The Pig in the Storm

[dufus]

 

Can we really know anything?

 

Right now, it’s hard to tell.

 

Take, as an example, the biggest public health challenge the world has faced in a long time: COVID-19. Scientists and doctors from different organizations interpreted the virus in contrasting ways. As a result, public health advice varied from country to country. Some governments have been praised for their vigilance, others have been criticized for their laid-back approach … and vice versa.

 

Even the way in which coronavirus data is presented can radically change our perception of its impact, depending on which factors have been included and which have been discarded.
The confusion over what works and what doesn’t can leave us feeling deeply overwhelmed.

 

It’s little wonder, then, that in this anxiety-riddled time many are turning to Stoicism and its promise of courage and calm. However, I’d like to recommend something different.

 

Pyrrhonism, a lesser-known philosophy from the same time as Stoicism, argues that we don’t know how things around us really are. Let’s give it a closer look, since this seems to be the very epistemic position we seem to find ourselves in today.

 

Pyrrhonism is one of those ancient philosophies that always requires a few caveats.

 

Its mysterious founding father, Pyrrho, lived in the 4th century BC and didn’t write anything down. Everything we know about him comes from his pupil, Timon, and a few other ancient philosophers, some of whom were writing hundreds of years after Pyrrho died. In the key surviving fragments of text we do have, tricky elements of translation mean that guesswork has often clouded discussion.

 

What we do know (or at least claim to know) is that despite these difficulties, Pyrrhonism has survived the odds and influenced famous thinkers from Michel de Montaigne to Friedrich Nietzsche.

 

So what’s it all about? How can a school of thought that claims we possess no knowledge of reality help us to survive a brave new world filled with face masks, R numbers, and graphs of exponential growth?

 

Pyrrhonism is a branch of Skepticism that first appeared with Pyrrho, who probably lived between 360 BC and 270 BC. Although we don’t know too much about him, he did have some pretty famous friends, one of whom was Alexander the Great.

 

Pyrrho accompanied Alexander on an expedition to India, where they met a group of gumnosophistai or “naked wise men.” Inspired by this encounter, Pyrrho returned to Greece and quickly developed an unusual way of thinking which saw him randomly disappear for days on end and insist on washing his own pigs, rather than having his servants do it for him.

 

Despite his eccentric reputation, by all accounts Pyrrho enjoyed an extremely tranquil life.

 

At first it’s not entirely clear why.

 

Pyrrhonism claims that humans don’t know anything definitive about the nature of reality. A Pyrrhonist doesn’t allow any fixed beliefs about things that lie beyond everyday appearance — i.e., concepts such as motion, time, spirituality.

 

In other words, Pyrrhonism doesn’t accept any claim to truth about why the world is the way it is. Sextus Empiricus, a philosopher who helped to popularize this approach, explains that Pyrrhonists live “without holding opinions” on what they see around them.

 

Sextus gives a few reasons for this.

 

One of the most famous is that for any argument you put forward about the nature of reality, there will always be a counterargument. The fancy term for this is “equipollence” — both arguments have equal weight and end up making us feel torn about which one is truly right. I say “I believe in God.” You respond “I don’t believe in God.” Which statement is true? A Pyrrhonist argues that neither of us can truly say for certain that one or the other is correct. On the one hand, why do you believe so adamantly in something you haven’t seen, felt, or heard? On the other hand, how can you claim for certain that there is no God whatsoever involved in the workings of nature?

 

Although adopting this mindset towards everything around us seems like it would be considerably tricky, what if the major shift it requires of us, a total commitment to provisionality rather than fixity, makes far better sense of a world in flux?

 

What is more, an epistemic posture of always looking out for a counterargument may help us to bridge divides and better explain our own opinions. It’s no secret that Western politics is fractured, and constructive debate is in a downward spiral. Society fragments with the arrival of each new political hot potato — Brexit, Trump, the coronavirus, etc.

 

Take the latter phenomenon. Questions will need to be asked of this pandemic. How did it start and how do we stop the next one? What’s the best way to prepare in the future?

 

But perhaps we should avoid asking these questions as if we already know the answers. We need to be more open to considering counterarguments and be ready to admit when the answer isn’t that clear. Inhabiting the space between two arguments can open up the path to a third way, or at least force us to think up better ways of explaining why we believe we’re correct.

 

People have grown accustomed to expecting definitive answers, but if this mindset could be replaced by one which doesn’t continually direct us toward conclusiveness, that wouldn’t necessarily mean giving up truth or resigning ourselves to navigating the world blindly. Instead, it would free us to view belief-formation as less important than the ability to maintain lots of possibilities in our minds concurrently.

 

It’s worth noting that tranquility (ataraxia) in Pyrrhonism isn’t the same as in other philosophies. Usually we imagine an enlightened, passive state, but for Pyrrhonists, tranquility is the opposite. Since they’re never satisfied with any one view on things, Pyrrhonists continue their inquiries endlessly. Sextus explains this is why Skeptics got their name, since skeptesthai means “to investigate”: “Some say they have found the truth; some say it cannot be attained; and some go on looking for it.”

 

Part of this process means accepting that we don’t have the answers to everything and instead finding peace in acknowledging the unresolved. If it sounds strange now, it was certainly shocking at the time. Harald Thorsrud, a professor of ancient philosophy, has stated that “no one … had suggested that the recognition of our cognitive limitations would lead to such a happy ending.”

 

Pyrrhonists prefer to suspend judgement about everything. This is why scholars today describe Pyrrhonism as an “attitude” rather than an actual philosophy. After all, Pyrrhonism criticizes philosophies such as Stoicism, because they claim to have found definitive answers to the question of existence and modify their behavior accordingly.

 

For anyone struggling to deal with 24-hour news cycles and daily press conferences, this suspension of judgement is enticing. Sextus recognizes that it’s easy to become troubled by the discrepancies in our world. Why did some countries enact a full lockdown while others advocated for social distancing measures that stopped short of forced quarantine?

 

Pyrrhonists respond by simply suspending judgement and in that suspension, find tranquility.

 

If we as individuals are struggling to cope with confusing messages, we should allow ourselves a break from trying to assess everything as it’s happening. Take comfort in not deciding what is the most accurate view. Instead, find satisfaction in not knowing. This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t question the president of the United States when he suggests that injecting bleach may cure the coronavirus. But when all of the opinions out there are getting too much, give yourself a mental break from the digital noise. It can be tempting to dwell on confusion or Google away until we find an answer that makes us feel better. Why not respond by simply refusing to pass judgement on confusion for a little while?

 

Suspending judgement extends to death as well. Ever since Western countries first felt the effects of the coronavirus, death has felt inescapable. We’ve watched as coffins pile up outside funeral homes. We’ve seen private ambulances quietly transporting bodies. Some people have even watched loved ones die of coronavirus inside their own homes.

 

One striking anecdote sees Pyrrho standing on a ship’s deck as a terrifying storm strikes the vessel. The crew are petrified and try to hide, while Pyrrho remains on deck, unafraid of being swept into the sea or struck by lightning. When asked what on Earth he is doing, the thinker points to a pig who is also on deck, calmly chewing some food, seemingly unaware of the dangers around it.

 

For many Western societies, death is forcing its way into view now more than ever, and taking some of us by surprise. How can we respond? By acknowledging that circumstances have dramatically changed, and attempting to adopt a sense of calm that actually becomes a form of freedom — in this case, freedom from fear of death. Practicing this state of mind means that we can attain tranquility throughout periods of calm or crisis. As Sextus writes: “By skepticism, we arrive first at suspension of judgement, and second at freedom from disturbance.”

 

Not worrying about what death is or why it is, but accepting it is and trying to keep moving anyway is a form of freedom. Pretend you’re the pig in the storm, even if you’re not truly feeling it.

 

The pandemic has thrown our lack of knowledge into the spotlight. Even science, which today is for many a fool-proof source of certainty, isn’t providing definitive answers. So where can philosophy help? For thousands of years, Pyrrhonism has based an entire way of life around the idea that we don’t know anything.

 

Although in its truest form, Pyrrhonism not the most practical mindset to dive into, we can integrate parts of this attitude into our response to the coronavirus. Pyrrhonism can help us to argue constructively when we do want to find answers, and allows us space to cultivate peace of mind by embracing the “not knowing” when we’re feeling overwhelmed.

 

If in doubt, be like the pig in the storm.

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