{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "sextus_empiricus.against_physicists",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/sextus-empiricus/against-physicists/livre-9/passage-87/",
    "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": "reason",
            "label": "Reason"
        },
        {
            "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:9.87",
    "canonical_ref": "9.87",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "grc",
            "text": "πάντως εὔλογον καὶ ἐν τῷ αἰθέρι ζῴων εἶναι φύσιν, ὅθεν καὶ ἄνθρωποι νοερᾶς μετέχουσι δυνάμεως, ἐκεῖθεν αὐτὴν σπάσαντες. ὄντων δὲ αἰθερίων ζῴων, καὶ κατὰ πολὺ τῶν ἐπιγείων ὑπερφέρειν δοκούντων τῷ ἄφθαρτα εἶναι καὶ ἀγέννητα, δοθήσεται καὶ θεοὺς ὑπάρχειν, τούτων μὴ διαφέροντας.",
            "translator": "Hermann Mutschmann and Jürgen Mau, editors",
            "edition": "adversus-grc",
            "source_id": "adversus-grc",
            "translation_type": "original"
        },
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "it is certainly reasonable that a nature of living beings exists in the ether too, from which human beings also derive their share of intelligent power. If there are ethereal living beings, apparently far surpassing terrestrial ones by being indestructible and ungenerated, it will be granted that gods too exist, since they do not differ from these.",
            "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": "il est assurément raisonnable qu’une nature animale existe aussi dans l’éther. C’est de là que les hommes participent à une puissance intellective, puisqu’ils l’y ont puisée. Or, s’il existe des animaux éthérés qui semblent surpasser de beaucoup les animaux terrestres en étant indestructibles et inengendrés, on accordera aussi qu’il existe des dieux, lesquels ne diffèrent pas de ces animaux.",
            "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": "380d521c766d5255bb67730565872b77d301c427e8450a6cebb36044620c64f3"
}