PYRRHON (Lat. Pyrrho), the founder of a school of Greek skepticism, named after him, was a native of Elis, and was born in the first half of the 4th c. B.C. In his youth he is said to have been a painter, but was subsequently attracted to philosophy by the study of the writings of Democritus. Diogenes Laertius tells us that, along with Anax• archus (one of his teachers, according to Aristocles), he joined Alexander the great's eastern expedition; and it has been conjectured that, at this period he obtained some knowledge of the opinions and beliefs of the Persian magi and the Indian gymnosophists. He died about the age of 90, after spending a great part of his life in retirement. Pyr rhon's skepticism was by no means of the thorough-going kind that is usually associated with his name, which is synonymous with absolute and unlimited infidelity. He cer
tainly disbelieved in the possibility of acquiring a scientific knowledge of things, but (like Kant) lie appears to have tenaciously maintained the reality of virtue and the obli gations of morality. So greatly was he reverenced by his townsmen, on account of his personal excellences, and so tittle did they consider his philosophical skepticism a barrier to his holding a religious office, that they chose him high-priest of their sacred city, and for his sake declared all philosophers exempt from public taxes. Cicero (not so far wrongly either) ranks him among the Socratics; and, indeed, he was as much opposed to the pretensions of the sophists as Socrates himself, though from a different point of view. Pyrrhou, so far as we know, wrote nothing, and the works of his friend and follower, Timon, are lost.