Living in doubt: carneades’pithanon reconsidered

Abstract

Abstract Though the interpretation of ancient texts is inevitably diffcult, Carneades presents what one might call a worst-case scenario. In the first place, he wrote nothing. To complicate matters, Carneades’ views were so obscure that his faithful disciple Clitomachus confessed that he could never figure out what Carneades actually believed (Cic. Acad. 2. 139). Showing remarkable fortitude in the face of such an obstacle, Clitomachus, attempting to play Plato to Carneades’ Socrates, reportedly recorded Carneades’ teachings in 400 books (D.L. 4. 67). Not one remains. None the less, Clitomachus’ attempt to make a philosophy of Carneades’ anti-theoretical stance was not a complete failure; Carneades had a tremendous influence on the later Academy as well as the Stoa, and his views (or lack thereof) have been handed down to us by both Sextus Empiricus and Cicero. These sources are, however, problematic. As a Pyrrhonist, Sextus was critical of the Academy and may have exaggerated what he took to be Carneades’ dogmatism. Cicero, on the other hand, a student of Philo, was undoubtedly influenced in his interpretation of Carneades by his teacher’s dogmatic scepticism. Carneades is perhaps best known for proposing the pithanēphantasia (probable impression) as a criterion for life. However, the status of his theory of the pithanon (probable) is completely unclear.