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person214-129 BCE

Carneades

Disciplines:
ethics
ancient philosophy
skepticism

Summary

Head of the New Academy who developed the most sophisticated ancient skepticism — arguing that no impression is cataleptic (certain) — and the doctrine of pithanon (probable/plausible) as a guide to action without certainty.

Core Contribution

Probabilism: in the absence of certainty, the plausible (pithanon) serves as a practical guide; this is not assent to truth but practical acceptance. Demolished Stoic theology through dilemmatic arguments about divination. Famous for arguing both for and against the justice of Roman imperialism in 155 BCE Rome.

Key Spikes & Highlights

  • Left no writings — everything we know is through Clitomachus and Cicero. Argued both sides of a question on successive days in Rome in 155 BCE, scandalizing Cato the Elder.
  • Demolished Stoic theology: if divination works, it implies a providential cosmic order; but if gods know the future, fatalism follows; if fatalism is true, human deliberation is useless — a dilemma that prefigures later debates about divine foreknowledge.

Historical Influences

Arcesilaus Chrysippus

Intellectual Lineage

Platonic Academy Academic Skepticism

Contemporaries & Peers

ClitomachusAntipater of Tarsus

Minds Influenced

Cicero Philo of Larissa

Intellectual Posterity

Academic Skepticism Probabilism

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Carneades

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