Sextus Empiricus

Sextus Empiricus was a physician and philosopher of the late second century, probably working in Alexandria or Rome, and the only ancient Sceptic whose books survive. Outlines of Scepticism sets out the Pyrrhonist method: to every argument oppose an equal argument, suspend judgment, and find that tranquillity follows as a shadow follows a body. His works were nearly unknown until printed in the 1560s, when they gave Montaigne his motto and the whole of early modern philosophy its problem, since Descartes wrote to answer the doubts Sextus had raised. He is also the chief source for the Stoics and other schools he set out to refute.