Philosopher (214 BC – 128 BC)
Carneades was born in Cyrene, a Greek colony of North Africa. He came to Athens to study in Plato’s Academy and later served as headmaster of the Academy from 156 BC until 131 BC when he was succeeded by Cleitomachus. He was of the probabilistic school. His philosophy was primarily involved with skeptisicm, epistemology (the science of knowing) and ethics and received influences from Chrysippus, whose school he liked proviking. He was also an excellent rhetorician.
Carneades stated that definitive knowledge cannot exist because nor our senses nor proofs can provide us with certain truth. Even though truth and false existed, Carneades believed that man could not distinguish between the two because our senses deceive us while proofs are based on unproven axioms. This could only happen in illusions or dreams.
Carneades’ skepticistic philosophy placed all of his philosophic predecessors under his critisicm, especially the Stoics. Carneades spoke against God, saying that the Stoic’s dogmas on God had contradicting arguments (antinomy). The Stoics claimed that the fact that all the peoples of the world believed in God was a proof of God’s existence. Carneades, however, stated that this did not prove God’s existence rather that there is a common belief in man to believe in God. God was not a living being, because otherwise he would decay, he was not virtuous or brave because he did not face any situations in which he could prove so, and was not anthropomorphic, but a transcendental being inconceivable by human thought.
The probabilistic theory, which Carneades established, stated that only the knowledge of probability is perceivable to man. Probability has three grades which accompany the images of the external world. The first grade is made up of images which seem probable without their reliability being supported by that of other images. The second grade contains images whose probability does not come into conflict with other images while the third grade is made up of images that when examined in full detail are not contradicted in any way with even the most unrelated images.
It can be said that Carneades was in a way the founder of critical philosophy, not so much because his predecessors did not examine or judge ideas or arguments but rather because Carneades’ philosophic examination was the subject of a new philosophical wave. His philosophy turned man to mysticism because when he could not find the truth using logic, he would try to find it using the illogical part of his soul.
Bibliography
- “Carneades”. Helios New Encyclopaedic Dictionary. Passas, I. Athens, 1946. Print.
- “Carneades”. Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. Stanford.edu. Web. Retreived on September 21, 2016.
- Pleures, Konstantinos. Greek Philosophers. Athens: Hilektron Publications, 2014. Print.