  The way to make progress is to see how the three interpretations sketched in (3.4.1)–(3.4.3) differ in the way they interpret the phrase ‘Skeptics assent to the feelings forced upon them by appearances’ in PH I 13. The ‘feelings’ in question are the states (pathê) that the faculty of phantasia puts one in when it represents the world as being a certain way (so when my faculty of phantasia represents the world as being one in which P, I am thereby in the state of being appeared to that P). When X is in that state, X has the impression or appearance that P. The question which concerns us is this: what does it mean to assent to this feeling, i.e., this impression or appearance? According to Frede, assenting to this feeling is a matter of believing the world to be as the state represents it as being. Or, more punchily, assenting to the feeling forced upon one by appearances entails accepting the content of that state. For Barnes and Burnyeat, to assent to the appearance that P is a matter of acknowledging that one is in the state of being appeared to that P. What gets acknowledged or accepted is that one is in that mental state, not the content of the state. Both Barnes and Burnyeat think that to make such an acknowledgment does not amount to having a belief—it’s just an acknowledgment that one is in a certain internal state. Fine and Perin agree with Barnes and Burnyeat that the Skeptics acknowledge that they are in a certain mental state (rather than accepting the content of the state), but Fine and Perin are prepared to say that the skeptic does thereby believes something, namely that it appears to him that P, and that this belief is the only kind of dogma the Skeptic has.