{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "sextus_empiricus.against_professors",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/sextus-empiricus/against-professors/livre-6/passage-58/",
    "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": "knowledge",
            "label": "Knowledge"
        },
        {
            "id": "reason",
            "label": "Reason"
        },
        {
            "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:6.58",
    "canonical_ref": "6.58",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "grc",
            "text": "καὶ ἄλλοις δὲ συχνοῖς εἰς τοῦτο ἔνεστι λόγοις χρῆσθαι, περὶ ὧν, ὡς ἔφην, ἐν τοῖς Πυρρωνείοις ὑπο- μνηματιζόμενοι διεξῄειμεν. νυνὶ δὲ φωνῆς μὴ οὔσης οὐδὲ φθόγγος ἔστιν, ὃς ἐλέγετο (§ 42) φωνῆς πτῶσις ὑπὸ μίαν τάσιν· φθόγγου δέ μὴ ὄντος οὐδὲ διάστημα μουσι- κὸν καθέστηκεν, οὐ συμφωνία, οὐ μελῳδία, οὐ τὰ ἐκ τούτων γένη. διὰ τοῦτο οὐδέ μουσική· ἐπιστήμη γὰρ ἐλέγετο ἐμμελῶν τε καὶ ἐκμελῶν.",
            "translator": "Hermann Mutschmann and Jürgen Mau, editors",
            "edition": "adversus-grc",
            "source_id": "adversus-grc",
            "translation_type": "original"
        },
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "Many other arguments can also be used for this conclusion, which, as I said, we surveyed in our Pyrrhonian Commentaries. But now, if there is no sound, neither is there a note, which was said (§ 42) to be the incidence of a sound at one pitch. If there is no note, neither is there any musical interval, consonance, melody, or the genera derived from them. Consequently, neither is there music, for it was said to be the science of what is melodic and unmelodic.",
            "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": "On peut encore employer de nombreux autres arguments à cette fin. Comme je l’ai dit, nous les avons exposés au cours de nos recherches consignées dans les écrits pyrrhoniens. Mais à présent, puisque la voix n’existe pas, la note n’existe pas davantage, elle qui était définie (§ 42) comme l’émission d’une voix sous une seule tension. Sans note, il n’existe ni intervalle musical, ni consonance, ni mélodie, ni aucun des genres qui en dérivent. Par conséquent, la musique n’existe pas non plus, puisqu’elle était définie comme la science de ce qui est mélodique et non mélodique.",
            "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": "314e8d46ceac5966a920473848ad0fffa35b57d34a8be788188fc55c759970ae"
}