Against the Professors (Adversus Mathematicos I–VI)

The work comprises six books, each targeting a discipline in the Greek educational canon: Against the Grammarians (M I), Against the Rhetoricians (M II), Against the Geometers (M III), Against the Arithmeticians (M IV), Against the Astrologers (M V), and Against the Musicians (M VI) . The unifying thread is not a blanket rejection of learning but a methodological application of Pyrrhonian skepticism. Sextus approaches each technē with the same expectation he brought to philosophy: seeking truth, he finds equipollent conflict and discord, and suspends judgment . The disciplines promise secure knowledge and practical benefit; Sextus shows that their principles are contested and their practitioners cannot deliver what they claim.

Richard Bett's introduction to his translation highlights a significant but often overlooked feature: Against the Professors borrows counter-arguments from the Epicurean corpus, particularly in M I, M III, and M VI . Sextus himself acknowledges a kinship with Epicurus's position in M I, noting that their attitudes, while not identical, share a 'quite common' opposition to the disciplines . The Epicurean view, as Sextus reports it, held that the arts and sciences contribute nothing to wisdom—a utilitarian rejection of erudition as useless for the good life . The crucial difference is that the Pyrrhonist does not dogmatically assert this uselessness; he opposes arguments to arguments and suspends judgment, whereas Epicurus made a positive claim about the worthlessness of these studies.

Bury's Loeb edition (1949) has been the standard for over seventy years, with facing Greek text and a reliable but sometimes archaic translation . Bett's Cambridge edition (2005) is the first complete English translation since Bury and is philosophically more precise, with extensive notes explaining the technical debates about grammar, rhetoric, geometry, and music . Bett also provides an interpretive introduction that situates the work within recent scholarship on Pyrrhonism, arguing that M I–VI may predate the Outlines while remaining compatible with its skeptical strategy . For scholarly work, Bett's edition is now the standard; Bury's remains useful for its Greek text and its historical importance as the translation that introduced the work to Anglophone readers.

Against the Professors belongs to the same corpus as the Outlines of Pyrrhonism and Against the Logicians, Physicists, and Ethicists. The Loeb edition describes the three surviving works as: the Outlines, which presents the practical and ethical skepticism of Pyrrho; Against the Dogmatists (five books on Logicians, Physicists, and Ethicists); and Against the Professors (six books on the specialized disciplines) . Bett's analysis of Sextus's cross-references suggests that M I–VI often refer more directly to M VII–XI than to the Outlines, indicating a complex relationship of priority and development . The work is thus not a standalone polemic but part of a comprehensive skeptical project that engages both philosophy and the wider culture of learning.

Grammar and rhetoric were the foundational disciplines of Greek education, the first stages of the enkyklios paideia that preceded philosophy. By attacking them first, Sextus strikes at the base of the educational pyramid. His arguments against the grammarians are the longest and most detailed, questioning whether the rules of correct speech can be justified and whether knowledge of those rules guarantees the ability to speak well . The critique of rhetoric follows a similar pattern: rhetoricians cannot demonstrate that their art has a secure theoretical foundation, and good orators need not know rhetoric to be persuasive . Sextus's target is not merely academic; it is the claim that these preliminary studies prepare the mind for truth. If they rest on false principles, the entire curriculum built upon them is compromised.

The aim is more limited than a blanket rejection of learning. Sextus does not claim that the disciplines are worthless in themselves—that would be a dogmatic assertion, and the Pyrrhonist avoids dogma. He claims that the dogmatic pretensions of the disciplines cannot be sustained: their principles are contested, their methods are unreliable, and their practitioners cannot give a coherent account of what they know. The result is suspension of judgment about whether these technai possess the secure rational foundation they claim. As Bett notes, the negative arguments of M I–VI do not entail negative dogmatism; they are offered to produce suspension, not to establish the contrary thesis . The skeptic can still engage with the disciplines practically, but he does not assent to their claims to provide knowledge.