{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "sextus_empiricus.against_professors",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/sextus-empiricus/against-professors/livre-1/passage-145/",
    "language": "en",
    "title": "Against the Professors, Books I-VI of Against the Learned",
    "author": "Sextus Empiricus",
    "date": "c. 180-220 CE",
    "summary": "The first six books of Against the Learned examine grammar, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astrology, and music. Sextus targets these disciplines’ theoretical claims while sometimes distinguishing useful practices from disputed dogmatic foundations.",
    "learning": "Identify the target within each discipline, distinguish empirical use from dogmatic foundation, and compare recurring structures of sceptical refutation.",
    "long_summary": "Each book asks what a discipline teaches, how its principles are established, and whether its experts agree. Circular definitions, indeterminate units, proofs depending on what they must demonstrate, and conflicts of method feed criticism.\n\nThe grouping follows a transmitted series, not six independent modern monographs. Sextus does not necessarily abolish everyday reading, calculation, or musical practice; he attacks the status of certain science claimed by theorists. This distinction prevents confusing scepticism with wholesale rejection of skill.",
    "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_professors/representations/grc.ndjson",
            "language": "grc",
            "records": 757,
            "role": "original",
            "sha256": "818f3e6ecf013da581f8c7812e4271b9f5c784541c906db4e52c6be6908355dd",
            "source_id": "adversus-grc"
        },
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/sextus_empiricus/against_professors/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": 757,
            "role": "ai_generated_translation_non_official",
            "sha256": "39ee6e31d53e5d9eb8449fd11932023e1b0513ebf336c2c7a2e1c3c198e92ec0",
            "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_professors/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": 757,
            "role": "ai_generated_translation_non_official",
            "sha256": "91112d9c16fea68ee4fb7a5428f9312148d31fc2d51b920fe80a6aaa5bf5f305",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation"
        }
    ],
    "concepts": [
        {
            "id": "equipollence",
            "label": "Equipollence"
        },
        {
            "id": "forms",
            "label": "Intelligible forms"
        },
        {
            "id": "knowledge",
            "label": "Knowledge"
        },
        {
            "id": "suspension_of_judgment",
            "label": "Suspension of judgment"
        }
    ],
    "source_work_ids": [
        "sextus_empiricus.against_professors"
    ],
    "passages": 757,
    "word_count": 50554,
    "word_counts_by_language": {
        "en": 50554,
        "fr": 51515,
        "grc": 43471
    },
    "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_professors:1.145",
    "canonical_ref": "1.145",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "grc",
            "text": "πρὸς ὅν οὐδʼ εἰ καταπέλτην ὑπομένοιεν, φοασίν, οἱ γραμματικοὶ δυνήσονταί τι συνιδεῖν ἱκνούμενον. εἴπερ γὰρ φύσει τὰ ὀνόματα ἧν καὶ μὴ τῇ καθʼ ἕκαστον θέσει ἐσήμαινεν, ἐχρῆν πάντας πάντων ἀκούειν, Ἕλληνας βαρβάρων καὶ βαρβάρους Ἑλλήνων καὶ βαρβάρους βαρβάρων. οὐχὶ δέ γε τοῦτο· οὐκ ἄρα φύσει σημαίνει τὰ ὀνόματα.",
            "translator": "Hermann Mutschmann and Jürgen Mau, editors",
            "edition": "adversus-grc",
            "source_id": "adversus-grc",
            "translation_type": "original"
        },
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "The grammarians, they say, could not perceive anything capable of withstanding it even if they endured a catapult. For if nouns existed by nature and signified not by each particular convention, everyone ought to understand everyone: Greeks barbarians, barbarians Greeks, and barbarians other barbarians. But this is not so. Therefore nouns do not signify by nature.",
            "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": "Les grammairiens, dit-on, même s’ils soutenaient contre lui le choc d’une catapulte, ne pourraient apercevoir aucun moyen de l’atteindre. Si les noms existaient par nature et ne signifiaient pas selon une convention propre à chaque peuple, tous devraient comprendre tous les autres : les Grecs les barbares, les barbares les Grecs et les barbares les barbares. Or il n’en est pas ainsi. Les noms ne signifient donc pas par nature.",
            "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": "7a0a1049a164d6289ca3fd5a2c4f7fb1dbaf78a9a00e572f0b407d36294af92c"
}