Cicero’s Academica, part II

Cicero

Academica is a treatise on Academic Skepticism and its differences with Stoicism, written by Marcus Tullius Cicero in 45 BCE, two years before he was killed on the order of Mark Anthony, and the same year his beloved daughter Tullia had died in childbirth. No wonder Cicero wrote, at the beginning of Academica:

“Having been stricken to the ground by a most severe blow of fortune, and being discharged from all concern in the republic, I seek a medicine for my sorrow in philosophy.” (I.3)

In part I of this essay I have covered book I of Academica, and we have seen what Cicero had to say on Stoicism from an Academic Skeptic perspective. I have also given a short introduction to the Skeptics’ philosophy, discussing in what sense skepticism about knowledge can lead to ataraxia, and therefore how Academic Skepticism is not just a theoretical position, but also a philosophy of life, on par with Stoicism, Epicureanism, and the rest. Here I will comment on selected quotes from book II, again with particular reference to what Cicero has to say regarding Stoicism.

The first bit is interesting for a number of reasons. To begin with, it is a rare example of an explicit report on a disagreement between schools of thought about logic, rather than ethics. Moreover, it highlights how the Stoics were far more practically bent than other schools. Cicero is commenting on how the Stoic logician Chrysippus reacted to the famous Sorites paradox, the original formulation of which is attributed to Eubulides of Miletus, a member of the Megarian school which actually influenced Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism.

“Sorites” comes from the Greek from heap, since the most famous rendition of the paradox involves the question of when a group of grains of sand becomes a heap. Here is the argument leading to the paradox:

Premise 1: 1,000,000 grains of sand is a heap of sand
Premise 2: A heap of sand minus one grain is still a heap
Repeat Premise 2 a number of times, and you get:
So 999,999 grains is a heap.
If 999,999 grains is a heap then 999,998 grains is a heap.
So 999,998 grains is a heap.
If …
… So 1 grain is a heap.