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Two Kinds of Belief for Classical Academic Scepticism Charles E. Snyder TwoKinds of Belief forClassical Academic Scepticism No one knew about Arcesilaus anymorethan they knew about which side the son of Tydaeus was on, concerningwhom Homer had said no one knew whether he sided with the Trojansor the Achaeans.For to keep to one argument and stateone and the same position was not in him, nor indeed did he ever think this manner of speakingbyany means worthyofaclever man. Numenius in Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica Philosophicalscepticism takes twobasic formsinthe ancientGreek tradition. Classical sceptics have theview that nothingcan be knownfor certainand theview that one should withhold assent,evenabout the viewthat nothingcan be knownfor certain. Dogmatic sceptics, on theother hand, takeapositionand arguefor the view that noth- ingcan be known andfor theview that oneshould withholdassent. In spiteofimpor- tantdifferenceswithin classical scepticism,Arcesilaus, Carneades,and the neo-Pyrrho- nian Sextus Empiricus areclassical sceptics.Dogmaticscepticism is aposition that develops within the late phase of Academic scepticism accordingtowhich sceptics now feel secureinarguing for theview or belief that nothingcan be known forcertain.¹ In thispaper,Ifocusalmost exclusively on theearlyformativephase of ancientscepti- cism introduced in Plato’sAcademybythe philosopherArcesilaus of Pitane (316/5–241/0 BCE) less than acentury afterPlato’sdeath. In the course of defendingMichael Frede’s thesis,namely,that the philosophy of Arcesilausisaninstanceofclassical scepticism, I reviseFrede’soriginal formulation of thedistinction betweenthe twokinds of belief giv- ingshape to Arcesilaus’ classical Academic scepticism. Before enteringinto an ongoing dispute about the original Academicsceptic, I begin with abrief and preliminary account of the term ‘scepticism’.Itderivesfrom the ordinary Greek term σκέψις meaning ‘search’ or ‘enquiry’.Accordingly, near the middle of the first century BCE, the Epicurean Philodemus (Rhet. I191.4Sudhaus) refers to philosophers in general as ‘most enquiring’ (σκεπτικωτάτους), and less than acentury later,Philo of Alexandria (De ebr.202 W) refers to philosophersingeneral MichaelFrede, “TheSceptic’sTwo Kinds of Assent andthe Question of thePossibility of Knowledge,” in TheOriginal Sceptics:AControversy, eds. Myles Burnyeat andMichael Frede(Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, ): – is amain source for thetwo basic forms of ancient Greekscep- ticism. Cf. Michael Frede, “Des SceptikersMeinungen,” Neue Hefte fürPhilosophie / (): – ;reprinted in idem, EssaysinAncientPhilosophy (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, ): –.Fredehas hadhis critics, butTad Brennan, Ethics and EpistemologyinSextus Empiricus (New York and London:Garland Publishing, )responds to thecriticswith alucid andcompellingdefence of Frede’saccountofSextusEmpiricus’ classical scepticism. DOI 10.1515/9783110501728-002, ©2016 Charles E. Snyder,published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative CommonsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs3.0 License. 8 Charles E. Snyder as σκεπτικοί or δογματικοί withoutconveying anyapparent contrast between the two terms.² Forone to be labelled σκεπτικός,itcould mean simplythat one is aphiloso- pher who has not discovered what knowledge is but continues to search for it; on the other hand,the term latertakes on atechnical meaning in the revival of classical scepticism around the middle or end of the second century CE by Sextus Empiricus,³ identifying apeculiarkind of philosopher with ‘an ability to set out oppositions among thingswhich appearand are thoughtofinany wayatall, an ability by which because of equipollence in the opposed objects and accounts, we come first to suspension of judgment and with it tranquility’ (PH 1.8). Classical Academic scep- tics did not self-characterise as σκεπτικοί in the sense honed by Sextus (but cf. Aulus Gellius, NA 11.5.6), but this fact does not prohibit one from using σκεπτικός (‘scepti- cal’)inanon-technical sense, conformingmorecloselytothe ordinary Greek sense of σκέψις,todescribe the kind of ‘search’ or ‘enquiry’ broadlycharacteristic of phi- losophers who search for knowledge. Forphilosophers today,the term ‘scepticism’ hasnarrowedtoconveychallengesfor specialists workingwithinthe domainofepistemology:the possibility of validatingthe reliability of basic epistemicfaculties or theevidencefor the existenceofanexternal world. In the tradition of ancient Greekphilosophy, however, σκεπτικοί or ‘sceptics’ en- gagedinenquiry spanningawider rangeofbeliefs and claims defendedbyself-pro- claimed experts or philosophers pertainingtotheses,for example, concerningthe nat- ureofdivinity,mortality,orthe ethicality of pleasure. Ancient philosophers known as ‘sceptics’ or ‘enquirers’ were so-called becausetheyfound themselvesunable to con- clude philosophical investigation with beliefsunderpinned by robust theories about the natureofknowledge andtruth. In suspendingjudgment about everything, ancient sceptical philosophers kept on searching for the truth (PH I.1–3) or what approximates the truth (Cicero, Ac.2.7). ForSextus Empiricus’ revivalofclassicalscepticism,sceptical philosophyhas direct associations with away of life, onewhich follows from aparticular wayofengagingin the search for knowledge andwisdom. Sextus specifies away of life guided by an ability to generate opposing arguments about anytopic of concern to philosophers whosup- pose that they have discoveredknowledgeand truth. In the AcademyofArcesilaus, how- ever,sceptical enquiry does notlead the sceptictotake aposition or make reports,either orally or in writing, about how one livesthe kindoflife an Academicmighthavecalled sceptical. Happiness or tranquility of thesoulisnot an explicitaim forArcesilaus’ en- quiries, as it had been for Pyrrho (Aristocles in Eusebius, Praep.ev.14.18, 758d) or as it Cf. Karl Janáček, “Das Wort σκεπτικός in Philons Schriften,” Listy Filologiké . (): –. Although thereisgoodreason to thinkPhilo of Alexandria read thewritingsofthe neo-Pyrrhonian Aenesidemus,there is still no source antedatingthe laterneo-Pyrrhonian SextusEmpiricus in employing thetechnical senseofσκεπτικός that Sextus assignsitthroughout PH. SeeFernanda Decleva Caizzi, “Sestoegliscettici,” Elenchos (): –.Evidently,Timon Fr. (Diels , )uses the term σκεπτοσυνής,but similar to the term σκεπτικωτάτους in Philodemus and σκεπτικοί in Philo of Alexandria, Timon’sterm signifies ‘enquiry’ or ‘search’ without Sextus’ later technical connotation. TwoKinds of Belief forClassical Academic Scepticism 9 wouldbeagainfor SextusEmpiricus (PH 1.10);nor is thereavalue, eithernegative or positive,explicitlyassigned to thecorrelationbetween philosophical enquiry andthe al- leviatingorexacerbatingeffects of asoul inclined to search for truth. Onemightcontend that for the Academic sceptic such acorrelation is taken for granted, at least for Aca- demic sceptics earlyinthe Hellenistic period. Even ifacorrespondencebetween philo- sophicalenquiry andhappiness or tranquilityistacitlyassumed, it is anachronistic nonetheless to thinkofAcademic scepticism as heraldingthe modern confinement of ‘scepticism’ to aspecialised field of research such as epistemology. An unrestricted rangeofquestions is also afeatureofAcademic scepticism; enquiry for Arcesilaus, though, is distinctive for evincingaspecific form of examiningthe beliefs or claims as- serted by an interlocutor in adialecticalcross-examination. It is the application of an oral method of cross-examination(Cicero, De fin.2.2–3; De orat.3.67; Tusc.5.11) that makes Arcesilaus’ scepticalenquiries even moredissimilar from modern or contempor- ary notions of scepticism than the neo-Pyrrhonian variety epitomised in the monological reportage of Sextus Empiricus. To put it mildly, it has been difficulttoresolve the complexities of the ancient evi- denceabout Arcesilaus’ scepticism. In reviving aformofSocratic cross-examination as head of Plato’sAcademy,Arcesilaus made it nearlyimpossible for his contemporaries and subsequentthinkers to know whether he heldorcould have consistently held anybeliefsofhis own. Accordingtothe luridremarks of the second centuryCEPlatonist Numenius, preserved by Eusebius,Arcesilaus tended to present himself in argument like amany-headed Hydradecapitating hisown beliefs andsevering himself intocontrary positions(Praep.ev.14.6) within the very same disputation; AristonofChiosfamously parodiedArcesilaus, hiscontemporary, as aphilosophical chimaera(PH 1.234; Augus- tine, Contra Ac.3.17. 38, Diogenes Laertius [hereafter D.L.], Life of Arcesilaus 4.32). Due to thecomplexmethod of hisoralcross-examination, adisputeaboutArcesilaus’ beliefs continues to embroilinterpreters of his brandofAcademic scepticism, datingback to contemporarycritics like Aristonthrough posthumous admirers or sympathisers like Ci- cero andPlutarch, andonagain throughmodernhistoriansofancient Greek andRoman philosophy.The disputecannotbesettledbyinterpretingwithgreater sophistication ei- ther what Cicero,Sextus,orotherancientauthors wroteabout Arcesilausorwhat Arce- silaus wrotehimself, sincehis methodwas entirelyoral, writingnophilosophical works of his own.And yet, the intractabilityofthe evidence or source material hasnot re- strained three moderninterpretations of Arcesilaus’ scepticism from vyingtoset the re- cord straight. Eachinterpretation offers solutions to the disputeonthe basis of one or morepieces of source material from antiquity that describe second-handArcesilaus’ dia- lectical arguments.But to resolve the disputeabout Arcesilaus’ beliefs,and to
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