© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012 DOI 10.1163/221057011X588037
International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 2 (2012) 83–98
brill.com/skep
Pyrrhonian Skepticism Meets Speech-Act eory
John Turri
University of Waterloo
john.turri@gmail.com
Abstract
is paper applies speech-act theory to craft a new response to Pyrrhonian skepticism and
diagnose its appeal. Carefully distinguishing between dierent levels of language-use and noting
their interrelations can help us identify a subtle mistake in a key Pyrrhonian argument.
Keywords
Pyrrhonism, skepticism, knowledge, belief, assertion, persuasion, speech acts
1. Introduction
Ever since J.L. Austin invented the modern subdiscipline of speech-act theory,
there has been a tradition of speech-act theorists trying to solve philosophical
problems—or to at least make progress toward solving them—by identifying
mistakes made by philosophers who overlook important points about the
prac tical import of language use. For example, Austin coined the phrase
‘descriptive fallacy’ for the mistake of treating language as if it were intended
merely to describe things, when we actually use words to do much more than
that (Austin 1962, 2–3, 100). John Searle identied the “speech-act fallacy,”
which is to mistake the purpose for which we typically use a term for part of the
term’s meaning (Searle 1969, 136–41). Searle also noted the “assertion fal-
lacy,” which is to confuse “the conditions for the performance of the speech act
of assertion with the analysis of the meaning of particular words occurring in
certain assertions” (Searle 1969, 141).
In this paper, I identify a similar mistake and propose that the appeal of
Pyrrhonian skepticism is at least partly due to it. First I will present some basic
distinctions at the heart of speech-act theory (section 2). en I will present
some revealing passages from Sextus Empiricus’s Outlines of Pyrrhonismandoer
an interpretation of the argument implicit therein (section 3). Finally I will
84 J. Turri / International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 2 (2012) 83–98
argue that the Pyrrhonian argument commits a subtle error, which helps to
satisfactorily explain its illusory appeal (section 4).
2. A Taxonomy of Acts
When you string together words in a way that satises the semantic and gram-
matical conventions of a particular language, you say something meaningful
in that language. e act of saying something meaningful in a language is a
linguistic act.
In performing a linguistic act, we often do further things. In uttering
“I promise to send you comments on your paper,” I promise to give you com-
ments on your paper. In uttering “I emailed it to you this morning,” you assert
that you emailed it to me this morning. In uttering “I apologize for forgetting
to send you comments,” I apologize for forgetting to send you comments.
A speech act is that which you do in performing a linguistic act. Promising,
asserting, and apologizing are all speech acts.
We rarely perform speech acts for their own sake. We usually perform
them to accomplish things. I beg you not to drive the icy road in order to
convince you not to. If all goes well, I convince you by begging. I assert that
the road is icy in order to persuade you that the road is icy. If all goes well,
I persuade you by asserting. We usually make assertions in order to inform,
alert or persuade others. A conversational act is the act of aecting your conver-
sational partner by performing a speech act in a conversation. Begging and
asserting are speech acts. Persuading, convincing, alerting and informing are
conversational acts.
We perform a conversational act by performing a speech act, but the two
are distinct. Consider what would happen if you weren’t paying attention to
me when I asserted that the road is icy: I would still have made the assertion,
but I would not have informed you of the relevant fact. My informing you
requires some uptake on your part, which may or may not be forthcoming.
Likewise, consider what would happen if you didn’t trust me or were presently
in the grips of some wacky skeptical hypothesis. My assertion that the road is
icy wouldn’t persuade you that it’s icy. My persuading you requires your coop-
eration, which again may or may not be forthcoming.
1
1
e general picture of language sketched in this section derives ultimately from Austin
(1962), through the lens of Fogelin and Sinnott-Armstrong (1997), ch. 1. is section draws on
Turri (2010).
J. Turri / International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 2 (2012) 83–98 85
Not all conversational acts are created equal. Informing and alerting are
easy. ey require the least amount of uptake or cooperation from an inter-
locutor. For me to inform or alert you that Q, you need only understand that
I’ve told you that Q. Normally this happens automatically and involuntarily.
Persuasion is harder—potentially much harder. To persuade you, I must not
only inform you, but my assertion must cause you to believe Q.
2
Often times
persuasion requires no more than informing because our default mode is one
of credulity, though this is of course highly defeasible and subject to many
qualications (Reid 1764, 6.24). But sometimes persuading requires more
than merely informing. You might want or need more evidence before you
believe Q, and if my goal is to persuade you, that makes my job harder. You
might even be neurotically or psychotically bent on scrutinizing the evidence
for everything I say. If my goal is to persuade, that makes my job extremely
dicult and perhaps even impossible.
e three-fold distinction among linguistic, speech and conversational acts
is standard and sucient for present purposes. But it suers from an apparent
weakness. e three-fold distinction ought to be at least four-fold. e cate-
gory of conversational acts conceals radical diversity. I distinguished between
easy and hard conversational acts, but it seems to be a dierence in kind rather
than degree. Informing stands to persuading as asserting to informing, and as
uttering to asserting. You assert by uttering, inform by asserting, and persuade
by informing. True, you can perform one speech act by performing another, as
when in a courtroom you swear by asserting, so there is no absolute prohibi-
tion on the by-relation relating two distinct acts within the same category. But
the gap between informing and persuading, or between warning and dissuad-
ing, is potentially vast and challenging, whereas nothing similar is true of
swearing by asserting when under oath. Indeed, the latter is automatic.
We can account for this dierence by distinguishing a further type of
language act. A dialectical act is the act of aecting your conversational partner
by performing a conversational act. Persuading, dissuading, encouraging and
discouraging are dialectical acts. e division between conversational and dia-
lectical acts isn’t essential for present purposes. I could make all my points
equally well without it. But the division seems right, so it’s worth mentioning
it explicitly.
3
2
e causation must be non-deviant too, but I set that issue aside here.
3
What I say here is perfectly consistent with Austin’s own original views on the subject, for
he says that he identied “three, if not more” uses of language (Austin 1962, 108), and noted
how dicult it was to draw a bright line between uses of language proper and “mere” consequences
of language use (Austin 1962, 102). Searle (1969, ch. 2) identies yet another type of act,
86 J. Turri / International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 2 (2012) 83–98
3. e Pyrrhonian Way
According to Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrhonian skeptics (‘Pyrrhonists’ for short)
aim to achieve tranquility through suspending judgment on all propositions,
except for those pertaining to how things appear to them presently.
4
Call these
the “non-evident propositions.” Pyrrhonists are able to suspend judgment on
a non-evident proposition by employing methods or “modes” of “opposition,”
which involve marshaling considerations for and against the proposition, in
such a way that the case for and against are “equally convincing.” Suspension
of judgment, and thereby tranquility, follows as the natural result.
5
It isn’t entirely clear whether Pyrrhonists think that suspension of judg-
ment is something that they ought to do, in some normatively signicant
sense of ‘ought’. Sometimes it seems as if Sextus is merely reporting what the
Pyrrhonist doesn’t nd convincing, and the psychological process involved in
reaching a state of suspension. Other times it seems as if Sextus is claiming
that suspension of judgment is what we ought to do, either because it willpro-
mote a better outcome, or because the total evidence supports neither arming
nor denying the proposition in question. Of course, it could be a combination
of the descriptive and normative. But I will not try to settle the question of
what exactly Sextus and other Pyrrhonists intended. I take it as obvious that
Sextus’s discussion at least strongly suggests that, in a distinctively intellectual
or epistemic sense of ‘ought’, we ought to suspend judgment on non-evident
propositions.
6
I trust that anyone who has closely studied the work will grant
this as a fair assessment. is assessment is corroborated by the fact that many
the “propositional acts” of referring and predicating, interposed between linguistic and speech
acts. I’ll have nothing to say about propositional acts here, except to note that they could
unproblematically be added to my taxonomy.
4
“We do not overturn anything which leads us, without our willing it, to assent in accor-
dance with a passive appearance — and these things are precisely what is apparent” (Outlines of
Pyrhhonism I 19 (i.e. Book I, paragraph 19); hereafter cited as ‘PH’). All translations are from the
Annas and Barnes edition of PH.
5
Sextus puts it this way: “Scepticism is an ability to set out oppositions among things which
appear and are thought of in any way at all, an ability by which, because of the equipollence in
the opposed objects and accounts, we come rst to suspension of judgment and afterwards to
tranquility. … By ‘opposed accounts’ we do not necessarily have in mind armation and nega-
tion, but take the phrase simply in the sense of ‘conicting accounts’. By ‘equipollence’ we mean
equality with regard to being convincing or unconvincing: none of the conicting accounts takes
precedence over any other as being more convincing. Suspension of judgment is a standstill of
the intellect, owing to which we neither reject nor posit anything. Tranquility is freedom from
disturbance or calmess of soul” (PH I 8, 10).
6
Compare Perin (2010), but also see Williams (1988).
J. Turri / International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 2 (2012) 83–98 87
thinkers have taken Pyrrhonian arguments to establish that conclusion, or to
at least modestly support it, enough so that it calls for a substantial response
(e.g. Fogelin 1994, Sinnott-Armstrong 2004, Klein 2005, Sosa 2007).
In his Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Sextus Empiricus famously details three
mutually supportive modes: innite regress, hypothesis, and reciprocity (PH I
165). e deployment of these three modes is widely known as “Agrippa’s
Trilemma” (Williams 1999). In the mode of innite regress, the Pyrrhonist
asks us what our “source of conviction” is for the matter in question, and when
we produce it, he asks us what our source of conviction is for that, and so
on ad innitum, “so that we have no point from which to begin to establish
anything, and suspension of judgment follows.” In the mode of reciprocity,
we accept the challenge to keep citing sources of conviction, but we don’t keep
nding new sources. Instead at some point we cite the original source in sup-
port of one of the subsequent sources. e Pyrrhonist rejects this because if
the subsequent source serves as a basis for the original source, then the original
source cannot in turn properly serve as a basis for the subsequent source. us
the mode of reciprocity might just as well be called the mode of circularity.
But suppose that at some point we resist the challenge to produce a further
source, and we don’t lapse into circularity. Instead we “claim to assume [some-
thing] simply and without proof.” at is, we simply hypothesize that some-
thing is true, and proceed with our demonstration from that point. is is the
mode of hypothesis. e Pyrrhonist isn’t satised with mere hypothesis, for
reasons that we will discuss in greater detail shortly.
e three patterns of reasoning identied in Agrippa’s Trilemma exhaust
the logical alternatives and correspond roughly to the modern positions of
innitism, foundationalism and coherentism (Fogelin 1994, ch. 6; Williams
1999; Klein 1999). Innitism is the view that an innite and non-repeating
series of reasons can properly convince; foundationalism is the view that nite
and non-repeating series of reasons can properly convince; coherentism is the
view that circular series of reasons can properly convince. None of the patterns
convinces Pyrrhonists, so they suspend judgment.
e Agrippan Trilemma recurs repeatedly in the Outlines. e Pyrrhonist
relies on it heavily. Here are three representative passages to anchor our
discussion.
ere is a dispute among the Dogmatists; for some say that some things are true,
and some that nothing is true. And it is not possible to decide the dispute; for if
you say that some things are true, you will not be found convincing if you say it
without proof, because of the dispute; and if you actually want to bring a proof,
then if you confess that the proof is false you will be unconvincing, while if you
say that the proof is true you fall into the reciprocal arguing and in addition you
will be asked for a proof of the fact that it is true—and another proof for that,