ABSTRACT
In scholarly retrospect Brucker and Diderot may have speculated and protested too much; for according to more recent scholars, the eclectic 'school' was a figment of historical imagination. Central to the history of philosophy in general and to eclecticism in particular is skepticism, especially in its radical Pyrrhonist form. The aim of skepticism was to find a way around the practice of dogmatizing by suspension of judgment. According to Sextus Empiricus, this was to be accomplished through ten modes, or 'tropes', which classify the natural and human conditions of perceiving and thinking. Most relevant to the history of philosophy was the last mode, which was 'derived from customs, laws, beliefs in myths, compacts between nations and dogmatic assumptions'. The epistemological basis for this skepticism had been suggested by Epicurus, who pointed out the preconceptions inherent in experience and language and which were prior to and perhaps constitutive of philosophical speculation.
