- Title
- One Academy? The Transition from Polemo and Crates to Arcesilaus
- Creator
- Tarrant, Harold
- Relation
- Plato's Academy Its Workings and its History p. 200-219
- Relation
- doi:10.1017/9781108554664.013
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- Resource Type
- book chapter
- Date
- 2020
- Description
- It is convenient for the teaching of ancient philosophy that the Old Academy should terminate with Crates, and that a new Hellenistic phase should be ushered in by Arcesilaus’ revolutionary introduction of a distinctly Academic brand of ‘Scepticism’. It helps bridge the gap between the early precursors of Pyrrhonist Scepticism, i.e. Pyrrho himself and Timon, and the Pyrrhonist revival of Aenesidemus. And it supplies an ‘-ism’ to suit our modern demand for philosophic labels. It also gives colour and controversy to the otherwise increasingly pedestrian history of Plato’s school, something to which students will readily respond. It is convenient, but is it right? Clearly there were changes in the public face of the newly invigorated Academy, and I do not want to deny the credit for those changes to Arcesilaus. After all, Speusippus, Xenocrates and Polemo had all stamped their own personalities on the Academy during the time of their leadership, but nobody had seen this as in any way illegitimate. The question that concerns me is whether such changes amounted to stasis. Not everybody is content with such a view
- Subject
- Polemo; Crates; Arcesilaus; Scepticism
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1443962
- Identifier
- uon:42155
- Identifier
- ISBN:9781108426442
- Language
- eng
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