Abstract

The main battles of the Pyrrhonists were not fought with Gassendi, but with the later followers of Cartesian rationalism. Pascal saw the Pyrrhonian view as invincible; all science was in doubt, if we appealed only to rational evidence. No axioms or principles could be found which were indubitable, and all one could conclude was that "Pyrrhonism is true." As long as there are dogmatists, the Pyrrhonists will conquer. Reason forces one to Pyrrhonism. Nature however refuses to let us doubt everything. Only through God's grace can we get out of this predicament of being sceptics by reason and dogmatists by nature, and only through the mysteries of faith can we be saved from the crise pyrrhonienne.