The Skeptical Dynamis and Its Pragmatic Possibilities

Part 1. On the Apraxia Argument

1. Introduction

1.1 Skepticism as a nihilistic thought in Modern times

1.2 Hume and apraxia revisited

2. Apraxia and the Development of Ancient Skepticisms

2.1 Preliminary considerations

2.2 Proto-skepticisms

2.3 The Life of Pyrrho

2.4 Pyrrho's messamates

2.5 From Timon to Arcesilaus?

3. Academics X Stoics

3.1 Arcesilaus attacks

3.2 Carneades

3.3 Clitomachus

4. Sextus Empiricus

4.1The legacy of Skepticisms up to Sextus

4.2 The Rustic and the Urban interpretations

4.3 The Urbans and their beliefs

4.4 The Rustics and their beliefs

4.5 Urbans and Rustics in diaphonia

4.6 Paving the Suburban terrain

4.7 Testing H1

4.8 Summarizing

4.9 Testing H2

4.10 A Twillight Zone

4.11 The second formulation of speech acts and Skepticism

4.12 A provisional conclusion

Part 2. The Skeptic and the Crafts

5. Sextus Empiricus and the Elements

5.1 An interlude on Skepticism and Medicine

5.2 The refutation to the elements in general

5.3 The refutation of the grammatical notion of letters as specific elements of words

5.4 Back to the feasibility

6. Sextus Against the Rhetoricians

6.1 General scheme of the argument of Adv. Rhet.

6.2 Adv. Rhet. walkthrough (the search for the definition of Rhetoric)

6.3 The refutations to the available definitions (rhetoric definition as techne)

6.4 The refutations to the definitions of Rhetoric as science of discourse and producer of persuasion

6.5 Adv. Rhet. 73-113

7. Sextus and a Positive Conception of Techne

7.1 Galen again

8. Final Remarks: On the Receiption of Skeptical Arguments and Their Transmission

References

Appendix II. Conceptual tables of the Skepticism before Sextus Empiricus

Appendix III. Chronological table of the philosophers and schools mentioned

Appendix IV. The three medical sects and their main heads, according to pseudo-Galen, Introd.14.683.5-14.684.5