and early third centuries AD, the principal extant source for ancient Pyrrhonian Skepticism. His major works, the Outlines of Pyrrhonism and Against the Mathematicians (also known as Against the Professors), set out the Pyrrhonian method and apply it systematically to the dogmatic claims of grammarians, rhetoricians, geometers, arithmeticians, astrologers, musicians, logicians, physicists, and ethicists. The Skeptical method he describes consists in opposing argument to argument, suspending judgement on every disputed question, and so attaining tranquillity. The recovery of his works in the 16th century, particularly the Latin translation of the Outlines published in 1562, was decisive in launching the modern Skeptical tradition that runs through Montaigne to Hume. Almost nothing else is known of his life.