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Pyrrhonism: How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism (Studies in Comparative Philosophy and Religion)

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A concise, detailed and scholarly analysis of Pyrrhonian skecpticsm and its startling similarities with major aspects of both early and later Mahayana Buddhist philosophy, approaches and goals. If you've ever wondered how the ancient Greek philosophers would have rendered and practiced the 'Buddhist ideal', this book is your answer. It's not a quick read, however. You may find yourself pausing every few paragraphs to contemplate their significance and relevance to your own experience. Well worth the effort!

Kuzminski begins this brief but radical reappraisal of Pyrrhonism by showing that it differs sharply from ancient Dogmatic Skepticism, although the two are often mistakenly conflated. Dogmatic Skepticism is the doctrine that knowledge is impossible; Pyrrhonism is not a theory or doctrine at all, but rather a practice of careful suspension of belief in the non-evident. Pyrrho of Elis, the founder of this school, accompanied Alexander the Great to India, and ancient sources claim that his philosophy was inspired by encounters with "gymnosophists" there. Kuzminski explores the remarkable parallels between the Pyrrhonist tradition and Madhyamaka Buddhism in particular: the critique of appearance/reality dualism; the affinity between suspension of belief and the acceptance of appearances at face value; the rejection of dogmatic belief as a form of clinging with pathological effects; and how practice-based ways of life which eschew metaphysics can serve as an antidote to "cultures of belief". The book ends with a suggestive discussion of how the insights of Pyrrhonism have been independently recovered in the West, most recently by Ludwig Wittgenstein.