Akademik

(c. 316–242 BC)

The founder of the middle Academy of Athens, and the first to break with the older Platonic cosmologies in favour of scepticism . The running battle between the Academy and the Stoics started with his attack on the basis of Stoical reason in phantasia katalēptikē (‘apprehensive perceptions’). His own attempt to avoid the paralysis that, according to the Stoic counter-attack, followed upon sceptical suspension of judgement, was to rely upon some common-sensical, but probably undefended, notion of that which is eulogon or reasonable. See also Carneades.