Assent to Persuasive Impressions
Carneades, 214-129 BCE.
For an attempt to give the current thinking, see Carneades
in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
"These were the arguments which Carneades set forth in detail, in his controversy with
the other philosophers, to prove the non-existence of the criterion; yet as he, 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 the persuasive impression [as this criterion]"
(Sextus Empiricus, Against the Logicians I.166).
"[T]he 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.
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 unpersuasive; 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).
"For all these factors together form the criterion—namely, the persuasive impressions, 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 a
impressions which suggests that there, too, enemies are lying in wait for him; then being carried away
by this impressions, 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 impressions 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).
In dialectic, there is a questioner and a respondent.
The questioner tries to get the respondent to contradict himself. In this effort, the questioner is not required to believe the premises he gets the respondent to accept. Nor is he required to believe that the argument he gets the respondent to accept is valid.
The rules do not prevent the questioner from having beliefs, and of course it is hard to imagine how the questioner could not have beliefs. So, in the absence of very clear evidence, we should not think the Academics thought of themselves as not having beliefs.
We can, though, ask how they understood what they did to form beliefs.
We get the beginning of an answer with Carneades, the fourth head after Arcesilaus.
Carneades talked about assent to persuasive impressions.
"[T]hat which appears true, and appears so vividly, is the criterion of truth according to Carneades" (Sextus Empiricus, Against the Logicians I.171).
"The Academics call these persuasive impressions" (Against the Logicians I.174).
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., suspension of assent. Though Arcesilaus was rather more consistent in this, if what some people think about Carneades is true, since if nothing can be perceived—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 that Carneades was occasionally liable to sink so low as to say that the wise man would have opinions, i.e., that he would err. In my view, at any rate, it is not as certain that some things are graspable—about which I have now been arguing for too long—as that the wise man will have no opinions, i.e., that he will never assent to anything false or unknown. (59)
Lucullus is the speaker.
He says that "we heard yesterday." (He is referring to the now lost Catulus.) What Lucullus says they heard was that Carneades said the wise man can have opinions.
There was uncertainty about what Carneades said because he left no writings. In this, he was following Socrates. For Carneades, though, we have no Plato.
Contary to Carneades, Lucullus thinks the wise man can have no opinions.
The wise man is perfectly rational, and the dispute is over what perfect rationality permits. Carneades, as he is being interpreted, thought this rationality is consistent with having opinions. Lucullus advocates the Stoic position that it is inconsistent.
We tend to think that false beliefs are not a strike against our rationality.
What are the Stoics thinking that we are not?
Lucullus does not say in what context Carneades said that the wise man can have opinions, but it is natural to think that Carneades said it in reply to the inactivity argument.
This makes it hard to know whether Carneades believed what he said. As part of a dialectical argument against the Stoics, he might have been calling attention to a position the Stoics must rule out if they are to hold to their view that knowledge is possible.
Carneades is certainly doing at least this, but he might also believe what he says.
Sextus Empiricus (quoted above in the side notes) shows us more of what Carneades had in mind when he talked about persuasive impressions. He takes Carneades to think that assenting to impressions in terms of their persuasiveness is the ordinary way in which we ourselves form our beliefs. We consider some issue that interests us until we have sufficient evidence to decide it one way or another given the importance we attribute to it. Once we have this evidence, we assent and come to believe the issue is as our thinking has shown it to be.
"[Hortensius said] that you should
at least admit that the wise person apprehends the claim that nothing
is apprehensible. Antipater used to make the same demand: it is still
consistent, he maintained, for someone affirming that nothing is apprehensible
to say that this one claim is apprehensible though nothing else is.
But Carneades resisted him more forcefully, saying that,
far from being consistent, it was actually grossly inconsistent: someone
claiming that nothing is apprehensible makes no exceptions; it follows
necessarily that, since it hasn’t been excepted, the claim itself can’t be apprehensible, either"
(Academica II.28).
Here the question about consistency is whether someone can know that no one knows anything.
Lucullus criticizes Carneades for departing
from the "Academic's ἐποχή."
The noun ἐποχή is from the verb ἐπέχω, "to stop, hold back."
Lucullus takes Arcesilaus and Carneades to believe that "nothing can be perceived" and to conclude that everyone should "stop, hold back" from giving assent.
Lucullus does not seem to worry that the inconsistency of this view he attributes to Arcesilaus and Carneaades is reason to think that they did not hold the view.
That’s why Arcesilaus
denied that anything could be known, not even the residual
claim Socrates 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
"I am burning with
the desire to discover the truth and my arguments express what I really think.
How could I not desire to find the truth when I rejoice if I find something truth-like?
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 accepts anything
false, never assents, and never holds an opinion; but we are investigating the wise man.
I am actually a great opinion-holder. ... I err or wander farther afield. But it’s not
me but the wise man we are investigating. When these
impressions strike my mind or senses sharply, I accept
them, and sometimes even assent to them (although I don’t perceive them,
since I think that nothing can be perceived). I’m not wise,
so I yield to these impressions and can’t resist them"
(Academica II.65),
Cicero seems to distinguish "accepting" and "assenting"?
What is the distinction?
Cicero attributes the greatest importance
to possessing true beliefs, but he seems untroubled that he falls short.
He thinks that he should withhold assent because knowledge is impossible, but
he seems more than content to assent despite the fact that by the standards he himself announces, his
assent is rash and irrational for him to give.
Cicero says that he "yields" and "can't resist" impressions that "strike [his]
mind or senses sharply."
Why does he mean?
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 knowledge
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. (45)
As for the wise man, Arcesilaus agrees with Zeno that his greatest strength is precisely to make sure that he isn’t tricked and see to it that he isn’t deceived. Nothing is farther from the picture we have of the seriousness of the wise person than error, levity, or rashness. So what shall I say about the strength of resistance in the wise man? In fact, Lucullus, you, too, agree that he doesn’t hold any opinions. And since that’s something you approve. (66)
Varro is the speaker in the first passage. Cicero is the speaker in the second.
What Varro says about Arcesilaus is confusing.
Consider the claim that "when arguments of equal weight were found for the opposite sides of the same subject, it was easier to withhold assent from either side."
This appears to be an obvious truth about rationality. If the evidence for and against P is balanced, we should believe neither P nor its negation.
Given that this claim about rationality is obvious, why is Varro pointing it out?
Varro's further remarks are also puzzling.
He appears to take Arcesilaus to have believed that the evidence for and against is balanced for every P and to have concluded that therefore it is never rational to assent to any impression.
This is puzzling because the belief seems to make Arcesilaus assent and thus be irrational.
What Cicero says about Arcesilaus is also confusing.
He says that Arcesilaus, Zeno, and Lucullus agree that the wise man has no opinions because he is perfectly rational. He never gives his assent rashly and thus all his beliefs are knowledge.
We can begin to see why Zeno thought this.
The Stoics think that nature in its providence has arranged things so that we can have the knowledge need to live the best life a human can live. If we are not living this life because we have opinions, the blame falls on us. We have given our assent rashly.
This is what the Stoics are thinking but we are not.
Arcesilaus, as an Academic, does not have the Stoic view about nature. So why does he believe that perfect rationality is inconsistent with having opinions?
This answer is not obivous.
The Academic commitment to ἐποχή is also puzzling.
It looks like it was originally formulated as a commitment not to claim to know anything and that subsequently a question arose in the Academy about the connection to assent.
The timeline for all this (including Cicero's commentary) is roughly as follows.
Zeno founded Stoicism in about 300 BCE. Arcesilaus targeted the Stoic epistemology in dialectic from about 275 to 240 BCE. Chrysippus sharpened ended defended Stoicism in the period roughly from 240 to 210 BCE. From about 170 to 150 BCE, Carneades continued worked to clarify the Academic dialectic against the Stoics. Clitomachus is in the period from about 140 to 110 BCE, and Philo is in the period from about 100 to 88 BCE.
Cicero writes after the the collapse of the Academy and near the end of his life in about 46 to 44 BCE. In the following year, 43 BCE, Cicero died. Julius Caesar was assassinated in the prior year, and the new regiment murdered Cicero to eliminate political enemies.
"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). This is the one disagreement still outstanding. The view that the wise man won’t assent to anything has no part in this controversy: he could fail to perceive anything and yet still have opinions. In fact, this is said to have been the position approved by Carneades—although, since I trust Clitomachus rather than Philo or Metrodorus, I consider it a position that Carneades argued for rather than approved. But let’s put this to one side. It is quite clear that once opinion and perceiving have gone, what follows is the suspension of all assent. Hence, if I show that nothing can be perceived, you must allow that the wise man will never assent (78)
Cicero is the speaker.
This shows within the Academy there were two interpretations of Carneades. One was associated with Clitomachus. The other was associated with Philo and Metrodorus.
Cicero endorses Clitomachus's interpretation of Carneades.
For my part, I regard standing firm against one’s impressions, fighting off opinions, and restraining one’s assent from slipping as great actions; and I believe Clitomachus when he writes that Carneades had accomplished an almost Herculean labour in that he had driven assent—i.e., opinion and rashness—from our minds, as one would drive out a wild and savage monster. (108)
Cicero is the speaker.
Cicero endorses Clitomachus's interpretation of Carneades.
Cicero also has a certain understanding of Clitomachus's interpretation. He takes him to explain how Carneades showed that we can live without "opinion and rashness."
We need to keep in mind that Cicero might be wrong about Clitomachus's interpretation.
If I were arguing with a Peripatetic, I would deal straightforwardly with a straightforward person.
If he said that an
Cicero is the speaker.
We see again there was uncertainty in the Academy about how to understand Carneades.
And it’s true that Carneades used to defend Calliphon’s view so enthusiastically that he even seemed to approve it—though Clitomachus affirmed that he never could work out which view had Carneades’ approval. (139)
Cicero is the speaker.
This is in tension with Cicero's previous claim that Clitomachus is right about Carneades.
