ABSTRACT
Pyrrho is famous (and infamous) for the philosophical perspective with which he was associated in later ancient and in modern times. Over time, the sceptical attitude that Pyrrho advocated made him a figurehead for scepticism. One frequent, but implausible, interpretation of his philosophy (already evident in the 3rd century B.C., in the writing of Antigonus of Carystus, a somewhat unreliable collector of anecdotes about philosophers of the day) makes him a representative of a scepticism. In the history of philosophy, Pyrrho became an important figure because the adherents of ‘Pyrrhonism’ collect and systematize the arguments for scepticism, putting his philosophy forward as a kind of anti-philosophy which maintains that ultimate truths cannot be established, and that metaphysical philosophers cannot prove the truths which they propose as the fruit of their philosophy.
