Workshop in Ancient Philosophy (Thursday - Week 4, HT24)

Chair: Emily Daly

Suspension of assent is the greatest action (maxima actio), which only the sage can perform. This view on the New Academy is put forward in Augustine's critique in Contra Academicos and it originates from Cicero's picture of the Academic sage in his Academica. I demonstrate that Augustine shares, along with it, Cicero's presupposition concerning assent and it is this presupposition that makes possible Augustine's crucial criticism against non-assent. In demonstrating the above, I point to an important characteristic of the vice of scepticism. 

First, I argue that Cicero has a presupposition (inherited from Antiochus) which enables him to justify the duty of non-assent as the means of maintaining the sage's intellectual integrity: a presupposition that assent constitutes natural yielding to the impressions, in clear contrast to the voluntary suspension of assent. Second, I demonstrate that Augustine shares with Cicero the basic idea that one can achieve (perfect) self-control by suspending assent, when Augustine condemns such suspension, as it constitutes a refusal to commit oneself to the supreme being. The nature of the vice of scepticism derives from the innovative idea that perfect self-control is vicious––an idea that Cicero and other proponents in the New Academy cannot possibly conceive.