Academic Scepticism 283
Epicurus and one from you [Lucullus], perception with the senses and
grasping are eliminated. What is Epicurus' principle? If any presentation
to the senses is false, nothing can be perceived. And yours? There are
false presentations to the senses. What follows? Even if I should keep
silent the argument itself declares that nothing can be perceived. "I do
not admit Epicurus' principle," he [Lucullus] says. Well, then, quarrel
with him, who differs from you totally, not with me, who assent to your
claim that there is something false in the senses. 102. Still, nothing seems
to me so strange as that those words should be spoken, especially by
Antiochus, who was intimately acquainted with what I said a while ago.
For anyone is allowed on the basis of his own judgement to take issue
with our denial that anything can be perceived-that is certainly a less
serious criticism; whereas our saying that some things are plausible seems
inadequate to you. Perhaps so. In any case, we certainly ought to try to
avoid the difficulties forcefully brought forward by you: "Do you discern
nothing? Do you hear nothing? Is nothing clear to you?" I have explained
a little while ago, on the authority of Clitomachus, how Carneades would
respond to these questions. Listen to what Clitomachus says along the
same lines in the book he dedicated to the poet Gaius Lucilius, although
he had written the same things to Lucius Censorinus when he was consul
with Manius Manitius. He wrote in just about these words-1 know
them because the first introduction and, as it were, the programme for
the very matters we are discussing are contained in that book-anyway,
he wrote as follows:
- According to the Academics, things are dissimilar in a way such
that some seem to be plausible and some otherwise. But that is not
sufficient to allow you to say that some can be perceived and others not,
for there are many false [presentations] that are plausible, whereas nothing
which is false could be perceived or known. Therefore he says that those
who say that the senses are taken away from us by the Academy are very
much mistaken. For that school never said that color, taste, or sound
were nothing, but they did argue that there was no peculiar feature in
them which was a mark of certainty and truth which could not belong
to something else. 104. When he had set out these claims, he added that
there are two senses in which the wise man is said to suspend judgement.
In one sense he gives assent to nothing at all; in the other sense, he
suspends judgement by not responding to a query as to whether he
approves of something or disapproves of it, so that he is not forced to
deny or affirm anything. Since this is so, the one sense is accepted, so
that he never assents to anything, and he holds to the other sense, so
that, following plausibility wherever this should be present or absent, he
is able to respond [to a question about acceptance] "yes" or "no" accord-