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Probability, according to Carneades the maximum possible grade of cognition, was not sufficient for Philo of Larissa, who after Clitomachus became the scholarch of the Academy (in the years 110/9 — perhaps up to 88 B. C.), because it was a very weak foundation for moral requirements. Therefore he claimed that some truths are evident, even if they cannot be apprehended by intelligence, and he put the obvious (ένάρϒεια) above the probable. Thus the desire for moral certainty led to a repetition, though in different circumstances, of Socrates' and Plato's abandonment of the Sophists' skeptical relativism; ethics adjusted noetics to its needs. As Arcesilaus probably did not wish it to appear that the Academy, in adopting his. skepsis, was deviating from the teaching of Plato, so Philo did not wish this charge to be brought against his own teaching; "Philo denies that there are two Academies and he proves those who think so wrong", says Cicero in the Academica I, 13. Nevertheless, historiography calls him the founder of the "fourth" Academy.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-009-9704-2_5

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