Carneades ( , "of
Carnea";
c.
214 – 129 BC) was a radical skeptic
born in Cyrene
and the
first of the philosophers to pronounce
the failure of metaphysicians who
endeavored to discover rational meanings in religious
beliefs. By the time of
159 BC he had
started to refute all previous dogmatic doctrines, especially
Stoicism, and even the
Epicureans whom previous skeptics had spared.
As head of
the Academy
, he was one
of three philosophers sent to Rome
in 155 BC where his lectures on the uncertainty of
justice caused consternation among the
leading politicians. He left no writings and many of his
opinions are known only via his successor
Clitomachus. He seems to have
doubted the ability, not just of the
senses
but of
reason too, in acquiring
truth. His skepticism was, however, moderated by the
belief that we can, nevertheless, ascertain probabilities of truth,
to enable us to live and act correctly.
Life
Carneades,
the son of Epicomus or Philocomiis, was born at Cyrene, North Africa about the
year 214 BC. He migrated early to
Athens
, and attended the lectures of the Stoics, and learned their logic from Diogenes. He studied the works of
Chrysippus, and exerted his energy of a
very acute and original mind in their refutation.
He
attached himself to the Academy, which had
suffered from the attacks of the Stoics; and on the death of
Hegesinus, he was chosen to
preside at the meetings of Academy, and was the fourth in
succession from Arcesilaus. His
great eloquence and skill in argument revived the glories of his
school; and, defending himself in the negative vacancy of asserting
nothing (not even that nothing can be asserted), carried on a
vigorous war against every position that had been maintained by
other sects.
In the
year 155 BC, when he was fifty-eight years
old, he was chosen with Diogenes the
Stoic and Critolaus the Peripatetic to
go as ambassador to Rome to deprecate
the fine of 500 talents which had been imposed on the Athenians for
the destruction of Oropus
.
During his stay at Rome, he attracted great notice from his
eloquent speeches on philosophical subjects, and it was here that,
in the presence of
Cato the Elder, he
delivered his famous orations on
Justice.
The first oration was in commendation of the virtue of Roman
justice, and the next day the second was delivered, in which all
the arguments he'd made on the first were refuted, as he
persuasively attempted to prove that justice was inevitably
problematic, and not a given when it came to virtue, but merely a
compact device deemed necessary for the maintenance of a well
ordered society. Recognizing the potential danger of the argument,
Cato was shocked at this and he moved the
Roman Senate to send the philosopher home to
his school, and prevent the Roman youth from the threat of
re-examining all Roman doctrines.
Carneades lived twenty-seven years after
this at Athens.
Carneades was succeeded, in his old age, by his namesake
Carneades, son of Polemarchus, but the
younger Carneades died c.
131 BC and was
succeeded by
Crates of Tarsus. The
elder Carneades died at the advanced age of 85, or (according to
Cicero) 90, in
129 BC.
At this point
Clitomachus
became head of the Academy.
Carneades is described as a man of unwearied industry. He was so
engrossed in his studies, that he let his hair and nails grow to an
immoderate length, and was so absent at his own table (for he would
never dine out), that his servant and concubine, Melissa, was
constantly obliged to feed him. In his old age, he suffered from
cataract in his eyes, which he bore with great impatience, and was
so little resigned to the decay of nature, that he used to ask
angrily, if this was the way in which nature undid what she had
done, and sometimes expressed a wish to poison himself.
Philosophy
Carneades is known as an Academic Skeptic.
Academic Skeptics (so
called because this was the type of Skepticism taught in Plato's Academy in Athens) hold that
all knowledge is impossible, except for the knowledge that all
other knowledge is impossible.
Carneades left no writings, and all that is known of his lectures
is derived from his intimate friend and pupil,
Clitomachus; but so true was he to
his own principles of withholding assent, that Clitomachus
confesses he never could ascertain what his master really thought
on any subject. He, however, appears to have defended
atheism, and consistently enough to have denied that
the world was the result of anything but chance. In
ethics, which more particularly were the subject of
his long and laborious study, he seems to have denied the
conformity of the moral ideas with nature. This he particularly
insisted on in the second oration on
Justice, in which he manifestly wished to convey his
own notions on the subject; and he there maintains that ideas of
justice are not derived from nature, but that they are purely
artificial for purposes of expediency.
All this, however, was nothing but the special application of his
general theory, that people did not possess, and never could
possess, any criterion of
truth.
Carneades argued that, if there were a criterion, it must exist
either in
reason (
logos), or
sensation (
aisthêsis), or
conception (
phantasia). But then
reason itself depends on conception, and this again on sensation;
and we have no means of judging whether our sensations are true or
false, whether they correspond to the objects that produce them, or
carry wrong impressions to the mind, producing false conceptions
and ideas, and leading reason also into error. Therefore sensation,
conception, and reason, are alike disqualified for being the
criterion of truth.
But after all, people must live and act, and must have some rule of
practical life; therefore, although it
is impossible to pronounce anything as absolutely true, we may yet
establish probabilities of various degrees. For, although we cannot
say that any given conception or sensation is in itself true, yet
some sensations appear to us more true than others, and we must be
guided by that which seems the most true. Again, sensations are not
single, but generally combined with others, which either confirm or
contradict them; and the greater this combination the greater is
the probability of that being true which the rest combine to
confirm; and the case in which the greatest number of conceptions,
each in themselves apparently most true, should combine to affirm
that which also in itself appears most true, would present to
Carneades the highest probability, and his nearest approach to
truth.
See also
References
- Tiziano Dorandi, Chapter 2: Chronology, in Algra et
al. (1999) The Cambridge History of Hellenistic
Philosophy, page 33. Cambridge
- Die Schedelsche Weltchronik, 079
Sources
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