Pyrrho of Elis

Hellenistic · Europe · 360 to 270 BCE

Greek thinker, seen as the first of the sceptics, who urged us to hold back judgement and so find calm.

What it is

Pyrrho of Elis was a Greek thinker who lived from about 365 or 360 to about 275 or 270 BCE. He is counted as the starting point of Pyrrhonism, a school of scepticism that flourished several centuries after his death, and is often called the first Greek sceptic.

He wrote nothing. What we know of his thought comes from reports by others, above all from his follower Timon of Phlius, whose own writings survive only in fragments. For that reason what Pyrrho himself taught is still argued over.

The main ideas

Things are hard to pin down. A summary of Timon's account, kept by a later writer named Aristocles, says that things are indifferent, unstable and indeterminate. It adds that our senses and opinions are therefore neither true nor false and cannot be trusted.
Hold no opinions. The advice that follows is to be without opinions and to refuse to say of any one thing that it is, rather than is not.
Calm as the goal. The result of this attitude is a freedom from worry, which the Greeks called ataraxia.
A way of life. The later Pyrrhonists treated him as a model for a way of living, in which one holds back judgement on disputed questions.

What it looks like in practice

Imagine someone who hears two confident experts disagree and notices that both give good reasons. Instead of rushing to choose, they leave the question open and find that this brings relief, not anxiety. This is an illustration of the attitude the later school described, not a passage from Pyrrho.

Books and moments

India. Pyrrho travelled with the army of Alexander the Great to India, together with the thinker Anaxarchus, and is said to have met the gymnosophists, the so-called naked wise men there.
Timon of Phlius. His most important follower wrote poems and prose, now mostly lost, and is the main source for what Pyrrho thought.
The Aristocles passage. This short summary is the main evidence for his own thought.

Questions and criticism

What did he mean? The summary can be read as saying that things in themselves have no definite features, or that we cannot know whether they do. Scholars argue over which, and over how much of it is Pyrrho and how much is Timon.
How far was he a sceptic? The later Pyrrhonists claimed him as their inspiration, but his own view may not have matched theirs. It is fair to ask whether he is a sceptic at all in their sense.
Did India shape him? One ancient writer says his philosophy came from this meeting. Both the basis for that claim and the extent of any influence are disputed.

Close neighbours

Sextus Empiricus later set out the school of scepticism that took Pyrrho's name.

Written by epchē in our own words, and checked against independent sources on 29 October 2026. The sources are listed below.

Who they connect to

Influenced

Sextus Empiricus · The later sceptic school took Pyrrho as its founding figure.

Other Hellenistic thinkers

Antisthenes · 445 to 365 BCE
Diogenes of Sinope · 412 to 323 BCE
Crates of Thebes · 365 to 285 BCE
Epicurus · 341 to 270 BCE
Zeno of Citium · 334 to 262 BCE
Cleanthes · 331 to 232 BCE
Chrysippus · 279 to 206 BCE
Carneades · 214 to 129 BCE
Cicero · 106 to 43 BCE
Lucretius · 99 to 55 BCE

Sources we used

Pyrrho · Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, read on 29 October 2026
Pyrrho · Wikipedia, read on 29 October 2026