{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "sextus_empiricus.against_professors",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/sextus-empiricus/against-professors/livre-5/passage-57/",
    "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": "education",
            "label": "Education"
        },
        {
            "id": "equipollence",
            "label": "Equipollence"
        },
        {
            "id": "forms",
            "label": "Intelligible forms"
        },
        {
            "id": "knowledge",
            "label": "Knowledge"
        },
        {
            "id": "nature",
            "label": "Nature"
        },
        {
            "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:5.57",
    "canonical_ref": "5.57",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "grc",
            "text": "δύναται δὲ καὶ μετὰ χρόνον, ἐπείπερ καὶ τὰ εἰς τὴν γῆν καταβαλλόμενα τῶν σπερμά- των οὐκ εὐθὺς ῥιζοβολοῦντα συμπλέκεται ταῖς ὑποκειμέ- ναις βώλοις. καὶ διαστήματος δὲ ὄντος ἀπὸ τοῦ στόματος τῆς μήτρας μέχρι τοῦ πυθμένος, ἔνθα καὶ τὰς συλλήψεις λέγουσι γίνεσθαι ἰατρῶν παῖδες, πάντως ἐν χρόνῳ τινὶ τὸ διάστημα |τοῦτο ἀνύειν πέφυκεν ἡ καταβαλλομένη τοῦ σπέρματος φύσις.",
            "translator": "Hermann Mutschmann and Jürgen Mau, editors",
            "edition": "adversus-grc",
            "source_id": "adversus-grc",
            "translation_type": "original"
        },
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "But it may also happen after some time, since seeds cast into the earth do not immediately take root and become intertwined with the clods beneath them. Moreover, since there is an interval from the mouth of the womb to its bottom, where the sons of physicians say that conceptions occur, the deposited seed must naturally traverse this interval in some amount of time.",
            "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": "Mais elle peut aussi se produire après un certain temps, puisque les semences jetées en terre ne prennent pas immédiatement racine et ne s’entrelacent pas aussitôt avec les mottes sous-jacentes. En outre, puisqu’il existe une distance entre l’orifice de la matrice et son fond, où les fils des médecins disent que les conceptions se produisent, la semence déposée doit naturellement parcourir cette distance en un certain temps.",
            "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": "b9e83785cd95e12446179c6cc1a5e9ebbf8cb547943e16e616e56215dc7eec00"
}