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203 with This Study Simone Vezzoli (Hereafter V.) Tries to Give A Book reviews 203 Simone Vezzoli, Arcesilao di Pitane. L’origine del platonismo neoaccademico, Turnhout Belgium, Brepolis Publischers n.v., 300 pp., ISBN 978-2-503-55029-9, 65€. With this study Simone Vezzoli (hereafter V.) tries to give a complete overview of Arcesilaus’ thought. The book is composed of two different parts (part I: Analisi, part II: Fontes), preceded by a brief introduction. The first part of the book is itself divided into two chapters. Chapter one (La filosofia di Arcesilao) is dedicated to a reconstruction of Arcesilaus’ personal philosophy, starting from his debate with the Stoics, while in the second chapter (Il platonismo di Arcesilao) Vezzoli tries to identify those passages of Platonic dialogues which could have influenced Arcesilaus. The second part of the book is an exhaustive collection of texts, divided between those where Arcesilaus is explicitly named and those that cannot be assigned to him for certain. The sources are accom- panied by a brief commentary. What makes the reconstruction of Arcesilaus’ thought difficult is the ab- sence of texts authored by him. The sources ascribed to Arcesilaus are in a dialectical form, because he is mainly critical of other philosophers’ view, especially to the Stoics. He critiques of Stoic positions by antilogy, which, al- though a tool typical of the New Academy, was developed by Arcesilaus him- self in a singular way. The function of this approach is to demonstrate that contrary theses have the same logical validity. Vezzoli starts his research from this assumption, asking if it is possible to isolate Arcesilaus’ personal thoughts from his dialectical criticism of the Stoics, as they are registered in our sources. Arcesilaus is known for his vigorous critique to the Zenonian epistemology. Cicero tells us that Arcesilaus’ attack on Stoic epistemology develops from their conception of opinion, doxa. According to the Stoics the difference between opinion and knowledge is not within the object but within the subject: only the sage is really able to know, for he does not have opinions only. Arcesilaus demonstrates that actually Stoic opinions coincide with representations, kata- lepsis, which is only an empty name. He thus breaks the continuity between subject and objects of perception, concluding that katalepsis is not only im- possible, but that the real status of human epistemology is akatalepsia and that everything is adelon. From the two different sources of Cicero and Sextus, Vezzoli reconstructs the three arguments that Arcesilaus opposes to the three stages of Stoic katalepsis before formalizing and analysing them in depth. After such elaborate reconstruction, V. spells out Arcesilaus’ conclusions: 1. Everything is akatalepton, because katalepsis doesn’t exist; 2. The sage is un- able to reach knowledge; 3. If Stoics want to be coherent with their epistemic assumptions, they must accept Academic epochē. Hence, Arcesilaus start- ing from Stoic positions and carrying them to their extreme consequences, © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/18725473-12341452 204 Book reviews declares that the only logical conclusion is suspension of judgment, epochē. V. then claims that epochē is not a borrowing from the Stoics on Arcesilaus’ part, but a concept characteristic of his own approach. V. then tries to reconstruct the stages Arcesilaus follows to get to epochē peri pantōn. The same value of different thoughts, isostheneia, is Arcesilaus’ starting point. The role he gives to the impossibility of recognition of true or false representations, akatlepsia, stands in second place to the concept of adelon. V. pinpoints that Arcesilaus’ adelon is not related to reality itself, but to what appears to be reality to the subject. The central role of epochē in Arcesilaus’ thought must not be un- derstood in terms of negative philosophy, to the effect that knowledge is not possible for human beings since it is god’s prerogative. Human beings’ epis- temological inferiority is but the natural starting point of their philosophical inquiry. According to V., the epistemological inferiority of human beings is not necessarily an obstacle in Arcesilaus’ view. Arcesilaus’ conception of adelon was accused of consequential apraxia. Using Sextus and Plutarch as sources, Vezzoli reconstructs Arcesilaus’ practical theory. The second part of the first chapter is V.’s interesting attempt to isolate Platonic antecedents of, and links with, Arcesilaus’ own philosophy as re- constructed in the former section. Cicero and Plutarch classify Arcesilaus as belonging to a tradition of aporetic thinkers, which started with Socrates and Plato. Unfortunately, we lack sources about Arcesilaus’ own use of, or references to, particular aspects of Socrates and Plato’s aporetic philosophy. According to V., Arcesilaus must be considered in a close continuity with Plato’s thought and Platonic Academy. It is wrong to label Arcesilaus’ Academy sceptical, which was developed later, because Arcesilaus would have considered himself only as a member of the Academy. We cannot consider Arcesilaus on the basis of his Platonic orthodoxy but in terms of Platonic fidelity and inspiration. V. takes the dialogical structure of Plato’s writings to be the main methodological feature that Arcesilaus could have inherited. Cicero, for his part, takes Arcesilaus’ an- tilogical method to be his first debt to Plato. Using Cicero and the anonymous author of the Prolegomena in Platonis philosophiam, the Anonymous commen- tator on Theaetetus and Plutarch, V. then tries to demonstrate that from differ- ent sources it is possible to draw a hypothesis on Arcesilaus’ interpretation and debt to the aporetic Plato. V. then retraces his epistemological and practical philosophy together with their plausible roots in Platonic dialogues. The book is an interesting and accurate attempt to reconstruct Arcesilaus’ own philosophy and its Platonic background. It is significant, not only for his results in the light of the current debate about the New Academy and its scep- tical commitment, but also constitutes a good tool for those who have to work The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 13 (2019) 193-229.
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