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Chapter XXXIII.—Wherein Scepticism Differs From The Academic Philosophy
[220] Some indeed say that the Academic philosophy
1
is identical with Scepticism; consequently it shall be our next task to discuss this statement.
According to most people there have been three Academies—the first and most ancient that of Plato and his School, the second or middle Academy that of Arcesilaus, the pupil of Polemo, and his School, the third or New Academy that of the School of Carneades and Cleitomachus. Some, however, add as a fourth that of the School of Philo and Charmidas; and some even count the School of Antiochus as a fifth.
[221] Beginning, then, with the Old Academy let us consider how the philosophies mentioned differ
from ours.
Plato has been described by some as ‟dogmatic,” by others as ‟dubitative,” and by others again as partly dogmatic and partly dubitative. For in his exercitatory discourses,
2
where Socrates is introduced either as talking playfully with his auditors or as arguing against sophists, he shows, they say, an exercitatory and dubitative character; but a dogmatic character when he is speaking seriously by the mouth either of Socrates or of Timaeus or of some similar personage.
[222] Now as regards those who describe him as a dogmatist, or as partly dogmatic and partly dubitative, it would be superfluous to say anything now; for they themselves acknowledge his difference from us. But the question whether Plato is a genuine Sceptic is one which we discuss more fully in our ‟Commentaries;”
3
but now, in opposition to Menodotus
4
and Aenesidemus (these being the chief champions of this view), we declare in brief that when Plato makes statements about Ideas or about the reality of Providence or about the virtuous life being preferable to the vicious, he is dogmatizing if he is assenting to these as actual truths, while if he is accepting them as more probable than not, since thereby he gives a preference to one thing over another in point of probability or improbability, he throws off the character of a Sceptic; for that such an attitude is foreign to us is quite plain from what has been said above.
[223] And if Plato does really utter some statements in a sceptical way when he is, as they say, ‟exercising,” that will not make him a Sceptic; for the man that dogmatizes about a single thing, or ever prefers one impression to another in point of credibility or incredibility, or makes any assertion about any non-evident object, assumes the dogmatic character, as Timon
5
also shows by his remarks about Xenophanes.
[224] For after praising him repeatedly, so that he even dedicated to him his Satires, he represented him as uttering this lamentation—
Would that I too had attained a mind compacted of wisdom,
Both ways casting my eyes; but the treacherous pathway
deceived me,
Old that I was, and as yet unversed in the doubts of the
Sceptic.
For in whatever direction I turned my mind in its questing
All was resolved into One and the Same; All ever-existing
Into one self-same nature returning shaped itself all ways. So on this account he also calls him ‟semi-vain,” and not perfectly free from vanity, where he says—
Xenophanes semi-vain, derider of Homer’s deceptions,
Framed him a God far other than Man, self-equal in all ways,
Safe from shaking or scathe, surpassing thought in his
thinking. He called him ‟semi-vain” as being in some degree free from vanity, and ‟derider of Homer’s deceptions” because he censured the deceit mentioned in Homer.
6
[225] Xenophanes, contrary to the preconceptions of all other men, asserted dogmatically that the All is one, and that God is consubstantial with all things, and is of spherical form and passionless and unchangeable and rational; and from this it is easy to show how Xenophanes differs from us. However, it is plain from what has been said that even if Plato evinces doubt about some matters, yet he cannot be a Sceptic inasmuch as he shows himself at times either making assertions about the reality of non-evident objects or preferring one non-evident thing to another in point of credibility.
[226] The adherents of the New Academy, although they affirm that all things are non-apprehensible, yet differ from the Sceptics even, as seems probable, in respect of this very statement that all things are non-apprehensible (for they affirm this positively, whereas the Sceptic regards it as possible that some things may be apprehended); but they differ from us quite plainly in their judgement of things good and evil. For the Academicians do not describe a thing as good or evil in the way we do; for they do so with the conviction that it is more probable
7
that what they call good is really good rather than the opposite, and so too in the case of evil, whereas when we describe a thing as good or evil we do not add it as our opinion that what we assert is probable, but simply conform to life undogmatically that we may not be precluded from activity.
8
[227] And as regards sense-impressions, we say
9
that they are equal in respect of probability and improbability, so far as their essence is concerned, whereas they assert that some impressions are probable, others improbable.
And respecting the probable impressions they make distinctions: some they regard as just simply probable, others as probable and tested, others as probable, tested, and ‟irreversible.”
10
For example, when a rope is lying coiled up in a dark room, to one who enters hurriedly it presents the simply ‟probable” appearance of being a serpent;
[228] but to the man who has looked carefully round and has investigated the conditions—such as its immobility and its colour, and each of its other peculiarities—it appears as a rope, in accordance with an impression that is probable and tested. And the impression that is also ‟irreversible” or incontrovertible is of this kind. When Alcestis had died, Heracles, it is said, brought her up again from Hades and showed her to Admetus, who received an impression of Alcestis that was probable and tested; since, however, he knew that she was dead his mind recoiled from its assent and reverted to unbelief.
11
[229] So then the philosophers of the New Academy prefer the probable and tested impression to the simply probable, and to both of these the impression that is probable and tested and irreversible.
And although both the Academics and the Sceptics say that they believe some things, yet here too the difference between the two philosophies is quite plain. For the word ‟believe” has different meanings:
[230] it means not to resist but simply to follow without any strong impulse or inclination, as the boy is said to believe his tutor; but sometimes it means to assent to a thing of deliberate choice and with a kind of sympathy due to strong desire, as when the incontinent man believes him who approves of an extravagant mode of life. Since, therefore, Carneades and Cleitomachus declare that a strong inclination accompanies their credence and the credibility of the object, while we
12
say that our belief is a matter of simple yielding without any consent, here too there must be a difference between us and them.
[231] Furthermore, as regards the End (or aim of life)
13
we differ from the New Academy; for whereas the men who profess to conform to its doctrine
14
use probability as the guide of life, we
15
live in an undogmatic way by following the laws, customs, and natural affections. And we might say still more about this distinction had it not been that we are aiming at conciseness.
[232] Arcesilaus, however, who was, as we said,
16
the president and founder of the Middle Academy, certainly seems to me to have shared the doctrines of Pyrrho, so that his Way of thought is almost identical with ours. For we do not find him making any assertion about the reality or unreality of anything, nor does he prefer any one thing to another in point of probability or improbability, but suspends judgement about all. He also says that the End is suspension— which is accompanied, as we have said, by ‟quietude.”
[233] He declares, too, that suspension regarding particular objects is good, but assent regarding particulars bad. Only one might say that whereas we make these statements not positively but in accordance with what appears to us, he makes them as statements of real facts, so that he asserts that suspension in itself really is good and assent bad.
[234] And if one ought to credit also what is said about him, he appeared at the first glance, they say, to be a 'Pyrrhonean, but in reality he was a dogmatist; and because he used to test his companions by means of dubitation to see if they were fitted by nature for the reception of the Platonic dogmas, he was thought to be a dubitative philosopher, but he actually passed on to such of his companions as were naturally gifted the dogmas of Plato. And this was why Ariston
17
described him as ‟Plato the head of him, Pyrrho the tail, in the midst Diodorus;”
18
because he employed the dialectic of Diodorus, although he was actually a Platonist.
[235] Philo
19
asserts that objects are inapprehensible so far as concerns the Stoic criterion, that is to say ‟apprehensive impression,” but are apprehensible so far as concerns the real nature of the objects themselves. Moreover, Antiochus actually transferred the Stoa to the Academy, so that it was even said of him that ‟In the Academy he teaches the Stoic philosophy;” for he tried to show that the dogmas of the Stoics are already present in Plato. So that it is quite plain how the Sceptic ‟Way” differs from what is called the Fourth Academy and the Fifth.
Pyrrhoniae Hypotyposes. Sextus Empiricus. Robert Gregg Bury (Translator). London. 1933.
Funding provided by Tisch Library, Tufts University.