Sweet Ignorance. Sextus Empiricus on Human Happiness

Ondřej Krása

The present paper provides an interpretation of the philosophy of Sextus Empiricus. It proceeds by examining key parts of Sextus’ writings and develops their further implications. The first part deals with a perspective dominant in the Sextus scholarship, where epistemological reasoning is considered to be the crucial element in scepticism. The second part elaborates an interpretation of scepticism which is based on Sextus’ considerations about the nature of happiness and unhappiness. This interpretation proves Sextus’ scepticism to be opposed to the dominant stream in ancient philosophy, as the sceptic believes that happiness can only be achieved through the suspension of the specifically human ability, the faculty of reason.