Miscellanies 8.5.15

The same attempt at demonstration applies to the third problem as well. Some say, then, that one animal cannot have several ruling principles. Now several principles of the same kind cannot belong to one animal, but there is nothing absurd in its having principles that differ in kind. Against the Pyrrhonists. If suspension of judgment says that nothing is certain, it is clear that it will begin with itself and first invalidate itself. Either, then, it grants that something is true and that one need not suspend judgment about everything, or it persists in saying that nothing is true, and then clearly it will not itself be true in the first place. For either it speaks truly or it does not. If it speaks truly, it grants, against its will, that something is true; if it does not speak truly, it leaves true the things it wished to abolish. For insofar as the suspension that abolishes is shown to be false, in that very respect the things abolished are shown to be true, like the dream that says all dreams are false. For being destructive of itself, it becomes confirmatory of the others. And in general, if it is true, it will make its beginning with itself, being a suspension not of anything else but first of itself. Then, if someone apprehends that he is a man, or that he is suspending judgment, he is plainly not suspending judgment. And how could he have entered into the dispute at all, if he suspends judgment about everything? And how could he answer what was asked? For about this very thing he is plainly not suspending judgment. Indeed he even declares that he suspends judgment. Therefore, if we must obey them and suspend judgment about everything, we shall first suspend judgment about suspension itself, whether it is to be believed or not.