A Certain Kind of Peace.
On Grief, Suspension, and the Language of Consolation
This is a long, two-part reply. It is not written for speed but for thoroughness. The reader’s patience will be rewarded. This is the final part of my philosophical engagement with Doug Bates’ articles on grief and Pyrrhonism (referenced at the bottom).1 It is long and divided into two sections: a direct critique and a side-by-side analysis of contradictions across his pieces. I consider the debate now closed. I will let readers decide for themselves whether grief is something a Pyrrhonist can accommodate within their system. My case against it has now been given:
Grief, Stoicism, and the limits of scepticism, the inconsolable truth, and this.
Part One:
“Even the statement ‘everything is relative’ is not absolutely true.” — Sextus Empiricus, PH I.140
This is not a response I intended to write. Bates has now published a third piece in which he highlights that I am one of the many who misunderstand and in which he attempts to reframe Pyrrhonism as a relativist-friendly method, avoiding direct engagement with my original critique. That critique demonstrated, line-by-line, that his use of Pyrrhonism in the context of grief is incompatible with the historical sceptical tradition. His new article does not address that challenge. Instead, it introduces a new claim: that Pyrrhonism is a form of relativism and that anyone who denies this is confused, and in highlighting me, I am among the confused.
Let us examine that.
I. Red Herring, Poisoned Well
The article opens not with a defence of his prior claims about grief, but with an analogy:
“How one interprets Sextus Empiricus depends on whether one looks at the entirety of what we know about Pyrrhonism, or whether one looks at a caricature based on the first few pages of Sextus’ Outlines of Pyrrhonism.”
This is a red herring, followed by a poisoning of the well. The issue is not whether one reads enough of Sextus. It is whether Bates’ invocation of Pyrrhonism is consistent with Sextus's description. By implying disagreement stems from ignorance, Bates evades the real critique: his claims about grief require affirmation, prescription, and evaluative framing, which Sextus repeatedly suspends. Worse, the opening move implies that one must “practice Pyrrhonism” to understand it, a subtle ad hominem that discredits interlocutors without engaging their arguments. However, if it is to be consistent, Pyrrhonism suspends judgment about who understands.
II. The Core Contradiction
The heart of Bates' claim is this:
“Therefore, everything is relative.”
This line is presented as a conclusion. Not a suspicion. Not an appearance. A demonstrable truth. It directly contradicts Sextus:
“Even the statement ‘everything is relative’ is not absolutely true.” (PH I.140)
To repeat: Sextus suspends that very claim. He discusses relativity, not to affirm it, but to induce equipollence. The eighth mode is a tool, not a truth. Sextus:
“We do not lay down that appearances are certainly true… but we report them non-committally, as they appear to us.” (PH I.4)
“Even the Sceptic himself… does not dogmatise, but uses [arguments] as instruments.” (PH I.206)
Bates, by contrast, treats the eighth mode as proof. He turns a sceptical instrument into a foundational epistemology. This is not a minor point. It is the collapse of Pyrrhonism into relativist dogma. Bates mistakes relative perception, which the sceptic acknowledges, for relativism, which the sceptic refuses to affirm.
III. The Fallacy Breakdown: Why They Matter
Let's now isolate the key fallacies Bates employs and why they matter in philosophy:
Red Herring: Shifts attention from the grief critique to interpreting ancient texts. This deflects from the real question: Can Pyrrhonism help with grief without abandoning its methodology?
Poisoning the Well: Suggests that those who disagree with him don’t understand Pyrrhonism. This silences opposition through insinuation, not argument.
Straw Man: He argues against a caricature, “people who think scepticism and relativism are mutually exclusive,” while ignoring my real position: Pyrrhonism suspends all such claims and cannot be used as a model for grief.
Equivocation: He equivocates between “everything is relative” (an epistemic claim) and “appearances vary” (a phenomenological description). Sextus never affirms the former. These aren’t mere rhetorical slights. They are philosophical derailments, rendering his account unusable as scholarship and therapeutic advice.
IV.A: The ‘Experimental Pyrrhonism’ Defence.
One might sympathetically respond that Bates is not misrepresenting Pyrrhonism but modernising it, extending it into new terrain. After all, Pyrrhonism has always been adaptive. Sextus describes it as a way of life, not a dogma. He says the sceptic lives according to the appearances (PH I.21), including conventions, feelings, and experiences. If that’s the case, then perhaps Bates is simply developing a practical Pyrrhonism fit for contemporary existential needs. Maybe this is not a betrayal of Sextus, but a bold experiment: Can one use Pyrrhonian tools to live better, even while maintaining a sceptical spirit?
It fails because Pyrrhonism’s very method is defined by refusal, refusal to affirm, deny, and settle. Its tools are not designed to build but to unbuild. Sextus makes this clear repeatedly: suspension is not a strategy aimed at tranquillity but a path that accidentally produces it. As he puts it:
“We did not dogmatically say that objects are such and such, but rather we report what appears to us.” (PH I.4)
“The aim of the sceptic is tranquillity in matters of opinion… and this comes about for the sceptic fortuitously, as a shadow follows a body.” (PH I.29–30)
A therapy, by contrast, must aim. It must assert at least one thing: that healing is possible and desirable and that this method helps. Even when modest, this aim requires a positive orientation toward truth or value. In other words, therapeutic Pyrrhonism is not Pyrrhonism. It is something else: a psychological technique wearing a philosophical name.
If Bates wishes to invent a new school inspired by Sextus but no longer bound by suspension, that is a fascinating project. But then let it be named. Let it be owned. Let it not pose as Pyrrhonism while quietly asserting the doctrines of value, emotion, and cognitive change. You cannot be both builder and demolisher at once.
IV.B: Why Bates’ Proposal Might Appeal—and Why That’s Still a Problem
It’s not hard to see why Bates’ adaptation might resonate. In a cultural moment saturated with suffering and self-help, the idea of a “therapeutic Pyrrhonism” offers a tempting bridge: a tradition that appears to honour doubt while still giving practical emotional guidance. Bates’ version of Pyrrhonism might seem like a philosophical middle path for readers looking to soothe pain without embracing rigid ideologies.
But this is precisely why rigour is needed. If Pyrrhonism is reduced to a flexible toolset for mood regulation, its essence, radical suspension, evaporates. The power of Pyrrhonism lies in its refusal to settle, even when doing so would bring comfort. To turn it into a system of cognitive therapy is to reverse its direction entirely: from negation to affirmation, from inquiry to prescription. The more appealing it becomes as therapy, the further it strays from scepticism. Ultimately, that is the philosophical cost that Bates does not acknowledge.
The role of ataraxia in Pyrrhonism is not therapeutic in the modern sense; it is existential. As Pierre Hadot observes in What Is Ancient Philosophy?, the Pyrrhonist way of life was not about acquiring a new theoretical outlook but “eliminating philosophical discourse” altogether. Its goal was not to solve philosophical problems but to escape the compulsion to solve them. Ataraxia arises when the mind no longer chases after certainty. Michael Frede reinforces this: “The beliefs one needs are not, as Sextus emphasizes, dogmatic, that is, theoretically grounded or beliefs regarding the nature of things. One can get along with what appears to be the case to one, without further reflection” (1987). Bates reverses this. He treats Pyrrhonism not as a flight from theory but as a foundation for therapeutic theory. He does not suspend discourse; he redirects it. He does not dissolve judgment; he curates new ones. In doing so, he converts scepticism into methodology and makes ataraxia not a shadow that follows detachment, but a psychological goal to be reached by cognitive effort. This is not a minor revision. It is a categorical inversion.
V. Ataraxia Cannot Be Aimed At, and Relativism Is No Refuge.
Bates asserts that “everything is relative” and treats this as the logical culmination of Sextus’ eighth mode. But Sextus himself directly suspends this claim:
“Even the statement ‘everything is relative’ is not absolutely true… it cannot serve as a criterion.” (PH I.140).
Sextus does not conclude with relativism. He suspends the very idea of relativism as a philosophical doctrine. He weaponises the relativity of appearances not to find a new epistemology but to induce epochē, a state of suspended judgment. The Pyrrhonist’s process is structured as follows: modes → opposition → suspension → ataraxia. Nowhere in that sequence does a positive claim sneak in. Relativity is a mode, never a destination.
The mistake Bates makes is more than careless. It undermines the entire architecture of Pyrrhonism. As Michael Frede explains in On the Difference Between the Pyrrhonists and the Academics:
“The beliefs from which the Pyrrhonists distance themselves are… those about the ‘obscure things which are inquired into by the sciences’; beliefs that ‘depend on rational grounds’ and which seek to grasp things ‘in their own nature.’”
This includes any attempt to transform phenomenological relativity (“this appears sweet to me”) into epistemic relativism (“truth is relative”). The former is permitted. The latter is precisely what is suspended.
Bates selects PH I.134–140 as the linchpin of his argument but conveniently halts just before Sextus pulls the rug out from under the relativist:
“If the statement ‘everything is relative’ is true, then it must itself be relative and not absolutely true… it cannot serve as a criterion.” (PH I.140)
This isn’t minor. It’s the difference between a philosophical instrument and an epistemological claim. Sextus’ tells us the entire system is constructed to ensure that tools do not become doctrines. He explicitly says:
“Even the Sceptic himself, in uttering these [skeptical] formulae, does not dogmatise… but uses them as instruments.” (PH I.206)
To confuse an instrument for dogma is like mistaking a ladder for the building it helps you scale.
Moreover, Bates misuses the concept of ataraxia in his approach. He frames it as the goal of Pyrrhonism, the endpoint one should aim toward through the therapeutic application of reframing techniques. As he puts it: 'This will help moderate your grief and get you closer to a place of peace, or ataraxia.’ (How to think about grief). But Sextus insists:
“The aim of the sceptic is tranquillity in matters of opinion… and this comes about for the sceptic fortuitously, as a shadow follows a body.” (PH I.29–30)
Terence Irwin puts it well in The Development of Ethics:
“The Sceptic was once a non-Sceptical investigator… He could not reach any decision… yet he nonetheless achieved tranquillity; it was an unexpected result of the suspension of judgment that followed his failure to reach a decision.”
You don’t “aim” for ataraxia without becoming dogmatic. You don’t “achieve” it through reframing grief as a blessing. You fall into it—if you’re lucky. And you do so only by not trying to.
Sextus’ comparison to the painter Apelles isn’t idle metaphor. It’s central:
“Just as Apelles accidentally created the perfect foam when he gave up trying and threw a sponge at the painting, so the Sceptic, in giving up the quest for truth, finds tranquillity.” (PH I.28)
This is the irony missed: Tranquillity arises when all efforts to affirm, deny, or reframe collapse. His programme, couched in therapeutic language, is not a continuation of this method; it is its contradiction.
VI. Conclusion: You Cannot Build a Therapy on a Suspended Foundation
Sextus warns us repeatedly: use the modes to suspend, not to conclude. Use appearances, but affirm nothing. Bates affirms much and disguises it as modesty. His version of Pyrrhonism is not a continuation of Sextus’ tradition. It is a new therapeutic relativism.
That’s his right. But he should say so.
Because right now, he quotes Sextus to justify a practice Sextus would have suspended. Grief cannot be suspended. It is not a view about a loss; it is the shattering of world-structure. To treat grief as a belief about an event is to misunderstand its very form.
If this sounds purist, it’s only because Pyrrhonism isn’t a vibe; it’s a method. You're no longer suspending the moment you smuggle in aims, truths, or therapeutic hopes. You’re preaching. And preaching with Sextus’ name stapled to it is still preaching. None of this is to say that grief doesn’t call for compassion or tools, but when one cloaks their tools in the language of Sextus, they invite scrutiny. And scrutiny is the sceptic’s duty.
This isn’t a pedantic concern about historical fidelity; it’s a warning about philosophical bait-and-switch. Misnaming a practice is not neutral. When someone calls a goal-directed therapy "Pyrrhonism" while affirming doctrines, they smuggle in values under the banner of suspension. That matters, especially for people seeking help. Imagine if someone taught “Stoicism” by saying, “just follow your feelings.” Or “Buddhism” by saying “cling to every emotion.” Or “Epicureanism”, which tells you to maximise pleasure at any cost. The names still carry authority, but the content is the opposite. So when Sextus is invoked to justify affirmations, reframing, or therapeutic strategies, the problem isn’t that someone got a label wrong. The problem is that seekers, students, and readers are sold one tradition while being handed another. That’s not philosophical generosity. It’s a category error with consequences. These aren’t just hypotheticals. They expose what happens when names outlive methods and when comfort is offered in place of coherence.
Take another case: a grieving person turns to Pyrrhonism, genuinely seeking the tranquillity Sextus speaks of. They read that “appearances should be accepted without judgment,” and that “suspension leads to peace.” But then they are told to “dispute their belief that something bad has happened,” and to “reframe their grief as a blessing.” That is not suspension. That is cognitive restructuring, a therapeutic technique from CBT, smuggled in under the name of ancient scepticism. If that person finds no peace, they won’t blame the method; they’ll likely blame themselves for not doing it right. And that is the quiet violence of misapplied philosophy: it pretends to liberate but also pathologises the sufferer when it fails. It tells them they didn’t ‘suspend properly.’ But the failure wasn’t theirs. It was the method because it wasn’t scepticism at all.
So, I will end part one where I began.
“We say not what things really are, but only what they appear to us to be, and we do not dogmatically affirm even this.” (PH I.19)
That is Sextus. What Bates gives us is something else.
Part Two:
Bates vs Bates — The Collapse of a Self-Contradictory Philosophy
What follows is not an exposition. Often, in a thinker’s own words, their framework begins to unravel. Mr Bates’ three articles do not advance a coherent philosophical position; they present a series of inconsistent and contradictory claims dressed in the language of Pyrrhonism. Here, I hold them side by side.
1. The Central Contradiction: Relativism Affirmed, Then Denied
In “Pyrrhonian Relativism” (Article 3), Bates asserts:
“Therefore, everything is relative.”
“Recognising the impact of relativity on all knowledge claims is an important tool for practicing Pyrrhonism.”
“Sextus discusses relativity… Therefore, everything is relative.”
These are strong claims. “Everything is relative” is not a suspension but an affirmation.
Yet in “Good Grief” (Article 1), Bates writes:
“We don’t say grief is good or bad—those are value judgments. What we say is that grief appears to some as bad, to others as good.”
That’s very different. Here, he is performing suspension: withholding judgment on whether grief is truly good or bad.
So, which is it?
If everything is relative, then “grief is bad” is true for me and “grief is good” is true for you. There is no need for suspension, only acceptance of the relative positions. But in “Good Grief,” Bates appeals to the Pyrrhonist move: don’t affirm either, because truth is undecidable. Yet in “Pyrrhonian Relativism,” he says:
“Relativity is logically and empirically demonstrable.”
Sextus replies (PH I.140):
“Even the statement ‘everything is relative’ is not absolutely true… it cannot serve as a criterion.”
Bates, therefore, oscillates between relativist assertion and sceptical suspension, depending on the rhetorical goal of the piece. In one, relativism is a metaphysical foundation. In another, it is treated as a mere mode for suspension.
This is not nuance.
2. The Practical Contradiction: Suspension or Solution?
In “How to Think About Grief” (Article 2), Bates writes:
“You must dispute your initial judgment… then you can suspend judgment about whether the death was good or bad.”
“This will help moderate your grief.”
This is a therapeutic process. Step-by-step. Goal-directed. Suspension is the result of psychological effort, a method that leads to ataraxia.
Yet in “Pyrrhonian Relativism” (Article 3), he insists:
“People who think Pyrrhonists suspend judgment on everything don’t understand Pyrrhonism.”
“Sextus clearly says we do make empirical judgments—about what appears to us.”
So, in Article 2, he tells readers to suspend their judgment about grief. In Article 3, he says Pyrrhonists don’t suspend judgment about all things. He even suggests relativism is provable, and thus not to be suspended.
Pyrrhonism is only coherent if everything non-evident is open to suspension.
But in “Good Grief,” he writes:
“Pyrrhonism lets us feel our emotions without judgment… whereas Stoicism adds another layer of judgment.”
But in “How to Think About Grief,” he adds:
“To relieve grief, dispute your initial belief that something bad has happened.”
That’s not feeling emotions without judgment. That’s managing emotion through judgment.
Thus, we get:
“Good Grief”: Feel emotions as they arise; don’t judge.
“How to Think About Grief”: Change your belief to regulate your emotion.
“Pyrrhonian Relativism”: Judgments about appearances are fine; it’s metaphysical claims we avoid.
Together, these collapse. If appearances are relative and legitimate, why change them? If grief appears bad, and we allow that as “true for me,” why dispute it? But if we should dispute it, we no longer accept appearances but treat them as errors.
This is not Pyrrhonism. It combines Stoic psychology, Protagorean relativism, and rhetorical convenience.
3. The Ontological Contradiction: Grief as an Appearance vs. Grief as a Blessing
In “How to Think About Grief” (Article 2), Bates writes:
“Grieving appears to arise naturally. Why shouldn’t we accept it as being informative to us, like pain?”
“Consider your grief a blessing.”
This is a key moment of self-defeat.
A Pyrrhonist would say:
“Grief appears to me as distressing. I do not affirm whether it is good or bad.”
But Bates says:
“Hold onto the blessing equally with the sadness and you’ll find you can let it all go.”
This is not suspension. It is a positive reinterpretation. It asserts something about the nature of grief, that it’s good because it reflects a meaningful connection.
But in “Good Grief,” he says:
“We’re not telling people how to feel. That’s what the Stoics do. Pyrrhonism just lets us feel.”
Yet here, he tells the reader: “Consider your grief a blessing.”
That’s a moral imperative. A reframing. A prescription.
Bates accuses Stoicism of prescribing how to feel, but then says:
“To relieve grief… you must dispute your belief that something bad has happened.”
In short:
Stoicism = Too rigid, tells you to feel nothing.
Pyrrhonism = Just feel what you feel.
Bates’ version = Dispute how you feel until you feel something else.
Once again, we have:
Article 1: “Feel grief without judgment.”
Article 2: “Dispute your grief through reframing.”
Article 3: “Appearances are real to us; don’t suspend them all.”
There is no consistent position here. Just an oscillation between non-judgment and re-education.
4. An example: Death of a Child
Let’s apply the logic.
A parent loses their child. The grief is unbearable.
According to Bates:
Article 1: They should feel this without judgment.
Article 2: They should dispute the belief that something bad has happened.
Article 3: That grief is real to them—but not necessarily bad.
But what is the parent grieving if not the loss of something uniquely and irretrievably good? Calling that judgment “disputable” violates the integrity of grief.
If Pyrrhonism allows them to suspend their belief that this is bad, it asks them to unmake love. If it doesn’t ask that, then it must allow the parent to affirm that this is bad. But if that’s allowed, then suspension fails.
There is no neutral Pyrrhonist ground here. Either grief is permitted as evaluative truth (and Pyrrhonism collapses), or it must be suspended (and humanity is betrayed).
5. Final Thought: The Dogma Beneath the Doubt
What all three articles reveal is this: Bates has moral convictions.
He believes:
That grief should not dominate us.
That reframing pain helps.
That flexibility of thought aids healing.
These are good things. But they are not Pyrrhonist things.
Pyrrhonism is not about “thinking better.” It is not therapy. It is not reframing.
It is the suspension of truth-claims about all those things.
Yet, Bates repeatedly violates that by offering therapeutic advice, emotional goals, and evaluative recommendations.
The final contradiction:
“Pyrrhonism is not dogmatic.”
But
“Pyrrhonism is better than Stoicism.”
“Here’s how you should think about grief.”
“You should consider grief a blessing.”
“Everything is relative, and that’s demonstrably true.”
This is not Pyrrhonism. This is therapeutic dogma.
Bates cannot now retreat into the claim that he was “only using Pyrrhonism as inspiration,” because he repeatedly asserts that his interpretation is consistent with Sextus and that others have misunderstood. He cannot claim he is “merely reporting what appears to him,” because he frames his conclusions as demonstrable, universal, and therapeutically prescriptive. Nor can he claim that this is a “practical update,” because the methodology he proposes, affirming relativism, reframing emotions, and disputing judgments, directly contradicts the Pyrrhonist suspension of such techniques. Finally, he cannot invoke pluralism or interpretive charity without allowing his account to be suspended. In short, if he insists on calling his framework Pyrrhonism, he must renounce its core. If he wants to retain the core, he must renounce his framework. But he cannot have both.
Let us return to the beginning, not of this piece, but of this entire exchange. In “Grief, Stoicism, and the Limits of Scepticism,” I argued that grief is not a mistaken judgment to be suspended or reinterpreted but an existential rupture that exposes the limits of rational detachment. In “The Inconsolable Truth,” I showed that Pyrrhonism, when confronted with irreparable loss, has no room for the relational identity collapse that grief entails. I also claim that Pyrrhonism cannot hold the weight of sorrow without turning into something else: either a therapy or a silence that betrays love. Ataraxia has not followed. But something else has. And it is no longer scepticism.
Andrew
Refrences
Bates, Doug. Good Grief, How to Think About Grief, Pyrrhonian Relativism Ataraxia or Bust!, 2025 (recommended reading).
Frede, Michael. “The Differences Between the Pyrrhonists and the Academics.” In Essays in Ancient Philosophy, 1987.
Pierre Hadot – What Is Ancient Philosophy? (Originally published in French in 1995, English translation in 2002)
Irwin, Terence. The Development of Ethics: A Historical and Critical Study, Volume 1: From Socrates to the Reformation (2007)
Sextus Empiricus. Outlines of Pyrrhonism.
While I take issue with the framing, I believe Bates’ writings may still offer something valuable, just not regarding grief. That’s precisely why I wrote these responses.