{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "sextus_empiricus.against_professors",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/sextus-empiricus/against-professors/livre-1/passage-55/",
    "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"
        },
        {
            "id": "time",
            "label": "Time"
        }
    ],
    "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:1.55",
    "canonical_ref": "1.55",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "grc",
            "text": "ἡ μέν γὰρ τῶν στοιχείων χρῆσις ἤπειγεν εἰς τὴν τοῦ βίου διεξαγωγήν, τὸ δὲ μὴ ἀρκεῖ- σθαι τῇ ἐκ τῆς παρατηρήσεως τούτων παραδόσει, προσ- επιδεικνύναι δέ ὡς τάδε μέν ἐστι φωνάεντα τῇ φύσει τάδε δέ σύμφωνα, καὶ τῶν φωναέντων τὰ μὲν φύσει βραχέα τὰ δέ μακρὰ τὰ δέ δίχρονα καὶ κοινὰ μήκους τε καὶ συστο- λῆς, καὶ καθόλου τὰ λοιπὰ περὶ ὧν οἱ τετυφωμένοι τῶν γραμματικῶν διδάσκουσιν 〈ἄχρηστά ἐστιν〉.",
            "translator": "Hermann Mutschmann and Jürgen Mau, editors",
            "edition": "adversus-grc",
            "source_id": "adversus-grc",
            "translation_type": "original"
        },
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "For the use of letters is necessary for the conduct of life. But it is useless not to be satisfied with the instruction acquired from observing them, and to demonstrate in addition that some are naturally vowels and others consonants, and that among the vowels some are naturally short, others long, and others variable in quantity and common to length and shortness, together with all the remaining matters taught by conceited grammarians.",
            "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": "Car l’usage des lettres est nécessaire à la conduite de la vie. Mais ne pas se contenter de l’enseignement tiré de leur observation, et montrer en outre que certaines sont voyelles par nature, d’autres consonnes, que parmi les voyelles certaines sont brèves par nature, d’autres longues, d’autres encore communes aux valeurs longue et brève, et généralement enseigner toutes les autres matières dont traitent les grammairiens gonflés de vanité, tout cela est inutile.",
            "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": "d8ea24b6ab43caa9677ea4aa3510c28874139b3dd29318f84e364a4b22f5247b"
}