Academic Skepticism

Academic Skepticism — the philosophical tradition originating with Arcesilaus of Pitane in the third century B.C. and carried forward by Carneades — occupies a distinctive position in the depth-psychology corpus by virtue of its sustained presence in Hellenistic ethical and epistemological texts that undergird the therapeutic philosophy project. The tradition is represented here principally through Cicero’s Academica and De Natura Deorum and through Long and Sedley’s doxographic anthology, with Nussbaum providing the most sustained secondary engagement. What emerges is a portrait of Academic Skepticism as a position defined in relentless dialectical opposition to Stoic epistemology: where Stoicism posits a cognitive impression (phantasia kataleptike) as the infallible criterion of truth, Arcesilaus and Carneades argue that no impression is self-certifying, that false and true presentations are indistinguishable, and that the wise person must therefore withhold assent (epoché). Crucially, the corpus preserves the internal tension between Academic and Pyrrhonian Skepticism — the former accused by Sextus Empiricus of covert dogmatism and Stoic allegiance — as well as the practical question of how action remains possible under universal suspension of judgment. Nussbaum’s therapeutic reading frames Academic Skepticism as a ‘purgative’ practice that turns upon itself, while Cicero’s own probabilism attempts a via media. The tradition’s relevance for depth psychology lies in its interrogation of the epistemological foundations of self-knowledge, belief, and therapeutic authority.

In the library 19 passages

the Academics, he says, especially those from the present-day Academy, are sometimes in agreement with Stoic beliefs, and to tell the truth turn out to be Stoics fighting with Stoics. Moreover, they are doctrinaire about many things.

Sextus Empiricus distinguishes Academic Skepticism from Pyrrhonism by charging the Academics with covert dogmatism and excessive proximity to Stoic doctrine, establishing the internal fault line within the ancient skeptical tradition.

A.A. Long and D.N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1987thesis

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Arcesilas said that there is nothing that can be known, not even that residuum of knowledge that Socrates had left himself — the truth of this very dictum: so hidden in obscurity did he believe that everything lies, nor is there anything that can be perceived or understood.

Cicero presents Arcesilaus as radicalizing Socratic ignorance into a universal suspension of assent, defining the foundational epistemological claim of Academic Skepticism.

Cicero, Marcus Tullius, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), -45thesis

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if you adopt a doctrinal stance like Stoicism, it will follow from premises to which this stance commits you, in conjunction with its inability to resist 7, that you should suspend judgement. Hence whatever philosophical positions you adopt or avoid adopting, you will, if wise, suspend judgement.

Long and Sedley reconstruct the Academic Skeptic’s dialectical strategy as parasitic on its opponent’s premises, showing how Arcesilaus and Carneades derived epoché from Stoic epistemology itself rather than from independent doctrine.

A.A. Long and D.N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1987thesis

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Arcesilaus could maintain that Plato never put forward any position as more than a hypothesis; that he had shot down his own ‘theory of Forms’ in the Parmenides; and that he had undermined the cognitive claims of sense-perception in the Theaetetus.

Long and Sedley argue that Arcesilaus grounded Academic Skepticism in a consistently aporetic reading of Plato, locating its origins in internal Platonic resources rather than purely in reaction to Stoicism.

A.A. Long and D.N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1987thesis

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Non enim sumus ii quibus nihil verum esse videatur, sed ii qui omnibus veris falsa quaedam adiuncta esse dicamus tanta similitudine ut in iis nulla insit certa iudicandi et adsentiendi nota.

Cicero articulates the Academic position’s self-understanding: not that nothing is true, but that true and false presentations are so similar that no certain mark of distinction exists, grounding the doctrine of probabilism.

Cicero, Marcus Tullius, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), -45thesis

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our disputations do nothing other than by speaking on both sides elicit and as it were extract something which is either true or approximates to truth as nearly as possible.

Cicero defends the Academic practice of arguing in utramque partem as a truth-seeking procedure yielding probability, distinguishing the Academic from a purely destructive skeptic.

Cicero, Marcus Tullius, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), -45thesis

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Skeptical argument opposes only that which has been asserted and believed — and the Skeptic tells us that he asserts nothing. Skeptical arguments do not oppose themselves in exactly the way in which they oppose dogmatic arguments — just as purgative drugs do not need to loosen themselves while they are loosening the rest of the contents.

Nussbaum employs the purgative drug metaphor to explain why Academic and Pyrrhonian Skeptical argument is self-exempting in a qualified sense, illuminating the self-referential paradox at the core of skeptical therapy.

Martha C. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics, 1994thesis

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one is learning a capability, a know-how; one learns how to do something, namely, to set up oppositions among impressions and beliefs. ‘In any way at all,’ can, Sextus says, be taken in several ways.

Nussbaum interprets Skeptical practice as a cultivated capability (dunamis) for generating oppositions rather than a doctrine, clarifying why Academic and Pyrrhonian Skepticism resist assimilation to techne or organized knowledge.

Martha C. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics, 1994supporting

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if percipi nihil potest quod utrique visum est, tollendus adsensus est; quid enim est tam futile quam quicquam adprobare non cognitum?

Cicero presents Arcesilaus’s core inference — that if nothing can be cognitively grasped, assent must be abolished — as the logical pivot around which Academic Skepticism’s practical program turns.

Cicero, Marcus Tullius, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), -45supporting

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he holds the one plan in theory, so that he never assents, but the other in practice, so that he is guided by probability, and wherever this confronts him or is wanting he can answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ accordingly.

Cicero articulates the Academic solution to the apraxia objection: the wise person withholds full assent but follows probability (to pithanon) in practice, permitting action without epistemic commitment.

Cicero, Marcus Tullius, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), -45supporting

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has nothing then been achieved by their having been under examination ever since the time when Arcesilas, criticizing Zeno as making no new discoveries but only correcting his predecessors by verbal alterations, in his desire to undermine Zeno’s definitions attempted to cover with darkness matters that were exceedingly clear?

Cicero records the anti-Academic polemic that Arcesilaus’s opposition to Zeno was mere destructive obscurantism, framing the central charge against Academic Skepticism’s philosophical legitimacy.

Cicero, Marcus Tullius, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), -45supporting

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many things seem to him to be true, although nevertheless they do not seem to him to possess that distinct and peculiar mark leading to perception, and hence the doctrine that the wise man does not assent, for the reason that it is possible for a false presentation to occur that has the same character as a given true one.

Cicero explains the Academic wise man’s epistemic situation: appearances arise but lack the kataleptic mark, so assent is withheld while the sage nonetheless responds to probable presentations.

Cicero, Marcus Tullius, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), -45supporting

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Notice, however, how emphasis on the value of ataraxia keeps coming back. For why does the Skeptic have a Skeptical attitude to ataraxia? According to him, because he must have this attitude, if he is to avoid disturbance and attain ataraxia.

Nussbaum identifies the self-undermining tension within Skeptical practice: ataraxia functions as an unacknowledged dogmatic telos even for the Skeptic who officially suspends judgment about all ends.

Martha C. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics, 1994supporting

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Is there any proposition that he can either reject or approve, but is not able to doubt? will you be able to do so with sorites arguments when you wish, but he not be able to call a similar halt in everything else, especially as he is able to follow mere resemblance to truth when unhampered, without the act of assent?

Cicero defends the Academic wise man’s universal suspense of assent against the Stoic apraxia charge by appealing to probabilism and the parallel of sorites-induced hesitation.

Cicero, Marcus Tullius, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), -45supporting

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lack of constancy does diminish the weight of authority. For I am curious to know the exact date of the day whose dawning light revealed to him that mark of truth and falsehood which he had for many years been in the habit of denying.

Cicero attacks Antiochus’s defection from Academic Skepticism back to dogmatism as philosophically inconsistent, raising the question of whether the criterion of truth denied by Academics can simply be reasserted.

Cicero, Marcus Tullius, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), -45supporting

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a true imprint on the mind and intellect is nevertheless incapable of being perceived and grasped. For how can you maintain that something is perspicuously white if it can possibly occur that a

Cicero elaborates the Academic argument against the kataleptic impression: even a presentation accurately caused by a true object cannot be distinguished from one caused by a false object, rendering the Stoic criterion inoperative.

Cicero, Marcus Tullius, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), -45supporting

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Since what we all aim at is to go in the flow of life, free of belief’s crushing weight, then none of us is higher or better than any other; there is nothing one knows or has that another lacks.

Nussbaum characterizes the Skeptic’s egalitarian therapeutic ethos — the absence of dogmatic authority — as distinguishing Skeptical practice from Epicurean hierarchical instruction.

Martha C. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics, 1994aside

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Skepticism cannot, therefore, be ruled out by any set of thinkers as a possibility against which their conclusions are secure; and no empiricist ought to claim exemption from this universal liability.

James invokes a broadly skeptical fallibilism to argue that no theological or empirical conclusions are immune to correction, echoing the Academic motif of universal epistemic liability without engaging the ancient tradition directly.

James, William, The Varieties of Religious Experience Amazon, 1902aside

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