CARNEADES, a Greek philosopher, founder of the Third or New Academy, was born at Cyrene about 213 b.c. Little is known of his life. He learned dialectics under Diogenes the Stoic, and under Hegesinus, the third leader of the Academy in descent from Arcesilaus. The chief objects ofhis study, however, were the works of Chrysippus, opposition to whose views is the mainspring of his philosophy. “If Chrysippus had not been, I had not been either,” he is reported to have said on one-occasion. The most notable incident in his life was the embassy to Rome in 156. His eloquence and powerful reasoning excited among the Roman youth an enthusiasm for philosophical speculations, and roused the ire of Cato, who insisted on Carneades, with his companions, being sent from the city. According to Diogenes Laertius, Carneades died in his eighty-fifth year, i.e., in 129 B.c.; according to Cicero ho survived to the age of ninety....
Carneades is the most powerful of the ancient sceptics. Fundamentally he is at one with Arcesilaus (see Arcesilaus) ; but he carried out his principles with such fulness and skill, both on the negative and on the positive side, that he is called with justice the founder of the New Academy. Negatively, the philosophy of Carneades is a polemic against the Stoic theory of knowledge in all its aspects. Experience, he thinks, clearly shows that there is no true impression. There is no notion that may not deceive us; it is impossible to distinguish between false and true impressions; φαντασία καταληπτική must be given up. There is no criterion of truth. Not content with attacking this fundamental position of the Stoic philosophy, Carneades also assailed their theology and physics. In answer to the Stoic doctrine of final cause, of design in nature, he points to those things which cause destruction and danger to man, to the evil committed by men endowed with reason, to the miserable condition of humanity, and to the misfortunes that assail the good man. There is, he concludes, no evidence for the doctrine of a divine superintending providence. Even if there were orderly connection of parts in the universe, this may have resulted quite naturally. No proof can be advanced to show that this world is anything but the product of natural forces. Carneades further attacked the very idea of God. He points out the contradiction between the attributes of infinity and individuality. Like Aristotle, he insists that virtue, being relative, cannot be ascribed to God. Not even intelligence can be an attribute of the divine Being. Many of the arguments employed in this connection by Carneades have little value, but the general line of criticism is highly suggestive and anticipates much in modern thought.
The positive side of Carneades’s teaching resembled in all essentials that of Arcesilaus. Knowledge being impossible, a wise man should practise ιτroχη, withholding of judgment. He will not even be sure that he can be sure of nothing. Ideas or notions are never true, but only probable; nevertheless, there are degrees of probability, and hence degrees of belief, leading to action. This theory of probability was worked out with some care, but little is known of its application to practice. The views of Carneades on the summum boηurn were not clearly known even to his disciple and successor Clitomachus. He seems to have held that virtue consisted in the direction of activity towards the satisfaction of the natural impulses. Carneades left no written works; his opinions seem to have been systematized by his follower Clitomachus. (See Diog. Laer. bk. iv., Cicero, and Sextus Empiricus. An admirable survey of Carneades is given by Zeller, Phil. d. Griechen, iii. pt. 1.)
[616 words — estimated reading time: 4 minutes]