Suspending judgment › The Ten Modes: Varying the Conditions

Sextus introduces modes, or patterns of opposition, that can lead toward suspension. He presents them without guaranteeing their number or cogency (I.35). The ten modes handed down by earlier skeptics organize differences concerning animals, human beings, senses, circumstances, positions and distances, mixtures, quantities, relations, frequency, and customs or beliefs (I.36–39). Their organizing question is how a claim about an object's nature can be settled when appearances vary with such conditions.

Consider a contemporary illustration of a change in circumstances. A quiet room might feel restful after a noisy journey and oppressive during an anxious wait. The circumstances affect how the room strikes the person. Recognizing that variation does not prove that the room has no properties. It does prompt a further question about which part of the judgment concerns the room and which part concerns the situation of the observer. This illustrates the kind of comparison involved in the fourth mode, which Sextus discusses through differences of condition at I.100.

The modes also direct attention beyond individual perception. Differences of customs, laws, and dogmatic assumptions can unsettle the thought that one inherited judgment transparently reveals what is naturally good or bad. But moving from conflicting customs to the assertion that every custom is equally good would add a conclusion the skeptical exercise does not establish. Suspension concerns the disputed account; it is not a proof of relativism.

Sextus also groups the modes by whether they concern the judging subject, the object judged, or both, and then places these groups under relation (I.38–39). That organization draws attention to how an appearance depends on a situation of judgment. It does not independently establish what the object is like outside that situation.

The ten modes thus supply varied material for opposition. We need not endorse every ancient example as a verified observation in order to understand the argumentative pattern. Its force in a particular case depends on whether the difference is relevant and whether the proposed way of settling it survives scrutiny. The modern room example is an invitation to examine a judgment, not a finding about all perceptions or a denial that observation can be useful.