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Carneades' Approval As a Weak Assertion: a Non-Dialectical This article was downloaded by: [89.229.68.111] On: 14 August 2015, At: 06:22 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG The European Legacy: Toward New Paradigms Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cele20 Carneades’ Approval as a Weak Assertion: A Non-Dialectical Interpretation of Academic Skepticism Renata Zieminskaa a Philosophy Department, University of Szczecin, Krakowska 71, Szczecin 71-017, Poland. Email: Published online: 22 Jun 2015. Click for updates To cite this article: Renata Zieminska (2015) Carneades’ Approval as a Weak Assertion: A Non- Dialectical Interpretation of Academic Skepticism, The European Legacy: Toward New Paradigms, 20:6, 591-602, DOI: 10.1080/10848770.2015.1049904 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10848770.2015.1049904 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. 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Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms- and-conditions Downloaded by [89.229.68.111] at 06:22 14 August 2015 The European Legacy, 2015 Vol. 20, No. 6, 591–602, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10848770.2015.1049904 Carneades’ Approval as a Weak Assertion: A Non- Dialectical Interpretation of Academic Skepticism RENATA ZIEMINSKA ABSTRACT Academic skepticism is usually interpreted as a type of discourse without an assertion (a dialectical interpretation). I argue against this interpretation. One can interpret Carneades’ notion of approval as our notion of weak assertion and thereby ascribe to him his own views (a non-dialectical inter- pretation). In Academica Cicero reports the debate about the status of approval as a kind of assent among Carneades’ followers, especially the views of Clitomachus and Philo of Larissa. According to Clitomachus, approving impressions implies acting on them without taking them as true, while according to Philo of Larissa, approval is taking something as true without certainty. In more modern terms, we can say that Philo refers to the notion of weak assertion and Clitomachus to non-assertion. Thus Clitomachus’ reading correlates with a dialectical reading, and Philo’s reading correlates with a non-dialectical reading. Philo’s reading leads to the interpretation of Carneades as a quasi-fallibilist. It is difficult to establish the precise position of the historical Carneades because he was hesitant in his oral teaching. Still, there is some basis in Carneades’ theory for interpreting approval as weak assertion (comprising three degrees of persuasiveness involving rational consideration of what seems to be true). My aim in this essay is thus to argue that a quasi-fallibilist and non-dialectical reading is applicable to the historical Carneades. INTRODUCTION Ancient skepticism—understood as the total suspension of judgment (epoche¯)—presents a serious problem of inconsistency. The linguistic activity of the ancient skeptics seems Downloaded by [89.229.68.111] at 06:22 14 August 2015 to entail a contradiction between explicit speech acts and their implicit presupposi- tions. For, when they assert that “nothing can be known,” they presuppose at the same time that they know something, namely, that nothing can be known and that they have reasons to state this. According to recent scholarship,1 the most effective way of reading ancient skepticism consistently is by using a dialectical interpretation. Skepticism should be a method of refuting other views, that is, a type of discourse with- out assertion. Skeptical activity, according to this interpretation, is practiced through certain reductio ad absurdum arguments. As such, a skeptic takes her interlocutor’s views as premises in her argument and brings them to a contradiction, yet neither the premises nor the conclusions are asserted. The ancient skeptic Carneades, according Philosophy Department, University of Szczecin, Krakowska 71, Szczecin 71-017, Poland. Email: [email protected]. © 2015 International Society for the Study of European Ideas 592 RENATA ZIEMINSKA to the dialectical interpretation, was simply a dialectician discussing other views: he accepted no doctrines and did not espouse his own views, not even his view that a wise person should suspend all judgments. The problem of inconsistency would disappear if there were no assertions. However, the global dialectical interpretation of ancient skepticism has been undermined by contemporary theories of language. Speaking and arguing implicitly require certain presuppositions to be taken as true, and so the attitude of non-assertion is possible only locally.2 Skepticism merely as a method of argumentation would have to be part of another, more general philosophical view, such as Empiricism or Pla- tonism, which would provide a conception and description of the world as a basis for formulating it as a method. In the case of Carneades, rejecting the Stoics’ epistemology may be simply a series of reductio ad absurdum arguments, but Carneades’ theory of the persuasive (pithanon) impression is not based on Stoic assumptions. It is rather an attempt to change Stoic assumptions and thereby to create a new notion of approval to better explain everyday beliefs and skeptical attitudes. I claim that the approval of persuasive impressions can be explained as a weak assertion (a quasi-fallibilist inter- pretation). If this is so, there are grounds for ascribing to Carneades some philosophical views as his own beliefs (a non-dialectical interpretation). Epoche¯ would be restricted to strong assertions. Approval, I claim, is the key to understanding Carneades’ skepti- cism. If approval is a weak assertion, Carneades would accept fallible views on behalf of the skeptics and would himself have his own views. However, if approval is a non- assertion, Carneades would not be able to have his own consistent views. Harald Thorsrud offers a fallibilist and non-dialectical interpretation of Carneades’ skepticism.3 I will support this interpretation by focusing on the notion of approval and by commenting on Thorsrud’s notion of fallibilism and explanation of the inco- herence in Cicero’s books. My reasons are not only epistemological (contemporary theories of belief acquisition) but also historical (the content of the Carneadean theory of the persuasive). I will begin with Carneades’ basic arguments for epoche¯. SKEPTICAL ARGUMENTS Downloaded by [89.229.68.111] at 06:22 14 August 2015 Both Cicero and Sextus Empiricus present Carneades as a follower of Arcesilaus who attacked Stoic epistemology, especially the Stoics’ use of a kataleptike impression as a criterion of truth. According to the Stoics, kataleptike, a graspable impression, is “plain and striking, all but grabs us by the hair, and draws us into assent.”4 This impression is considered as self-evident and infallible. Carneades claims that true impressions cannot be discriminated from false ones. He refers to the impression of a bent oar that is straight and of a pigeon’s neck that seems multi-colored,5 the impression that the sun seems smaller than the earth, and that of a large ship that seems minute from a long distance (Acad. 2.82). Cicero also reports something very similar to the Cartesian hypotheses: “There are often <persua- sive> impressions of things that don’t exist at all” (2.47). Examples of such impressions can be found in dreams, abnormal states of mind, or as messages from god through revelations. All of these arguments suggest that all sense impressions could turn out to be false. We can also posit some arguments against the reliability of reason, including Carneades’ Approval as a Weak Assertion: A Non-Dialectical Interpretation of Academic Skepticism 593 the sorites paradox, the liar paradox, and the problem with first principles (2.93–96). According to Carneades, there is no criterion for truth: “not reason, not sense-percep- tion, not appearance, not anything else that there is; for all of these as a group deceive us” (M 7.159). If so, “nothing is apprehensible” (Acad. 2.59). These arguments led the Academics to the precept of epoche¯, in Latin retentio adsensionis, that is, the suspension of judgment: ‘a keeping back of judgment/witholding’. The Stoics’ answer was the charge of apraxia: if we suspend all judgment, we have a problem acting in ordinary life, and thus skepticism leads to complete inactivity. Arcesilaus gave some examples of animal activity without beliefs, but Carneades was interested in identifying the criteria for the rational conduct of life. He found the solu- tion to this problem in his theory of the approval of the persuasive impression. APPROVAL OF PERSUASIVE IMPRESSIONS Our knowledge of Carneades’ skepticism is derived primarily from Cicero’s Academica and Sextus Empiricus’ books. The aim of the Academica was to make Hellenistic phi- losophy available in Latin. Cicero translated the Greek pithanon as the Latin probabile. The Latin probabile denotes that which is subjectively convincing, rather than that which is probable from an objective point of view.
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