{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "sextus_empiricus.against_professors",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/sextus-empiricus/against-professors/livre-1/passage-285/",
    "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": "death",
            "label": "Death"
        },
        {
            "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:1.285",
    "canonical_ref": "1.285",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "grc",
            "text": "εἶτα οὐδὲ κατὰ τοῦτο ἔφησεν ὁ ἓπί- κουρος τὸν θάνατον μηδὲν εἶναι πρὸς ἡμᾶς, καθὸ ἀδιά- φορόν ἐστιν ἢ ζῆν ἢ μή. πολλῷ γὰρ αἱρετώτερον τὸ ζῆν διὰ τὸ αἰσθανομένων εἶναι τὸ ἀγαθόν ἀλλʼ ἐν ἀναισθη- σία οὐτε κακόν τι εἶναι οὔτε ἀγαθόν. τὸ μέν γὰρ ἀναι- σθητεῖν τὰ νεκρὰ τῶν σωμάτων οὐχ ὁ ποιητὴς μόνος οἶδεν ἀλλὰ καὶ ὁ σύμπας βίος. μήτηρ γοῦν πολλάκις υἱὸν θρηνοῦσα φησὶν ἀλλὰ σὺ μέν τούτων οὐκ ἐπαισθάνῃ, ἐγὼ δέ ταλαιπωρῶ’ καὶ ἐνατενίζουσα ἐπιφθέγγεται ‘τίς δέ ἐστιν ἔτι σοι τούτων ὄνησις;’",
            "translator": "Hermann Mutschmann and Jürgen Mau, editors",
            "edition": "adversus-grc",
            "source_id": "adversus-grc",
            "translation_type": "original"
        },
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "Next, Epicurus did not say that death is nothing to us in the sense that living or not living is indifferent. For living is much more choiceworthy because the good belongs to beings that perceive, while in absence of perception there is neither evil nor good. The poet is not alone in knowing that dead bodies do not perceive; all ordinary life knows it. Thus a mother lamenting her son often says, “But you perceive none of this, while I suffer,” and gazing at him adds, “What benefit from these things remains for you?”",
            "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": "Ensuite, Épicure n’a pas dit que la mort n’est rien pour nous parce qu’il serait indifférent de vivre ou non. Vivre est de beaucoup préférable, puisque le bien appartient aux êtres sensibles, tandis que dans l’insensibilité il n’existe ni mal ni bien. Que les corps morts soient insensibles, le poète n’est pas seul à le savoir: toute la vie le sait. Une mère qui pleure son fils dit souvent: «Mais toi, tu ne sens plus ces choses, tandis que moi je souffre», puis, le regardant fixement, elle ajoute: «Quel profit en tires-tu encore?»",
            "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": "88f78ee3dc1baca10ba9269af73a120972841cbb060be6ae180178ec08bbed1c"
}