On academic scepticism Book

I really loved this dialogue. Cicero is growing on me, and I enjoyed this one even more than The Nature of the Gods. It's a lovely translation as well, very stirring and accompanied by very helpful (yet unobtrusive) notes.

Cicero's concern here is the question of knowledge, particularly the parameters of its attainability. Lucullus is the more Stoic-leaning member of the dialogue (though if I remember correctly, he's more precisely attached to Antiochus of Ascalon's school) and his speech comes first: he puts forth the claim that the Stoic conception of knowledge - based on kataleptic impressions, sensory impressions that are received in manner than the recipient know that they must be true - is true and the most beneficial to living a virtuous life. His opponents the Academics, he argues, only serve to undermine the foundations of reason, wisdom, society, and the virtuously lived life by their incessant questioning of sensory perceptions and their ability to lead to definite knowledge. If one follows the course of their logic, society, language, and logic itself falls apart, and the individual is left helpless and immobile.

“If these Academic views are true, reason – the light and illumination of life, as we might call it – is entirely done away with. If all impressions were the way the Academics say they are, so that they could just as well be false and no examination could discriminate them, how could we say that anyone had proved anything or discovered anything?... And since philosophy ought to be progress by arguments, how will it get results? Indeed, what will become of wisdom?” [2.26-27]

When Lucullus has made his case, Cicero takes up the impassioned defense of his cause. Here, more than De natura deorum, you can see what a rhetorical powerhouse he must have been. There are parts of this speech that are really beautiful, and genuinely stirring. Cicero's central argument here serves not only to question the Stoic ability to distinguish true and false impressions, but also attacks what he perceives to be their intellectual arrogance. He seems to find it genuinely stunning that the Stoics claim to possess an understanding of the universe, one that they can declare with certainty.

"This is what I can’t bear: you forbid me to assent to anything unknown, claiming that this is shameful and excessively rash, and yet you take it upon yourself to expound a philosophical system expressing wisdom. So you’re going to unveil the nature of the universe, shape my character, determine the ethical ends, set out appropriate actions for me, define the kind of life I should adopt – and you claim, simultaneously teach me the criteria and methods of argument and understanding. How are you going to manage it so that I never slip up, never form an opinion, while I’m taking on these countless doctrines? And then which philosophical system is it that you’re going to take me off to, if you prise me from my own? I’m afraid you’ll be rather presumptuous if you say your own – and yet you must say that...Imagine someone who is in the process of becoming wise, but isn’t yet: exactly which view or system will he choose? Whichever he chooses, he will choose without wisdom.” [2.114-115]

Cicero is vehemently against the idea of dogmatism, not the idea of knowledge. He forms opinions, he possesses beliefs, but refuses to assert them with certainty. It's not epistemological pessimism, though: he seems rather to think that the dogmatic thinkers around simply aren't setting the bar high enough. He seems genuinely startled when Lucullus asks him if he is not satisfied with the majesty of the senses, and if he would demand that the gods provide him with more:

" 'I just wish he would ask, so he could hear how badly he has done by us...my reply to that gods of yours would be impudent: I am not at all happy with the eyes I have...Don’t you think that moles want the light? Though I wouldn’t complain to god that I can’t see far enough as much as I would that I can see what isn’t true.

Cicero's skepticism is one that strives, that refuses to stop asking questions because questions and criticisms are what push knowledge closer to the truth, bit by bit. It's a lovely dialogue, and I highly recommend it even if you don't have a background in philosophy.