Academica by Marcus Tullius Cicero
- Language:
- Latin
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text · 5 illegible passages, excluded from answers
- Extent:
- ~110,000 words · 510 passages
Cite this work
- APACicero. (n.d.). Academica by Marcus Tullius Cicero. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/cicero/academica-by-marcus-tullius-cicero
- MLACicero. "Academica by Marcus Tullius Cicero." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/cicero/academica-by-marcus-tullius-cicero.
- ChicagoCicero. Academica by Marcus Tullius Cicero. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/cicero/academica-by-marcus-tullius-cicero.
What it is about
The English version of the 'Academica', for the reader; scholarly citation should point to the Latin.
Context and history
Written in 45 BC, this is Cicero's book on whether anything can be known: the defence of the scepticism of the New Academy, the school in which he had been formed. The quarrel is with the Stoics, who held that there are perceptions so clear they cannot deceive, and that the wise man may assent to them with certainty; against this Cicero deploys the arguments of Carneades — dreams, illusions, indistinguishable twins — to conclude that certainty is not to be had, and that what remains is not silence but the probable: one can live and decide by what is plausible without affirming it as certain. Cicero rewrote the whole work within a few weeks, which is why there are two editions, neither preserved complete. It is the principal source for the whole Hellenistic debate on knowledge, and when Augustine set out to fight scepticism, it was against this book that he wrote.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
Since the work of Davies appeared in 1725, no English scholar has edited the _Academica_. In Germany the last edition with explanatory notes is that of Goerenz, published in 1810. To the poverty and untrustworthiness of Goerenz's learning Madvig's pages bear strong evidence; while the work of Davies, though in every way far superior to that of Goerenz, is very deficient when judged by the criticism of the present time. This edition has grown out of a course of Intercollegiate lectures given by me at Christ's College several years ago. I trust that the work in its present shape will be of use to undergraduate students of the Universities, and also to pupils and teachers alike in all schools where the philosophical works of Cicero are studied, but especially in those where an attempt is made to impart such instruction in the Ancient Philosophy as will prepare the way for the completer knowledge now required in the final Classical Examinations for Honours both at Oxford and Cambridge. My notes have been written throughout with a practical reference to the needs of junior students. During the last three or four years I have read the _Academica_ with a large number of intelligent pupils, and there is scarcely a note of mine which has not been suggested by some difficulty or want of theirs. My plan has been, first, to embody in an Introduction such information concerning Cicero's philosophical views and the literary history of the _Academica_ as could not be readily got from existing books; next, to provide a good text; then to aid the student in obtaining a higher knowledge of Ciceronian Latinity, and lastly, to put it in his power to learn thoroughly the philosophy with which Cicero deals. My text may be said to be founded on that of Halm which appeared in the edition of Cicero's philosophical works published in 1861 under the editorship of Baiter and Halm as a continuation of Orelli's second edition of Cicero's works, which was inte