Skip to content
Wellsprings
Sextus Empiricus

Sextus Empiricus

c. 160 CE–c. 210 CE · Alexandria

Sextus Empiricus (c. 160 – c. 210 CE) was a Greek physician and Pyrrhonist philosopher, the principal surviving source for ancient skepticism. His extant works—the Outlines of Pyrrhonism (Pyrrhoniae Hypotyposes) and the collection conventionally titled Against the Mathematicians (Adversus Mathematicos)—systematically set out the skeptical method of suspending judgment (epoche) and argue against the dogmatic claims of philosophers across logic, physics, ethics, and the liberal-arts disciplines. His name reflects his association with the Empiric school of medicine, though in his own writings he indicates that Pyrrhonists might rather align with the Methodic school. His precise dates and place of residence are uncertain; he is variously connected with Alexandria, Athens, and Rome.

See Sextus Empiricus’s journey on the map →

Life journeyclick any stop, or use ←/→

Stop 1 of 1

AlexandriaEgypt

We know they were here, but the specifics of what they did at this stop aren’t recorded yet in our corpus.

About Alexandria

Alexandria is the main Mediterranean port of northern Egypt and the country's second city. Founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BCE, it became the capital of the Ptolemies, whose Museum and Great Library made it the leading centre of Hellenistic learning. It also held one of the largest Jewish communities of antiquity, where the Greek Bible translation known as the Septuagint was produced and Philo wrote. Church tradition traces its patriarchate to Mark the Evangelist, and its catechetical school was led by Clement and Origen. Arab forces under Amr ibn al-As took the city in 641, and it remained a commercial and scholarly hub of the Islamic world; the Sufi master Ibn Ata Allah al-Iskandari was born there.

In Alexandria at the same time

Claudius Ptolemaeus, Harpocration, Apollonius Dyscolus, Vettius Valens, Galen, Diophantus Alexandrinus

Across the traditions, in Alexandria at the same time

See other sages who lived in Alexandria→

In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with Sextus Empiricus’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

Across the traditions

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Sextus Empiricus’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works(2)