ABSTRACT
Sextus himself refers to the 'general studies', the enkuklia mathemata and 'liberal arts'. Some arts, such as medicine and navigation, are acceptable to the Sceptic, while the 'instruction (didaskalia) of the arts' is part of the 'fourfold observance' that characterizes the Sceptical life. It is important that Sextus invokes the Stoic definition of an art , one whichclearly makes use of the notion of truth. It is arts on this model which Sextus seeks to undermine, not the empirically-derived abilities which characterize the ordinary practitioner of some skill 'useful in life', analogous to the 'knacks' (tribal) so despised by Plato in the Gorgias. Sextus does, however, later turn to empirical matters, in order to show that unless the astrologers can accurately compute extraordinarily precise individual parameters, the actual facts will confute them.
