Carneades

« Carneades (214-129 BC) The Greek philosopher Carneades was head of the Academy from 167 to 137 BC.

Born in North Africa he migrated to Athens, where he studied logic with the Stoic Diogenes of Babylon; but he was soon seduced by the Academy, to which his allegiance was thereafter lifelong.

He was a celebrated figure; and in 155 BC he was sent by Athens to Rome as a political ambassador, where he astounded the youth by his rhetorical powers and outraged their elders by his arguments against justice. Under Carneades' direction the Academy remained sceptical.

But he enlarged the sceptical armoury - in particular, he deployed sorites arguments against various dogmatic positions.

He also broadened the target of sceptical attack: thus he showed an especial interest in ethics, where his 'division' of possible ethical theories served later as a standard framework for thought on the subject.

But his major innovation concerned the notion of 'the plausible' (to pithanon ).

Even if we cannot determine which appearances are true and which false, we are able to distinguish the plausible from the implausible - and further to distinguish among several grades of plausibility.

It is disputed - and it was disputed among his immediate followers - how, if at all, Carneades' remarks on the plausible are to be reconciled with his scepticism. 1 Life Carneades' life is ill documented.

He was born in 214 BC at Cyrene in North Africa.

He moved to Athens where he studied logic with the Stoic Diogenes of Babylon and no doubt also listened to the other leading philosophers of the day.

He gravitated to the Academy ( Academy ), which was still following the sceptical path laid down by Arcesilaus , and in 167 BC he was chosen as scholarch.

The school flourished under his leadership: later authors deemed that he had opened a new phase in its history.

Blindness and miserable health obliged him to resign his position in 137; but he continued to philosophize vigorously until his death in 129.

And when he died there was an eclipse of the moon. He was a loud man, and admired even by his opponents for his powerful and persuasive style of argument: he had the irresistible force of a mighty river, the subtlety and resilience of a hunted beast.

He lost no argument and left no hearer unmoved.

When in 155 BC the Athenians petitioned the Roman Senate for the remission of a fine, they sent three philosophers as ambassadors - Diogenes the Stoic, Critolaus the Peripatetic, and Carneades.

At Rome the three men displayed their professional talents to an enthusiastic public.

Carneades revealed a particular power to charm and excite - the more so when, on successive days and with equal power, he urged the claims first of justice and then of injustice.

Stern Cato hurried business through the Senate and bundled the Greeks off home before they could corrupt the Roman youth. Like Arcesilaus - and Socrates - before him, Carneades wrote nothing.

Several of his pupils took notes on his lectures and wrote memorials of his arguments; and our meagre knowledge of Carneades depends ultimately on. »