10 Facts About Carneades

Carneades was a Greek philosopher and perhaps the most prominent head of the Skeptical Academy in ancient Greece.

Carneades seems to have doubted the ability not just of the senses but of reason too in acquiring truth.

Carneades's skepticism was moderated by the belief that we can, nevertheless, ascertain probabilities of truth, to enable us to act.

Carneades subsequently focused his efforts on refuting the Stoics, attaching himself to the Platonic Academy, which had suffered from the attacks of the Stoics.

Carneades asserted nothing, and carried on a vigorous argument against every dogma maintained by other sects.

Carneades persuasively attempted to prove that justice was inevitably problematic, and not a given when it came to virtue, but merely a compact device deemed necessary for the maintenance of a well-ordered society.

Carneades was so engrossed in his studies, that he let his hair and nails grow to an immoderate length, and was so absent at his own table, that his servant and concubine, Melissa, was constantly obliged to feed him.

Latin writer and author Valerius Maximus, to whom we owe the last anecdote, tells us that Carneades, before discussing with Chrysippus, was wont to purge himself with hellebore, to have a sharper mind.

Carneades left no writings, and all that is known of his lectures is derived from his intimate friend and pupil, Clitomachus; but so true was he to his own principles of withholding assent, that Clitomachus confesses he never could ascertain what his master really thought on any subject.

Carneades argued that, if there were a criterion, it must exist either in reason, or sensation, or conception.