The Academics

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⊕ • Arcesilaus, 315-240 BCE.
Arcesilaus succeeded Crates (the fifth head of the Academy), changed the focus of the Academy, and initiated the "New" Academy.

"Arcesilaus... was the first to suspend his judgement owing to the contradictions of opposing arguments. He was also the first to argue on both sides of a question, and the first to meddle with the system handed down by Plato" (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers IV.6.28).

• Carneades, 214-129 BCE.
Carneades (the tenth head of the Academy) is Arcesilaus's most distinguished successor.

"Carneades... studied carefully the writings of the Stoics and particularly those of Chrysippus, and by combating these successfully he became so famous" (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers IV.9.62).

• Clitomachus, 187-110 BCE.
Clitomachus is the thirteenth head of the Academy.

"[Carneades] had many other disciples, but the most illustrious of them all was Clitomachus.... He succeeded Carneades in the headship of the school, and by his writings did much to elucidate his opinions" (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers IV.9.66).

• Philo of Larisa, 160-83 BCE.
Philo succeeded Clitomachus and was the last head of the Academy.

• Cicero, 106-43 BCE

• Sextus Empiricus, 2nd or 3rd century CE In 265 BCE, Arcesilaus succeeded Crates as the sixth head of the Academy Plato founded in 387 BCE.

Arcesilaus returned the focus of the Academy to the Socratic practice of exposing the pretense to wisdom. Within the school there were disputes bout how to understand this new focus. These disputes eventually gave rise to the establishment of a new school under the name of "Pyrrhonian skepticism." This happened in about 100 BCE.

Pyrrhonian skepticism is beyond the scope of this class. We stop with the Academics.

THE NEW ACADEMY

Cicero's Academica is the source for much of what is known about the Academics.

• Academica I.45
(Cicero’s Speech 43-46)

⊕ Arcesilaus used to deny that anything could be known, not even the residual claim Socrates had allowed himself, i.e., the knowledge that he didn’t know anything. He thought that everything was hidden so deeply and that nothing could be discerned or understood. For these reasons, he thought that we shouldn’t assert or affirm anything, or approve it with assent: we should always curb our rashness and restrain ourselves from any slip. But he considered it particularly rash to approve something false or unknown, because nothing was more shameful than for one’s assent or approval to outrun cognition and perception. His practice was consistent with this theory, so that by arguing against everyone’s views he led most of them away from their own: when arguments of equal weight were found for the opposite sides of the same subject, it was easier to withhold assent from either side.

Notes on the Text

⊕ "assent" (adsensio), "approval" (approbatio)
"cognition"(cognitio), "perception" (perceptio)

The Latin perceptio (which is the etymological root of the English word 'perception') means "a taking, receiving; a gathering in, collecting." Cicero uses perceptio to translate κατάληψις in the Stoics. They use this term to express assent to a cognitive impression. Arcesilaus changes the focus in the Academy. Cicero calls the Academy with this changed focus the "New" Academy (Academica I.46). This is the Academy from Arcesilaus to Philo.

Arcesilaus questions in the manner of Socrates. His primary opponents are Zeno and the Stoics.

A question arose in the Academy about how to understand Arcesilaus.

In what way does he advocate that no one should assent?

If Arcesilaus assents to the proposition that no one should assent, it would seem that there must be two kinds of assent: one that is permitted and one that is not. Otherwise he violates his own prohibition.

⊕ "Arcesilaus’s position wasn’t widely held at first, despite the prominence he achieved by the sharpness of his intellect and his curiously attractive manner of argument. After him, it was retained by Lacydes alone. Later, however, it was strengthened by Carneades, who was four generations from Arcesilaus (since he was a student of Hegesinus, who was a student of Evandrus, the pupil of Lacydes, who had studied with Arcesilaus). But Carneades maintained the Academic position for a long time—he lived for ninety years—and his students did rather well. Clitomachus was his most industrious student, as the number of his books reveals, but Hagnon was equally remarkable for his intellect, Charmadas for his eloquence, and Melanthius of Rhodes for his charm. (Metrodorus of Stratonicea was also thought to have known Carneades well.) More recently, your teacher Philo worked with Clitomachus for many years; and while Philo lived the Academy didn’t lack an advocate" (Academica II.16-17).

Arcesilaus
Lacydes
Evandrus
Hegesinus
Carneades
Clitomachus
Philo It became a problem within the Academy to explain what these kinds of assent are.

• Academica II.77
(Cicero’s Speech 64-147)

Arcesilaus asked Zeno [the founder of Stoicism], we may suppose, what would happen if the wise person couldn’t perceive anything, but it was a mark of wisdom not to hold opinions. Zeno replied, no doubt, that the wise person wouldn’t hold any opinions because there was something that could be perceived. So what was that? An impression, I suppose. Well, what kind of impression? Then Zeno defined it thus: an impression from what is, stamped, impressed, and molded just as it is. After that, Arcesilaus went on to ask what would happen if a true impression was just like a false one. At this point, Zeno was sharp enough to see that no impression would be cognitive if one that came from what is was such that there could be one just like it from what is not. Arcesilaus agreed that this was a good addition to the definition, since neither a false impression, nor a true impression just like a false one, was cognitive. So then he set to work with his arguments, to show that there is no impression from something true such that there could not be one just like it from something false.

Notes on the Text

Arcesilaus is first of all engaging in dialectic in the manner of Socrates.

In dialectic, there is a questioner and a respondent. The questioner tries to get the respondent to contradict himself. In doing this, the questioner need not believe any of the things to which he gets the respondent to assent.

Nothing, though, prevents the questioner from having beliefs.

Arcesilaus tries to get the Stoics to contradict their claim that the wise do not hold opinions.

Cicero makes the Stoic argument for the that the wise do not hold opinions depend on the existence of cognitive impressions. It is not clear, though, how the argument is supposed to go.

A first guess is that the wise do not hold opinions because they restrict their assent to cognitive impressions.

This, though, can seem to be in tension with Stoic view that Diogenes Laertius reports.

"Sphaerus [a Stoic] went to Ptolemy IV Philopator at Alexandria. ⊕ Ptolemy IV Philopator.
Macdonian King of Egypt who reigned 221–205 BCE One day there was a discussion about whether a wise man would allow himself to be guided by opinion, and when Sphaerus affirmed that he would not, the king, wishing to refute him, ordered some pomegranates of wax to be set before him; and when Sphaerus was deceived by them, the king shouted that he had given his assent to a false impression. But Sphaerus answered very neatly, that he had not given his assent to the fact that they were pomegranates, but to the fact that it was reasonable (εὔλογόν) that they are pomegranates. And he pointed out that a cognitive impression and a reasonable impression are different" (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers VII.6.177).

What is the view in this passage?

The "reasonable impression" seems to be the impression that it is reasonable that these things are pomegranates.

This impression is not opinion. So it must be knowledge.

Is this impression is cognitive?

The text can suggest it is not, but it must be cognitive if the assent to it is knowledge.

So presumably what Sphaerus points out is that although not every impression with the propositional content that it is reasonable that these things are pomegranates is cognitive, the one to which he assented was cognitive.

• Academica II.40-41
(Lucullus’s Speech II.11-62)

The Academics bring their whole case together in a single proof as follows: some impressions are true, others false; and, a false impression cannot be perceived; ⊕ but, every true impression is such that one could also have a false impression just like it. And, when two impressions are such that they don’t differ at all, it isn’t possible that one of them is cognitive, while the other isn’t. Therefore, no impression is capable of being perceived.

They take two of the premises they need for the conclusion they’re driving at are conceded, since no one denies them. They are that false impressions cannot be perceived and that when two impressions don’t differ at all, it’s not possible that one is cognitive and the other is not. But they defend the remaining two premises at length and with various arguments, namely, that some impressions are true and others are false and that every impression from something true is such that there could also be an impression from something false just like it.

• Academica II.54
(Lucullus’s Speech II.11-62)

⊕ [T]he way in which they [the Academics] harp on cases of resemblance between twins or between the seals stamped by signet-rings is childish. For which of us denies that resemblances exist, since they are manifest in ever so many things? But if the fact that many things are like many other things is enough to do away with cognition, why are you not content with that, especially as we admit it, and why do you prefer to urge a contention utterly excluded by the nature of things.... For it is granted that two twins are alike, and that might have satisfied you; but you want them to be not alike but downright identical, which is absolutely impossible.

• Academica II.84
(Cicero’s Speech 64-147)

If a person looking at Publius Servilius Geminus thought he saw [his twin] Quintus, he was encountering an impression of a sort that could not be perceived, because there was no mark to distinguish a true impression from a false one; and if that mode of distinguishing were removed, what mark would he have, of such a sort that it could not be false, to help him to recognize Gaius Cotta, who was twice consul with Geminus? You say that so great a degree of resemblance does not exist in the world [because indiscernibles are identical]. ⊕ You show fight, no doubt, but you have an easy-going opponent; let us grant by all means that it does not exist, but undoubtedly it can appear to exist, and therefore it will cheat the sense, and if a single case of resemblance has done that, it will have made everything doubtful; for when that proper canon of recognition has been removed, even if the man himself who you see is the man he appears to you to be, nevertheless you will not make that judgement, as you it it ought to be made, by means of a mark of such a sort that a false likeness could not have the same character.

Notes on the Text

Why do the Academics need to defend the premise that some impressions are true and that others are false?

If this is not disputed, then the argument is

1.  For every true impression, there is an indistinguishable false impression.
2.  If (1) is true, then no impression is cognitive.
----
3.  No impression is cognitive.

The Academics point to twins and other similar objects to establish (1), but Stoics did not find this convincing. They thought that with practice we can learn to distinguish twins and other such objects.

The Stoics thought too that "indiscernibles are identical": if x and y are indiscernible, then x is y.

What does "indiscernible" mean here?

The rough idea is that x and y have the same features.

(The thesis that "indiscernibles are identical" is different from the thesis "identicals are indiscernible." This is the thesis that if x is y, then x and y are indiscernible. The thesis that "identicals are indiscernible" seems true. Given that x and y are identical, there is only one object. So x and y have the same features.)

Even if indiscernibles are identical, it seems that there might be things that human beings cannot distinguish.

• Academica II.31
(Lucullus’s Speech II.11-62)

So since the human mind is wholly adapted for knowledge of the world and for constancy of life, it welcomes cognition beyond all else; and it loves κατάληψις (which, as I said, translates literally as a grasp) both on its own account— nothing is dearer to the mind than the light of truth—and for its use. Hence it uses the senses, produces the systematic arts as almost second senses, and strengthens philosophy to such a pitch that it creates virtue, the one thing that makes our whole lives coherent. So people who assert that nothing can be grasped rob us of the very instruments or tools of life, or rather they completely overturn all of life and deprive animals of their minds. As a result it’s difficult for me to criticize their rashness to the degree my case demands.

• Academica II.33
(Lucullus’s Speech II.11-62)

⊕ Sextus Empiricus's Against the Logicians is the other most important source for the Academics.

"[Carneades] too, himself requires a criterion for the conduct of life and for the attainment of happiness, he is practically compelled on his own account to frame a theory about it, and to adopt both the persuasive impression and that which is at once persuasive and irreversible and tested" (Sextus Empiricus, Against the Logicians I.166).

"[T]hat which appears true, and appears so vividly, is the criterion of truth according to the School of Carneades. And, being the criterion, it has a large extension, and when extended one impression reveals itself as more persuasive and more vivid than another. ... Hence the criterion will be the apparently true impression, which the Academics called persuasive" (Sextus Empiricus, Against the Logicians I.171).

"For all these factors together form the criterion—namely, the persuasive impression, and that which is at once both persuasive and irreversible and besides these that which is at once persuasive and irreversible and tested. And it is because of this that, just as in ordinary life when we are investigating a small matter we question a single witness, but in a greater matter several, and when the matter investigated is still more important we cross-question each of the witnesses on the testimony of the others,—so likewise, says Carneades, in trivial matters we employ as criterion only the persuasive impressions, but in greater matters the irreversible, and in matters which contribute to happiness the tested impressions. Moreover, just as they adopt, they say, a different impressions to suit different cases, so also in different circumstances they do not cling to the same impressions. For they declare that they attend to the immediately persuasive in cases where the circumstances do not afford time for an accurate consideration of the matter. A man, for example, is being pursued by enemies, and coming to a ditch he receives an impression which suggests that there, too, enemies are lying in wait for him; then being carried away by this impression, as persuasive, he turns aside and avoids the ditch, being led by the persuasiveness of the impressions, before he has exactly ascertained whether or not there really is an ambush of the enemy at the spot. But they follow the persuasive and tested impression in cases where time is afforded for using their judgement on the object presented with deliberation and thorough examination. For example, on seeing a coil of rope in an unlighted room a man jumps over it, conceiving it for the moment to be a snake, but turning back afterwards he inquires into the truth, and on finding it motionless he is already inclined to think that it is not a snake, but as he reckons, all the same, that snakes too are motionless at times when numbed by winter’s frost, he prods at the coiled mass with a stick, and then, after thus testing the impressions received, he assents to the fact that it is false to suppose that the body presented to him is a snake" (Sextus Empiricus, Against the Logicians I.184).

"For we believe that this man is Socrates from the fact that he possesses all his customary qualities—colour, size, shape, converse, coat, and his position in a place where there is no one exactly like him. And just as some doctors do not deduce that it is a true case of fever from one symptom only—such as too quick a pulse or a very high temperature—but from a concurrence, such as that of a high temperature with a rapid pulse and soreness to the touch and flushing and thirst and analogous symptoms; so also the Academic forms his judgement of truth by the concurrence of impressions, and when none of the impressions in the concurrence provokes in him a suspicion of its falsity he asserts that the impression is true. And that the 'irreversible' impression is a concurrence capable of implanting belief is plain from the case of Menelaus; for when he had left behind him on the ship the wraith of Helen—which he had brought with him from Troy, thinking it to be the true Helen—and had landed on the island of Pharos, he beheld the true Helen, but though he received from her a true impression, yet he did not believe that impressions owing to his mind being warped by that other impression from which he derived the knowledge that he had left Helen behind in the ship. Such then is the 'irreversible' impression; and it too seems to possess extension inasmuch as one is found to be more irreversible than another. Still more trustworthy than the irreversible impressions and supremely perfect is that which creates judgement; for it, in addition to being irreversible, is also 'tested.' What the distinctive feature of this impression is we must next explain. Now in the case of the irreversible impression it is merely required that none of the impressions in the concurrence should disturb us by a suspicion of its falsity but all should be apparently true and not improbable; but in the case of the concurrence which involves the 'tested' impression, we scrutinize attentively each of the impressions in the concurrence" (Sextus Empiricus, Against the Logicians I.178). Whether it’s persuasive impressions or unimpeded persuasive impressions, as Carneades held, or something else again you’re proposing to follow, you’re going to have to come back to the sort of impression at issue between us.

Notes on the Text

Carneades introduced the "persuasive impression (φαντασία πιθανὴ)."

He does this first of all in dialectic against the Stoics.

The Stoics argued that if no impression were cognitive, it would not be rational to assent. Carneades, in reply, seems to have argued that it would be rational to assent because there are persuasive impressions.

Carneades also, though, seems to believe that it is rational to assent to persuasive impressions.

Sextus Empiricus (second or third century CE) understands Carneades to think that assent to persuasive impressions the ordinary way human beings go about thinking about things and forming beliefs. Unless something intervenes to stop them, it seems that human beings ordinarily consider whether something is true until they have sufficient evidence to decide it one way or another given the importance they attach to it. Once they have this evidence, they accept that the issue is as their thinking has shown it to be.

• Academica II.59
(Lucullus’s Speech II.11-62)

It’s absurd for you to say that you follow persuasive impressions if you are not impeded in any way. First, how can you not be impeded when true and false impressions are not distinct? Second, how can something be the criterion of truth when it is shared by falsehood? These views necessarily spawned the Academics’s ἐποχή, i.e., a holding back of assent. Though Arcesilaus was more consistent in this, if what some people think about Carneades is true, since if nothing is graspable—a view both held—we must do away with assent. (What is more pointless than approving something that isn’t known?) But we heard yesterday [in the now lost Catulus] that Carneades was occasionally liable to sink so low as to say that the wise person would have opinions, i.e., that he would err. ⊕

• Academica II.67
(Cicero’s Speech 64-147)

⊕ If the wise man ever assents to anything, he will sometimes form an opinion; but he never will form an opinion; therefore he will not assent to anything. Arcesilaus approved this argument, since he supported the first and second premises. Carneades sometimes gave as his second premise the concession that the wise would sometimes assent; and from this it followed that the wise would hold opinions (a conclusion you won’t accept, and rightly, in my view). But the Stoics, with Antiochus in agreement, thought that the first premise—if the wise person were to assent, he would hold opinions—was false: they thought that he could distinguish the false from the true and the imperceptible from the perceptible.

• Academica II.78
(Cicero’s Speech 64-147)

⊕ [The wise man] might perceive nothing and yet form an opinion—a view which is said to have been approved by Carneades; although for my own part, trusting Clitomachus more than Philo or Metrodorus, I believe that Carneades did not so much approve this view as advance it in argument.

• Academica II.108
(Cicero’s Speech 64-147)

⊕ I agree with Clitomachus when he writes that Carneades really did accomplish an almost Herculean labour in ridding our minds of that fierce wild beast, the act of assent, that is of mere opinion and hasty thinking.

• Academica II.139
(Cicero’s Speech 64-147)

Clitomachus used to declare that he had never been able to understand what Carneades did accept.

Notes on the Text

The "Academics's ἐποχή" is the Academic view that for every impression, one should "hold back" from assent because it is not possible to defend the content of the impression in Socratic dialectic.

There seems to have been some confusion over Carneades really did hold that the wise can assent.

Why?

Arcesilaus seems to assent to the view that no one should assent. It was a puzzle within the Academy about how to make sense of this. Carneades seems to distinguish two kinds of assent. There is the assent the Stoics give to cognitive impressions, and there is the assent to persuasive impressions that Academic is permitted to give. It seems, though, that within the Academy there was some reluctance to call this assent. So sometimes the Academic position can seem to be that they do "follow" impressions but do not "assent" to them.

• Academica II.98-99
(Cicero’s Speech 64-147)

To make sure no one suspects that I’m making up what I’m going to say, I will use citations from Clitomachus since he worked with Carneades right up to his old age, and he was a clever man, as you’d expect from a Carthaginian, as well as a serious and diligent scholar. There are four books of his On Suspending Assent, but the citations I am about to give are from the first. Carneades’s view is that there are two categories of impressions, the first subdivided on the principle that some impressions are cognitive, some aren’t, the second on the principle that some impressions are persuasive, some aren’t. Now the Academic arguments against the senses and against perspicuity pertain to the first category, and shouldn’t be directed at the second. So his view, Clitomachus says, is that while there are no impressions allowing for apprehension, there are many allowing for approval. It would be contrary to nature were there no persuasive impressions— and the result would be the complete overturning of life that you remarked on, Lucullus. ⊕ So many perceptual impressions deserve our approval, too, provided only that one remembers that none of them is such that there couldn’t be a false impression not differing from it at all. Thus the wise person will use whatever strikes him as persuasive, if nothing contrary to its persuasiveness presents itself; and the whole structure of his life will be governed in this way. After all, the wise person you promote also follows persuasive impressions in many cases—i.e., impressions that aren’t apprehended or assented to, but are truth-like.

• Academica II.104
(Cicero’s Speech 64-147)

After setting out these points, he [Clitomachus] adds that the wise man is said to withhold assent in two ways, one when the meaning is that ⊕ If the adverb omnino modifies the verb adsentiri, not the object of the verb rei nulli, then the translation is "he gives assent to nothing absolutely [or: entirely]." Otherwise, the translation is "assent to nothing at all."

The Loeb translator tries to have it both ways: " ... he gives absolute assent to no presentation at all...." he gives assent to no impression absolutely (omnino eum rei nulli adsentiri), the other when he restrains himself from replying so as to convey approval or disapproval of something, with the consequence that he neither makes a negation nor an affirmation; and that this being so. He holds that he [as an Academic], never assents [absolutely], but that he is guided ⊕ by persuasiveness, and wherever this confronts him or is wanting he can answer yes or no accordingly. In fact as we hold that he who restrains himself from [giving] assent [absolutely] about all things nevertheless does move and does act, the view is that there remain impressions of a sort that arouse us to action, and also answers that we can give in the affirmative or the negative in reply to questions, merely following a corresponding impression, provided that we answer without [giving] assent [absolutely]; but that nevertheless not all impressions of this character were actually approved, but those that nothing hindered.

Notes on the Text

Clitomachus tried to clarify Carneades's position.

Cicero says that Clitomachus distinguishes two ways the Academic could withhold assent because there are no cognitive impressions. He could give no assent "absolutely" or he could "restrain himself from replying" altogether. Clitomachus thinks that the Academic withholds assent in the first way but not in the second. He never gives "assent absolutely" to any impression, but he does not "restrain himself from replying" to every impression he gets. Sometimes he says 'yes' or 'no' to his impressions, and hence "convey[s] approval or disapproval," in such a way that he follows his impressions in terms of whether he finds them persuasive or not.

The way the Academic withholds assent does not make him inactive.

• Academica II.7
(Introduction 1-10, Cicero)

Our arguments have no other purpose than to draw out and give shape to the truth or the nearest possible approximation to it (aut verum sit aut ad id quam proxime accedat). Nor is there any difference between us and those who think that they have knowledge except that they have no ⊕ doubt their views are true, whereas we hold many as persuasive, ones we can readily follow but can scarcely affirm.

• Academica II.32
(Lucullus’s Speech II.11-62)

For they [the Academics] hold (and this in fact, I noticed, excites your school extremely) that something is 'persuasive' or as it were resembling the truth (veri simile), and that this provides them with a canon of judgement both in the conduct of life and in investigation and discussion.

• Academica II.36.
(Lucullus’s Speech II.11-62)

What do you [Academics] mean by your ‘persuasive impressions’? If you mean that you rely on what strikes you and seems persuasive at, in effect, first glance, what could be sillier than that? But if they [the Academics] say that they follow impressions that arise from some examination or detailed consideration, they still won’t find any way out [of the problem]. First, because our trust in impressions that don’t differ at all is removed from all of them equally. Second, because they allow that after the wise person has played his part thoroughly by subjecting everything to a meticulous examination, it’s still possible for his impression to be truth-like (veri simile) and yet very far from being true. So even if they do approach the truth for the most part or its closest approximation, as they say they do, they still won’t be able to be confident in their claims.

• Academica II.66
(Cicero’s Speech 64-147)

How could I not desire to find the truth when I rejoice if I find something truth-like (simile veri)? But just as I judge this, seeing truths, to be the best thing, so approving falsehoods in the place of truths is the worst. Not that I am someone who never approves anything false, never assents, and never holds an opinion; but we are investigating the wise person. I am actually a great opinion-holder: I’m not wise.

• Academica II.99
(Cicero’s Speech 64-147)

In fact even the person whom your school [the Stoics] brings on the stage as the wise man follows many things persuasive, that he has not grasped nor perceived nor assented to but that possess verisimilitude (similia veri); and if he were not to approve them, all life would be done away with.

• Academica II.107
(Cicero’s Speech 64-147)

⊕ It is open to the wise to follow unimpeded truth-like (veri similitudinem) impressions without assent.

• Academica II.148
(Conclusion 148, Lucullus, Cicero, Catulus, Hortensius)

⊕   My view? replied Catulus, I am coming round to the view of my father, which indeed he used to say was that of Carneades, and am beginning to think that nothing can be perceived, but to deem that the wise man will assent to something not perceived, that is, will hold an opinion, but with the qualification that he will understand that it is an opinion and will know that there is nothing that can be comprehended and perceived; and therefore although [in this way] agreeing with their rule of ἐποχή as to everything, I assent emphatically to that second view, that nothing exists that can be perceived.
  I have your view, said I, and I do not think it quite negligible; but pray, Hortensius, what do you think?
  Away with it [away with assent and away with us]! he replied with a laugh.
  I take you, said I, for that is the true Academic verdict.
The conversation thus concluded, Catulus stayed behind, while we went down to our boats.

Notes on the Text

The Academic is permitted to assent to persuasive impressions.

The question is why this assent is rational.

Clitomachus seems to have thought that it is rational because the Academics positively evaluate this method of giving assent. They think they should follow this method, and they criticize those who do not.

This, though, does not seem to have been the only answer.

Another answer seems to have been that assenting to impressions in terms of their persuasiveness is rational because it results in beliefs that either are true or are "truth-like" (simile veri).

This raises two questions.

Who give this answer and what exactly is it?

It seems that Philo gave the answer. He became head of the Academy after Carneades.

What is the difference between this answer Philo gives and the one Clitomachus gives?

Philo's answer is more like the Stoic answer.

The Stoic method assent would be better because it results in true beliefs, but the Academics think that there are no cognitive impressions. So they settle for their method assent to persuasive impressions. This method results beliefs that at least "resemble the truth" if it does not result in beliefs that are true.

It is not easy, though, to see why the Academics think this.

The Stoics think that nature in its providence arranges things so that there are cognitive impressions and so that human beings can restrict their assent to these impressions.

There does not seem to be any similar story the Academics can tell. It seems that all they can say is what Clitomachus has already said. The Academic forms beliefs when he thinks he has sufficient evidence given the importance he attributes to the matter. Sometimes he later thinks his beliefs are false and retracts them because he has gotten new evidence, but the Stoics do not provide an alternative because no impression is cognitive.

• Academica II.18
(Lucullus’s Speech II.11-62)

⊕ "Philo asserts that objects are not graspable (ἀκατάληπτα) so far as concerns the Stoic criterion, that is to say cognitive impression, but are graspable..." (Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism I.33). Philo introduced certain novelties because he found it difficult to resist the arguments against the Academics. ... When he claimed that nothing was graspable (that is how I translate ἀκατάληπτον), if that impression of which he spoke (for we have by this time sufficiently habituated ourselves by our yesterday’s conversation to this rendering of φαντασίᾳ) was, as Zeno defined it, an impression impressed and moulded from the object from which it came in a form such as it could not have if it came from an object that was not the one that it actually did come from. (We declare Zeno's definition absolutely correct, for how can anything be grasped in such a way as to make you absolutely confident that it has been perceived and known, if it something false could be just like it?) Well, when he weakens and does away with this, he does away with the criterion of known and unknown.

Notes on the Text

The view attributed to Philo seems to be that although there is no knowledge as the Stoics conceive of knowledge (in terms of assent to a cognitive impression no rational means can force one to withdraw), the Academic can have knowledge if the persuasive impression to which he assents is true.

This seems to be Philo's view in his "Roman" Books (lectures he gave in Rome in 88 BCE).

"[T]hey said that they had heard these views in Rome from Philo" (Academica II.11).

Philo move to Rome in 88 BCE to escape the Mithridatic War. In 86 BCE, as part of this conflict, the Roman general Sulla destroyed the grounds of the Academy in his siege of Athens.

It is not clear whether Philo returned to Athens. He died in 84 BCE.