academy in a skeptical direction. After Plato's death, the headship of
the academy passed to a series of men who developed metaphysical and
ethical systems inspired by the positive arguments contained in
dialogues such as the Republic and the Phaedo. Arcesilaus, however,
turned away from such system-building and instead spent his energies
in attacking the arguments of others. According to Cicero, the aim of
such attacks was to produce epoche, or suspension of judgment.
Some later commentators claim that by making this skeptical turn,
Arcesilaus abandoned Platonism. However, sympathetic writers like the
academic skeptic Cicero assert that much of Plato's writings are
actually more in harmony with Arcesilaus' practice than with dogmatic
system-building. In dialogues like the Euthyphro and Laches, Socrates
is shown questioning other people's definitions of terms such as piety
and courage. In so doing, Socrates shows that they do not know what
they think that they know. However, Socrates' questioning does not
lead to positive answers to the questions he raises. In the Apology
Socrates claims that he has no knowledge of his own, but that he is
wiser than other people only insofar as he knows that he does not
know, whereas others are ignorant even of their own ignorance.
Arcesilaus goes beyond this, saying that he knows nothing, not even
that that he knows nothing. Later academic skeptics like Cicero also
stress the tentative and exploratory nature of dialogues like the
Republic: although they do contain positive arguments, the dialogue
form, the back-and-forth among the speakers, and Socrates' own
disavowals at many points of having conclusively established what he
argues for should make us wary of looking at the dialogues as
treatises that expound Platonic doctrine.
The Stoics were the main target of Arcesilaus' attacks. The founder of
Stoicism, Zeno of Citium, developed a systematic and elaborate
metaphysics, ethics, and epistemology. Zeno claimed that there are
certain sense-impressions—so-called kataleptic or "graspable"
impressions—which are the foundation and criterion of knowledge. These
impressions come from objects in the environment and accurately
represent these objects. The Stoics also thought that the wise person
would never assent to what is uncertain, and thus would never be
mistaken. Arcesilaus argued that, according to the Stoics' own
standards, the Stoic wise person would never assent to anything, since
no sense-impression is ever infallible. For any sense-impression,
Arcesilaus said, even if it is accurate, it is always possible in
principle that there be a qualitatively indistinguishable
sense-impression that is inaccurate, and the wise person would thus
have no way of telling which sense-impressions are accurate andwhich
ones are not.
The Stoics thought that without a criterion for knowledge, it would be
impossible to have any basis on which to act. Arcesilaus, however,
said that we can act on the basis the eulogon—the "reasonable." The
eulogon is not a criterion of knowledge, since what is eulogon can be
mistaken, but it can be a basis of action.
Arcesilaus left no writings of his own, so we must rely on second and
third-hand reports in order to reconstruct his views. Even in ancient
times, however, Arcesilaus' views were heavily debated. One major
question is whether Arcesilaus himself thought that it is impossible
to gain knowledge, or just that it is impossible, given the
assumptions of the Stoics about the nature of knowledge. Similarly, it
is not clear whether Arcesilaus advanced the eulogon as his own
skeptical criterion for action, or whether he simply advanced it to
rebut Stoic claims about the necessity of a criterion of knowledge for
action.
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