Disagreeing with the Pyrrhonist?

For the Pyrrhonian skeptic, disagreement is an integral part of the skeptical way of inquiry (see Pyrrhonian Outlines I 165).1 The fact that there is undecidable disagreement about a given issue makes the Pyrrhonian skeptic unable to decide that issue, and suspension of judgment emerges. But is suspension of judgment the appropriate response in this case? In this paper, I address two related topics. In the bulk of the paper, I examine critically Jonathan Barnes’ contention to the effect that disagreement alone is not enough to yield suspension of judgment; additional Agrippa’s modes need to be invoked as well (Barnes 1990: ch. 1). I argue that nothing prevents the Pyrrhonian skeptic from suspending judgment only due to disagreement. In fact, that is exactly what Sextus himself points out: “And because of the dispute [that is, the undecidable disagreement over a certain issue] we cannot choose or reject anything, and so end in suspension of judgment” (PH I 165; see Barnes 1990: 17). But does any form of disagreement yield suspension of judgment? To answer this question I consider recent debates about the epistemology of disagreement (see, e.g., Feldman & Warfield 2010). According to the Total Evidence View, what is reasonable for us to believe depends on the total evidence available to us.2 I argue that this view clearly provides a sufficient condition for the Pyrrhonian skeptic to suspend judgment due to disagreement alone. If the total evidence available to us—including the Pyrrhonian skeptic—does not favor any side of an issue over which there is disagreement, suspension of judgment is the natural outcome. In order to examine these topics, however, it is important to be clear about the nature of the disagreement the Pyrrhonian skeptic is involved with and whether the Pyrrhonist is indeed part of the disagreement. I discuss these issues in the bulk of the paper (Sections 2–4). The identification of the relevant kind of disagreement the Pyrrhonist is engaged with paves the way for the ensuing discussion about the connection between disagreement and suspension of judgment (Sections 5–7). Disagreeing with the Pyrrhonist?