{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "sextus_empiricus.against_physicists",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/sextus-empiricus/against-physicists/livre-9/passage-261/",
    "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:9.261",
    "canonical_ref": "9.261",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "grc",
            "text": "καὶ μὴν οὐδὲ μέρος μέρους θιγγάνειν δυνατόν ἐστιν. τὸ γὰρ μέρος κατὰ μὲν τὴν πρὸς τὸ ὅλον σχέσιν νοεῖται μέρος, κατὰ δὲ τὴν ἴδιον περιγραφήν ἐστιν ὅλον, πάλιν τε διὰ ταύτην τὴν αἰτίαν ἤτοι τὸ ὅλον μέρος τοῦ ὅλου μέρους ἅψεται ἢ μέρος μέρους. καὶ εἰ μὲν ὅλον ὅλου, ὅλου, ἑνωθήσεται καὶ ἀμφότερα ὲν γενήσεται σῶμα· εἰ δὲ μέρει μέρους, ἐκεῖνο πάλιν τὸ μέρος κατ’ ἰδίαν περιγραφὴν ὅλον νοούμενον ἤτοι ὅλον ὅλου τοῦ μέρους ἅψεται ἤ μέρει τινί τινος μέρους, καὶ οὕτως εἰς ἄπειρον. οὐ τοίνυν οὐδὲ μέρος μέρους ἅπτεται. καὶ μὴν οὐδὲ ὅλον μέρους.",
            "translator": "Hermann Mutschmann and Jürgen Mau, editors",
            "edition": "adversus-grc",
            "source_id": "adversus-grc",
            "translation_type": "original"
        },
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "Nor indeed can part touch part. For a part is conceived as a part in its relation to the whole, but in its own circumscription it is a whole. For this reason, once again, either the whole part will touch the whole part, or part will touch part. If whole touches whole, they will be unified and both will become one body. If part touches part, that part, again conceived as a whole in its own circumscription, will touch either the whole of the part or some part of a part, and so on to infinity. Therefore part does not touch part either. Nor indeed does whole touch part.",
            "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": "Et certes, il n’est pas non plus possible qu’une partie touche une partie. La partie est conçue comme partie selon sa relation au tout, mais elle est un tout selon sa propre délimitation. Pour cette raison encore, ou bien la partie entière touchera la partie entière, ou bien une partie touchera une partie. Si le tout touche le tout, elles s’uniront et deviendront toutes deux un seul corps. Mais si une partie touche une partie, cette partie, conçue à son tour comme un tout selon sa propre délimitation, touchera soit tout l’autre fragment, soit une partie de ce fragment, et ainsi à l’infini. Une partie ne touche donc pas une partie. Et certes, le tout ne touche pas non plus une partie.",
            "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": "2c975bab8ce845a27ea61adc538c43a48a6a09a260c403e5102cd82f7aacdb16"
}