Abstract
Cicero’s skepticism is explored as well as the fact that it need not undermine the search for wisdom. It is the basis for a genuine and honest search for wisdom and thus consistent with the love of philosophy manifested by Cicero from his earliest years. Antiochus, Philo, Carneades, and the New Academy with its Socratic roots are introduced. The importance of the criterion of truth beneath probable judgments is presented, as well as what that criterion consists in for Cicero. The focus on the supreme good and the testing of various conceptions is pursued as the basis for assurance in living the good life. The Academica and the De Legibus are the primary texts of Cicero used in developing this chapter.
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Notes
- 1.
With respect to the phrase, finibus bonorum et malorum (in effect, the full title of De Finibus), I am persuaded that Wright’s translation (1991: note 2, 14) as “supreme good and evil” is both accurate as to the sense of Cicero and useful in integrating Cicero’s thought with Western moral discourse. For a definitional statements in Cicero on finis as ultima or summa bonorum et malorum, see Fin. 2.4–5; 3.26; Ac. 2.129. Citations in this book follow the tradition of treating the extant Academica as one work. In accord with this convention, what remains of Cicero’s first effort (Academica Priora) to write the work will be cited, as is done in this note, as the second book of the Academica and what remains of his second effort (Academica Posteriora) will be cited as the first book.
- 2.
Many scholars of modern skepticism appreciate the impact of various strains of ancient skepticism on their subject and specifically the role of ancient versions in skepticism’s revival in the Renaissance. Most notable is the scholarship of Richard H. Popkin; note especially (1979) “Preface” and Chap. II. Laursen (1992) provides a lucid and accurate survey of ancient skepticism in the first chapter and many insights and a rich bibliography relevant to the relationship of ancient and modern forms of skepticism. Annas and Barnes (1985), in their first chapter, provide a basic introduction to ancient skepticism, marked by an awareness of its relationship to modern skepticism. Also, see Hookway (1990) and Lom (2001).
- 3.
Ac. 2.73; also a similar statement from Arcesilaus at Ac. 1.45, where he claims that Socrates slipped into dogmatism while claiming that he knows that he does not know. Metrodorus of Chios was a Fourth Century pupil of Democritus and an apparent proponent of atomism. This crisp English rendering of the fragment is by Sedley (1983: 14). See Sedley’s subsequent phrasing of the passage in a reflexive version of skepticism (1998: 86). When Cicero cites Metrodorus, he appears to have a more complete source for this fragment, for he also attributes to Metrodorus the denial “that we know at all whether anything exists or nothing exists.” Burnyeat endeavors to explain how such fragments might relate to Metrodorus’s atomism and are not to be considered as indicators of a skepticism as comprehensive and thorough-going as is known in our post-Cartesian time (1982: 1: 32 n. 42, 16).
- 4.
Ac. 2.29. Cicero’s report here is in the voice of the dramatic persona, Lucullus.
- 5.
At Tusc. 3.6 he describes his writings on the criterion of truth (Academica) and on the ends (De Finibus) as concerned with the most important matters (de maximis rebus) in the realm of philosophy (universa philosophia). The claim about the foundation of philosophy occurs in the important preface to the second book of Divinatione (2.2) where Cicero describes his philosophical corpus by enumerating and characterizing each of his works. Also, Tusc. 4.82.
- 6.
Div. 2.2. In Fin. 4.14, Cicero writes of the supreme good as that which supports or binds together philosophy itself (continet philosophiam).
- 7.
For example, Fin. 2.51–52; 3.6; Off. 1.5,19.
- 8.
Fin. 5.15. Also, Ac. 2.132. Varro, according to Augustine (The City of God XIX.1), saw different positions on the chief good as defining the various philosophical schools in his time.
- 9.
See especially Off. 2.7–8; Nat. D. 1.11 and Div. 2.1–2, where Cicero indicates his Academic commitment and explicitly directs the reader to the Academica for a fuller exposition. Ac. 1.43; 2.7 are particularly noteworthy confessions of his philosophical affiliation. His Academic loyalties appear clear in his earliest work, Inv. 2.9–10. See also, Tarrant (1985: 152 nn. 43 and 44).
- 10.
That Cicero saw Arcesilaus as founder of the New Academy rather than a “Middle Academy” is affirmed by Long and Sedley (1987: 1.448). Lévy (1992: 1–2, 9 ff.) makes this same point in the course of reconstructing a history of the Academy that utilizes fully, as he insists such a history should, Cicero’s texts. Sextus Empiricus (early third century A. D.) reports that Arcesilaus was the founder of the “Middle” Academy and Carneades of the “New” (1967: I. 220).
- 11.
Besides criticizing skepticism for internal contradictions, Antiochus emphasized the positive teaching in Socrates and shared much of the teaching of the Stoic school. Sextus (1967: I.235) described Antiochus as having “transplanted the Stoa into the Academy” and as showing “that the Stoics’ doctrines are present in Plato.” Also, Long and Sedley (1987: 1.444, 449) and Tarrant (1985: Chap. 5 and passim). On the “break” by Antiochus and the subsequent leadership of the school by Antiochus, Barnes (1989: esp. 54 ff.) and Sedley’s dissent from what Barnes does here (1998: 77 n. 70); also, Glucker (1978: 27 ff. and passim) and Dillon (1988:104–06).
- 12.
Nat. D. 1.6, 11; Ac. 2.11. For background on the failing of this Academy and its subtle transformation, see Tarrant (1985: 3127 and passim).
- 13.
On the Pyrrhonist revival led by Aenesidemus, see Long and Sedley (1987: 1.449, 468–88) and Barnes (1989: 93–94). Tarrant (1985: 140 n. 4) thinks that it is an exaggeration to claim that Aenesidemus revived Pyrrhonism. Knowledge of Pyrrho, attained largely through work on Sextus Empiricus, has brought certain scholars to see his position as that of authentic or “classical” skepticism. Michael Frede, for one, sets this skepticism off against “dogmatic” skepticism, which is characterized by its proponents allowing themselves to have opinions, including the opinion that one cannot know with certainty. Frede sees the revival of Pyrrhonism as “not so much a revival of Pyrrho’s philosophy, but a revival of classical Academic skepticism under the name of Pyrronism (sic), to distinguish it from the dogmatism which Aenesidemus and Sextus Empiricus associated with the later sceptical Academy” (1987b: 218, 1987a: 182–83). Sextus held that the Academics who denied the possibility of knowing failed to suspend judgment and were not properly skeptics. See Annas and Barnes (1985: 1, 15) and also Annas (1986: 12 f.). Long and Sedley, however, interpret Pyrrho as a “dogmatic,” (1987: 1.446–47, 472); also, Laursen (1992: 38–39) and Nussbaum argues persuasively that the skepticism of Sextus does not escape “dogmatism” (1994: 300 ff.).
- 14.
Ac. 2.32; Off. 2.7. Hume, in his Enquiry (1939: 685–86), remarks that “the great subverter of Pyrrhonism or excessive principles of scepticism is action, and employment, and the occupations of common life.” Then he described Pyrrhonism as being “corrected by common sense and reflection” and turned into Academic skepticism. Brochard (1923: 245) speculates that in Ac. 2.32 Lucullus, the spokesman for the Antiochean position, who denounces radical skepticism as unworthy of attention, has revived Pyrrhonism in mind. This was drawn to my attention by Gisela Striker (1980: 64). Brochard’s suggestion must be seriously entertained in the light of the fact that though Pyrrho is specifically named only once in the extant Ac. (2.130), he is frequently cited in the Finibus. Though these references (see for example Fin. 2.35,43; 4.49,60; 5.23; also, De Or. 3.62), just as Ac. 2.130, portray the Pyrrhonist school as having been overcome, their frequency may be taken as evidence of a concern with a neo-Pyrrhonism. See the discussion of these passages by Glucker (1978: 116–17, n. 64) and Long and Sedley (1997: 1.21–22). Noting the claims that the Pyrrhonist revival of Aenesidemus first occurred in the 40s, Sedley (1998: 89) more recently finds no evidence in Cicero’s writing through 45 of an awareness of a Pyrrhonist revival.
Cicero accepts the view, namely the apraxia argument, then current in traditional Stoic attacks on skepticism, that such skepticism is disabling to purposeful action, and it seems that judged from the standpoint of usable standards for action, Pyrrhonian skepticism and that of Arcesilaus are similarly inadequate. It is likely that there was a strong Roman concern with skepticism’s potential to be practically disabling, and thus threatening to the Roman way of life. See Lucretius, De Rerum Natura iv. 500–12. There are doubts in evidence in recent scholarship on whether “classical skepticism,” either in its Pyrrhonian or Academic form, can fairly be said to be inadequate, and it is conjectured that it might be better perceived as another way to come to terms with the ethical dimension of life. See Long and Sedley (1997: 1.450–60) and Frede (1987a: esp. 180). Annas (1986: 22, 27) not only claims that the apraxia argument was taken seriously in ancient times but takes it so herself.
- 15.
Though this formulation of the position of Carneades is Cicero’s (see what follows in this chapter), note should be taken of the attention in recent scholarship to what Carneades’s position actually was and, in effect, to whether Cicero got it right. The most favorable view the new scholarship takes of Cicero’s interpretation of Carneades seems to be that it represents one side in a dispute among pupils of Carneades about whether Carneades held that a wise person would have opinions even if only assenting to them as probable (see Frede (1987b: 213); Hankinson (1997:181 n. 36). The prevalent view of recent scholarship is, in Frede’s terms (1987b: 203 ff.), that Carneades is a “classical” skeptic unlike the “dogmatic” Philo; like Arcesilaus, Carneades is seen as exemplifying a “dialectical” approach to dogmatic positions such as those of the Stoics. This means that Carneades is seen not as an advocate of “the probable” or “credible” as a standard for action but as one pointing out to the Stoics on their own terms, that this is all that is left when one has shown that there is no absolute wisdom based on assured perceptions which the Stoics took as the desirable standard for action. Interpreting Cicero’s Carneades as radically committed to the dialectical approach is Allen (1997: 217–56). For more on the recent reinterpretation of Carneades, see the subtle and thorough defense of this position and the entailed exploration of how Arcesilaus and Carneades might have met the apraxia objection in Bett (1989: 59–94). Also, Long and Sedley (1987: 1.448–49, 457–60); Sedley (1983: esp. 18). For the “dialectical strategy” with respect to the Stoic understanding of the end, see Long (1967: 73 ff.). Also Couissin’s seminal 1929 essay (reprinted 1983); Burnyeat (1984: esp. 227–28, nn. 6 and 7). See Tarrant (1985: 9, 13–18, and passim) for a case that Cicero’s understanding of Carneades is plausible and in accord with what one might find and expect in the period of the Fourth Academy. Similarly Barnes (1989: 73–78) exploring the struggle between Philo and Antiochus and the nature of their “dogmatism” indicates how they appeared to pull the Carneadian legacy in their direction; also, Hankinson (1997: 183 ff.) and Striker (1997: 257–76). Lévy’s approach (1992: 32 ff.) to Carneades includes a review of various interpretations of Carneades and the emergence of the dialectical-strategy hypothesis. For a more traditional and very thorough interpretation of Carneades see Stough (1969: 50–64).
- 16.
Görler (1997: 45–46).
- 17.
Off. 2.7; Ac. 2.63, passim.
- 18.
One form of this is to neglect the Academica, which Schmitt observes (1983: 227–30) occurred during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, periods of high respect for Cicero as a philosopher. A much more complete statement and analysis of this neglect is found in Schmitt’s book. Though noting there that “Cicero’s influence during the Middle Ages was enormous… perhaps as great as that of Aristotle…”, he concludes that between Augustine’s Contra Academicos and the Sixteenth Century, there is little serious concern with the Academica (1972: 33, 137). Schmitt also draws attention to the efforts in that century to emphasize Cicero’s apparent dogmatic Stoicism in writings as Re Publica and Officiis (99). For the tendency, among recent political theorists, to regard Cicero simply as a Stoic, see Nicgorski (1984: 560 and 2012: 274, 277). Laursen notes (1992: 59 n.105) the same tendency among political theorists but is mistaken in pointing to Holton’s introductory essay (1972: 130–50) as an instance of a failure to recognize Cicero as a skeptic.
- 19.
Frede (1987b: 217), describing the “dogmatic” skeptic of Cicero’s time. observes that “once the skeptic takes the liberty to take positions, his positions, given the eclecticism of the time, tend to become more or less identical with those of the Stoics, except on the question of knowledge itself.” That Frede is, here, making chiefly a historical claim rather than one of philosophical or logical necessity is evident in 1987, 176. In unpublished material in making this point, Frede discussed the confluence of the Academic and Stoic schools in the last quarter of the second century B.C. Long writes of this peace between the Academy and the Stoa as ending “the longest continuous philosophical controversy in pre-Christian Greek philosophy…The Academy, to a large extent and only temporarily, absorbed the main doctrines of the Stoics” (1980: 162, 173). Also, Glucker (1995: 135). Annas (1994: 335). Tarrant, who protests (1985: 4, 29 ff., 66) against trying to understand Cicero and his period in terms of the “the sceptic-dogmatist dichotomy,” adds an important perspective in his thesis on the Fourth Academy concerning how Academic and Stoic positions came together. This is not to say that certain skeptics such as Aenesidemus regarded skepticism as at all reconcilable with taking Stoic positions; he described (Photius, Library, 169b ff. in Long and Sedley 1987: 1.468–70) such Academics as “Stoics fighting with Stoics.”
- 20.
Sedley (1983: 20, 22), Annas and Barnes (1985: 1), and Tarrant (1985: 22ff).
- 21.
Hunt (1954: 3–4).
- 22.
Hume (1962: 318), Laursen (1992: 70) and his later chapters on Hume; Hookway (1990: 88, 100 ff.); Annas (1988 :111–12), and Olshewsky (1991 :269–87). Perhaps Hume underestimates Stoic assurance when he otherwise wisely remarks that the “dispute between the Sceptics and Dogmatists is entirely verbal, or at least regards only the degrees of doubt and assurance . . .” Hume adds,
No philosophical Dogmatist denies, that there are difficulties both with regard to the senses and to all science; and that these difficulties are in a regular, logical method, absolutely insolvable. No Sceptic denies, that we lie under an absolute necessity, notwithstanding these difficulties, of thinking, and believing, and reasoning with regard to all kind of subjects, and even of frequently assenting with confidence and security (1927: 390 n. 1).
- 23.
Burnyeat examines this question specifically within the ancient tradition of skepticism and largely exclusive of Cicero (1983: 117–148). He provides valuable background and insight on how especially Pyrrhonian skepticism and Arcesilaus sought to deal with this question as well as a convincing conclusion on the inherent difficulty if not impossibility of the “witholding of belief” sought by such skeptics. For a well-argued dissent from Burnyeat and for an insistence that Hume’s psychological basis for belief is distinct from assent or an epistemological conviction, see Williams (1988: 552, 555–56, 561, 582–83). Olshewsky (1991: 276) is inclined to the same side. For the claim that ancient skepticism was directed against belief and that neither Hume nor Cicero are properly skeptics, see Annas and Barnes (1985: 6–9). On “belief” (pistis) terminology in the Academy from Carneades, see Tarrant (1985: 38–39). Also see Burnyeat (1984: 229–30, 242–43), Frede (1987a, 1987b: 205: 207 ff.), Bett (1989 :60, passim), Nussbaum (1994: 312), and Laursen (1992: Chap. 3) where he follows the initial difference on the question between Frede and Burnyeat through the scholarly literature.
- 24.
There are only a couple of indications in Cicero’s writings of his possible awareness of a philosophical difference between Carneades and Philo: Ac. 2.12,78. Such a difference is made much of in some recent scholarship on Hellenistic philosophy and concerns Philo’s apparent advocacy of reliance on “the probable” and his consequent approval and assimilation of findings or “dogmata” like certain teachings of the Stoics. At Ac. 2.78. and then at Ac. 2.99 ff, there are indications that Cicero does not find such a difference a significant one. On Cicero’s seemingly distinctive appropriation of Carneades and Philo, see Lévy (1992: 291 ff., 634–35, 48ff.)
- 25.
Fin. 5.76; Ac. 2.7–8, 99; Nat. D. 1.12; Tusc. 1.17.
- 26.
Ac. 2.128.
- 27.
Ac. fr.19; also Ac. 2.32, where the conjoining is put in the mouth of Lucullus describing the Academic position. For an exploration of Cicero’s and others’ use of these terms and their Greek originals, see Glucker (1995: 115–43) and Lévy’s important discussion (1992: 284–90). Note Garsten’s treatment (2009: 154) of probabile as the best estimate of the truth and as the basis for Cicero’s embrace of certain Stoic-like “truths.” It appears that Garsten need not have seen, as he does, Cicero’s Stoic-like convictions as wholly departing from common opinion and showing no trace of skepticism.
- 28.
To approve (probare) as likely true is often contrasted in Cicero with to affirm (affirmare) as true and sometimes with to assent to (adsentiri) as true. Striker (1980: 61, n. 21) rightly notes “that Cicero does not always observe the terminological distinction between adsentiri and adprobare, but he emphasizes it in crucial passages.” Thorsrud (2012: 145) reflects well on what Cicero does not appear to tell his readers about the relationship of the probable to the truth. On these terms and their likely basis for Cicero, see Lévy (1992a: 100–02). The one and only place where I have found a simple collapse of the general distinction between adprobare and adsentiri is at Ac. 1.45 where Cicero is explicitly summarizing the position of Arcesilaus. It is not unreasonable to conclude that this is intended, for Arcesilaus, who sought to disengage his followers from all judgments, may well have seen adprobare as a form of adsentiri. On the use of probo in Cicero’s rhetorical works, see Glucker (1995: 129 n. 67). On the importance of this distinction to Carneades and likely also to Cicero, note Bett (1989: 74–75, 89).
- 29.
Ac. 2.108–09; Off. 2.7.
- 30.
To say this of Philo and Carneades is not intended to obscure the possibility that they embraced the criterion in different ways. On Carneades’s pithanon, Bett (1989: esp. 71 f.)
- 31.
One might conjecture that probabile brings more to the fore than credibile Cicero’s interest in what one is able to approve (probare) and, thus, his interest, as opposed to that of “classical” skepticism, in judgments of what is likely true. Sedley (1983: 25, nn. 37 and 40) and Burnyeat (1983: 123) apparently regard “probabile” as an unfortunate translation. In a significant working paper, Burnyeat (1986: 6) indicates that his objection is not so much with what Cicero meant by probabile as with translations from that into the English “probable” or its equivalent and the concomitant modern meaning of “statistical frequency” or “evidential support” or “some combination of the two.” Consider Lévy’s limited disagreement (1992a: 104–06) with this observation of Burnyeat and his own discussion of probabile.
- 32.
In this conception of probability’s instinctual operation, Cicero and the New Academy, as he presents it, reflect “classical” skepticism’s characteristic mode of simply accepting the inevitability of certain impressions, carrying us through the choices of ordinary life (Long and Sedley [1987:1.471; Tarrant: 1985: 16, 54 ff., 62, 65, 110]), and displaying a precursory notion of what Hume came to call natural or common belief (Olshewsky [1991] though he misses the force of Fin. 5.76 in his hesitancy [284] to find anything like Humean instinct in Cicero). Long and Sedley’s (1987: 1.460) observation that “the most familiar modern strategy of simply not allowing philosophical scepticism to intrude upon daily life (e.g. Hume) is barely even contemplated in ancient scepticism” seems a misstatement, especially with respect to Cicero. Consider the interpretation of the end of Academica later in this chapter. Long and Sedley’s difficulty may be rooted in not fully appreciating that Hume seeks to explain “belief” as consistent with his comprehensive skepticism. Cicero’s impact on Hume’s thought clearly goes beyond the long acknowledged impact on his religious views. An argument for Hume’s deep and thorough dependence on Cicero, and for the specific conclusion that Hume shares with Cicero a “moderate” rather than “extreme” skepticism, is found in Jones (1984: passim especially Introduction and Chap. 1), Laursen (1992: Chap. 6), and Olshewsky (1991). Allesandro Pajewski’s recently completed study of Hume (2012) shows the depth of Cicero’s impact on him and on many of the debates in which he engaged.
- 33.
Ac. 2.66–68, 79 ff., 99; Nat. D. 1.12 and Inv. 1.57, where it is indicated that even the syllogism can yield no more than a probable conclusion. Here, too, Cicero reflects “classical” skepticism specifically in the comprehensiveness of its doubt; see Burnyeat (1984, esp. 239–40, 244) and Long (1988: 184, n. 14).
- 34.
Note Lucretius’s defense and counterattack against skepticism in De Rerum Naturam, iv. 469–521; a discussion of the passage is found in Sedley (1998: 85–90).
- 35.
For discussion of the concept, katalēpsis, see Ac. 1.41; 2.17–18, 31, 144–45, and especially an old but very illuminating essay with respect to Cicero: Sparshott (1978: 284–86, 290 n. 1). Also, Hankinson (1997: 168–70, 181 n. 39, passim), Long and Sedley (1987: 1: 257), Long (1988: 183 n. 11, 186–87), Lévy (1992a: 98–100, on Cicero’s distinctive use of the term); Sedley with observations on Cicero’s refinement of the term in various uses (1998: 43–44), Frede (1987: 152 ff., 1999: 298–99), Tarrant (1985: 6 ff.), Shields (1994: 355 ff.), Barnes (1989: 72 f.), Striker (1997: 258–59 n. 1), specifically with respect to Cicero, Görler (1997: 47–50, 52 f., 56–57) and Algra (1997: 132 n. 60). Perception in this sense, of assured knowing, is not for the Stoics limited to sense perception.
Michael Frede has argued that Stoic epistemological claims are not broad claims to knowledge on the part of the Stoics. The Stoics were in no mood to make such claims. But the Stoics did claim some expertise, and on the authority of this expertise tried to put forth views as to the nature and the material content of the knowledge Socrates had been looking for in vain. Hence the central role of the notion of a dogma and the charges of dogmatism in skeptical attacks on Stoicism (1987: 170, also 151, 176). One wonders if Frede’s interesting distinction between being broadly dogmatic and being dogmatic only with respect to the conditions of knowledge applies to most Stoics. Cicero seems unaware of such a distinction and overall finds the Stoics dangerously dogmatic. See Chap. 3 in this book for some discussion of the nature of the knowledge claimed for the Stoic exemplar or Wiseman. In support of Frede’s view, at least to the extent of indicating which Stoic claims most disturbed the Academics, is the presentation of the views of the Stoic founder Zeno in Academia Posteriora and Cicero’s prooemium in Academica Priora, specifically Ac. 2.7–9.
- 36.
Tusc. 1.47. Here Cicero says that only after the soul’s separation from the body will unhindered and true perception be possible. This statement is made by a person designated M in the text, probably standing for “Marcus” or “magister.” Internal evidence in Tusc. makes clear that M, the major voice throughout the disputations, is Cicero himself. As the following Chapter indicates, M, as Cicero persona, speaks to counter and refine a student’s opinion and may not always reflect the view of Cicero the author. Apparently the M and A (adolescens) designations for the speakers in Tusc. are not found in the earliest manuscripts; see Douglas (1985: 16, n. 48, 1995: 198).
- 37.
Burnyeat has overall persuasively argued that Descartes’s doubt also differed from that of ancient skepticism because ancient skepticism never doubted the existence of an external world however much it doubted the reliability of the senses and the human ability to know the world (1982: esp. 18–19, 36–40). See Williams (1988: 87–88) for his differences with Burnyeat on this matter.
- 38.
Alain Michel aptly observed, “Mais Cicéron n’est pas un Stoïcien. Il croit après Platon qu’on ne peut jamais dépasser l’opinion” (1992: 81).
- 39.
A version of this objection is expressed by Lucullus apparently summarizing Antiochus’s critique of Carneades in Ac. 2.33; see also Ac. 2.61–62. This problem seems foremost in mind when it appears that Hortensius is portrayed, in the work named after him, as aggressively challenging philosophy for explaining ambiguities with ambiguities and bringing an extinguished light into the darkness. (Nam hoc est in tenebras extinctum lumen inferre). Grilli (ed.), fr. 24, p. 25. Lucretius (iv. 469–85) makes a similar point. As one might expect, Augustine’s objections to Academic skepticism seem to be drawn from Cicero himself.
- 40.
Bett (1989: 74 f.) defends Carneades against the possible charge that his understanding of the criterion “appeared to reduce all action to something like instinctive behavior.”
- 41.
Ac. 2.32.
- 42.
Ac. 1.44–45. The phrase attributed to Democritus is “in profoundo”; Arcesilaus, in the following sentence, is said to find all things “in occulto,” a phrase Cicero uses to describe his own view regarding truth in Orat. 237–38. Tarrant (1985: 58, 150 n. 29) observes the basis in the Platonic tradition for Cicero’s and similar views.
- 43.
Annas and Barnes (1985: 14) claim that Cicero, here, incorrectly sees Arcesilaus as “dogmatic” insofar as he is presented as asserting the truth that knowledge is inaccessible. Shields (1994: 345 ff.) explores thoroughly and chiefly through the texts of Cicero the nature of Arcesilaus’s redirection of the Academy and the manner in which he might have reconciled “dogmatism” with the withholding of assent or epochē; also, Annas (1994: 338–40). See Att.13.21 for Cicero’s discussion of epochē as a usage of Carneades; also, Lévy’s commentary on the passage (1992a: 97–98).
- 44.
The dialectical strategy that Arcesilaus exemplifies is sometimes defended not, of course, in terms of it leading to any assertions of truth but in terms of its power to liberate from distorting dogmatisms. Though Cicero is not finally content with such negative skepticism, it should be noted that the Academic “classical” skepticism of Arcesilaus shares with the “classical” skepticism of Pyrrho a moral goal that is a type of integrity, if not peace, of life to which the suspension of belief is instrumental. See Sedley (1983: 14–16, 21–22), Long and Sedley (1987: 1.17 ff., 468–88), Frede (1987a: 185), Williams (1988: 547, 564–65) and Annas (1988: 103–08, 1986: 17 ff., 23 f). Burnyeat (1984: 241, 1982: 24 f.) captures this aspect of Pyrrhonism in concluding that its
great recommendation…is that suspension of judgement on all questions as to what is true and false, good and bad, results in tranquillity—the tranquillity of detachment from striving and ordinary human concerns, of a life lived on after surrendering the hope of finding answers to the questions on which happiness depends. …In its own way, Pyrrhonian scepticism offers a recipe for happiness to compete with the cheerful simplicity of Epicureanism and the nobler resignation of the Stoic sage.
Annas (1993: Chap. 17 and 430–31) describes this approach to happiness and questions its adequacy.
- 45.
Williams (1988: 587) describes Pyrrhonian skepticism as standing “for the possibility of life without philosophy: for getting on with living while dispensing with large-scale explanations, justification or guiding principles.” Also, Laursen (1992: 35). Nussbaum highlights the tension between skepticism as a “solution” to the problem of human happiness and the Socratic/Aristotelian striving for truth, noting at one point that skepticism entails not taking “control of life with thought” (1994: 321, also 304, 308 ff., 492–500).
- 46.
In this, Cicero clearly stood with Philo if not also with a longer-standing practice of the Academy (Tarrant 1985: esp. 9–10, 43, 106–07). On the Academic commitment to searching for truth, see Annas (1983: 315), Shields (1994: 361), and Barnes (1989: 73–78). Lévy, while bringing to the fore concrete political reasons for Cicero’s steadfast attraction to the New Academy, emphasizes, too, the real issues of life that draw Cicero to the free, critical inquiry that characterizes the Academy (1992: 6121–22, 629 ff.)
- 47.
Div. 2.3; also Leg. 1.32, 58; Tusc. 2.13, 28.
- 48.
Tusc. 1.1, 64; also Inv. 1.1.
- 49.
Div. 2.1, 4–5.
- 50.
According to Tarrant (1985: 107), Cicero’s expectations were widely shared in the Academy of his time where it was not thought “that life without assent would be desirable” nor “that it was possible to be a teacher of philosophy and offer no positive advice on how one should live one’s life.” Barnes (1989) confirms this.
- 51.
Leg. 1.32, 37.
- 52.
Earlier at Leg. 1.21, there is a playful indication by Atticus that the conversation is going in directions not welcome to his Epicurean associates; also Görler (1995: 87–88).
- 53.
The issue of the adequacy and fairness of Cicero’s representations of the Epicureans (to be considered more fully in Chap. 4) has been raised at various times since Cicero wrote. Cicero acknowledges that he is being challenged in this respect, Tusc. 3.37–38, 49–51. Tarrant (1985: 127, 129) describes the philosophical context for such a dismissal, observing that “there was not enough common ground between Academic and Epicurean for a good dialogue to develop, nor enough mutual respect.” On the Epicurean rejection of Socrates as an exemplum of the philosophical life, see Vander Waerdt (1994: 7–8 and n. 24).
- 54.
Leg. 1.38–39. At Tusc. 3.51, Cicero has M remark that if the Epicureans hold the truth, it is not such as can be publicly stated in general or in politically responsible bodies and it is not a truth that will win public acclaim. See also, De Or. 3.64; Tusc. 1.24; Fin. 2.74; Brut.131. A fuller discussion of Cicero’s suggestion that the Epicureans may be speaking the truth and his banning them only “for a while” or “for now” from all the bonds of political community follows in Chap. 3.
- 55.
Rep. (3.8) also reveals an uneasiness with the contribution to the discussion from the Academic school even while the method characteristic of the Academics is embraced. At 3.32, Laelius apparently reacts to the speech (oratio) of Carneades by saying that it is “monstrous” (immanis), that Carneades probably does not believe it, and that it should not be heard by the young. Noting this, however, does not constitute an endorsement of Schofield’s suggestion that Cicero’s Academic attachment is not in evidence in Rep. and Leg. (1986: 47). Lévy’s discussion of Rep. 3 in this context (1992: 515 ff.) is more compelling. My reasons for this judgment follow in the text and notes.
- 56.
It would seem from what has already been said (especially in preceding notes) that Arcesilaus should be more feared because he is more akin to a Pyrrhonist and that Carneades is more akin to Cicero, but both, after all, are questioners, dialectical probers. Cicero does not want his Carneadean self forward at this point. Furthermore, as Brittain has observed (2006: xxiv, xxvii n. 46), “our sources for Arcesilaus and Carneades disagree radically about the form and extent of their scepticism” and the consistency of their “radical scepticism…remains controversial.” Consider that the views of Carneades are, apparently, known only in oral traditions: see Ferrary (1977: 153–55).
- 57.
That Cicero did not affiliate with the New Academy during the 50s is argued by Glucker (1988). He concluded (53), “Cicero, then, changed his affiliations twice: once, from a youthful enthusiasm for Philo of Larissa and Academic Skepticism to Antiochus’ ‘Old Academy’—albeit with reservations and with a lingering respect for the Sceptical tradition—and then, some time in 45B.C., back to the Scepticism of Carneades and Philo.” Working independently of Glucker but reaching essentially the same conclusion in this matter is Steinmetz (1989: 1–21). Glucker characterizes Steinmetz’s work in relationship to his own a few years later (1992: 134–38). Paul MacKendrick (1989:125, n. 14), while citing, it appears, an earlier unpublished version of Glucker’s initial “Philosophical Affiliations” essay, observes that Cicero reverted to “dogmatism in the 60s and 50s.” Likewise, in 1986 and drawing from and supporting Glucker’s unpublished paper, Schofield (1986: 47) contends, (it seems to me without sufficient nuance) that in the Rep. and Leg., which Cicero wrote in the 50s, “there was no sign of allegiance to the sceptical Academy.” The most compelling evidence Glucker cites for such a switch is the exchange between Varro and Cicero in Ac. 1.13. Here Cicero is explicitly asked about his having left the Old Academy for the New and responds in a playful way of the right to move from the Old to the New as Antiochus had migrated from the New to the Old. Then Cicero, with apparently more seriousness, reminds Varro of Philo’s view that there are not two Academies. Later in Ac. 1.43, Varro calls on Cicero to speak as one who abandons (desciscis) the old way for that of Arcesilaus and thus is able to explain the fundamental break (discidium) in the Academy. I think that these passages in Ac. 1 are calling attention to Cicero’s association with the position of Arcesilaus perceived as a break in the Academic position rather than as a personal movement of Cicero from one school or strain to another. Cicero, in other words, is called upon to speak for the “secession” movement even though he is himself inclined to see its continuity with Socratic foundations. In other words, he holds steadily to Philo’s view, and that which characterized the “Fourth Academy” (Tarrant), that there is a single Academy.
There clearly is a tradition of understanding Cicero’s philosophical affiliation that is supportive of Glucker’s view. It is evident in John of Salisbury’s Policraticus (prologue and vii. 1), where he twice speaks of Cicero turning to the New Academy late in his life (1990: Nederman trans. 7149–50). John Henry Newman’s study as a young man of Cicero (1873: 247, 271) indicates a then prevalent belief that late in life Cicero “relapsed into the sceptical tenets….” On the other hand, Glucker himself brings together (1988:38–39 n.18) much of the nineteenth and twentieth century scholarship that essentially concluded that Cicero was an Academic skeptic throughout his life, and he once interpreted the passages (1978: 104–05) at issue in this note essentially as I have done. Glucker also softens his thesis in a note by observing (1988: 53 n. 60) that “even during his Antiochean period, Cicero did not go so far as a wholesale repudiation of the Skeptical Academy.” Then in his revisit to his initial piece and with exemplary openness to argument and evidence, Glucker draws attention to Cicero’s taking Antiochean positions in his late period of identification with the New Academy (1992: 138). This brings him very close to those who are making the case in recent scholarship for the life-long continuity of Cicero’s loyalty to the New Academy—a loyalty to an Academy that Cicero’s sees as allowing him to take positions that are appropriately tested.
Such scholarship seems persuasive and is, in some cases, specifically supportive of the interpretation of the key passage in Leg. in this chapter. Lévy (1992: 116–17, 126, 515 where he specifically focuses on Leg. 1.39, 629 ff.) and Görler (1995: passim but especially 107 ff.). At 111–12, he observes that while Cicero “was a sceptic continuously and incessantly,” his skepticism is more in the foreground in his later works. In this vein, I think Cicero in his last years sees the need to be more open and explicit in defending how his Academic method can be combined with substantive or “dogmatic” conclusions. See also Griffin (1995: 334 f. and especially n. 42), also her later work (1997: 7, n. 24), and Englert (1990: 120 n. 13). Thorsrud (2012: passim), in what is likely the most recent consideration of this question, argues persuasively not only that Cicero was always an Academic skeptic but also that he was always a mitigated skeptic.
- 58.
It is hard to factor in to this analysis the significance of the fact that the Leg. did not appear in a public way or was not published in Cicero’s lifetime. It does not appear in Cicero’s review of his philosophical writings including Rep. in Div. 2, less than two years before his death.
- 59.
Leg. 1.36.
- 60.
Titus Pomponius Atticus is here addressed by his forename.
- 61.
The beginning of this book includes an observation (Leg. 1.4) by Cicero that some traditions and beliefs can be inquired into too diligently.
- 62.
Hortensius, the orator-statesman in Cicero’s Hortensius, appears to have seen philosophy as closely associated with a disabling skepticism and too far removed from a love of truth, which is the basis of wisdom and is granted to human nature itself (Grilli [1962: 8], also frs. 51–52, p. 31). Ruch, in his commentary on Hortensius (1958: 169), argues that skepticism was not defended as philosophical in this work though the challenges and struggles of philosophy were presented as great.
- 63.
Ac. 2.63.
- 64.
Ac. 2.64. At Fin. 3.8–9, Cicero also refers to Lucullus with much admiration, including the observation that he had been one in thought or opinion (sententia conjunctus) with Lucullus. In his correspondence, Cicero shows himself aware that the actual historical Lucullus did not have the philosophical expertise he attributes to him in this dialogue; see Griffin (1989: 14) and Zetzel (1972: 175–76).
- 65.
Ac. 2.10. See Burnyeat’s discussion of the term and passage (1997: 278–79, nn. 4–7).
- 66.
Görler (1997: 37 f).
- 67.
Ac. 1.13–14; 2.10; Att. 13.16,19,22. These provide the basis for the conclusions drawn about the structure and personnel of the Catulus. See Glucker (1978: 86, n. 236) for a discussion of the possibility that Cicero suppressed the Catulus.
- 68.
This discussion is set at the villa of Hortensius at Bauli not far from Cumae where, at the villa of Catulus, the first day’s discussion occurred. Hortensius, like Catulus, is a prominent public figure; he is especially known for his oratorical ability, admired by Cicero and his chief rival for the crown in oratory in their lifetimes. Hortensius, as noted, has championed Antiochus on the first day; so the discussion has moved from the home of a defender of Carneades to one of a defender of Antiochus. There is no evident significance to this move save, perhaps, that the first day was, apparently, chiefly given to a defense of Carneades just as the second is given to the exposition and defense of the thought of Antiochus. There is perhaps significance in this initial version of Academica taking the same cast of characters utilized in the Hortensius. If Hortensius was converted to philosophy, as appears to be the case in the work by his name, the Academica may have been partly conceived as exploring how the conversion to philosophy as love of wisdom is threatened by skepticism.
- 69.
Griffin (1997: 7); on the relationship of Fin. and Ac., see the excellent discussion of Lévy (1992: 2–3 and Part IV).
- 70.
Interpretations of the end of Ac., in varying ways partly overlapping and partly differing from the one that follows in this chapter, are Görler (1997: 54 ff.), Lévy (1992: 177 ff., 274–75), Olshewsky (1991: 283), and Burnyeat (1997: 300 ff.)
- 71.
Ac. 2.148. The variant textual readings for comprobans as non probans or improbans would turn around the meaning of the first part of the sentence and have Catulus disapproving suspension of assent with respect to all matters. This turnabout, though it would result in an internally consistent—albeit uncharacteristic—statement of the Academic position here, would not affect the interpretation that follows above, concerning how “vehementer adsentior” is itself out of character with the kind of skeptical affirmation articulated and defended earlier in this work. In fact, comprobans does accord better with the mainline Academic teaching as summarized by Cicero at Ac. 2.104. See also Olshewsky (1991: 283 n. 23), Görler (1997: 54 n. 29), and Lévy (1992: 274 n. 97).
- 72.
Striker’s comments on Cicero’s use of adsentiri and adprobare (note 28 above) only emphasize the startling character of the Academic position being expressed in the term vehementer adsentior. Startling though it is, we have been partly prepared for it by Cicero’s confession earlier (Ac. 2.66–67) that he, not being the model Wiseman, gives way to assent. Frede comments on the dogmatism of this expression (1987b: 212–13, 215–16) and uses it to illustrate his distinction between classical and dogmatic skepticism (above, n.15). He calls Cicero a dogmatic skeptic but one aware, as the close of Ac. 2 indicates, of the classical form of skepticism and thus of another way of interpreting the Carneadean tradition (218, 220–21). It does not seem necessary to interpret Catulus’s vehementer adsentior as Frede does (212–13) as being attributed to Carneades, or Cicero’s subsequent remarks as a statement denying that this is Carneades’s view. For a discussion set within the Pyrrhonist tradition, of assenting with the assurance that Catulus manifests, see Long and Sedley (1987: 1.472–73). See Thorsrud’s wrestling with this passage (2012: 151 n. 23).
- 73.
Ac. 2.59–60. Yet Cicero, on at least one occasion, seemed to see Arcesilaus slipping into “dogmatism” in the same way.
- 74.
Ac. 2.10. Ac. 2.61 indicates that Lucullus is drawn to one of the less dogmatic formulations of Antiochus’s teaching.
- 75.
In Brut. 315, Cicero speaks of Antiochus as “the noblest and most prudent philosopher of the Old Academy.” See also Leg. 1.54. Here in the Academica, Cicero speaks of the love between himself and Antiochus, refers to him, when addressing Lucullus, with the friendly if not intimate possessive noster, and describes him as “the most refined and acute philosopher” within his direct experience, Ac. 2.113,137,143. Barnes (1989: 61) finds Cicero a “profound student” of Antiochus but properly cautions that this and “mutual love” do not imply “philosophical assent.” “Cicero was no Antiochean.” Earlier, Horsley (1978) treated Antiochus as a key source for Cicero, and Kesler thought (1985:67 n. 38) that Horsley went too far in this.
- 76.
With mostly the Academica in mind, Schmitt (1972: 84) notes the genuine philosophical or inquiring character of Cicero’s dialogues in contrast with scholastic disputations. Griffin (1997: 5) looks at the work as setting the “aporetic tone” for the whole cycle of Cicero’s major works.
- 77.
Before the closing segment of Ac. 2, but near the end of his speech while treating issues in logic involving the Stoics and others, Cicero’s frustration with such highly refined discussions devoid of practical import is evident. At Fin. 5.76–77 Cicero, in his own name, backs away from a discussion of the differences between his skeptical approach to knowing and the way of the Stoics. He claims that this does not amount to a significant difference (magna dissensio) and would require “a very lengthy and quite contentious debate.” At Off. 1.19, Cicero warned against giving too much effort to inquiry into matters obscure, difficult, and unnecessary. In Fin. 5.15, Piso makes the point that there are matters one can tolerate leaving unsettled or unknown, but one must not accept ignorance on the issue of the chief good. At De Or. 2.17–18, Cicero has his major character in the dialogue criticize the “Greek” tendency to enter into subtle arguments on unnecessary points without sensitivity to the occasion. Diderot’s similarity to Cicero’s stance is worth noting. See Lom (2001: 61–62).
- 78.
On the issue of the criterion, Cicero seems, then, to follow what Bett describes as the middle way of Carneades (1989: 74 f., 86, 89).
- 79.
Div. 2.1–4.
- 80.
Discussions of the Academica in Cicero’s letters indicate that his reworking was primarily motivated by his felt need to involve Varro in the dialogue and thereby pay a debt and a form of tribute to him. That this recasting did not involve a significant rewriting of the dialogue is Glucker’s position (1978: 414–15), though his thorough excursus in the same place on “Sources for Cicero’s Lucullus,” 391–423, contain indications of Cicero’s own struggle with what it means to follow Carneades and Cicero’s elevation of the greater importance of Finibus. More weight needs to be given to Cicero’s claim (Att. 326) that he used “unsurpassable care” (sed ita accurate, et nihil posset supra) in his reworking. Additional discussion of the two versions of Academica and the process of composition are found in Lévy (1992: 4, 129 ff.) and Griffin (1997).
- 81.
Görler (1997: 38–39, 44–45) discusses Cicero’s relative disinterest in the complexities of epistemological issues.
- 82.
Cicero’s concluding wish for future discussions on goods and their contraries (Ac. 2.147) has been preceded by clear indications that the most important work for philosophy, in the Academic manner, is inquiry into that which gives form and direction to life. Ac. 2.65,129,132.
- 83.
Off. 1.4–7; 3.33; Fin. 1.11; 5.14–16 (here Piso is giving the Peripatetic position with which Cicero, on this matter, clearly agrees).
- 84.
Hortensius (Grilli 1962: frs. 58–59, p. 33). Fin. 5.86 sees Piso recalling the universal desire for happiness; also, see Fin. 2.42, 86. Both Finibus and Tusculans in their entirety assume that all seek happiness as the supreme good; the primary issue is in what happiness consists.
- 85.
Nussbaum (1994:15, 42, passim) treats the “broad and deep agreement [among the Hellenistic philosophical schools] that the central motivation for philosophizing is the urgency of human suffering, and that the goal of philosophy is human flourishing, or eudamonia.”
- 86.
Tusc. 5.10; Brut. 31. That Cicero’s appreciation for “the Socratic turn” is found in its providing a basis and goal for philosophy, not in its confining philosophy to moral and political concerns, is argued in Nicgorski (1991). Schofield is right (1986: 49 n. 5) overall on Cicero as he cites Ac. 2.127–28 in contending that Cicero is not opposed to studying physics as some scholars have suggested. See the precedent in Stoicism, Long and Sedley (1987:1, 60A at 309).
- 87.
Glucker (1995: 130 ff.), following Sextus Empiricus on the Academic tradition, writes of a “second criterion” applicable in inquiries and distinct from that applicable in sense perception. He considers speculative (“speculates about” or “considers speculatively”?) whether Cicero himself extended the Academic procedure to compare the positions of philosophical schools to determine that which is probabile or veri simile. William (1988: 561 ff.) discusses the two criteria in Sextus. Also Tarrant (1985: 110).
- 88.
Ac. 2.66. See Görler (1995: 91–96) on the different kinds of “rational” testing operative in Cicero. Also Algra (1997: 132, nn. 58, 59; 138); I am not in agreement with Algra’s reading (133–34), suggesting that the ethics section in Ac. is approached from an epistemic perspective.
- 89.
Cicero seems to regard Epicureanism as “the philosophy” easiest to comprehend and easiest to dismiss. Fin. 1.13, 27; 3.1–3; Tusc. 2.7; 4.6–7; 5.108; Ac. 1.5. Also, Inwood (1990: 143–44). As in Nat. D. where Cicero is systematically testing the positions of the major schools, so here in Fin., Cicero takes up the Epicureans first. This may be because of the widespread popularity of the school in Cicero’s time (Fin. 1.13; Tusc. 4.6–7). This popularity seems to be related to their appeal to pleasure and, perhaps, especially the subtle pleasures entailed in their masking pleasure in the garb of the virtues, the attraction to the good and the pleasurable both being satisfied, Fin. 2.44–45. Cicero’s decisiveness, however, with respect to the Epicureans gives his treatment of them something of the character of “let’s get it out of the way, so serious philosophical discussion can begin.”
- 90.
The moral horizon’s prior or fundamental character for Cicero seems to be suggested in the Latin terminology: what is approved (probatus) is that which is probus and represents probitas, that which is choiceworthy or excellent, the most decent course. Woolf (2015: 86, 140) seems aware of a verification standard in Cicero that might be called “wholistic.”
- 91.
Neal Wood’s treatment of Cicero’s political philosophy (1988) takes this approach; see especially 45, 79, 96–97, 160, 208–09.
- 92.
In this respect Charles Kesler’s description of Cicero’s approach to philosophy should be considered: He describes it as a “learning from gentlemanship in the act of questioning it…. Philosophy would be transformed into political philosophy” (1985: 102).
- 93.
The actual holding of office and exercising of leadership may not be a requisite for this perspective, but Cicero clearly sees it as an advantage for attaining or maintaining this perspective, Rep. 1.12–13, 31–37; Leg. 3.14.
Glucker tends away from attributing any specific political dimension to consulares philosophi and to understand the phrase as meaning “first-rate philosophers” or the family of Socratic followers (1965: 229–234). Glucker is responding to Ruch (1959: 99–102). In these pieces and in Ruch’s edition of the Hortensius (1958: 149–51), one finds some consideration of all of Augustine’s uses of this concept attributed to Cicero. In the light of these consular philosophers being seen as marked by a notable integrity (honestate) and their positive inclination on the question of personal immortality, they may well be intended to represent a philosophy, or approach to philosophy, that considers thoroughly and sensitively the fullness of the experience of human life. Of course, to be or to have been a consul is not necessarily to be truly consular (Phil. 7.4). It seems that they are intended to be contrasted with “plebian philosophers” (Tusc. 1.55) or “small-minded philosophers” (minuti—Sen. 85), among whom Cicero would have placed at least “run-of-the mill” Epicureans.
- 94.
The practical perspective in Cicero’s thought bears a resemblance to the fundamental criterion of reasonableness, eúlogon, in the Stoic and Academic schools. Exploring this and differentiating Cicero’s practical perspective must start with the work of Couissins (1983: especially 47 ff.); Burnyeat (1983: “Introduction,” especially 7), in his Carneades paper (1986: especially 61 ff.), Bett (1989: 63 ff.), and Long and Sedley (1987: 1.69 B, E at 450–53 and 458–59). Glucker (1995: 137) speculates that in philosophical judgments, Cicero’s effective criterion is “what accords better with what happens in real life—even where it may be logically inconsistent ….” Cicero’s thought can be seen as a part of a movement to get over the long tension rooted in epistemology between Stoics and Academics, a tension that surfaced between Cicero’s teachers Philo and Antiochus, a tension that Hankinson (1997: especially 212–13) suggests is quite fully resolved in Galen, more than a century after Cicero. Lévy differentiates (1992: 289–90, 491) Cicero’s criterion from eúlogon and pithanon, claiming to be unable to find in these concepts a confidence in the reality of truth; for Cicero the criterion is not to imply some kind of relativism with respect to truth (1992a: 105).
- 95.
Again consider the appropriateness of the Kesler characterization in note 92 above.
- 96.
Note how this operates for Piso as presented by Cicero in Fin.5.16–22. See also Rep. 1.12–13, 31–37; Leg. 3.14. Consider Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics (1151a15–19):
For virtue and vice respectively preserve and destroy the first principle, and in actions the final cause is the first principle, as the hypotheses are in mathematics; neither in that case is it argument that teaches the first principles, nor is it so here—virtue either natural or produced by habituation is what teaches right opinion about the first principle.
- 97.
“Prudence,” or at least a formal analog of prudence in the Aristotelian sense, which appears to be Cicero’s sense, is a key notion in Hellenistic philosophy. Consider the following from the writings of Epicurus: “Of all this the beginning and the greatest good is prudence. Therefore prudence is even more precious than philosophy, and it is the natural source of all the remaining virtues: it teaches the impossibility of living pleasurably without living prudently, honorably and justly ……..” Letter to Menoeceus, 127–32 in Long and Sedley (1987: 1.113–15). For Zeno of Citium and the Stoic tradition on prudence, see also Long and Sedley, 1.377 ff. On the “hedonic calculus” as “practical wisdom” in the Epicurean tradition, see Stokes (1995: 153, 163 ff., 168).
- 98.
Off. 3.71 and Fin. 5.67–68 where prudence is explicitly defined.
- 99.
At Tusc. 3.37, prudence is personified and portrayed as making the choice regarding what constitutes good and happy life.
- 100.
Sextus Empiricus (1967: I.231, p. 134). Stough (1969: 50) describes the Pyrrhonic solution to the issue of the criterion of truth for practical purposes as “merely following the dictates of social convention without commitment or belief….”
- 101.
Sextus Empiricus, 1967a. VII.181–85, pp. 97–101. For Sextus, then, Carneades and the New Academy are seen on the “dogmatic” side of the skeptical tradition; Glucker (1995: 135, n. 84). Also, see Nussbaum (1994: 295) on Sextus and the distinction between Methodist and Empiricist schools of medicine.
- 102.
Ac. 2.123–24,127–28. See also Tusc. 1.17, 48, and 78, which reveal Cicero’s awareness about how his way of probability stands in contrast to an insolence in philosophy, claims of wisdom and overconfidence in obscure matters. Perhaps, Cicero must, above all, distinguish his philosophical response to skepticism from that of the Stoics because he shares so much with them. Görler (1997: 51) considers how a broad understanding of Cicero’s probability criterion can lead him to accept, or at least respect, certain Stoic views in cosmology and physics. Hookway concludes his book (1990: 240) on skepticism by wisely observing that “[a] philosophical response to scepticism, which recognizes the contingency of our confidence without denying its legitimacy, must undermine the attractiveness of that [skeptical] project.” Cicero does seem to have such a philosophical approach and not merely a psychological one. Cicero seems to fit, then, the eloquent description of the skeptic which Frede gave (1987a: 200): “The skeptic saw his task as, on the one hand, not giving in to the temptation to expect more from reason and philosophical thinking than these can provide without, on the other hand, coming to hold reason in contempt.” It is doubtful that Frede regards Cicero or Philo as such a skeptic; much depends, of course, on what is “more” than “reason and philosophical thinking…can provide.”
- 103.
Consider Nat. D. 1.60, where Cotta as a spokesman for Academic skepticism illustrates the comparatively greater difficulty in matters of physics and theology of even making assured judgments of probability. Earlier (Nat. D. 1.12), Cicero, in his own name, describes the capacity of an Academic to draw wisdom for the direction of life with the standard of “the probable.” See the elevation of the distinction between that in physics and that in morals in Ferrary (1974: 749–50, n. 7).
- 104.
Above, p. 24, n. 82.
- 105.
Fin. 2.15, 37. Since human attunements or orientations measure what constitutes happiness, one can understand Cicero saying, as he apparently did say, that to get what one wishes is misery rather than happiness if one wishes for what is unbefitting (non deceat…non oporteat), Hortensius (Grilli, 1962: fr. 59a, p. 35).
- 106.
Brittain (2006: 111) translates fragment 33 from Academica as uttered by Cicero who is using the standard of what is persuasive or truth-like and saying “a wise person should be an investigator of nature, not a creator of terms….” With respect to God’s existence and the nature of the gods, David Fott’s interpretation of Nat. D. (2012: 157) draws attention to how Cicero formulates his judgment at the beginning and end of this dialogue: “In his prologue Cicero observes that most people have said that gods exist; and that view, Cicero remarks, is the one ‘that most appears to be true and to which we all come, led by nature’ (Nat. D. 1.2). Cicero judges at the beginning of the work, as well as at the end.” Ronald Beiner drew to my attention an important observation of Alasdair MacIntyre, which characterizes the relative assurance of moral judgments in ancient and medieval thought in a way that would seem to encompass clearly the Cicero emerging in this book. MacIntyre wrote that it is distinctly “modern” and not faithful to the structures of ancient and medieval thought to see “ethics and politics” as
peripheral modes of enquiry, dependent in key part on what is independently established by epistemology and by the natural sciences (semantics has now to some degree usurped the place of epistemology). But in ancient and medieval thought, ethics and politics afford light to the other disciplines as much as vice versa. Hence from that standpoint, which I share, it is not the case that first I must decide whether some theory of human nature or cosmology is true and only secondly pass a verdict upon an account of the virtues which is ‘based’ upon it. Rather, if we find compelling reasons for accepting a particular view of the virtues and the human telos, that in itself will place constraints on what kind of theory of human nature and what kind of cosmology are rationally acceptable.
Cited in Beiner (1989: 38–39).
- 107.
Div. 2.1. At Tusc. 2.4–5, it is clear that Cicero distinguishes the “selectivity” of his Academic approach from the drive for consistency and the obstinacy of the other philosophical schools. One might say that philosophy in the Academic school of Cicero, or in the Socratic sense, is paradoxically seen as distinct from the school-approach to philosophy. See also Tusc. 4.7; 5.33–34; Ac. 2.114–15,119–20; Inv. 2.5.
- 108.
Harris (1961: 32). In a similar vein, Görler (1995: 102) sees “Ciceronian skepticism,” unlike “Carneadean,” as a “constructive skepticism.” Recall Barnes’s distinction between the eclectic and the syncretic, noted in n. 10 of the Introduction to this book.
- 109.
Burnyeat observes (1982: 25, 30, 40 and n. 57) that the “practical orientation” of both Pyrrhonian and Academic skepticism means that the existence of the external world and one’s impressions of it do not become problematic for living. He writes, “[T]hat ancient skepticism even at its most extreme did not seriously question that one can walk around in the world.” Earlier: “It goes without saying that a recipe for happiness is addressed to people who can live in the world and enjoy their happiness.”
An apt formulation, especially as it pertains to uncertainty at the level of perception, is found in an eighteenth century observation by Richard Bentley (1743: 249) on the force of the probable for Cicero’s practical decisions:
[Cicero’s] Probable had the same influence on his Belief, the same force on his Life and Conduct, as the Others Certain had on theirs. Nay within his own Breast he thought it as much Certain as they; but he was to keep to the Academic Stile; which solely consisted in that Point, that nothing was allow’d Certum, comprehensum, perceptum, ratum, firmum, fixum; but our highest attainment was Probabile et Verisimile.
- 110.
Tusc. 4.82.
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Nicgorski, W. (2016). Chapter 1 Skepticism, Politics, and a Philosophical Foundation. In: Cicero’s Skepticism and His Recovery of Political Philosophy. Recovering Political Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58413-7_2
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