13.10.2026 Diary XLIII Epokhe: waiting before judging

13.10.2026 Diary Page XLIII

Not deciding and being able to postpone a decision are not the same thing.

Tuesday. Today's concept is epokhe. Yesterday's hexis was repetition building something; epokhe is about not building something right away.

In Greek, epokhe comes from the verb epekho: to hold, to hold back, to stop. In philosophy it means suspending judgment. Holding yourself back from saying “this is so” or “this is not so.”

Pyrrho and the sceptics

The tradition that made this concept systematic is the scepticism tied to Pyrrho of Elis. Pyrrho is a philosopher who is said to have joined Alexander's campaign, to have met wise men in India, and who wrote nothing. He is passed down to us by Timon and, much later, by Sextus Empiricus, a physician-philosopher who lived in the second and third centuries. Sextus's book Outlines of Pyrrhonism is the most complete source of this tradition.

Sextus's scheme can be summarised briefly like this. Against every claim, a counter-claim of equal strength can be set. This equal weight is called isostheneia. If both sides are equally strong, the mind cannot choose a side, judgment stays suspended. This suspension is called epokhe. After that, as the sceptics describe it, a tranquillity, ataraxia, follows by itself: as a shadow follows a body.

In the ataraxia entry I wrote this word within the Epicurean and Stoic line. The sceptics' path arrives at the same door by another road.

The foam

Sextus tells an anecdote and I think it is the clearest anecdote about scepticism. A painter named Apelles was trying to paint the foam on a horse's mouth. Whatever he did, it did not work. Finally, in anger, he threw his paint-soaked sponge at the picture. The sponge hit the picture and left the mark of the foam.

According to Sextus, the sceptics did the same. They were hoping to reach peace by resolving decisions; they gave up passing judgment and peace came by itself. That is, the goal was not reached by looking straight at it, but by letting go of something else. I cannot test the anecdote's accuracy, but what it tells is clear: peace is found as a result.

Not doubting everything

Reading epokhe as “believing nothing” is a common mistake. The sceptics did not stop living. According to Sextus the sceptic follows appearances: honey appears sweet, and he says it is sweet. He only does not pass judgment on the claim that honey is sweet in its essence.

In life four guides are counted: the guidance of nature, the compulsion of feelings, the rules of law and custom, what an art or a profession teaches. That is, the sceptic does not fall silent and sit still; sitting silent would also be a judgment. He lives in daily life, only holding the claim “in reality it is so” in suspension.

Against this, the Stoics and Academics had an objection that lasted many years: can one act without believing? Does action not have to come from a belief? This debate is not over today either.

Husserl's epokhe

In the twentieth century Edmund Husserl took the same word for a completely different purpose. In phenomenology, epokhe is putting the natural attitude, that is, the spontaneous belief that the world exists, in brackets. He is not saying the world does not exist. Only not using that belief for a while, and looking at how the world is given to us. The sceptic's epokhe is for peace, Husserl's is for description.

What the two uses share is stopping, for a moment, the reflex of “I know this.”

Judgment in suspension in law

Law is a field that has institutionalised epokhe. Article 38 of the Constitution says that no one can be considered guilty until guilt is established by a final judgment. This is the presumption of innocence. While the trial goes on, the question of guilty or not stands in suspension, and this suspension has legal consequences: detention is an exception, the burden of proof is on the one who accuses.

I cannot say this fully matches scepticism. The presumption of innocence is a rule of proof, not a philosophical stance. But the form is similar: when there is not enough evidence, holding judgment as something that must be waited for. That law writes a rule to remind us of this also shows the human mind's opposite tendency: we hurry to pass judgment.

Hasty judgment

The human mind does not like uncertainty. When we meet an event we produce an explanation at once: that person is angry at me, this message is a threat, this job won't work out. The explanation is often not right, but having an explanation is a comfort.

In ADHD this tendency speeds up. An impulsive interpretation, a quick reaction, an answer given to a half-heard sentence. In the anger outbursts article I dealt with the emotional side of this mechanism. Epokhe gives an interesting idea for its cognitive side: putting a gap between an event and the judgment about it.

This gap has no recipe and its length varies in every case. But this question may work: do I have to give this judgment now, or can it wait? In most cases it can wait. As in law, waiting is often free.

Postponing and epokhe

I have to write a warning, similar to the one in the phronesis entry. Epokhe can be used as an elegant name for indecision. Saying “I am not passing judgment” is a philosophical cover for saying “I am avoiding making a decision.”

What separates the two is that epokhe rests on equal weight. The sceptic does not pass judgment because he has really weighed both sides. The one who avoids does not pass judgment without weighing. A measure: for what I have suspended, can I write the strongest defence of both sides? If I can, it is epokhe; if I cannot, it is avoidance.

And there is a limit: for some decisions waiting is a decision, and not waiting is a decision. Where action is necessary, and law is a very clear example, staying in suspension is not an option. In the aporia entry I wrote about why the judge cannot stay in an impasse.

A piece next to the concept

Arvo Pärt: Da pacem Domine.

A prayer for choir, from 2004. Its Latin title means “Give us peace, Lord.” The piece was written after the train attacks in Madrid in 2004. The voices move very slowly and none of them hurries.

Its link with epokhe, I think, is in patience: not hurrying even while waiting for a result.

Toward tomorrow

Tomorrow is Wednesday. I have written three concepts in three days: the impasse, the repetition that settles, the judgment held in suspension. One thing in common: all three stand opposite “an immediate result.” Tomorrow maybe I will look at this commonality itself.