Academic Scepticism 273
judgement. For he has sense-perception and is made of flesh, and when
he receives a presentation of something good he desires and has an
impulse, and does all that he can to prevent it from escaping him; as far
as possible he will be in the company of what is congenial to him, being
drawn by necessity which is natural rather than geometricaU (1122e) No
teacher is needed: all on their own these fine, smooth and agreeable
movements of the flesh exert an attraction (as they themselves say) even
on those who firmly refuse and reject being swayed and softened by them.
'But how can it be that he who suspends judgement does not run off
to the mountain rather than to the baths, and does not stand up and
walk into the wall when he wants to go the market-place, but rather
walks to the door?' Do you [the Epicurean] ask this, although you claim
that the sense organs are accurate and that our presentations are true?
Surely it is because it is not the mountain which appears to him to be
the baths, but the baths (1122£); and it is not the wall which appears to
him to be a door, but the door, and so on in each case. For the argument
for suspension of judgement does not interfere with sense-perception,
nor does it introduce into our irrational experiences and movements some
change which disrupts our faculty of presentation. All it does is to remove
opinions; the rest it makes use of in accordance with their natures.Cicero Academica 2.108 [III-13]
The second point is that you deny that any action concerning anything
can occur in someone who approves nothing with his assent. For first
there must be a presentation, in which assent is involved-for the Stoics
say that acts of sense-perception are themselves acts of assent and that
because impulse follows on these [acts of assent], action also follows, and
that all of this is removed if presentations are removed.
On this topic there have been many arguments, written and oral, on
either side, but the whole issue can be dealt with briefly. For my part,
although I agree that the highest activity is to fight against presentations,
to resist opinions, and to suspend assent, which is a slippery sort of
thing; and although I agree with Clitomachus when he writes that a
veritably Herculean labour was performed by Carneades when he drove
assent-i.e., [mere] opinion and rashness-out of our souls, as though
it were a wild and ravening beast; despite all of this (to set aside this
line of defence), what will hinder a man who follows what is plausible
providing nothing hinders it?- Plutarch alludes to Plato, Republic 458d.