Nietzsche’s Portrayal of Pyrrho

The Characteristic Traits of a Decadent

Nietzsche’s particular portrayal of decadence is commonly understood in a negative way, as generally denoting a debilitating tendency or degeneration from a previous state of vitality. He applies the conception to describe certain types of individuals and their viewpoints, as well as the cultural expressions founded upon it, such as philosophies, moralities, religions and artistic compositions.

However, Nietzsche never explicitly lists the attributes of a decadent.^[27] In general terms he considers one to be “a human being who has turned out badly [ein missrathener Mensch]” (GS 359), and more specifically as “the ill-constituted [die Mißrathenen]” (Nachlass 1888, 23[1], KSA 13.600), who cannot help but act out the immanent contradictions that are part of their physiological constitution. An inherent physiological weakness leads the individual’s drives and instincts that direct their everyday behaviour – such as those for food or sex – astray, pointing them in the wrong direction. This corrupted bodily configuration leads to a growing disparity between the cognitive and volitional resources that saps an individual’s affective energies, resulting in a general exhaustion, a weakness of will, and an inability to resist stimuli.^[28] A corresponding set of psychological weaknesses develop that entails that the decadent wastes his ever-diminishing energy in pursuits of a harmful orientation, such as being driven by selfless motives that devalue the importance of the individual’s desires and needs. The decadent opts for what denies life over what promotes life, for he erroneously believes that it is life-enhancing,^[29] and consequently exhibits the “mark [Abzeichen]^[30] of decadence, of a broken will to life” (A 50).

Hence, in one passage from Ecce Homo, written in 1888, we are told that “complete decadents [der décadent an sich] always choose the means that hurt themselves” (EH, Wise 2).^[31] In another, Nietzsche is somewhat more specific. The inherent weakness and inhibited agency of decadents is exhibited in their knowledge claims and resulting choice of supporting ideals, which convey a specific preference in rejecting reality in favor of metaphysical abstractions: “Knowledge, saying yes to reality, is just as necessary for the strong as cowardice and fleeing in the face of reality – which is to say the “ideal” – is for the weak, who are inspired by weakness … They are not free to know: decadents need lies, it is one of the conditions for their preservation” (EH, BT 2). The context of this passage is Nietzsche’s retrospective interpretation of his earlier portrayal of Socrates in The Birth of Tragedy (1872) as “the instrument of Greek disintegration, as a typical decadent.” Socrates’ advocating of rationality at any price is now construed by Nietzsche as promoting a “dangerous” emasculation of humanity’s instinct that ultimately “undermines life,” which is then followed by him contrasting a strong, life-affirming instinct to a degenerative, weak, and decadent one, that turns the individual against life (EH, BT 1).

What I regard as central to Nietzsche’s portrayal of Pyrrho then, is that just like Socrates, he is an example of “Greek philosophy as the decadence of the Greek instinct” (TI, Ancients 2), where “the anti-Hellenic instincts come to the top” (Nachlass 1887/88, 11[375], KSA 13.167). For Pyrrho is another incarnation of this type of degenerative instinct and its accompanying traits of weakness pertaining to epistemology, metaphysics and agency; one that eventually succumbs to its inherent contradictions despite exhibiting a conspicuous vestige of “the Hellenic instinct [with] its ‘will to life’” (TI, Ancients 4) which is the theme I will turn to next.

Pyrrho’s Instinctual Weakness

I believe this diagnosis of instinctual imbalance explains Nietzsche’s apparent ambivalence toward Pyrrho, and why he therefore makes a back-handed compliment by distinguishing him as the only original philosopher of antiquity after the pre-Socratics. Moreover, Pyrrho is described as inevitably the last of this kind because he personifies the twilight of Greek evolutionary and cultural vitality. For Nietzsche claims that Pyrrho was no devotee of either Socrates or Plato, because his physiological constitution still displayed a healthy legacy inherited from his predecessors. This was an instinct to discern and differentiate, that stemmed from Democritus’ lack of trust in sensations and opinions,^[32] which then evolved into Protagoras’ ethical relativism due to an underlying basis in Heraclitus’ belief in the reality of change^[33] that lacked a moral estimation:^[34]

The real philosophers of Greece are those before Socrates (– with Socrates something changes) […] I see only one original figure in those that came after: a late arrival but necessarily the last – the nihilist Pyrrho … his instinct was opposed to all that had come to the top in the meantime: the Socratics, Plato

Pyrrho goes back to Democritus via Protagoras … the artist’s optimism of Heraclitus, – – – [Pyrrho greift über Protagoras zu Demokrit zurück … der Artisten-Optimismus Heraklits, – – –] (Nachlass 1888, 14[100], KSA 13.278, translation modified).

Indeed, Nietzsche claims that Pyrrho was so inherently suspicious of Socrates’ endorsement of a lifestyle where happiness requires virtue, and virtue requires knowledge, that essentially “[h]is life was a protest against the great doctrine of identity (happiness = virtue = knowledge)” (Nachlass 1888, 14[99], KSA 13.277).^[35] While Nietzsche holds this to be “the most bizarre of all equations, which is opposed to all the instincts of the earlier Greeks” (TI, Socrates 4), he additionally claims that as one of “the more profound natures of antiquity,” Pyrrho’s judgment of Plato was equally one of revulsion, for he simply regarded the dialectical approach of such pompous philosophers of virtue as squabbling histrionics^[36] – a theme present in Nietzsche’s own consideration^[37] – which declares that: “I see dialectics as a symptom of decadence” (EH, Wise 1).

This vestige of instinctual strength then probably explains why Nietzsche gives Pyrrho credit as the one thinker who through his perspicacity, constituted the staunchest opposition to the perverting of Greek philosophy by dogmatism, and its rigid defence of unreserved beliefs purporting to answer fundamental questions. For Nietzsche, Pyrrho was someone who endeavoured to keep himself removed from such dogmatic debates. Evidently, he considered Pyrrho to be capable of showing good judgement, as the inspiration for his philosophy was a will to distinction – the ability to distinguish and discriminate. However, Nietzsche claims Pyrrho patently grew weary by his principled struggle against dogmatism. He lost that very will of distinction by striving to free himself from belief, and this detrimental change of attitude was driven by the disgregation of his physiological constitution.^[38]

Stimulated by the need for corporeal and psychological coherence, together with the accompanying composure, Pyrrho was compelled to act out and subjugate the instinctual contradictions instilled by his incompatible views. If my interpretation is correct, this necessity is obscurely expressed at the very beginning of the following partial extract, and it is then followed by the means for accomplishing this undertaking: “To overcome contradiction [Den Widerspruch überwinden]; no contest; no will to distinction; to deny the Greek instincts” (Nachlass 1888, 14[99], KSA 13.277). Nietzsche’s claim then is that Pyrrho negated his remnants of a stronger, combative and discriminating Hellenic “agonistic instinct” inherited from the pre-Socratics (TI, Ancients 3) – one which elsewhere Nietzsche extols for spawning competing perspectives that precluded unconditional truths and dogmatic moral rules, and had found its ultimate incarnation in the Sophists’^[39] “realists’ culture” as personified by Thucydides (TI, Ancients 2).

This need for Pyrrho to surmount his intrinsic contradictions, when allied with the references to him above as “a late arrival [einen Spätling]” and also below as “a latecomer [spät gekommen],” resembles the description Nietzsche gives of the degenerative kind of individual from a “late,” decaying European culture of modernity, who seeks happiness through tranquillity:^[40]

In an age of disintegration where the races are mixed together, a person will have the legacy of multiple lineages in his body, conflicting (and often not merely conflicting) drives and value standards that fight with each other and rarely leave each other alone. A man like this, of late cultures [späten Culturen] and refracted lights, will typically be a weaker person: his most basic desire is for an end to the war that he is. His notion of happiness corresponds to that of a medicine and mentality of pacification (for instance the Epicurean or Christian); it is a notion of happiness as primarily rest, lack of disturbance (BGE 200).

Elsewhere Nietzsche remarks that “Buddhism is a religion for late people [späte Menschen]” (A 22)^[41] – which as we have seen above is the creed he associates with Pyrrho – and “the latecomers [are] the faded last shoots of mightier and happier generations [den Spätgekommenen, den abgeblassten letzten Sprossen mächtiger und frohmüthiger Geschlechter]” (UM II, HL 8, translation modified). Collectively then, these references to lateness denote waning epochs replete with vestiges of previously dominant forms which have lost the capacity for rejuvenation.^[42]

Nietzsche’s overall analysis here – especially that of Pyrrho’s instinctual weakness – are akin to his “diagnosis of the modern soul,” as characterised by “its most instructive case” (CW, Epilogue) and exemplar of “this lateness [diese Spätheit]” (CW 5),^[43] the “typical decadent” Richard Wagner (CW 7), which also begins by examining the “contradictoriness of instincts, by separating out its opposing values” (CW, Epilogue). According to Nietzsche, such “conflicting instincts [Instinkt-Widersprüchlichkeit]” (EH, Destiny 7) are a feature of those who lack a centre of gravity and hence a purpose, which he claims results in selfless pursuits of “depersonalization [Selbstlosen]” (Nachlass 1888, 23[3], KSA 13.604). Such an “expression of physiological contradictoriness [Ausdruck der physiologischen Widersprüchlichkeit]” (Nachlass 1888, 14[94], KSA 13.272) accounts for individuals who seek answers to questions concerning happiness, and so Nietzsche claims that “[d]ecadence betrays itself in this preoccupation with ‘happiness’” (Nachlass 1888, 14[92], KSA 13.270).

Seemingly, then, Nietzsche regards Pyrrho as another example of an ill-constitution that spawns this kind of unhealthy obsession.^[44] For according to an authoritative ancient source that Brochard cites,^[45] and hence Nietzsche was surely aware of, happiness for Pyrrho is synonymous with the serenity attained by considering a ternary of fundamental questions concerning our own knowledge in order to achieve a true view of the nature of things – which it transpires, is one of indeterminacy.^[46] Consequently, Nietzsche judges that Pyrrho managed to surpass “the stigmata of décadence: moralism and happiness [die Stigmata der décadence: Moralismus und Glück]” (Nachlass 1888, 14[87], KSA 13.265, my translation) of Socrates. This questionable accomplishment then was due to the loss of his will to distinction through the rejection of, or withdrawal from, the vestiges of his healthy instincts. For Socrates’ misguided but active use of knowledge to obtain a virtuous life of happiness had been regressively supplanted by Pyrrho’s passive indifference to what can be known to secure a life-negating torpidity. Hence, Nietzsche claims that Pyrrho actually represents the “highpoint [Höhepunkt]” of Greek decadence, for accordingly he “reached the level of Buddhism [Stufe des Buddhismus erreicht]” – an assertion I will shortly elucidate (Nachlass 1888, 14[87], KSA 13.265, my translations).

For Nietzsche then, Pyrrho is a prime example of a decadent’s inability psychologically to resist the physiological debility that has enveloped him. Such weakness displays a lack of self-control by “giving in [nachgeben]” (Nachlass 1888, 14[157], KSA 13.341) to one’s crumbling drives and instincts,^[47] and consequently Nietzsche interprets that Pyrrho’s subsequent penchant for scepticism is inspired by a fundamental exhaustion.^[48] The basis for this assessment is due to Pyrrho’s ethical ideal along with his practical attitudes toward obtaining tranquillity, but also because of his complete disengagement from any scientific aspirations or pretentiousness.^[49] These principles are then coupled with a general reticence and non-committal stance in offering any determinate explanation of the way things are – which together with the some of the other points made above – feature in the following abridged passage, where Nietzsche concludes that Pyrrho’s self-transformation ultimately engendered his indifference:

Sagacious weariness: Pyrrho. To live a lowly life among the lowly. No pride. To live in the common way; to honor and believe what all believe. On guard against science and spirit, also against all that inflates – Simple: indescribably patient, carefree, mild. Apatheia, rather praótes. A Buddhist for Greece, grown up amid the tumult of the schools; a latecomer; weary; the protest of weariness against the zeal of the dialecticians; the unbelief of weariness in the importance of all things He had seen Alexander, he had seen the Indian penitents. To such refined latecomers, everything lowly, everything poor, even everything idiotic is seductive. It has a narcotic effect: it relaxes […]. To overcome contradiction; no contest; no will to distinction; to deny the Greek instincts […]. To disguise wisdom so that it no longer distinguishes […] indifference; no virtues that require gestures: to be everyone’s equal even in virtue: ultimate self-overcoming, ultimate indifference (Nachlass 1888, 14[99], KSA 13.276–7).

The opening reference here to Pyrrho’s “Sagacious weariness [weise Müdigkeit]” may be a derisive comment implying that his predilections for adiaphoria (indifference) and apatheia (insensibility) eradicated “an instinct of intellectual integrity” – the rare impulse to constantly question dogma and persist in enquiring into the truth – that Nietzsche claims is only evident in a few of the sceptics.^[50] However, the more likely reason is that he associates Pyrrho’s apparent passivity and weariness with Buddhism, an influence allegedly imparted when he travelled with Alexander the Great’s army on its expedition into the Indian subcontinent.^[51]

For Nietzsche, Buddhism is the religion of the exhausted (A 22) and, like Christianity, a nihilistic and decadent religion (A 20), though preferable to it (A 42). In fact, Nietzsche describes Pyrrho as both a Greek Buddhist^[52] and a nihilist a number of times.^[53] These two aspersions are connected, because for Nietzsche Buddhism is an example of what he calls “passive nihilism,” and therefore “a sign of weakness” (Nachlass 1887, 9[35], KSA 12.351). This condition arises when the faith in the highest values has been lost, but the need for the principles that characterised such a faith still remains. However, this disenchantment and yearning is passive as it is just “an act of resistance and reaction,” rather than active by “reaching out for power” (Nachlass 1886/87, 5[64], KSA 12.209). Hence, unlike an active nihilist, the passive kind lacks the strength to create new life-affirming values, which is itself indicative of exhaustion and weakness due to a reduction in their will to power – a decline in the striving to overcome resistance in the pursuit of one’s ends.^[54] For Nietzsche, Buddha exhibited this kind of attitude, for he remained “under the spell and delusion of morality,” and continued to evaluate life in moral terms by regarding existence as evil (BGE 56). So just like Pyrrho, Buddha showed himself to be a decadent, by proposing a solution known as nirvāṇa that is also life-negating and consists of non-existence.^[55]

Pyrrho’s Epistemological Weakness

According to Nietzsche then, the decadent’s physiological corruption and accompanying debility is subsequently expressed in various forms of psychological weakness. As previously suggested, Nietzsche maintains that Pyrrho clearly demonstrates this kind of enervation in his manner of evaluating knowledge claims, as he holds that statements are neither true nor false because things are judged to be undecidable or indeterminate. For Pyrrho, since a belief could not be substantiated or embraced with certainty, it therefore had to be seen as unstable. A consequence of this lack of decidability or certainty was anxiety that acted as a source of human suffering and unhappiness. Pyrrho’s practical means of liberation from this potential unrest, and the means to attain an inner peace of mind, was a life without belief based upon non-assertion. The latter is generally interpreted as to make no definite claims about the nature of things or not to commit oneself in any way.^[56]

As a result, Pyrrho is said to have been completely indifferent to everything that went on around him, detached from the normal concerns of ordinary human beings and everyday reality. As we have seen above, the aim of Pyrrho’s scepticism was a way of life based on tranquillity, with ataraxia as its ethical doctrine. Probably the closest Nietzsche actually comes to stating this is his euphemistic comment that as a sceptic, Pyrrho was inspired by “a need for rest, a weariness [ein Ruhe-Bedürfniß, eine Müdigkeit]” (Nachlass 1888, 15[58], KSA 13.446). We become tranquil and thereby happy if we embrace universal undecidability and indeterminacy, since we rid ourselves of all beliefs and thereby of the concomitant anxiety.^[57] This noncommittal stance of Pyrrho is the basis for the suspension of judgement – epoché – the sceptical practice when confronted with the undecidability of opposing positions, which some modern commentators now regard as not applicable to Pyrrho, but rather to his subsequent followers, the Pyrrhonists.^[58]

Putting aside any contentious issues of the exact nature of Pyrrho’s scepticism and route to tranquillity, all we need to note here is that Nietzsche clearly associates him with mistaking a demand for unbelief, with the need to break free from a belief.^[59] Nietzsche construes unbelief as symptomatic of debility and withdrawal, and as a sign of someone uneasy with their place in the world or possibly existence itself.^[60] This apprehension in turn requires respite or escape from the harshness of reality through a search for happiness.^[61] An obvious objection to this kind of stance is that without belief one cannot act; a view sustained by the anecdote that Pyrrho required constant support from companions in order to save him from natural dangers he did not believe in.^[62] Likewise for Nietzsche, any disposition to avoid asserting beliefs or to suspend judgement is one that is potentially dangerous to life, and indicative of an unhealthy yearning not to engage with the world, that conforms to a form of scepticism exhibited by the weak.

Scepticism for Nietzsche thus is a practical undertaking that can expose the inherent weakness or strength of the doubter, and consequently he distinguishes between two different forms.^[63] “Weak” scepticism is a veiled repudiation of the sceptical denial of truth that leads to an aversion to decision or action, and so acts like a sedative. Hence, when Nietzsche refers to “the soft, sweet, soothing, poppy flower of skepticism,” he is probably indirectly associating the weak variety with Pyrrho and his need for the soporific benefits of ataraxia (BGE 208). By contrast, a “strong” scepticism – the wholesome type Nietzsche advocates – is a creative affirmation of this conception of the absence of truth that favours a perspectival orientation instead. Accordingly, scepticism in this robust and active form is one he associates with greatness (A 54) and as an essential factor in his cure for the malaise of modernity (GM, Preface 5).

Yet as his interest in decadence grew, Nietzsche developed the view that typically no prior scepticism has arisen without an ulterior motive, one that is actually of greater importance than the underlying doubt. This ulterior motive has primarily been moral and arises from a pessimistic reservation or disappointment about the real value of something formerly revered.^[64] According to Nietzsche, this “moralistic skepticism [die moralistische Scepsis]” (Nachlass 1887, 9[3], KSA 12.340–1) – which he also associates with the argument for faith of Pascal’s wager – is a crucial condition in the emergence of nihilism, which in an extreme form, supposes that there is no value in the world. He construes then that this nihilism is “a result of the moral interpretation of the world [Nihilismus als Folge der moralischen Welt-Auslegung]” (Nachlass 1886/87, 7[43], KSA 12.309, my translation). Nietzsche therefore suspects that even Pyrrho – as with fellow decadents Socrates, Epicurus and others – is engaged in a struggle against knowledge that is being fought in favour of morality.^[65]

In his analysis of the sceptics of antiquity, Nietzsche deems that morality remained the highest value for them. Like all periods of philosophy, ancient scepticism has a moral origin or aim based on a questioning of the worth of this world, which eventually leads to the construction of ideal – ultimately depraved qua revengeful – counter-worlds. Nietzsche concludes therefore that such philosophers are decadents, which in this context excludes the pre-Socratics, whose Hellenic agonistic instinct entailed only an acceptance of conditional epistemological and moral claims:

Morality as the supreme value, in all phases of philosophy (even among the skeptics). Result: this world is good for nothing, there must be a “real world” [wahre Welt]. What really determines the supreme value here? What is morality really? The instinct of decadence; it is the exhausted and disinherited who in this way take their revenge and play the master – Historical proof: the philosophers always decadents, always in the service of the nihilistic religions (Nachlass 1888, 14[137], KSA 13.321).

Pyrrho’s Metaphysical Weakness

Nietzsche’s reference to a “real world” in the passage above – which is then reiterated in another that mentions Pyrrho^[66] – already hints at the fact that Pyrrho also exhibits the decadent’s predilection for the metaphysical, or what Nietzsche more characteristically calls idealism (Idealismus). The latter is any philosophical, religious or ethical doctrine or ideal that denigrates the world we reside in as inferior to a metaphysical true world (wahre Welt), and Nietzsche regards them as errors and as the products of cowardice.^[67]

According to Nietzsche, the weak sceptical attitude that questions the value of the world betrays an element of morality within it that does not refer to just any system of values, but rather specifically to values of a life-denying or world-denying nature. This practical or psychological need for such values is what distinguishes decadents from non-decadents, and it is present in Pyrrho’s ethical ideal of freedom from disturbance – ataraxia.^[68] Nietzsche generally correlates these life- and world-denying values with the “ascetic ideal,” a term he uses to describe any essentially self-negating practice that goes against the instincts of life, such as not pursuing one’s own interests through abstention for philosophical or religious reasons.^[69]

For Nietzsche, “[t]he ascetic ideal always expresses something going awry, a deprivation, a physiological contradiction [… and] an expression of man in general having degenerated and turned out badly” (Nachlass 1887, 8[3], KSA 12.330). It is “the detrimental ideal par excellence, a will to the end, a decadence ideal,” that is an inherent characteristic of Christianity, where the individual’s self-worth is diminished (EH, GM). For behind the latter is the same desire to deny reality or devalue the everyday world of experience, and conceive of an ideal real world that lies beyond it instead. Anyone who suspends judgement about this conjecture is as abhorrent as the person who purports to have knowledge of a notional world. Such a person exhibits a greater degree of denial and detachment from healthy instincts, for they refrain from making their own judgment – through epoché – by being subjected to the herd instinct, and choose to live like everyone else:

“One must act; consequently rules of conduct are needed” – said even the skeptics of antiquity. The urgent need for a decision as an argument for considering something true! “One must not act” – said their more consistent brothers, the Buddhists, and conceived a rule of conduct to liberate one from actions – To accommodate oneself, to live as the “common man” lives, to hold right and good what he holds right: this is to submit to the herd instinct. One must take one’s courage and severity so far as to feel such a submission as a disgrace. Not to live with two different standards! – Not to separate theory and practice! – (Nachlass 1888, 14[107], KSA 13.286)

According to Nietzsche, Pyrrho’s profound weariness unwittingly causes him to relapse by pursuing what is essentially an ascetic ideal through advocating values that require one to live a life of conformity.^[70] Hence, his exhausted will and subsequent refusal to believe anything actually manifests into a life that corresponds to what “the herd” believes.

Moreover, just as the need for the certainty of belief has been confused with the will to truth, the same has occurred for those of the opposite, and who eschew belief in the first place:

Psychological confusions: – the demand for belief – confused with the “will to truth” […]. But in the same way, the demand for unbelief has been confused with the “will to truth” (– the need to get free from a belief, for a hundred reasons: to be in the right against some “believers”). What inspires the skeptic? Hatred of the dogmatist – or a need for rest, a weariness, as in the case of Pyrrho (Nachlass 1888, 15[58], KSA 13.446).

What Nietzsche means here by the term “will to truth” is an overriding commitment to knowing the truth about those aspects of our lives that affect us most deeply. This is so even if this commitment detracts from our real self-interest, such that truth becomes an end that is preferred to other ends and develops into the overriding value. An example of this kind of conviction is “that faith of the Christians, which was also Plato’s faith, that God is truth; that truth is divine.” Anyone who is willing to sacrifice everything for the will to truth by conceiving the truth as divine is obviously contemptuous of this world and in need of another, metaphysical world. Hence Nietzsche considers the will to truth as a moral commitment, one that he is critical of because it provides relief from the anxiety the weak experience in the face of the meaninglessness of human suffering. As such, the will to truth functions in much the same way as Christian ascetic commitments (GM III 24), in that it can restrict one’s agency and attainment of an authentic self – the most degenerate trait of a decadent – as we shall see next.

Pyrrho’s Agential Weakness

Nietzsche’s ascription of idealism to Pyrrho, together with a perceived lack of agency, can be traced to the sole published reference about him that I mentioned at the beginning of this article (HH II, WS 213). Despite this passage being composed well before Nietzsche’s stated interest in decadence, it can be interpreted as already showing his negative assessment of Pyrrho based on decadent principles. In this rather cryptic depiction within an imaginary dialogue between Pyrrho and an interlocutor, Nietzsche portrays Pyrrho’s persona as one of “a fanatic [ein Fanatiker],” a term he associates elsewhere with a person of convictions (A 54). For Nietzsche, “the man of convictions is not the man of scientific thought,” because a conviction “is the belief that on some particular point of knowledge one is in possession of the unqualified truth [unbedingten Wahrheit]” (HH I 630), and the latter is accompanied by “a profound displeasure with all sceptical and relativistic positions in regard to any question of knowledge whatever” (HH I 631).

According to Nietzsche, the fanatic’s unqualified truth of his convictions and accompanying disregard for the critical enquiry of science makes him is so utterly committed to an absolute ideal that he not only persistently believes in it despite all evidence to the contrary, but he also relentlessly strives to impose his passionate belief on all others. Indeed, in Nietzsche’s view, Pyrrho – despite his sceptical practice – is an exemplar of such a credo, as he will only acknowledge others acceptance and devotion to his cause when they practise it with the same degree of fervour and zeal as he does himself.

Since fanatics, for Nietzsche, are “the antithesis of strong spirits who have become free” (A 54), his portrayal of Pyrrho is of someone who advocates an ethical ideal that inhibits the ability to will freely, to determine one’s own actions, and to become an authentic self. Followers of such an ideal are really governed by a will^[71] constructed and imposed externally that Nietzsche commonly refers to as an “‘unfree will [unfreier Wille]’” or an “alien will [fremden Willen]” (Nachlass 1885/86, 1[44], KSA 12.20) – or put another way, as coerced – since for him, “[t]he ‘un-free will’ is mythology; in real life it is only a matter of strong and weak wills” (BGE 21). However, Nietzsche believes Pyrrho is not alone in this regard which implies a weakness of will, for “not one of the ancient philosophers had the courage for a theory of the ‘unfree will’ (i. e., for a theory that denies morality)” (Nachlass 1888, 14[115], KSA 13.291).

As Nietzsche holds that there are many different perspectives on the world (GS 374) and each is indicative of some need, emotion or interest,^[72] such a pre-defined and narrow outlook is merely one example of many types of fanaticism.^[73] In particular, he speculates that “a tremendous sickening of the will” accounts for the origins and rapid proliferation of religions that are “teachers of fanaticism,” such as Christianity and Buddhism. These examples of zealotry only impart a superficial, one-dimensional “‘strength of the will’” of brittle rigidity – one that in fact conceals an unfree, weak-willed person who lacks the courage to live in a world of uncertainty, preferring instead to believe in a ready-made solution and a single point of view (GS 347). Drained by his principled struggle against Greek dogmatism and so susceptible to the pernicious influence of Buddhism whilst in India, Pyrrho is just such a case. Despite his assertion that nothing can be known, he not only fervently believes in the avoidance of belief, but is also a rabid advocate of his own philosophy that ironically could be conceived as a negative kind of dogmatism. Such fanaticism about belief and happiness betrays the pathological nature of its veiled cause, that of decadence.^[74]

The weak scepticism of a fanatic like Pyrrho takes the values they hold to be universal and permanent, rather than personal values they must affirm as their own. The latter kind of values should be indicative of a self-awareness that concedes the inevitability of evaluations stemming from ourselves, including our bodily drives and instincts. These are expressed in our actions and can therefore be discerned externally. Moreover, the fanatic lacks a personal honesty founded on an intellectual conscience that involves a continuous self-examination.^[75] The fanatical approach then, is the antithesis of Nietzsche’s belief that the attainment of free agency and an authentic self is reflected in the agent’s striving for the “power of self-determination, a freedom of the will, in which the spirit takes leave of all faith and every wish for certainty” (GS 347).

For Nietzsche, we must maintain our freedom from conviction, and not be like most thinkers who are guilty of failing to exhibit a certain degree of critical detachment (A 54). To overcome any need for absolute ideals one must be more like his favoured “strong” type of sceptic. Such a “skepticism of a bold masculinity […] does not believe but does not die out on this account” (BGE 209), and it thereby stands in contrast to the timid form advocated by Pyrrho that eventually exhausts itself as nihilism. Moreover, Nietzsche believes that an individual’s flourishing requires experimenting with alternative values (BGE 253). There is a need to explore and question our drives and instincts in order to assist in effectuating change that promotes life, through the revaluation of values and the creation of new ones (BGE 211). This requires the ability to be a skilful reader – not just of texts, but also of people and the world around us – approaching all with precisely the skills appropriate to the philologist and philosopher-psychologist.

In Nietzsche’s strong scepticism, ephexis – a stopping or checking – is a principle of philological interpretation that is not envisioned to make perspectives absolute, but neither is it a Pyrrhonian suspension of one’s own decision.^[76] It will always be the case that we will be presented with a number of possible candidates for belief, and these give rise to a need to evaluate both our existing and potential new beliefs. One must decide which of those are plainly not true or are just mere convictions by examining the evidence, and recognising that employing the best techniques at our disposal need not involve completely rejecting a belief. Ancient sceptics like Pyrrho deliberately abstained from constructing visions and thereby laid bare their weakened fettle. As a result, they don’t come close to Nietzsche’s ideal of the value-creating free spirit.

An Evaluation of Nietzsche’s Portrayal of Pyrrho

I will now turn to examining the cogency and soundness of Nietzsche’s depiction of Pyrrho and whether his attributing of specific expressions of decadence to him holds up under scrutiny. Beginning with the former, what immediately strikes one as suspicious are Nietzsche’s attempts – both published and unpublished – to portray Pyrrho as a kind of fanatic. This grates with the stated persona of “Pyrrho, the gentlest and most patient man [Pyrrho, der mildeste und geduldigste Mensch]” (Nachlass 1888, 14[162], KSA 13.347, my translation) and his declared therapeutic aim of freeing himself and others from belief and the spell of dogmatism.^[77] Then there is Nietzsche’s assertion that Pyrrho’s weariness and decadence lead him to withdraw unassumingly into humble conformism: “To live a lowly life among the lowly. No pride. To live in the common way; to honor and believe what all believe […] to cloak it [wisdom] in poverty and rags; to perform the lowliest offices: to go to market and sell suckling pigs” (Nachlass 1888, 14[99], KSA 13.276–7). This quirky depiction seems to be at odds with conformity as it clashed with the prevailing ethos, and Pyrrho’s behaviour – such as dealing in livestock – was considered too eccentric for someone of his reputed social status.^[78]

Furthermore, it is also debatable whether the “philosopher Pyrrho [Philosoph Pyrrho]” (Nachlass 1888, 14[162], KSA 13.347), as Nietzsche categorises him, should indeed be deemed a philosopher – and thereby an implicit decadent^[79] – as some commentators have raised the possibility that Pyrrho was more of an unsystematic moral sage.^[80] For example, in an article which proposes that Nietzsche was rather resentful of Pyrrho, Pierre Lamarche argues that “he most definitely was not” a philosopher. Instead Pyrrho habituated himself to a particular agoge – a way of life – that suited him rather than proposing ideals or manifesting a will to truth or wisdom.^[81] Indeed, I believe Nietzsche does actually hint at this kind of portrayal himself in a passage that discusses the perils of employing reason to claim that virtue is the way to happiness: “Pyrrho, judged as everyone did, namely that in goodness and integrity ‘little people’ were far superior to philosophers. All the more profound natures of antiquity were disgusted with the philosophers of virtue: they were looked upon as quarrelsome and play actors” (Nachlass 1888, 14[129], KSA 13.311–2). Hence, it is not surprising that Nietzsche’s portrayal of Pyrrho has attracted some criticism.

Lamarche, for instance, argues that it is questionable that Nietzsche should depict Pyrrho as weak and suffering from an emasculation of the philosophical will to distinction.^[82] Nietzsche is confusing Pyrrho’s impressive ability to remain indifferent and unfazed by the flux of experience – which shows a consummate power of discrimination – with a weakening of the will to distinction. After all, he appears to contradict himself concerning Pyrrho’s adiaphoria (indifference) when, in a notebook entry entitled On the Hygiene of the “Weak”, he says:

A strong nature manifests itself by waiting and postponing any reaction: it is as much characterized by a certain adiaphoria as weakness is by an involuntary countermovement and the suddenness and inevitability of “action.” – The will is weak and the prescription to avoid stupidities would be to have a strong will and to do nothing. – Contradictio. – A kind of self-destruction; the instinct of preservation is compromised. – The weak harm themselves. – That is the type of decadence. – In fact, we find a tremendous amount of reflection about practices that would lead to impassability. The instinct is on the right track insofar as doing nothing is more expedient than doing something. – All the practices of the orders, the solitary philosophers, the fakirs are inspired by the right value standard that a certain kind of man cannot benefit himself more than by preventing himself as much as possible from acting – (Nachlass 1888, 14[102], KSA 13.279).

On the contrary then, in Lamarche’s eyes, Pyrrho characterises the height of the will to distinction. When compared with the dogmatists, for whom their adherence to dogma means that they must habitually strive to grasp and react to everything until they are unable to distinguish and let go, Pyrrho shows an impressive resolve to discriminate yet remain indifferent. Nothing moves him other than that through which he sustains his ataractic way of life. Arguably, then, Pyrrho exhibits such an impressive capacity for indifference that his behaviour is accordingly interpreted as “indescribably patient, carefree, mild” (Nachlass 1888, 14[99], KSA 13.277).^[83] This penchant for indifference would then be irreconcilable with an emasculation of the will to distinction.

Furthermore, in a monograph that considers the apparent distortion of Pyrrho’s teaching by both ancient and modern interpreters, Adrian Kuzminski maintains that when Nietzsche stresses Pyrrho’s alleged weariness and indifference that associates him with both Buddhism and a negative dogmatism, such a proclivity is in fact more characteristic of the Academics rather than the Pyrrhonists. Kuzminski persuasively argues that despite Nietzsche’s philological expertise and knowledge he was mistaken respectively on three matters.^[84] First, whilst discussing the decadent’s instinctive actions, he mentions “Pyrrhonic opponents of dialectics and of knowability in general,” but passes over the opportunity to examine the practice of the suspension of judgement (Nachlass 1888, 14[142], KSA 13.327). Instead he prefers to focus on Pyrrho’s opposition to dialectics and Socrates, claiming his way of life effectively repudiated the latter’s principle of happiness = virtue = knowledge (Nachlass 1888, 14[99], KSA 13.277). Secondly, Nietzsche is possibly mistaken about his charge of Pyrrho being a nihilist, for a nihilist might be expected to forsake any notion of happiness rather than hold it as a goal of attainment, yet there is no indication in the various ancient sources that Pyrrho ever did so.^[85] Thirdly, Pyrrho and his followers arguably do not reject dialectics, wisdom, or science per se; rather it could be construed that they reject only the pseudo-wisdom of beliefs and leave the door open to other possibilities. For them, science should determine the evident correlations among appearances and in this way become an extension of ordinary life in observing and grasping such correlations. Science, thus understood, would only strive to preclude non-evident beliefs that warp and confuse our understanding of experience.

I will conclude my evaluation of Nietzsche’s portrayal of Pyrrho by considering its underlying rationale. I argue that ultimately some of the expressions of decadence that Nietzsche applies to Pyrrho are perhaps not applied consistently to another school of Greek philosophy. For in a notebook entry entitled Most General Types of Decadence, Nietzsche outlines a specific indicator for decadence that is premised on the following surprising fact. A person longs to escape from a condition of suffering, and consequently seeks a calmative means of mitigation that is symptomatic of their repugnance with life, and an inability to face the harshness of reality:

One longs for a condition in which one no longer suffers: life is actually experienced as the ground of ills, – one esteems unconscious states, without feeling, (sleep, fainting) as incomparably more valuable than conscious ones: from this a methodology [eine Methodik] … (Nachlass 1888, 17[6], KSA 13.528, translation modified).

Using this general approach, then, Nietzsche evaluates Pyrrho’s scepticism as primarily an expression of a moral psychological need that reflects an internal weakness. The associated goal of attaining ataraxia is an ethical principle and quasi-religious practice that, in conjunction with adiaphoria and apatheia, conforms to the palliative proclivity outlined above and is therefore indicative of Pyrrho’s intrinsic instinct for decadence, that this world, as ordinarily experienced for him is of no value. Nietzsche generally associates the latter view with nihilism and more specifically with the ascetic ideal, and he then casts around looking for other exponents of these decadent attitudes and beliefs, such as Buddhists and Christians. Yet Nietzsche could be interpreted as choosing to ignore or exclude another seemingly pertinent example, that of Stoicism.

Evidently Nietzsche does not associate ataraxia with a good life, nor with the belief that it constitutes psychological health. However, proponents of Stoicism often made use of the term as they too sought mental tranquillity and saw ataraxia as highly valuable, although it was not an end to be pursued for its own sake, but rather as a natural consequence that occurs in a person who pursues virtue. Perhaps the reason Nietzsche does not apparently associate the Stoics’ idea of ataraxia with decadence, then, is because it was not their controlling ideal or ultimate aim in life.^[86] Rather the Stoics’ goal was a life of virtue according to nature, which was intended to bring about apatheia and the absence of unhealthy passions.^[87] However, Nietzsche appears to interpret this objective of becoming ultimately insensible or insensitive as the means to attain a painless life^[88] and so a detrimental form of detachment, whereas in his view any misfortune instead requires the engagement of one’s countervailing powers.^[89] Indeed, Nietzsche states that the Stoics act “as if the passions themselves were a sickness or something unworthy,” and their strategy was simply one of “petrification [of the passions] as an antidote to suffering.” Hence, the Stoics forestall suffering by cultivating indifference to the world, and consequently Nietzsche pronounces that “[t]his way of thinking is very repugnant to me [Diese Denkweise ist mir sehr zuwider]” (Nachlass 1881, 15[55], KSA 9.653, my translation). Arguably Nietzsche’s interpretation here resembles the assuaging of suffering, and a palliative tendency specified in his “methodology” for diagnosing decadence, that is seemingly applicable to Pyrrho – including his predilection for apatheia. Yet even though Nietzsche maintains that “Stoicism is self-tyranny” (BGE 9) and a “fossilized” (GS 326) way of life of self-denial that could be construed as a variation of the ascetic ideal,^[90] oddly he does not appear to portray the Stoics as decadents because of their striving for apatheia (or as a consequence of attaining ataraxia). This is despite citing Seneca in conjunction with other purported decadents in a passage from Twilight of the Idols entitled My Impossible Ones (TI, Skirmishes 1), and questioning the moral values of Epictetus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, along with those of Epicurus and others, in a notebook entry.^[91] However, Nietzsche also describes a stoical kind of morality in apparently favourable terms as a means “with which the healthy instinct defends itself against incipient decadence” (Nachlass 1888, 15[29], KSA 13.422), yet he then contrarily states^[92] that “Stoic self-hardening” is a factor in preparing the ground for the decadence of Christianity (Nachlass 1887/88, 11[375], KSA 13.169).

Conclusion

The theme of decadence is essential in explaining why Nietzsche portrays the way of life advocated by Pyrrho – and also that of Epicurus, with their mutual goal of tranquillity – as very different from the view he himself advocates – one that disavows assigning the highest value to the avoidance of suffering and the attainment of happiness in order to procure a “‘peacefulness of the soul’” (TI, Morality 3). Whereas Pyrrho and Epicurus respectively championed scepticism and ethical hedonism to achieve this end, suffering for Nietzsche should be accepted as an important fact of life and as a challenge for extraordinary self-discipline and mastery.^[93] In particular there is a contrast to be drawn between hedonism, on the one hand, and Nietzsche’s alternative to hedonism: for he privileges resistance and the experience of effectiveness or power over any simpler type of pleasure. Those who fail to seek power or dwell in an on-going scepticism will not be able to envisage a better life, and therefore will be consigned to live a worse one. Nietzsche sees the pursuit of power as a pre-requisite for the possibility of creating new forms of knowledge and values. This necessitates that each individual makes personal, contextual, and perspectival decisions in shaping his life and world, unlike Pyrrho or Epicurus and their respective followers. The undertaking of creating values warrants a psychological attitude of imposing oneself on the world that is the very opposite of a suspension of beliefs, or an avoidance of pain, in the pursuit of tranquillity, which are merely unconscious symptoms of an aversion to life: “In some it is their weaknesses that philosophize [… they] need their philosophy, be it as a prop, a sedative, medicine, redemption, elevation, or self-alienation” (GS, Preface 2). Moreover, to aspire to attaining any enduring state is simply at odds with Nietzsche’s Heraclitean-inspired belief in perpetual becoming over being (TI, Reason 1–2).

As I have shown above, Nietzsche’s portrayal of Pyrrho as a decadent, while at first sight inconsistent, turns out to be largely sound. Yet perhaps the most interesting feature of Nietzsche’s depiction is that it encompasses the spectrum of what it is to be a decadent. Nietzsche initially regards Pyrrho as someone not unlike himself, a stronger and hence a rather atypical decadent who struggles to resist the decadence enveloping himself and those all around him. However, the note of approval then quickly fades, for in contrast to his own self-overcoming, Pyrrho loses this ability to endure, as his decadence was not intermittent like Nietzsche’s, but fundamentally constitutive instead (EH, Wise 2). Pyrrho’s conflicting instincts intensify into those of a confused but transitory “unruly [widerspänstigen]” decadent, striving for a pacifying panacea for his inner turmoil that will bring him peace and happiness. Pyrrho’s subsequent adherence and promotion of the resultant life-inhibiting ideal of serenity ultimately turns him into the “typical [typischen]” kind of decadent (Nachlass 1888, 15[88], KSA 13.458), as his instincts become tyrannised by the pursuit for tranquillity.^[94]