Aenesidemus facts for kids

Aenesidemus (Ancient Greek: Αἰνησίδημος or Αἰνεσίδημος) was an ancient Greek philosopher from Knossos. He lived around the 1st century BC. Aenesidemus was a follower of Pyrrhonism, a type of Skepticism that questions whether we can truly know anything for sure. He helped bring back the ideas of Pyrrho, an earlier skeptic. Aenesidemus also created ten special ways of thinking, called "modes," to help people understand why it's sometimes best to hold back from making firm judgments. He combined ideas from other philosophers like Heraclitus and Timon of Phlius with his skeptical views. His main book, Pyrrhonian Discourses, is now lost, but we know about his ideas from other ancient writings.

Aenesidemus's Life

We don't have a lot of clear information about Aenesidemus's life. Most of what we know comes from a summary of his book written by a scholar named Photius in the 9th century. Other ancient writers like Sextus Empiricus and Diogenes Laërtius also mentioned him.

It's not certain if Aenesidemus started the Pyrrhonist school again or just made it popular once more. Some people believe he was a student of Heraclides of Tarentum. Photius tells us that Aenesidemus dedicated his main book to Lucius Aelius Tubero. Tubero was a friend of the famous Roman speaker Cicero. This suggests that Aenesidemus might have been connected to a group of philosophers called the Academy.

Aenesidemus's Philosophy

Aenesidemus's ideas focused on four main areas. These included reasons for doubt, questioning how we understand cause and effect, and ideas about the physical world and what is right or wrong. He believed that because we can't be sure about truth or why things happen, it's hard to say what is absolutely good or bad. Instead, he thought our actions are often based on feelings of pleasure and pain.

The Ten Modes of Aenesidemus

Aenesidemus created ten "modes" or "tropes" to explain why we should sometimes "suspend judgment." This means holding back from deciding if something is definitely true or false. These modes show that our experiences and understanding are always changing and depend on many things.

Here are the ten modes:

• (1) Different animals experience things in different ways. For example, what tastes good to a dog might not taste good to a human.
• (2) Even among people, there are differences in how we see things. What one person finds beautiful, another might not.
• (3) For the same person, what their senses tell them can seem to contradict itself. A sweet food might taste bitter if you're sick.
• (4) Our senses change over time, depending on our physical state. If you're tired, things might look or sound different.
• (5) What we sense changes based on where we are. A building looks different up close than it does from far away.
• (6) and (7) We only know objects indirectly. Things like air or moisture can affect how we see them. Also, objects are always changing in color, temperature, size, and how they move.
• (8) All our perceptions are connected and influence each other. How you feel can change how you see a situation.
• (9) If we experience something many times, our impression of it becomes less strong. A loud noise might be startling at first, but less so if you hear it often.
• (10) Everyone grows up with different beliefs, laws, and social customs. These differences shape how we understand the world.

Aenesidemus argued that truth isn't fixed. It changes depending on the situation. Because everyone sees things differently and organizes information in their own way, what we think is true is often just our own personal view.

Questioning Cause and Effect

Aenesidemus also questioned the idea of "causality," which is about how one thing causes another. He believed that cause and effect don't exist outside of our minds. We create the idea of them when we observe things.

He argued that if a cause and its effect are different, they must happen either at the same time or one after the other. If they happen at the same time, then the cause is the effect, and the effect is the cause, which doesn't make sense. If the cause happens before the effect, then there must be a moment when the cause exists but hasn't caused anything yet. This means it's not truly a cause at that moment. Through these kinds of arguments, he suggested that it's very difficult to truly understand the relationship between cause and effect.

Pyrrhonian Discourses

Aenesidemus's most important book was called Pyrrhonian Discourses. In this book, he mainly wrote about why people need to "suspend judgment." This is because our ability to know things (our epistemology) has limits. Even though the book is lost, we have a summary of it from Photius. The book had eight parts. It explained Pyrrhonist philosophy, showed how Pyrrhonists were different from other skeptics, and laid out the ten "modes" for suspending judgment.

Legacy

Philo of Alexandria, another ancient writer, described Aenesidemus's modes in his own work.

Much later, in the 18th century, a philosopher named Gottlob Ernst Schulze wrote a book called Aenesidemus. In this book, Schulze used a fictional conversation between Aenesidemus and a follower of Immanuel Kant to discuss philosophical ideas.

See Also

In Spanish: Enesidemo para niños

• Agrippa the Sceptic
• Arcesilaus
• Carneades
• Pyrrho