| Ancient Scepticism and the Contra Academicos of St.AugustineAncient Scepticism and the ContraAcademicos of St. AugustineBernard Wills[1] Are we ever justified in being convinced we knowsomething and in acting accordingly? Does our happiness depend upon the possibility orimpossibility of certain knowledge? Does the good life require a stable relationship to the truth orcan it be had apart from this? Is the desire to apprehend truth our central concern as rationalbeings, the basis of our authentic existence? Is it rather an impediment to happiness, an illusorydesire which we must dispel or condemn ourselves to a life of frustration and anxiety? One mightsimply dismiss this as a dead issue. After all, is not certainty a discredited concept in oursupposedly post-philosophical era? Have not we all learned the finite and contingent character ofall human discourse? Yet the signs of discomfort with these conclusions are evident in our cultureas well. Certain foundations for our beliefs and actions, whether grounded in reason or theauthority of revelation, can seem necessary antidotes to the pervasive loss of meaning in advancedsocieties. Indeed, the very distinction between civilized life and barbarity and cynicism is thoughtto rest on the capacity to draw clear moral conclusions. In support of this, it may be pointed outthat contemporary relativism is often put forward on moral and socio-political grounds whichbetray it as clearly a dogmatism.[2] Nonetheless, it remains true that the humancondition seems subject to a fundamental anxiety about the possibility of grasping the world weinhabit. Is reality as we perceive it to be or are we locked forever in our own subjectiveimpressions? The problem can be put as follows: it seems always that in my effort to graspotherness in nature, society, or beyond I rely upon some medium to bring the object before myself. But if this is the case how am I to know how much the perception before me takes its characterfrom the object itself or from the medium which has delivered it to me? [3] In the ancient world Sceptical thinkers focused onthe problem of sensation. Given that the senses are passible, and they need to such be to receiveimpressions from external objects, can they not be effected by external conditions in such a waythat they do not register these objects as they truly are? And if this were not the case, or could becompensated for in some way, how could we be sure what characteristics of the object werecontributed by the inherent operation of the sense organ? What is even worse, it is entirelypossible to have sensations of objects which are not present. Far from guaranteeing that objectsare as they appear, the senses do not even guarantee the presence of an object at all. How, then,can we rely upon them in claiming to know how the world is?[4] In our own day, Sceptics have tended to focus lesson the problem of sensation and more on the conditions for understanding and ordering thedeliverances of sense. This is the problem of the so called hermeneutical circle. To give shape andmeaning to the data which confront us requires a preset conceptual framework if we are to havemore than a mere chaos of impressions. But, since we cannot grasp the world as it is apart fromsuch frameworks how are we to determine whether they are part of the real structure of things? We cannot put things on one side and concepts on the other to determine whether they match. The same difficulty we noted with the senses appears here as well. It seems there is no way todetermine what belongs to the object and what belongs to the medium through which it appears. [5] On the face of it these arguments can seem utterlypersuasive and many have been persuaded by them. On the other hand, civilization and even lifeitself seem to depend on the capacity to distinguish what is from what is not and many others haveimpatiently denounced Sceptical arguments as destructive of human flourishing. Nonetheless, it isone thing to decry the evil consequences of Relativism and Scepticism and quite another todemonstrate their falsity. Indeed, if it is the case that all knowledge is mediated the scepticalargument is untouchable in both its ancient and modern forms. [6] In antiquity the Sceptical challenge was answeredwith the greatest thoroughness by Augustine. His dialogue Contra Academicos as well as severalpassages in his other writings vigorously oppose any effort to deny to human beings a surefoundation in their quest to apprehend the Truth. For him, self-consciousness itself provided thisfoundation. The fact that mind is, in the final analysis, unmediated self-presence puts knowledgegrounded in introspection beyond the power of appearance and renders it impervious to doubt. Onthis basis, he proceeded to demonstrate that the Platonic tradition could surmount the challenge ofthe New Academy, which had raised in a new way the problem of thought's adequacy to being, byshowing that self-consciousness itself was constituted by the Ideas (De Vera Religione xxix,73). [7] Augustine noted that the opposition of being andappearance, on which Scepticism of any kind thrived, is operative in any kind of knowledge inwhich something is known indirectly through the medium of something directly known. Thus, asensible object external to ourselves is known, not by direct insight but through an image itproduces in us from which we infer the being and nature of that object. While Augustine thoughtknowledge of this kind entirely adequate to its purpose and had no exaggerated suspicion of thesenses, he also saw that the refutation of Scepticism involved something more than asserting thisgeneral fact. It involved cutting out the root of the Sceptical position by pointing to the directpresence of reason to itself in its own operations. As an example of the direct presence of being tothought, reason's knowledge of itself is immune to the critical fire of the Sceptics, who alwaysassume that knowledge is through a medium capable of distorting the object known (see DeTrinitate XV, chap.4). [8] Thus, against the tendency of ancient Scepticism toposit an absolute divide between subject and object, being and appearance, Augustine points toself-consciousness as uniting these oppositions. Moreover, because timeless and necessary truthconstitutes the activity of thought revealed in judgement, even the judgement that I exist, this self-consciousness is not barren self-identity but inherently contentful. Its awareness of itself issimultaneously an intellection of the primary ideas. This being the case, the mind cannot fallcompletely out of its relation to being without ceasing to exist as a mind. Accordingly, anyScepticism which attempts to establish an absolute gulf between thought and being is defeatedfrom the outset. The answer to the Sceptical question is the Sceptic himself inasmuch as in hisown activity he directly unites the very terms, being and appearance, that he would hold foreverapart. [9] In this way, Augustine showed that in thought itselflay the mediation between sensible appearance and its inner ground in the divine. Since self-consciousness holds together in itself the apparent and the real the theoretical life can involve morethan the mere refusal to assent to appearances. The intelligible light, the bridge by which we returnto our source from the shadows of the cave, is present, sustaining and illumining us even in thevery effort to deny it. To return fully to ourselves is to return to this light and achieve final fruitionand since we are present to ourselves by our very nature to return to ourselves is a matter of simplylooking.(1) [10] Having said this however, it need not be denied that forAugustine Scepticism is not without a positive function. That any Scepticism which seeks toestablish a sceptical discourse (rather than falling into silence) has of necessity a self- overcomingcharacter will be a crucial point emerging from Augustine's argument. This fact represents boththe limitation and the positive contribution of the Sceptical tradition. By undermining the claim ofvarious dogmatisms to offer a certain grasp of our immediate sensuous environment by showingthat our relationship to it is entirely mediated the Sceptics inadvertently pointed to thought itself asthe immediate self-presence of Truth. In this way, their position constituted a possible route ofreturn to the wisdom of Platonism insofar as it revealed, through its very denial of the light of truth,the presence of this light in the form of universal and objective laws of thought. Thus, Augustinecan see Scepticism as moving beyond itself to a knowledge of the Ideas and as paving the wayhistorically for the revival of the Platonic tradition in the school of Plotinus. [11] The present paper will examine the dialectical process bywhich scepticism can be converted to the ideas as dramatised by Augustine in the ContraAcademicos. This is Augustine's most thorough treatment of the question and one which, to theend of his life, he regarded as having accomplished its aim (Retractions,1,1). Prior to this,however, it will be necessary to give a general account of the Sceptical position and thebackground from which it emerges. II[12] The Ancient sceptics had proposed a radical solution tothe questions which animated philosophical discussion in the Hellenistic era..(2) This era wascharacterized by a number of dogmatic philosophical schools which claimed to offer human beingscertain happiness in the midst of an unstable and fragmented world.(3) The period immediatelyfollowing the conquests of Alexander and the spread of Greek culture across Asia was one ofprofound spiritual upheaval. The loss of the political independence of the Greek city statesundermined the traditional civic virtues which had given meaning to the lives of their citizens. Inthis situation, the speculative daring and profundity of Platonic and Aristotelian thought gave wayto a new pragmatic spirit for which the paramount concern was securing individual well-being in avast cosmopolitan empire. Moreover, this spirit was anti-metaphysical in temper and tended torevert to the materialism of early Greek thought (Reale, 8-10). Seeking the immediate good of theindividual in his worldly situation, the Hellenistic schools eschewed all idealisms and espoused arigorous immanentism.(4)[13] Two of the most prominent of these schools, theEpicureans and the Stoics, sought to liberate humans from anxiety and disturbance by means of adogmatic belief in the veracity of sense perception. For the former, clear and veridical senseperceptions were the foundation of an atomic theory which accounted for all things in terms of thefortuitous motion of atomic particles (Armstrong, 133-35). This knowledge was said to liberate usfrom the anxiety consequent on the belief in our responsibility to divine powers and allow us topursue the tranquillity that results from the satisfaction of our basic natural needs (Armstrong,137). In the absence of pain brought about by the fulfilment of these needs, the Epicureansthought they had discovered a limitless good (Reale, 164,171). Moreover, the pursuit of this goodwas taken to require a withdrawal from all civic life into intimate private associations devoted tocultivating personal happiness (Reale, 120). Thus, the Epicureans found the end of man to lie, notin the theoretical life, but in a praxis which aimed at autarchy and apatheia, self-sufficiency andfreedom from disturbance.[14] The Stoics too sought freedom from anxiety anddisturbance, but rather than doing so by denying divine providence they sought to offer a pathwhereby human beings could identify themselves directly with the will of God. The Stoic sage,with his imperturbable grasp of sensible objects, was thought to be able to know the rational orderexpressed in the causal nexus of natural events (Long, 108). With this knowledge, he could live alife perfectly in accord with nature through identifying himself with and submitting to the divinelogos (conceived as a fiery material substance permeating the cosmos) which governed all things(Armstrong, 124). [15] The Stoics, like the Epicureans, sought to ground theirclaims to knowledge of the Cosmos on the immediacy of sense impressions. They held that it waspossible to identify a class of self-authenticating perceptions which they termed 'kataleptic'impressions (Long, 126-7). By means of these self-evident impressions, the 'wise man' couldperceive with certainty extra-subjective events and discern through these the operations of theuniversal reason with which he sought to identify himself. A kataleptic impression was defined asone "... stamped and moulded out of the object from which it came with a character such as itcould not have if it came from an object other than the one which it did come from."(Cicero,Academica 2.18). Thus, the Stoics held that certain sense impressions impressed upon thepercipient a form or shape which was the form or shape of an external object.(5) They held too thatthese impressions were recognizable as such by their clarity and persuasiveness. If a certainimpression had the character of a kataleptic impression, it could compel assent to the objectivereality of that which was conveyed in the impression(Reale, 223). On this basis all forms ofconceptual knowledge were thought to rest. Secure in his grasp of the physical Cosmos the Stoicwas secure as well in his grasp of the divine Logos which was identical with it and thus couldtranscend the limitations of his particular existence through his love of fate.[16] The Academic Sceptics, however, saw a more direct pathto tranquillity which did not rest on a shaky dogmatic realism. They began from two premisesaccepted by the Stoics: (1) that the 'wise man' does not assent to opinions but to true knowledgeand (2) that true sense perceptions can be distinguished from false by a 'mark' of theirauthenticity(6) (Cicero, Academica 2.40). The Sceptics then pointed out that the Stoics had neverbeen able to give a clear explanation of this mark, and could not for it did not exist. Consequently,nothing could be perceived in such a way as to preclude the possibility of error. This being thecase, concerning sensible things (the only things considered real in themselves by the Stoics) it waspossible to hold only opinions. Since, however, the 'wise man' did not assent to opinions, itfollowed that he suspended all assent (Cicero, Academica 2.66). [17] The main effort of the Sceptics went into underminingthe doctrine of the kataleptic impression. Here they argued very effectively that no senseperception, no matter how vivid, could guarantee its own correspondence to an external object.(7) As Long puts it "Sense perceptions do not possess characteristics that mark off one that is certainlyreliable from another that is not. In no particular case is any sense impression self-evidently true tothe object it purports to represent. It may and often will be true, but it cannot be known to betrue." (Long, 95-6) Thus, no matter how many true perceptions we have, the fact that a vividdream or hallucination can appear to us in such a way that nothing marks it as such precludes usfrom saying that any one of our perceptions is unmistakably veridical. As far as sense experience isconcerned, the true and the false are forever confused and as all other truth claims rest ultimatelyupon sensation, no secure foundation for philosophical knowledge exists. As Sextus Empiricusputs it "And if there is no presentation capable of judging, reasoning too would not be a criterion,for reasoning is based on a presentation. And this makes sense, for that which is to be judged mustfirst be presented to someone, and nothing is presented to someone apart from non-rational senseperception."(8) (Adversus Mathematicos 7.164.) [18] If this was the case, then the Stoics' own premisescommitted them to the view that the 'wise man' could not assent to any perception as true (Long,90-91). The Stoics held that the distinction between the wise and the foolish lay in the fact that theformer acted only from certain knowledge and the latter from mere opinion (Zeller, 269-70). Ifcertain knowledge did not exist, then it followed that concerning all things, the 'wise man' mustsuspend judgement. If he did not but assented rashly, he would expose himself to the possibility oferror which would cause him to lose his purchase on that by which he was called wise in the firstplace, his possession of truth. Thus, if to be a sage it is necessary to be free of all error, then it isnecessary as well to suspend judgement. [19] This withholding of assent was thought by all Sceptics toliberate human beings from the fear of error and to bring about a state of imperturbable self-sufficiency and happiness. "The Sceptics hoped to attain a freedom from disturbance by judgingthe inconsistency of appearances and ideas, and not being able to do this, they suspendedjudgement. Being in this suspensive state, freedom from disturbance followed fortuitously, as ashadow follows a body."(9) (Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism 12.25). Thus, the Scepticsucceeds by failure. Discovering the inadequacy of all attempts to distinguish being from seemingand the impossibility of judging between rival philosophies and, moreover, knowing theinsufficiency of opinion to satisfy our desire for knowledge, he simply renounces the fruit of hissearch and finds in this renunciation freedom and peace.[20] In this way, the Sceptics found in their own subjectivity,the suspensive state of thought resting in its own formal self identity, the abiding term of alldiscourse [However, they did not go beyond this to ask whether this subjectivity itself wasintelligible in itself or whether it too possessed its stability in relation to a prior principle].(10) TheAcademic Sceptics in particular emphasized the practice of a negative dialectic which couldundermine any given content by showing its contrary to be equally plausible. In this practice, the'wise man' attained inner freedom from all appearances and impressions and in this negativefashion displayed his will to truth.[21] In certain Sceptics this doctrine appears to haveproduced an austere quietism which led inevitably to the accusation that it was a doctrine whichrendered human life impossible.(11) After all, the physical necessities of animal life, to whichhuman beings are subject, seem to demand the assent to certain appearances. If I am hungry, Imust judge that the object in front of me is edible as opposed to poisonous. Suspension ofjudgement in this case would result in my starvation. What is more, as individual human beingsare, by and large, too feeble to survive in complete solitude, the fact that they must live in societywith others also places them in situations where assent to appearances seems unavoidable. Howthen could the Sceptic's way of life be anything more than an unobtainable ideal? [22] It fell to the Sceptic Carneades to work out a doctrine ofplausibility by which, without giving full assent to anything as true, the Academic Sceptic couldnonetheless function as a denizen of the realm of appearances (Hankinson, 111-12). Keeping hismind free from error he could still proceed to make the cave a somewhat comfortable place toinhabit if he were a careful enough observer of the shadows on the wall. Conceived in this way,the life of the Sceptic could, as far as appearances are concerned, be outwardly indistinguishablefrom the life of common men and women. Indeed, he could combine his seemingly austeredoctrine with the highest degree of worldliness if only he kept himself inwardly free from assent. This could seem a plausible step to take. It is notable, however, that the Sceptics could never quiteabandon a concern for the theoretical life. However successful the Sceptic might have been atnavigating around the cave he did not seem to have ever wanted to call it home.(12) [23] How, then, does the Sceptic judge plausibilities? SextusEmpiricus gives a lucid account of Carneades' views on this question. He notes that for Carneadesand the Academics who succeeded him, it was possible to distinguish among different types ofperceptions. These types he describes as follows: They regard some as simply plausible; some as plausible and tested; and others asplausible, thoroughly tested and uncontroverted. For example, when one suddenly enters adarkened room wherein is lying a coiled-up rope, it is simply plausible that the presentation comingfrom this is as if it were that from a snake, but to the man who has looked carefully and thoroughlytested the circumstances, for example, by ascertaining that it does not move, that its colour is of acertain sort, and so on, it appears to be a rope according to the plausible and tested presentation. An example of an uncontroverted presentation is this. It is said that Heracles brought Alcestis backfrom Hades when she was dead and showed her to Admetus who received a plausible andthoroughly tested presentation of Alcestis. But since he knew that she was dead, his intellectrecoiled from assent and inclined to disbelief. So those of the new Academy prefer a thoroughlytested and plausible presentation to a simply plausible one and an uncontroverted, thoroughlytested and plausible one to either of the other two. (Outlines of Pyrrhonism 33.226-9)[24] Depending on the importance of the matter at hand orthe urgency of his situation the Sceptic could use any of these criteria. In a matter of littleimportance, or in an emergency when a careful evaluation was not feasible, he would be justifiedin acting on the plausible presentation. If more was at stake then the tested and uncontrovertedpresentation could be employed. In matters judged to be of greatest importance, the Sceptic wouldemploy the uncontroverted and thoroughly tested presentation (Long, 98).[25] It must be emphasized however that none of theseprecautions could guarantee the truth of any perception. The possibility of a false perceptionmeeting even the most rigorous evaluation remained. In spite of this, careful observation andexperience allowed the Sceptic, as much if not more than any other man, to secure for himselfsuch natural goods as need compelled him to seek. In matters concerning anything beyond sensibleexperience, such as the nature of God or the happy life, the Sceptics simply opposed all existingviews to each other and showed none to be more plausible than the next. It appears though, thatCarneades may well have allowed a judgement of plausibility to be made concerning some mattersother than sense impressions, such as courses of action or, indeed the plausibility of Scepticismitself. Augustine, we shall see, takes Carneades to be claiming this. (Groarke, 115).[26] Thus, Ancient Scepticism produced an outlooksomewhat akin to modern positivism in its resolute empiricism. They differed however in that theynever advocated, as far as we know, a complete immersion in the world of common experience. While recognizing that we are bound by our physical existence to involve ourselves with thephysical realm and all its attendant illusions they did not abandon the ideal of a theoretical freedomfrom it. This is due to the common ethical concern which, with varying degrees of emphasis, allthe Sceptics shared (Groarke 107-8). The Sceptics knew that the good life for human beingswas to be found in and through thought as it attained to some stable object above the flux ofexperience. This is why they refused to give assent to anything in the sensible realm. The fact thatthey did not find any such object outside of their own subjectivity should not be allowed to obscurethe point that Scepticism possessed within its own assumptions both a speculative and practicalrelationship to the idea of truth and as such possessed an intelligible content. [27] This is why, for Augustine, Scepticism is a selfovercoming project the immanent critique of which will bring to light the objective truth that itrightly says cannot be identified with the sensible. That Scepticism itself does not come to see thisis due to the fact that in freedom from error it thinks it has found our proper relation to the good. Thus, it is as much a problem of will as of knowledge. After all, if the Sceptic possesses the Goodthrough suspension of judgement then any further argument would be beside the point. What elsecan interest someone who thinks he has the Good? To cut away the root of the Sceptical doctrineit is necessary to ask, with Augustine, whether apatheia and autarchy properly satisfy the will orare simply goods as limited as any other. It would be no exaggeration to say that the ultimateanswer to Scepticism is conversion; for the Sceptic to see what lies before his own eyes requiresthat he have the will to see it. This will to turn to the light which enlightens every man born in thisworld, while not in anyone's power to produce save the Father of lights, can nonetheless find itshuman occasion in the demonstration that the Sceptic does not truly possess the good he seeks anddoes not realize that if he thinks at all about his own position it is only because of the light thatilluminates the wall of the cave. The Contra Academicos is intended to show us how the Scepticcan be turned to see this light. III[28] It is Augustine's contention that, historically, Scepticismpaved the way for its own overcoming in the revival of Platonism (Contra Academicos III 3.18.4140-45). For him, it was evident that the Academics had forgotten (or appeared to forget) the veryPlatonic doctrine with which they were historically associated. While knowing the negative side ofthe Socratic dialectic, they sought to stabilize this process through the suspension of assent withoutseeing the completion of it in the Platonic dialectic. Owing to their dialectical relationship withStoicism and Epicureanism, which were materialist positions, the Sceptics were forced to take overthe assumptions of their opponents in order to achieve a sceptical result. Because of this they didnot take sufficient account of the fact that the objectivity of their critique rested, in the end, uponthe Ideas as the ordering principles of thought and being and the Word as the unity of the Ideas (atleast as far as their exoteric teaching is concerned).(14) [29] As a Platonist, Augustine thought it possible to knowboth God and the self through a consideration of what was directly available to the mind in its ownreflexive activity. For him, the scepticism of the Academy, far from abolishing the quest for truth,actually pointed to the true way of finding it by purging us of a dogmaticreliance on the senses.(15) The negative result of the Sceptics displayed the nullity of sense experience conceived, in Stoicfashion, as in itself primary. Past this it simply remains to ask about the mind that can so dissolvethe sensible into pure appearance what is presupposed in its activity, before seeing that what onehas actually uncovered is a knowledge of the absolute priority of the Ideas and the derivativecharacter of the sensible. [30] The Sceptic, then, by turning from appearances towardhis own subjectivity, in fact comes closest of all, if he would only see it, to the locus of objectivetruth. As Augustine says, it is by returning to the inner chamber of the mind that one returns to therealm of spiritual substance in which immutable and incorporeal truth can be perceived(Confessions 'wise man' VII,x(16)). Since the process of recollecting this truth is primarily, forAugustine as for his Neo-Platonist predecessors, a process of self recollection that turns inward onitself and upwards to its source, some way must be found to turn the soul's attention to itself so thatit can perceive its own character and destiny. [31] The first step in this process is curing the soul of itstendency to confuse itself with the sensible appearances that are the primary object of its attention(Ibid. 'wise man' VII,i(2)). The mind that does this, through the apprehension of its own trueinwardness and hence its immateriality , becomes free to train its eye on the incorporeal realm thatlies behind the veil of appearance and is in itself the proper object of knowledge. The catalyst forthis movement lies in the questioning subjectivity that seeks the unifying ground of the sheerexternality of events in time and space in memory and the unity of memory in God. Thus, inseeking the unity of its experience, the mind discovers its own character as self-presence, thecharacter of matter as the self-external, and the Good as the ground of both ( Confessions X). [32] The Sceptic, having found the sensible inadequate to theinwardness of thought, has already begun this movement. Moreover, he moves also toward aGood beyond the mobility of sensible nature. However, the Soul that seeks its good must knowthe good it seeks and if it cannot find a true and knowable good among material things, it mustthen ask itself by what measure it reaches this conclusion. It must ask itself what the Good and theTrue are in their logical character. To ask this question is to realize that one has ceased altogetherto speak about material things and is moving in the realm of Ideas that nothing spatio-temporal canadequately exemplify and to which subjectivity must submit as its ownlaw.(16) The discovery thatthe Good and True are, in their primary meaning, super-sensible and immutable completes themovement away from the sensible begun by the Sceptic by attaining a unity prior to the division ofsubject and object. Thus, both the externality and dividedness of the sensible and the emptiness ofthought's formal self-identity (in which the Sceptic would rest) are transcended.[33] However, this turn to the incorporeal and henceintelligible is in no way possible to one who remains in the grip of materialist illusions. In this way,the Sceptical destruction of Stoic and Epicurean dogmatism can be granted to have a certainpositive function. If then, the mind can be forced to look away from the sensible and into itself, itcan discover within itself the Truth.[34] In his dialogue Contra Academicos Augustinedramatises the dialectical overcoming of Scepticism through depicting a series of conversationsbetween himself, his friend Alypius, and two of his young students. The present paper willconcern itself with the third book in which Augustine demonstrates to Alypius the selfcontradictory character of Scepticism. It is here that Augustine gives dialectical expression to themovement noted above in a formal refutation of the Sceptical position. As it adequately illustratesthe process by which the Sceptic can be brought to a state of aporia which forces him to recognizethe priority of intelligible truth I shall focus primarily on this refutation. It should be noted though,that this refutation assumes Augustine's demonstration in Book I that the Sceptic cannot coherentlyclaim to be happy simply through a negative relation to truth. Scepticism presupposes a relation totruth that can be fulfilled only through the possession of it. Once the Sceptic has been shown thishe can be drawn into the argument for he can no longer pretend that he possesses the Good. [35] Augustine's critique of the academic position proceeds intwo phases. From 3.35 to 3.511 Augustine engages in the dialectical refutation of the scepticalargument, that is, he seeks to undermine its internal consistency. This section, then, is in dialogueform. Having accomplished this task, Augustine switches to the style of direct address in order todevelop thematically a phenomenology of our basic forms of knowledge which even a Scepticwould be forced to acknowledge(3.10.23-3.14.30) and to demonstrate the impossibility of realizingthe practical ideals of Scepticism (3.15.34-3.16.36). [36] I will now focus on the first phase and expoundAugustine's account of the internal incoherence of Scepticism. His basic argument will be that if, asit must, Academic Scepticism claims to be a form of wisdom, that is, a valid reflection on ourepistemic and moral condition, then it is in the hopeless position of trying to claim that it possessesthis wisdom without 'knowing' it; that it is the case and can be validly affirmed to be the case thatno concept can be connected to an objective state of affairs and that happiness lies in the apatheiaconsequent upon realizing this. Augustine contends that the appearance of contradiction herecannot be resolved and that Sceptical arguments are performative self-contradictions.[37] He proceeds by a pair of assumptions crucial toScepticism. These are as follows: (1) wisdom must be conscious of itself as wisdom; and (2)knowledge, if it exists, must be of the true and not of the false. Now any Sceptic who holds thathis position is a product of critical reflection upon our epistemic condition and what can be hopedfor within it must hold that he possesses a description of that condition which corresponds to whatthat condition is; that is, he must claim that he possesses wisdom. If not, his scepticism cannot bedistinguished from the simple ignorance of a fool. Sceptical ignorance is not 'simple ignorance' butignorance derived from an account of our epistemic condition that is accurate. Now to know ourcondition is to know our knowledge of our condition, one cannot know without knowing that oneknows by knowing one's own knowledge. Thus, a 'wise man' must know himself as wise and if aSceptic claims to be such a man and not a fool then he must also claim to be conscious of his ownwisdom as wisdom, that is, he must know the wisdom whereby he is wise.[38] The second presupposition, that knowledge is of the trueand not of the false, is in fact the linchpin of the Sceptical position. The Sceptic claims thatperception is impossible just because, while the true and the false are distinct in themselves, theycannot be distinguished in our experience. If this were not the case, and knowledge was of thefalse and the true equally, this confusion would present no obstacle to our knowing anything. Thus, since, according to the Sceptic, one must distinguish the false from the true in order to knowand this cannot be done, knowledge is impossible and judgement must be suspended.[39] Augustine thinks these two concessions, which anySceptic must make, are sufficient to wreck the Sceptical position. His argument, stated at 3.3.5.15-25, is straightforward. Suppose a man possessed wisdom and did not merely seek it. In otherwords, suppose he had learned what wisdom is. In doing so he has learned either something, afalsehood, or nothing at all. Now a man who has learned wisdom has not learned nothing forwisdom is not nothing or there would be no difference between being wise and not wise. Nor hashe learned a falsehood for a falsehood cannot be learned (ie, is not a genuine discovery). Inlearning wisdom, then, the 'wise man' has not learned nothing, nor a falsehood, but has learnedsomething, the wisdom whereby he is a 'wise man' and not a fool. Thus, if he is wise and knowswisdom he must perceive the wisdom he possesses to be wisdom. But, if he claims that the contentof his wisdom is that nothing can be perceived he is claiming to perceive and not perceive at thesame time and in the same respect. Either he is wise and knows his wisdom, in which case hiswisdom is not true wisdom, or he is not wise at all and cannot claim to know whether perception isimpossible or not.[40] Augustine, then, has shown that the reflexive characterof wisdom, that it is of necessity self-knowing, refutes the claim that wisdom lies in non-perceptionand the suspension of assent. He has also shown that even the supposed wisdom of the Academicsmust be 'about' something; that it must make some claim about our epistemic state and thus that wemust know something to be the case. After all, the Sceptic is not claiming that he personally hasnever known anything but that it is not possible for anyone to know anything. Thus, Augustine hasshown the key assertion of the Sceptics to be inherently contradictory; that one can, at the sametime and in the same respect be both ignorant of truth and wise. Once the law of non-contradiction is admitted, and the Sceptic must admit it if he says the true and false are distinct, itbecomes evident that he cannot claim at one and the same time to perceive and not perceive (sincehe claims that the content of his wisdom is that nothing can be perceived, he cannot claim this aswisdom unless he claims to perceive it).[41] Alypius, however, does not back down. He claims thatthe 'wise man' only seems to himself to be wise through knowing wisdom on the grounds ofplausibility (3.3.5.25-27). Augustine counters that this only deepens the problem (3.3.5.35-40). Ifit seems to the Sceptic that he knows wisdom, it does not seem to him that he does not know it. This means that it will seem to him that he knows something. But Scepticism, if it is accepted asplausible, must be accepted on the grounds that it seems to be the case that nothing can be known. Thus, the contradiction remains; the Sceptic seems to himself to know that his position is true whileat the same time his position states that we do not seem to ourselves to know anything. If we seemto ourselves to know something, Scepticism will not seem to be the case. But this means thatScepticism fails its own criterion of judgement; it will no longer appear plausible, and since theSceptic follows what is plausible, his own position commits him to cease being a Sceptic.[42] Augustine has now shown two things: (1) that onecannot be wise and ignorant at one and the same time; and (2) that one cannot appear to oneself tobe wise and ignorant at the same time. Implicitly, he has shown the dependence of appearances onthe Ideas and that any assertion of an appearance entails the assertion of an intelligible content thatgoverns that appearance, there cannot be mere 'seeming' without the objective reality of the ideasimplicated in that 'seeming'. The next part of the argument will show Alypius that this has beenuncovered.[43] Alypius does not yet see this crucial point. He stillthinks that no knowledge claim is involved in the assertion that the Sceptic merely appears tohimself wise and that the open investigation he engages in has no inherent content. This is becausehe still holds to a greater separation of being and appearance than Augustine and does not see thatthe Ideas in their objectivity are implicated in the positing of any appearance. Thus, he still thinksthat Augustine's objection can be avoided by speaking in terms of appearances. This is crucial tohis defence of Scepticism for the Sceptics claim that pure appearance can be present to ourconsciousness without a grasp of the real and indeed, through our dependence on the senses, is allthat is present to us.[44] This problem appears in Alypius' inability to comprehendthe question with which Augustine resumes the argument at 3.4.9.60. Augustine asks Alypius asimple question, does it seem to the 'wise man' of the Academics that he knows wisdom; that is,does it seem to Alypius that the academic is an instance of a 'wise man' who knows wisdom. Alypius, not getting the sense of the question, answers that it seems to the Academic that he knowswisdom. Augustine, however, is not asking whether the 'wise man' seems to himself wise butwhether what he seems to himself to be is a 'wise man'. Thus, it is irrelevant whether he thinkshimself wise or merely opines that he is wise or whether Alypius thinks or opines the same of him.His question, rather, is, what is a 'wise man' and what does a man who claims he is an instance ofa 'wise man' claim that he is. The clear answer is that he appears to himself to be a man whoknows what wisdom is. To be wise is to know wisdom and if I seem to myself to be wise then Iseem to myself to know wisdom. Alypius finally grasps the distinction and the argument proceedsas follows: the Academic seems to himself to be an instance of the 'wise man', yet claims that heknows nothing. Yet a 'wise man' must know wisdom (for this is the definition of wisdom) andwisdom cannot be nothing for nothing cannot be known. Nor can it be a falsehood for there canbe no knowledge of the false. Therefore, either wisdom is nothing and the Academic is nodifferent from the fool, or there can be knowledge of the false, in which case the grounds forScepticism disappear, or the Academic is not the 'wise man' reason describes and if he claims tobe such a man he contradicts himself (3.4.10.85-100).[45] Thus, Augustine has shown that for the Sceptic to claimthat he seems to himself wise involves combining two ideas, wisdom and ignorance, which cannotbe combined either in reality or in appearance. Thus, in saying that he seems to himself wise theSceptic is positing a contradictory appearance. What is more, this argument has brought to lightsomething which will be thematically elaborated in the subsequent discourse; that the Scepticalargument assumes an intellectual intuition of the Ideas. To seem to himself to be anything at all,the Sceptic must grasp the intelligible character of what he appears to himself to be. Thus, if hesays to himself "I seem to myself to be a 'wise man'" he has grasped an essence of which he holdshimself to be an instance. Appearance depends upon the reality of what appears. Seeming cannotbe without the being of what seems. Thus, the Sceptic cannot coherently claim that the power ofappearance is universal for some objective content must condition any appearance and be presentto any mind that beholds and judges it. In this case, we can see that if the Sceptic claims that he iswise in being ignorant and that the 'wise man' is he who knows wisdom, then he is combining inhis judgement ideas which cannot in fact be combined in either appearance or reality and thus hisviews have no claim to our assent as either true or plausible.[46] Having shown the Sceptical position to be incapable ofcoherent statement, Augustine can then proceed to a positive phenomenology of consciousness;that is, he can show what knowledge is inherent in the structure of any subjective experience andthus demonstrate that the Sceptical denial of knowledge is impossible and contradictory above allbecause we are inescapably knowers, if we exist as self-conscious beings at all. Thus, hedemonstrates what any and every one of us must at any time know. He does not, and need not, goany farther than this in his argument for the root of sceptical indifference to claims concerningGod, the soul, or the nature of the good life lies not in anything specific to inquiries into thoseobjects but in a general denial that thought can by adequated to being through the medium ofsense. To cut this root, as Augustine does here, by showing that being and thought belong togetherin the reflexivity of consciousness, is thus entirely adequate to the task of defending the pursuit ofwisdom from the Sceptical challenge.[47] In a general way this argument recapitulates themovement in Neo-Platonism to complete the reduction of the sensible to finite subjectivity inScepticism by reducing the subject to the objectivity of the Good. Augustine here has given formalexpression to the validity of this move. But something else appears here as well which shows thatin another way Augustine has taken more seriously than the Neo-Platonists the starting point ofHellenistic thought in the concerns of concrete historical individuality. The Contra Academicosends pointedly with a reference to the incarnation, the unity of sensible human nature with thedivine (3.19.42-15). Stoic pantheism and realism thought it had possessed this unity through therelation of sense perception to a divinised natural realm. The Sceptics were able to demonstratethat this was an illusion and the Neo-Platonists in turn that this demonstration rested on a priorintuition of the ideas. But Plotinian ascent, while valid as far as it goes, does not offer thepossibility of salvation for finite individuals as finite individuals, and as such does not respond tothe deepest concern animating Stoic and Sceptic alike, that is, how the individual can be free forhimself in the world. Thus, Augustine sees the need for a further completion of the argument thatcomes full circle back to the sensible world in order to know concrete personality as one with thedivine in Jesus Christ. This, however, he knows not by any Stoic pretence to an indefeasible graspof sensible particulars but by the illumination of faith.Notes1. Augustine held with the Platonic tradition that the light of the Ideas mediated to us the divineground of all finite being and knowing. Augustine also saw Orthodox Christianity's identification ofthe Word, the primal thought in which the Ideas were held as a unity, with God, as the logicalground of this mediation. Thus, that which discloses the principle to us is the presence to us of thatprinciple in its own act of self-disclosure. We speak the being of God in God's speaking himself tous. Insofar as this occurs in the timeless necessity of thought, Augustine speaks of Christ the innerteacher. Insofar as this occurs in the contingency of time and space, he speaks of the incarnation ofthe Word.2. An exhaustive account of the Sceptical movement cannot be given here. Indeed, nounproblematic account could be given for its history must be reconstructed from secondary sourcesthat are sometimes vague and fragmentary. Our main primary text, the Outlines of Pyrrhonnismby Sextus Empiricus, comes from the revived Scepticism of later antiquity and the picture thatemerges from the accounts of earlier thinkers is not always consistent and clear. That being said,the lineaments of Scepticism as a way of life and the considerations that were taken to justify it areclear. This basic thought-form Augustine derived from Cicero and his critique of it goes more tothis logical core than to the permutations of historical Scepticism. Accordingly, the following isoffered as a crystallization of Sceptical doctrine as it would appeared to Augustine and his readers. This is adequate for the task at hand as historians are in basic agreement about those aspects ofScepticism on which Augustine's critique is focused. 3. For a general account of Hellenistic thought see A.H Armstrong, An Introduction to AncientPhilosophy, New Jersey, 1981 and A.A.Long, Hellenistic Philosophy, Berkeley, 1974. See alsoE. Zeller, Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics trans. O.R. Reichel, New York,1962 and G.Reale, TheSystems of the Hellenistic Age, trans. J.R.Catan, Albany, 1985. Citations from Cicero and SextusEmpiricus in this paper are from Hellenistic Philosophy: Introductory Readings, trans. Inwoodand Gerson, Indianapolis, 1988. Sympathetic accounts of Ancient Scepticism are given by L.Groarke, Greek Scepticism, Kingston,1990, and R.J. Hankinson, The Sceptics, New York, 1995.4. The most extreme expression of this immanentist spirit is undoubtably to be found in the Stoicclaim that the sage could be happy even in the bull of Phaleris. Paradoxically though, they alsocounselled suicide in cases of extremity. Book IX of the City of God presents Augustine's ownview of the possibility of earthly happiness and forms an instructive contrast to the attitudementioned above.5. It should be remembered that, as materialists, the Stoics tended to take this formula literally; theobject perceived left a physical impression on the soul that matched its own physical shape. Zenodescribed this in terms of eminence and depression while Chrysippus spoke more vaguely of'qualitative alteration'. In doing this, he seemed to be responding to the criticism that Zeno's theorycould not account for the simultaneous presentation of distinct shapes to the mind, as when ageometer thought at one and the same time of a circle and a square (Reale 221-222).6. The Stoics held that a sense impression was veridical if it possessed a character such as itcould not have if it came from an object other than the one from which it did come. This theytermed a 'cognitive impression'. As to how one knew an impression to be cognitive the Stoics werevague. Zeno appears to have held that an impression was cognitive if it was so clear and forceful asto compel immediate assent. To this, the Sceptics could easily reply that many dreams andhallucinations would, on this account, have to be counted as veridical. Later Stoics attempted tofend of criticism by arguing that the cataleptic impression itself was not sufficient to compel assentapart from circumstances favorable to its reception. Thus, the evaluation of particular impressionscame to depend more on an analysis of the context in which the impression occurred. Even inantiquity the striking convergence between this view and the 'probabilism' of Carneades wasremarked upon. Galen is even said to have remarked that in epistemology the doctrines of theStoics and Sceptics were identical. For a useful account of this argument see A.A Long, Hellenistic Philosophy.7. It is important to note the distinction between Scepticism and Relativism. The Sceptics claimedthat there was an unbridgeable gulf between things as they appear to us and things in themselves.The suspension of judgement makes sense only on the presupposition that there is in fact anobjective world which may differ from our perception of it. A perspectivalist who holds that thereis no thing in itself apart from the appearance of that thing for a subject has no problem with assentto perceptions since, for him, what is is identical to what appears. Being and appearance are oneand error impossible. In antiquity this position was represented by Sophists such as Protagoras andGorgias. The Sceptics, then, held that subject and object were distinct and that there could be nomediated relationship between them.8. The Sceptics did not confine their critique to sense knowledge and the claims based upon it. They claimed as well that logical truths were susceptible to the same arguments advanced againstperception. Thus, for any inference claimed to be valid, they thought they could produce afallacious one identical in form. As well, they made use of the notorious Liar's Paradox toundermine such general logical definitions as the assertion that a proposition was a statement eithertrue or false (Cicero, Academica 2.95-98). In the field of Ethics too, the Sceptics thought that allaccounts of the good life could be shown to be equally plausible and equally implausible. This wasthe point of Carneades famous demonstration in Rome, in the course of which he argued withgreat force in favor of justice and then, with equal force, in favor of injustice (Long, 94).9. It should be noted that Sextus speaks of the Sceptics' apatheia as the fortuitous outcome oftheir position. This is to avoid any suggestion that they had a preconceived notion of the good life.Having suspended all judgement, they simply found this a satisfying way to live. Moreover, Sextuscriticises the Academics for failing to make this distinction. In his view they erred in speaking ofapatheia as a good in itself and thus as an object of rational choice. 10. In spite of their reverence for Socrates himself the Sceptics distinguished the state of epochefrom Socratic ignorance. The latter, they rightly saw, was a form of self knowledge. Socrates knewthat he knew nothing for he knew himself as seeking an object, the Good, which transcended thefinitude through which he sought it. This elusiveness of the transcendent principle of discourse iswhat is uncovered by his own negative dialectic. Arcesilaus, on the other hand, claimed that he didnot even know that he knew nothing. By this he meant to point out that he did not know, in anypositive sense, his relationship to truth as being one of ignorance. Rather, he concluded from thefact of universal ignorance that his own particular state was unknowable to himself and that eventhe self knowledge of Socrates was closed to him.11. In antiquity, numerous stories circulated about the supposed indifference of the Sceptics toeven the basic necessities of life. Pyrrho, for instance, is said to have won the praise of one of hiscompanions for not stopping to rescue him from a ditch. He himself was said to have been keptalive by the constant attention of others, who prevented him from being run over by wagons orfrom walking off cliffs. It is hard to say what kernel of truth might lie in these stories, thoughDiogenes Laertius, who reports them, seems to take them with a grain of salt(see Hankinson, 111).12. Carneades is reported to have said that he suspended judgement concerning all mattersdiscussed by philosophers and was indifferent to the rest(Contra Academicos 3.10.22.) Thiswould seem to indicate that for him it mattered little that a certain degree of plausibility waspossible in practical matters that could not be attained by theoretical reason. Only in theemployment of the latter was the ethical good to be found, the freedom and self-possession of thehappy man. Thus, the utility of plausible presentations would appear to lie in the fact that the 'wiseman' can use them to secure the goods necessary to pursue a life of theoretical freedom.Scepticism, after all, is a kind of witness to the love of truth. For the Sceptic, error is an alienationfrom our true selves and this is why it must be avoided even at the cost suspending all judgement.In this it is recognized that our true freedom and dignity lie in the ordering of our thought to thetruth of things, even if this is expressed only negatively. 13. The predominance of the dialectical element over ethical has by some been used todifferentiate Academic Scepticism from Pyrrhonism. Augustine himself understood AcademicScepticism as ethically motivated and among modern commentators Groarke is of the same view(Groarke 107). It need not be denied however that, in the sources that we possess, the ethicalconcern is more prominent among the Pyrrhonians. The reason for this is not far to seek. For thefollowers of Pyrrho, the Academics lapsed into dogmatism insofar as their epoche was based on apositive claim about the impossibility of knowledge. They saw no way to acquit the Academics ofthe charge of performative self-contradiction so often urged against Scepticism. Thus, theythemselves made no claim about the knowability or unknowability of things but simply reportedtheir own suspensive state of mind and their satisfac-tion with it. This ethical fact is the sum andsubstance of their scepticism. Even the arguments by which they attacked the dogmatists weretaken simply as therapeutic and, their subjective purpose being fulfilled, were kicked away like aladder. In this way, they avoided the contradiction inherent in a Scepticism which is at the sametime a wisdom, that is, a rational criticism of life. They did so, however, at the cost of aphasia andfinal arbitrariness. 14. Augustine derived from Cicero the notion that The Academics concealed a pure Platonismfrom the threat of Stoic vulgarisation by means of their polemic against dogmatism. Modernscholars are almost unanimous in dismissing the possibility.Be that as it may, it serves Augustinewell enough as a convenient fiction if all it means is that, as D.K House argues " it is theoreticallysound that one can come to Platonism from a refuted Scepticism."("A Note on Book III ofSt.Augustine's Contra Academicos", Studia Patristica, vol.XVIII) Perhaps it is not so unlikely thatin the end Augustine regarded it as no more than this. For our purposes, it is not necessary to goany further than to say the Scepticism witnesses negatively to what the Platonists show positivelyand that this fact finds poetic expression in the notion of a secret doctrine.15. In his 83 Different Questions Augustine confirms that, as regards the senses, the Sceptics arecorrect. Speaking of the problem of hallucinatory experiences he says "In such experiences wecannot at all tell whether we are aware of the sensible objects by the senses themselves or whetherthey are the images of sensible objects. If, therefore, there are false images of sensible objects, andif they cannot be distinguished by the senses themselves, and if nothing can be perceived exceptwhat is distinguished from the false, then there is no criterion for truth resident in thesenses"(Question 9). Of course, this is to say that there is no certain knowledge of sensible things.Opinion about sensible things is entirely justified and indeed necessary both for self preservationand the exercise of justice towards others. Also, it the ground upon which we possess what Godhas revealed to us of himself in history. To the soul inspired by charity, opinion even approximatesto a kind of certainty, as in the acts of faith and trust that constitute friendship. Moreover, if it isprecisely the function of the senses to furnish us with the material on which to form opinions, thenit cannot be denied that they do this reasonably well and need not be rejected or condemned. Forthis side of Augustine's thought, one should consult his short but highly engaging treatise. 16. Augustine himself recounts in Confessions VII,1-6, how he freed himself from materialistnotions of Divinity (reminiscent of Stoicism) by considering how the Good was, in its logicalcharacter, simple and incorruptible. This meant that the Good could not be identified with anythingmaterial. As the presupposition of all his activities he could not coherently deny its super-eminentreality and this forced him to recognize the Ideal as the primary reality underlying the secondaryreality of material things. |
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