Translated Texts

Here are some texts which I've translated for the Greek. I know they may be a bit too literal, but I'd like to know if they're at least passable.

1) The Skeptical [way] is an ability which sets up oppositions among things which appear and things which are thought in any way whatsoever, an ability from which we come, through the equipollence in the opposed things and arguments, first to suspension of judgment, and after that to unperturbedness.

2) The causal principle of the Skeptical [way] is the hope of becoming unperturbed. For men of talent, perturbed by the anomaly in things and being in aporia as to which of them they should rather assent to, came to investigate what is true and what is false in things, so as to become unperturbed as a result of this distinction.

3) We say up to now that the Skeptic’s end is unperturbedness in matters concerning opinion and moderation of affection in matters that are inevitable. For, having begun to philosophize with the object of deciding among appearances and apprehending which are true and which false, so as to become unperturbed, he fell into an equipollent disagreement; being unable to decide it, he suspended judgment. And while he was suspending judgment, unperturbedness in matters of opinion closely followed him by chance.

4) The Skeptics hoped to acquire unperturbedness by deciding the anomaly in the things which appear and which are thought, but being unable to do this, they suspended judgment. And while they were suspending judgment, unperturbedness closely followed them as it were by chance, as a shadow [closely follows] a body.

5) From this we conclude that, if what is productive of bad is bad and to be shunned, and if confidence that these things are by nature good and those bad produces perturbation, then to hypothesize and be convinced that anything is bad or good by nature is something bad and to be shunned.

6) also says that partial suspensions of judgment are good and partial assents bad. Yet someone might say that we say these things in accordance with what appears to us, and not affirmatively, whereas he [says them] in reference to their nature, so that he says that suspension of judgment is a good thing and assent a bad thing.

7) Whenever we say Skeptically ‘Of existing things some are good, some bad, and some between these’, we insert ‘is’ as indicative not of reality but of appearance. For concerning the existence relative to nature of the things good and bad and neither we have quite enough dispute with the Dogmatists; but we have the habit of calling each of them good or bad or indifferent according to how they appear. (19–20)

8) Since the intelligence of each person possesses judgments discordant with that of his neighbor, it is necessary that each person should regard as good what appears so to himself. But what appears good to each person is not good by nature.

9) With respect to the liberal arts [the Skeptics] had more or less the same experience as they had with respect to the whole of philosophy. For just as they approached the latter with the desire of reaching the truth, but when confronted with an equipollent conflict and the anomaly of things suspended judgment, so too with respect to the liberal arts they set out to acquire them, seeking to learn the truth here as well, but when they discovered similar aporias, they did not conceal them.

10) He certainly seems to me to share the Pyrrhonean discourse, so that his way and ours are almost one and the same. For he is not found making assertions about the reality or unreality of anything, nor does he prefer any one thing to another in respect of convincingness and lack of convincingness, but suspends judgment about everything. And [he says] that the end is suspension of judgment, which we said is accompanied by unperturbedness. He also says that partial suspensions of judgment are good and partial assents bad.

Thanks. Cheers,

Sextus