Cicero's Ethics

FAIN: HR-50262-06

Harald Christian Thorsrud
New Mexico State University (Las Cruces, NM 88003-8002)

Cicero embraces the Stoic view that knowledge is a harbor from the storms of fortune, and the means to happiness. Yet he also endorses the Academics' refutation of Stoic epistemology and remains skeptical with regard to how, or even whether, knowledge is possible. Thus the main problem I address in this book: How can philosophy achieve such great things if it does not succeed in fulfilling our desire for knowledge? In answering this question, I examine Cicero's portrait of Socrates as the model of both moral and epistemic virtue. I also discuss the ways in which Cicero adopts and modifies Stoic ethics in accordance with what he sees as our epistemic limitations.

Associated Products

Radical and Mitigated Skepticism in Cicero’s Academica (Book Section)
Title: Radical and Mitigated Skepticism in Cicero’s Academica
Author: Harald Thorsrud
Editor: Walter Nicgorski
Abstract: The early Academics, notoriously, counseled total epokhê. We must suspend judgment with regard to matters on which we cannot be certain. It is rash to do otherwise; the sage will never have mere opinions. Some later Academics, also notoriously, counseled that a modest and cautious acceptance of what seems most reasonable or probable is the right course of action; the sage will on occasion opine. A good deal of controversy persists regarding the proper interpretation of these alternatives. Although the scholarly disputes have significantly advanced our understanding of the possible and plausible if not actual positions maintained by the Academics, I believe one crucial fact has not received adequate attention: our most important source for these positions, Cicero, appears to be committed to both in the Academica. I argue that in the Academica, Cicero does not see these alternatives as contradictory. Rather, despite some appearances to the contrary, he maintains a consistently fallibilist view of Academic methodology.
Year: 2012
Primary URL: http://http://www.worldcat.org/title/ciceros-practical-philosophy/oclc/787852175&referer=brief_results
Secondary URL: http://http://undpress.nd.edu/books/P01541
Publisher: Notre Dame University Press
Book Title: Cicero's Practical Philosophy
ISBN: 978-0268036652

---