Suspending judgment › What the Skeptic Can Accept

The skeptic does not deny that honey tastes sweet. Sextus grants that appearance while questioning the further assertion that honey is sweet in its underlying nature (I.19–20). The distinction concerns an experience and the account offered of the object. It is possible to acknowledge the former without treating it as a completed justification of the latter.

Likewise, when Sextus says the skeptic does not dogmatize, he distinguishes dogma in the relevant sense from ordinary assent to involuntary feelings. Someone feeling cold is not required to deny that feeling. The withheld assent concerns non-evident objects investigated in philosophical inquiry (I.13). We should retain that distinction rather than flatten his position into the claim that a skeptic assents to absolutely nothing.

There is a difficulty here, not a simple escape. Many ordinary statements seem to concern objects and their properties, not just passing feelings. How far can Sextus' distinction carry a person's life? The passages establish that he accepts involuntary appearances and practical guidance. Whether that leaves room for what we would ordinarily call beliefs requires careful interpretation; renaming every ordinary belief a mere appearance would not by itself answer the objection.