{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "sextus_empiricus.against_physicists",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/sextus-empiricus/against-physicists/livre-9/passage-196/",
    "language": "en",
    "title": "Against the Physicists, Books IX-X of Against the Learned",
    "author": "Sextus Empiricus",
    "date": "c. 180-220 CE",
    "summary": "Sextus tests physicists’ claims about gods, causes, wholes and parts, place, time, motion, and number. Each concept encounters competing definitions and incompatible consequences.",
    "learning": "Follow aporiai concerning cause, place, time, and motion, compare cited schools, and assess Sextus as a polemical witness to lost doctrines.",
    "long_summary": "Books IX and X summon Stoic, Epicurean, Aristotelian, and other traditions to oppose their explanations of the world. Sextus asks what causation presupposes, how body occupies place, and whether motion can be conceived without contradiction.\n\nAccumulation does not propose a sceptical physics. It seeks persuasive equality between assertion and denial using sources Sextus selects and reformulates. The quotations also preserve lost doctrines, but their polemical mediation must remain visible.",
    "historical_context": "The corpus manifests do not yet establish the precise place and circumstances of composition. The images below document the author’s world or the text’s transmission. They do not claim to show the exact scene of writing.",
    "material_world_label": "Roman world, 1st century BCE to 3rd century CE",
    "material_world": {
        "technology": "Paved roads, aqueducts, concrete, glassware, mills, and hypocaust heating equip some cities, but energy comes mainly from bodies, animals, water, and wood.",
        "science": "Astronomy, geometry, natural history, and engineering compile Greek, Egyptian, and Roman knowledge. Measurement exists without a modern laboratory.",
        "medicine": "Physicians, midwives, baths, plants, and rudimentary surgery can help; reliable anaesthesia, antisepsis, and antibiotics do not exist.",
        "transport": "On foot, horseback, cart, or ship, road and sea networks connect the Empire. Travel remains slow, costly, and risky.",
        "agriculture": "Grain, vines, olives, pulses, and livestock supply cities and armies; estates, slavery, and tenancy organize part of the labour.",
        "communication": "Imperial couriers, letters on papyrus or tablets, inscriptions, and oral proclamations spread information. Everything is copied by hand.",
        "clothing": "Tunics and cloaks are common to both sexes; the stola, toga, footwear, colours, and jewellery mark citizenship, office, wealth, and origin."
    },
    "material_world_scenes": [
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/09-54-ce/world-01.webp",
            "title": "Technology, science, and care",
            "description": "Paved roads, aqueducts, concrete, glassware, mills, and hypocaust heating equip some cities, but energy comes mainly from bodies, animals, water, and wood. Astronomy, geometry, natural history, and engineering compile Greek, Egyptian, and Roman knowledge. Measurement exists without a modern laboratory. Physicians, midwives, baths, plants, and rudimentary surgery can help; reliable anaesthesia, antisepsis, and antibiotics do not exist."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/09-54-ce/world-02.webp",
            "title": "Travel and communication",
            "description": "On foot, horseback, cart, or ship, road and sea networks connect the Empire. Travel remains slow, costly, and risky. Imperial couriers, letters on papyrus or tablets, inscriptions, and oral proclamations spread information. Everything is copied by hand."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/09-54-ce/world-03.webp",
            "title": "Farming and food",
            "description": "Grain, vines, olives, pulses, and livestock supply cities and armies; estates, slavery, and tenancy organize part of the labour."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/09-54-ce/world-04.webp",
            "title": "Clothing, women and men",
            "description": "Tunics and cloaks are common to both sexes; the stola, toga, footwear, colours, and jewellery mark citizenship, office, wealth, and origin."
        }
    ],
    "intellectual_tradition": {
        "id": "skepticism",
        "label": "Skepticism"
    },
    "period": {
        "id": "ancient",
        "label": "Antiquity"
    },
    "languages": [
        "grc",
        "en",
        "fr"
    ],
    "manifestations": [
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/sextus_empiricus/against_physicists/representations/grc.ndjson",
            "language": "grc",
            "records": 791,
            "role": "original",
            "sha256": "582e9253011cacafb685a7299e878ce9de39e1fb5cc4bcab6a8dc28fdc44cce5",
            "source_id": "adversus-grc"
        },
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/sextus_empiricus/against_physicists/representations/ai-generated/en-gpt-5-6-sol-corpus-passage-translation-v1.ndjson",
            "generated_on": "2026-09-11",
            "language": "en",
            "model": "gpt-5.6-sol",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "prompt_version": "corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "provider": "codex_subscription",
            "records": 791,
            "role": "ai_generated_translation_non_official",
            "sha256": "02b8e25fe7cea669e14bd15ab9ff8e286731f0b1b05b7c5597e0c320c6f61afc",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation"
        },
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/sextus_empiricus/against_physicists/representations/ai-generated/fr-gpt-5-6-sol-corpus-passage-translation-v1.ndjson",
            "generated_on": "2026-09-11",
            "language": "fr",
            "model": "gpt-5.6-sol",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "prompt_version": "corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "provider": "codex_subscription",
            "records": 791,
            "role": "ai_generated_translation_non_official",
            "sha256": "9ac07f9913e4f4d80bd4c63262c585ac296e149152be8d9eb9c61c8e99dfadb8",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation"
        }
    ],
    "concepts": [
        {
            "id": "equipollence",
            "label": "Equipollence"
        },
        {
            "id": "nature",
            "label": "Nature"
        },
        {
            "id": "suspension_of_judgment",
            "label": "Suspension of judgment"
        }
    ],
    "source_work_ids": [
        "sextus_empiricus.against_physicists"
    ],
    "passages": 791,
    "word_count": 51318,
    "word_counts_by_language": {
        "en": 51318,
        "fr": 53636,
        "grc": 42626
    },
    "editorial_status": "gpt_5_6_semantic_draft_v1",
    "structure": {
        "citation_scheme": "sextus-book-section-v1",
        "kind": "native",
        "levels": [
            {
                "key": "book",
                "label_fr": "Livre",
                "label_en": "Book"
            },
            {
                "key": "section",
                "label_fr": "Section",
                "label_en": "Section"
            }
        ],
        "leaf_fr": "Section",
        "leaf_en": "Section"
    },
    "canonical_passage_id": "passage:sextus_empiricus.against_physicists:9.196",
    "canonical_ref": "9.196",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "grc",
            "text": "ἀρχὴ δὲ γινέσθω πρῶτον ἀπὸ τῶν ἀξιούντων εἶναί τί τινος αἴτιον. Εἴπερ τοίνυν, φασίν (Stoic. fr. II 337 Arn.), ἔστι σπέρμα, ἔστι καὶ αἴτιον, ἐπείπερ τὸ σπέρμα αἴτιόν ἐστι τῶν ἐξ αὐτοῦ φυομένων τε καὶ γεννωμένων· ἔστι δέ γε σπέρμα, ὧς ἐκ τῶν σπειρομένων καὶ ζωογονουμένων δείκνυται· ἔστιν ἄρα αἴτιον.",
            "translator": "Hermann Mutschmann and Jürgen Mau, editors",
            "edition": "adversus-grc",
            "source_id": "adversus-grc",
            "translation_type": "original"
        },
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "Let us begin first with those who maintain that one thing is the cause of another. If, then, they say (Stoic. fr. II 337 Arn.), there is seed, there is also a cause, since seed is the cause of the things that grow and are generated from it. But there is seed, as is shown by things being sown and brought to life. Therefore there is a cause.",
            "translator": "Codex gpt-5.6-sol",
            "edition": "Prokopton42 non-official AI translation, 2026-09-11",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "generation_model": "gpt-5.6-sol"
        },
        {
            "language": "fr",
            "text": "Commençons donc par ceux qui soutiennent qu’une chose est cause d’une autre. S’il existe une semence, disent-ils (Stoic. fr. II 337 Arn.), il existe aussi une cause, puisque la semence est cause des choses qui croissent et naissent d’elle. Or il existe une semence, comme le montrent les choses semées et engendrées vivantes. Il existe donc une cause.",
            "translator": "Codex gpt-5.6-sol",
            "edition": "Prokopton42 non-official AI translation, 2026-09-11",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "generation_model": "gpt-5.6-sol"
        }
    ],
    "content_checksum": "e20d8347200a51cda9770cbce774acbc556a3dc42b2ba6feeb1e1d8b65ef4a66"
}