Against the Academics 3.5–3.21

"I want you to show me a little," I said, "what difference seems to you to lie between the wise man and the philosopher." "I think the wise man differs from the one devoted to wisdom," he said, "in nothing except that of the things of which there is a certain settled state in the wise man, there is only an ardent desire in the devotee." "What, then, are these things?" I said. "For to me there seems to be no difference except that the one knows wisdom and the other desires to know it." "If you define knowledge within modest limits," he said, "you have stated the thing itself more plainly." "However I define it," I said, "all have agreed that there cannot be knowledge of false things." "Here," he said, "I thought an objection should be raised, so that your speech might not easily ride over the fields of that principal question through my inconsiderate agreement." "You have plainly left me nowhere to ride," I said. "For, unless I am mistaken, we have reached the very goal I have long been working toward. For if, as you said subtly and truly, there is no difference between the devotee of wisdom and the wise man except that the former loves and the latter has the discipline of wisdom (for which reason you did not hesitate to use the very name, that is, to express a certain settled state); and if no one can have a discipline in his mind who has learned nothing, and he has learned nothing who knows nothing, and no one can know what is false: then the wise man knows the truth, since you yourself have admitted that he has the discipline of wisdom, that is, a settled state, in his mind." "I do not know how shameless I would be," he said, "if I wanted to deny that I admitted that there is in the wise man a settled state of inquiry into divine and human things. But why it seems to you that it is not a settled state of probable things found, I do not see." "Do you grant me," I said, "that no one knows false things?" "Readily," he said. "Now say, if you can," I said, "that the wise man does not know wisdom." "What then?" he said. "Do you shut everything in by this boundary, so that it cannot seem to him that he has grasped wisdom?" "Give me your right hand," I said. "For, if you remember, this is what I said yesterday I would bring about, and I rejoice that it has not been concluded by me but offered to me by you of your own accord. For when I had said that the difference between me and the Academics was that to them it seemed probable that the truth cannot be grasped, while to me it seems that, though not yet found by me, it can be found by the wise man, now, when you were pressed by my question whether the wise man does not know wisdom, you said: 'It seems to him that he knows.'" "What then?" he said. "Because," I said, "if it seems to him that he knows wisdom, it does not seem to him that the wise man can know nothing; or else I want you to affirm that wisdom is nothing."

"I would truly believe," he said, "that we had come to the finishing line and the end; but suddenly, when you offered your right hand, I see that we are very far apart and have gone a long way. For yesterday no other question seemed to have been set by us except that you affirmed that the wise man can reach the grasp of truth and I denied it; but now I think I have granted you nothing except that it can seem to the wise man that he has attained the wisdom of probable things; and that I placed this wisdom in the investigation of divine and human things none of us, I think, doubts." "You do not get out," I said, "just because you wrap things up; for you seem to me now to be disputing to exercise yourself, and because you know well that these young men can as yet hardly discern what is argued sharply and subtly, you are abusing the ignorance of the judges, as it were, so that you may say as much as you like with no one protesting. For a little while ago, when I asked whether the wise man knew wisdom, you said it seems to him that he knows. To whom, then, it seems that the wise man knows wisdom, it surely does not seem that the wise man knows nothing. For this cannot be maintained unless someone dares to say that wisdom is nothing. From this it follows that you think what I also think. For it seems to me that the wise man knows something, and so, I think, to you, who hold that it seems to the wise man that he knows wisdom." Then he said: "I think I want to exercise my wit no more than you do, and I am surprised at that; for you need no exercise in this matter. For to me, perhaps still blind, there seems to be a difference between seeming to oneself to know and knowing, and between wisdom, which is placed in investigation, and truth. When each of these is said by us, I do not find how they fit together." Then, as we were now being called to lunch, I said: "I am not displeased that you resist so much; for either we both do not know what we are saying, and we must take pains not to be so shameful, or one of us does not, and to leave that and neglect it is no less shameful. But in the afternoon hours we will come back to each other. For when it seemed to me that we had reached the finish, you even started a fistfight." When they had laughed at this, we left.

And when we came back, we found Licentius, whom Helicon would never have relieved even if he had been thirsty, eagerly intent on thinking out verses. For he had quietly risen from almost the middle of lunch (though our lunch had the same beginning as its end) and had drunk nothing. I said to him: "I do wish that you may one day master that poetry you have longed for, not because such perfection delights me very much, but because I see you so on fire that you cannot escape from this love except by distaste, which usually comes easily after perfection. Then too, since you have a good voice, I would rather you pressed your own verses on our ears than sang words you do not understand in those Greek tragedies, like the little birds we see shut up in cages. But I advise you to go and drink, if you like, and come back to our school, if Hortensius and philosophy now deserve anything of you, to whom you offered the sweetest first fruits in that conversation of yours, which had kindled you more strongly than this poetry toward knowledge of great and truly fruitful things. But while I want to call you back to the circle of those disciplines by which minds are cultivated, I fear it may become a labyrinth for you, and I almost regret having held you back from that impulse." He blushed and went off to drink. For he was very thirsty, and an opportunity was given to escape me, who might perhaps say more and harsher things.

And when he had returned, with everyone attentive, I began thus: "Is it really the case, Alypius, that we do not agree on a matter which, as it seems to me, is most evident?" "It is no wonder," he said, "if what you assert is obvious to you is obscure to me, since many evident things can be more evident to some, and likewise certain obscure things more obscure to some. For if this is truly evident to you, believe me that there is someone else to whom this evident thing of yours is more evident, and likewise another to whom my obscure thing is more obscure. But so that you do not think me too contentious, I would beg you to set out this evident thing more evidently." "Pay careful attention, please," I said, "setting aside for a little the concern to answer. For if I know you and myself well, what I say will easily become clear with a little effort, and one of us will quickly persuade the other. Did you say, or perhaps I had gone deaf, that it seems to the wise man that he knows wisdom?" He nodded. "Let us leave that wise man aside for a little," I said. "Are you yourself wise or not?" "Nothing less," he said. "Still I want you to answer me," I said, "what you yourself think of the Academic wise man: does he seem to you to know wisdom?" "Do you think," he said, "that seeming to himself to know and knowing are one and the same, or different? For I fear that this confusion may give one of us a refuge."

"This," I said, "is that 'Tuscan wrangling,' as it is called, when a question not yet tried seems to be cured not by its solution but by the raising of another. Our poet too (to give myself a little to Licentius's ears) fittingly judged this in his pastoral poem to be rustic and plainly shepherdish, when one asks the other where the space of the sky opens no wider than three ells, and the other in what lands flowers are born inscribed with the names of kings. Please, Alypius, do not think this is allowed us because we are in a country house. Surely even these little baths may bring to mind something of the dignity of the gymnasia. Answer, if you please, what I ask: does the wise man of the Academics seem to you to know wisdom?" "So as not to go on long by returning words for words," he said, "it seems to me that it seems to him that he knows." "So it seems to you," I said, "that he does not know? For I am not asking what it seems to you seems to the wise man, but whether it seems to you that the wise man knows wisdom. You can, I think, either affirm or deny here." "O, if only," he said, "it were as easy for me as for you, or as hard for you as for me, you would not be so troublesome or hope for anything in this. For when you asked me what I thought of the Academic wise man, I answered that it seems to me that it seems to him that he knows wisdom, so that I would neither rashly affirm that I knew nor no less rashly say that he knew." "As a great favor," I said, "I beg you to grant me, first, that you deign to answer what I ask, not what you ask yourself; next, that you set aside for a little my hope, which I know is no less your concern than your own (surely if I deceive you by this question I will quickly cross over to your side and we will end the controversy); and finally, that, driving away some anxiety by which I see you are touched, you attend more carefully, so that you may easily understand what answer I want from you. For you said that you did not either affirm or deny (which certainly must be done in reply to what I ask) so as not to say rashly that you know what you do not know; as though I had asked what you know and not what seems to you. So now I ask the same thing more plainly, if it can be said more plainly: does it seem to you that the wise man knows wisdom, or does it not?" "If a wise man such as reason discloses can be found," he said, "it can seem to me that he knows wisdom." "So reason discloses to you," I said, "that the wise man is one who is not ignorant of wisdom; and rightly. For it was not fitting that it should seem otherwise to you."

"So now I ask whether a wise man can be found. For if he can, he can also know wisdom, and the whole question between us is settled. But if you say he cannot, the question will no longer be whether the wise man knows anything, but whether anyone can be wise. Once that is set down, we will have to leave the Academics and turn this question over with you diligently and carefully, as far as we are able. For they held, or rather it seemed to them, both that a man can be wise and yet that knowledge cannot befall a man (and so they affirmed that the wise man knows nothing); whereas it seems to you that he knows wisdom, which is certainly not knowing nothing. At the same time we agreed, as all the ancients and the Academics themselves also agreed, that no one can know false things. So it now remains that you either contend that wisdom is nothing, or admit that the Academics describe a wise man such as reason does not contain, and, leaving them aside, agree that we should inquire whether such wisdom as reason discloses can come to man. For we neither ought nor can rightly call anything else wisdom."

"Even if I grant," he said, "what I see you are striving hard for, that wisdom is known by the wise man and that something has been discovered between us that the wise man can perceive, still it does not at all appear to me that the whole aim of the Academics has been overthrown. For I foresee that no small ground of defense is left to them, and that their suspension of assent has not been cut off, since they cannot lack for their cause the very thing by which you think them convicted. For they will say that nothing is grasped and no assent is to be given to anything, to such a degree that even this view about nothing being perceived, of which they had probably persuaded themselves through almost their whole life up to your time, has now been wrested from them by this conclusion; so that, whether the force of this argument is invincible because of the slowness of my wit or truly by its own strength, it cannot move them from their position, since they can still boldly affirm that not even now should one assent to anything. For perhaps at some time something might be found against this too, by themselves or by someone, that would be said sharply and probably; and their image and, as it were, a mirror should be seen in that Proteus who is said to be usually caught where he was least caught, and whose pursuers never held him as the same unless some divinity pointed him out. May that divinity be present and deign to show us that truth which is our great concern! Then I too will confess that they are overcome, even if they are unwilling, which I hardly think."

"Very well," I said; "I wished for nothing more. For see, please, how many and how great goods have come to me. The first is that the Academics are now said to be so convicted that nothing is left them for defense except what cannot happen. For who could in any way understand or believe that one who has been defeated boasts that he is the victor by the very thing by which he was defeated? Next, if any conflict with them still remains, it is not because they say that nothing can be known, but because they contend that one should assent to nothing. So now we are in agreement. For it seems to them, as to me, that the wise man knows wisdom. But they advise that he should still refrain from assent. For they say only that it seems so to them, but that they in no way know it; as though I professed that I know! I too say that it seems so to me; for I am a fool, as they are too, if they do not know wisdom. But I think we ought to approve something, namely the truth. I consult them about this, whether they deny it, that is, whether they hold that one should not assent to the truth. They will never say that, but they will assert that it is not found. So here too they hold me in some measure as their ally, since both of us are not displeased with, indeed necessarily hold, that one should assent to the truth. 'But who will show it?' they say. There I will not trouble to contend with them; it is enough for me that it is no longer probable that the wise man knows nothing, unless they are to be forced to say a most absurd thing: either that wisdom is nothing or that the wise man does not know wisdom."

"But who can show the truth has been said by you, Alypius, from whom I must take great pains not to disagree. For you said, briefly and also piously, that only some divinity can show man what truth is. So in this conversation of ours I have heard nothing more gladly, nothing weightier, nothing more probable, and, if that divinity is present, as I trust, nothing truer. For that Proteus too (with what loftiness of mind you recalled him, with what aim toward the best kind of philosophy!), that Proteus, so that you young men may see that poets are not to be wholly despised by philosophy, is brought in as an image of truth. Of truth, I say, Proteus displays and bears the character in poems, which no one can hold if, deceived by false images, he loosens or lets go the knots of his grasp. For there are those images which, through our familiarity with bodily things, by means of these senses that we use for the necessities of this life, try to deceive and mock us even when the truth is held and as it were in our hands. This, then, is the third good that has befallen me, and I cannot find how highly to value it. For my most intimate friend agrees with me not only about the probability of human life but also about religion itself; which is the clearest sign of a true friend, since friendship has been most rightly and holily defined as agreement in things human and divine with goodwill and love."

"Still, so that the arguments of the Academics may not seem to spread some fog, or that we may not seem to resist proudly the authority of most learned men, among whom Tully above all cannot fail to move us, I will first, if you please, argue a few things against those points by which those disputations seem to oppose the truth; then I will show, as it seems to me, what reason the Academics had for hiding their opinion. So, Alypius, although I see you wholly on my side, still take up their part a little and answer me." "Since you have set out today," he said, "under good auspices, as they say, I will not hinder your complete victory, and I will try to take up that part more securely because it is imposed by you; but only if you prefer, if it suits you, to turn what you indicate you will do by questions into a continuous speech, so that I am not tortured by you with those little darts as a captive, like a stubborn opponent, which is very far from your humanity."

And I, noticing that the others too were waiting for this, began as though with another introduction: "I will humor you; and although, after that labor of the school of rhetoric, I had presumed I would rest somewhat in this light armor, doing these things by questioning rather than by speaking, yet, because we are very few, so that I need not shout against my health, and because I wanted this pen, for the sake of the same health, to be the charioteer and governor of my speech, so that I am not carried away by my mind more excitedly than care of the body requires: hear in a continuous speech, as you wish, what I think. But first let us see what sort of thing it is in which the lovers of the Academics are wont to boast too much. For there is in the books of Cicero which he wrote in defense of this cause a certain passage seasoned, as it seems to me, with wonderful wit, but, as it seems to some, also strengthened by firmness. It is very hard for what is said there not to move someone: that the second place is given to the Academic wise man by all those of the other schools who seem to themselves wise, since each must claim the first place for himself; from which it can probably be concluded that he is rightly first by his own judgment who is second by the judgment of all the others."

"For suppose, for example, that a Stoic wise man is present; for it was above all against them that the genius of the Academics blazed up. So if Zeno or Chrysippus is asked who is wise, he will answer that it is the one he himself has described. Against him Epicurus or some other opponent will deny it and contend that rather his own most expert fowler of pleasures is wise. Then to the quarrel! Zeno shouts and the whole Porch is in uproar that man is born for nothing but virtue; that it draws minds to itself by its own splendor, with no advantage at all set before them from outside and no reward, as it were, playing the pimp; and that the pleasure of Epicurus is common only to cattle among themselves, into whose company it is impious to thrust both man and the wise man. Against him that man, calling to his aid from his little gardens, like Liber, a crowd of drunkards, who still look for someone to tear apart, raving, with unkempt nails and rough mouths, exaggerating the name of pleasure, its sweetness, its quiet, with the people as witness, presses on keenly, so that no one seems able to be happy without it. If the Academic runs into their brawl, he will hear both dragging him to their side; but if he gives way to these or to those, he will be shouted at by those he deserts as mad, ignorant, and rash. So, when he has carefully put his ear now this way, now that, and is asked what he thinks, he will say he is in doubt. Ask the Stoic now who is better: Epicurus, who shouts that he is raving, or the Academic, who declares that he must still deliberate about so great a matter? No one doubts that the Academic will be preferred. Turn again to the other and ask whom he loves more: Zeno, by whom he is called a beast, or Arcesilas, from whom he hears, 'You perhaps speak the truth, but I will inquire more carefully'? Is it not clear that the whole Porch seems mad to Epicurus, and the Academics, by comparison with them, modest and cautious men? So, in much the same way about almost all the schools, Cicero most copiously offers his readers a very delightful spectacle, as it were, showing that there is none of them who, when he has given himself the first place, as he must, does not say that he gives the second to one whom he sees not opposing but doubting. In this I will not oppose anything or take away any glory from them."

"Let it seem to anyone at all that Cicero was not joking here but wanted to pursue and collect empty and windy things, which would be foreign even to the levity of the little Greeks themselves. For what prevents me, if I wish to resist this vanity, from easily showing how much less evil it is to be untaught than unteachable? From this it follows that, when that boastful little Academic has given himself as a pupil, as it were, to each of them, and no one has been able to persuade him of what he thinks he knows, he is afterwards laughed at by their great agreement. For each will now judge that any other of his opponents has learned nothing, but this one can learn nothing. As a result he will be thrown out of the schools of all of them, not with the cane, which would be more disgraceful than painful, but with the clubs and sticks of those men in cloaks. For it will be no great business to demand, as it were, the Herculean help of the Cynics against a common plague. But if one wanted to contend with them for that most worthless glory (which should be granted with easier pardon to me, who am already doing philosophy but not yet wise), what will they have to refute? For see, let us suppose that I and an Academic have rushed into those disputes of the philosophers; let them all be present and set out their opinions briefly, as time allows. Let Carneades be asked what he thinks. He will say he is in doubt. So each will prefer him to the rest, and therefore all to all: a great and lofty glory, no doubt! Who would not want to imitate him? So I too, when asked, will answer the same; the praise will be equal. The wise man, then, rejoices in a glory in which the fool is made equal to him. What if the fool even easily surpasses him? Does shame do nothing? For I will hold back that Academic as he is already leaving the court, since folly is greedier for this kind of victory. So, holding him back, I will reveal to the judges what they do not know and say: 'Excellent men, I have this in common with this man, that he doubts which of you follows the truth. But we also have our own opinions, on which I ask you to judge. For it is uncertain to me, though I have heard your doctrines, where the truth is, but only because I do not know which of you is wise. But this man denies that even the wise man knows anything, not even the very wisdom from which he is called wise.' Who does not see whose the palm is? For if my opponent says this, I will win in glory; but if, blushing, he confesses that the wise man knows wisdom, I will win in opinion."

"But let us now withdraw from this litigious court to some place where no crowd may trouble us, and would that it were to the very school of Plato, which is said to have taken its name from being withdrawn from the people. Here let us discuss, as far as we can between ourselves, not glory, which is a light and childish thing, but life itself and some hope of a happy mind. The Academics deny that anything can be known. Why did you hold this, most studious and learned men? 'The definition of Zeno warned us,' they say. Why, I ask? For if it is true, one who knows even that definition knows something true; if false, it should not have disturbed the most steadfast men. But let us see what Zeno says: that an impression can be grasped and perceived which is such that it does not have marks in common with the false. Did this move you, Platonist, to draw students back from the hope of learning with all your strength, so that, aided even by a certain sluggishness of mind, they should groaningly abandon the whole business of philosophy?"

"But how could it fail to move him greatly, if nothing of the kind can be found, and nothing can be perceived except what is of that kind? If this is so, it should rather have been said that wisdom cannot befall man than that the wise man does not know why he lives, does not know how he lives, does not know whether he lives, and finally (nothing more perverse, crazy, and mad can be said) that he is at once wise and ignorant of wisdom. For which is harsher: that a man cannot be wise, or that the wise man does not know wisdom? There is nothing to dispute here, if the matter thus set out is not enough for judging. But perhaps if that were said, men would be wholly turned away from philosophy; whereas now they are to be lured by the most sweet and holy name of wisdom, so that, having worn out their life and learned nothing, they may afterwards pursue you with the greatest curses, whom they followed, having at least left the pleasures of the body, into the torments of the mind."

"But let us see by whom they would rather be frightened away from philosophy: by one who says, 'Listen, friend: philosophy is called not wisdom itself but the pursuit of wisdom; if you devote yourself to it, you will not indeed be wise while you live here (for wisdom is with God and cannot come to man); but when you have exercised and cleansed yourself enough by such a pursuit, your mind will easily enjoy it after this life, that is, when you have ceased to be a man'; or by one who says, 'Come, mortals, to philosophy! Great is the fruit here; for what is dearer to man than wisdom? Come, then, so that you may be wise and not know wisdom!' 'I will not say it that way,' he says. That is deception; for nothing else will be found with you. So it happens that if you say this they flee you as a madman; if you bring them to it some other way, you make them mad. But let us believe that men are equally unwilling to do philosophy because of either view. If Zeno's definition compelled one to say something harmful to philosophy, my good man, should a man have been told what would grieve him, or what would make him laugh at you?"

"Still, let us discuss, as far as we fools can, what Zeno defined. He says that that impression can be grasped which appears in such a way that what is false could not appear so. It is clear that nothing else comes into perception. 'I too see this,' says Arcesilas, 'and by this very thing I teach that nothing is perceived; for nothing of that kind can be found.' Perhaps not by you and by other fools; but why not by the wise man? Although I think nothing could be answered even to a fool, if he tells you to refute this very definition of Zeno with that memorable sharpness of yours and to show that it too can be false. If you cannot, you have this very definition, which you may perceive. But if you refute it, you have nothing to keep you from perceiving. I do not see that it can be refuted, and I judge it altogether most true. So, since I know it, although I am a fool, I know something. But suppose it yields to your cunning. I will use a most secure dilemma. Either it is true or false. If true, I hold it well; if false, something can be perceived even if it has marks in common with the false. 'How can it?' he says. Most truly, then, did Zeno define it, and whoever agreed with him even in this did not err. Or shall we think a definition of small praise and sincerity which, against those who were going to say much against perception, when it marked out what sort of thing can be perceived, showed itself to be such? So it is both definition and example of things that can be grasped. 'Whether it is itself true,' he says, 'I do not know; but because it is probable, I follow it and show that there is nothing such as it expressed could be grasped.' You show it, perhaps, except for itself, and you see, I think, what follows. And even if we are uncertain about it, knowledge does not desert us so; for we know that it is either true or false; so we do not know nothing. Although it will never make me ungrateful: I judge that definition altogether most true. For either false things too can be perceived, which the Academics fear greatly and which is truly absurd, or not even those things can be perceived which are most like false ones; hence that definition is true. But now let us look at the rest."