ABSTRACT
Aenesidemus 'enumerated some modes' against the aetiologists (Chapter VII: 159): and attacks on aetiology are central to the Sceptical enterprise. The First Mode raises a fundamental problem for the Dogmatists: as their hidden 'reality' is by hypothesis unobservable, they have no way of testing the validity of their inferences to it. Dogmatists might respond in two ways. First, while the reality may now be hidden, it is at least conceivable that, with the development of more sophisticated tools and technology, we may one day actually be able to enhance our perceptions in order to be able to reveal what is now hidden. But with the invention of the microscope in the seventeenth century, they became visible – and the inference was confirmed by the appearances.
