{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "sextus_empiricus.against_physicists",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/sextus-empiricus/against-physicists/livre-9/passage-94/",
    "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": "philosophical_eros",
            "label": "Philosophical eros"
        },
        {
            "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:9.94",
    "canonical_ref": "9.94",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "grc",
            "text": "εἶτα δὲ ὁρῶν θέσιν τε καὶ χρῆσιν μερῶν, πρῶτον μὲν ὅτι διανέστησε τὸν ἄνθρωπον, ὄμματά γε μὴν ἔδωκεν ὥστε ὁρᾶν τὰ ὁρατά, ἀκοὴν δὲ ὥστε ἀκούειν τὰ ἀκουστὰ. ὀσμῆς γε μὴν τί ἂν ἦν ὄφελος, εἰ μὴ ῥῖνας προσέθηκεν, χυμῶν τε μὴν ὁμοίως, εἰ μὴ γλῶσσα ἡ τούτων ἐπιγνώμων ἐνειργάσθη; καὶ ταῦτ” φησὶν (ib. § 8) “εἰδώς, ὅτι γῆς τε μέρος μικρὸν ἔχεις ἐν τῷ σώματι πολλῆς οὔσης, ὑγροῦ τε μὴν βραχὺ πολλοῦ ὄντος, πυρὸς ἀέρος τε ὁμοίως· νοῦν δὲ ἄρα μόνον οὐδαμοῦ ὄντα εὐτυχῶς πόθεν δοκεῖς συναρπάσαι;”",
            "translator": "Hermann Mutschmann and Jürgen Mau, editors",
            "edition": "adversus-grc",
            "source_id": "adversus-grc",
            "translation_type": "original"
        },
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "Then observe the placement and use of the parts: first, that it set the human being upright, and gave him eyes to see visible things and hearing to hear audible things. What benefit would smell provide if it had not added nostrils, or flavors likewise, if it had not fashioned a tongue capable of recognizing them? “Knowing this,” he says (ibid. §8), “that you possess in your body a small portion of the vast amount of earth, a little liquid though there is much, and likewise of fire and air, from where do you suppose that you alone have fortunately snatched mind, when it exists nowhere else?”",
            "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": "Puis il considère la position et l’usage des parties : d’abord, le créateur a dressé l’homme debout ; il lui a donné des yeux pour voir les choses visibles, et l’ouïe pour entendre les choses audibles. À quoi servirait l’odeur s’il n’avait ajouté les narines ? Et de même, à quoi serviraient les saveurs s’il n’avait façonné la langue qui les reconnaît ? « Sachant cela, dit-il encore (ibid., § 8), et sachant que tu possèdes dans ton corps une petite partie de la terre, qui est immense, un peu de liquide, qui est abondant, et de même du feu et de l’air, d’où penses-tu avoir heureusement ravi l’intellect, qui seul n’existerait nulle part ailleurs ? »",
            "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": "3f39233e57426864985d17fe6b4bdf6d09ec45eb4eab6962797085309f62540d"
}