H. P. GRICE (M. A. LIT. HUM.) E LA STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA ROMANA ANTICA

 When we inquire into the way ancient authors have used the information provided by Aëtius’ Placita, by its progeny, and by its post-Theophrastean predecessors, we often find that the function of these collections of doxai is not much different from the functions of similar overviews in the context of Aristotle’s dialectical discussions. 

The main objective of these authors, who are in a position to base themselves on evidence that has already been provided with a definite structure, is to ascertain whether a given doxa may eventually prove to be useful, and which doxai should be rejected—depending, naturally, on the point of view of the user (who may be a physician or a philosopher, a Stoic or an Epicurean, a Platonist or an Aristotelian, a pagan or a Christian). Sometimes all the doxai belonging to a specific sub-set, or dealing with a specific theme, may turn out to be unacceptable, or useless, under certain circumstances or to somebody in particular. The fact should never be lost from view that the Placita merely provides a status quaestionis: material for instruction, discussion and reflection on, say, the shape of the moon, or the size of the sun, or the causes of earthquakes, or of the flooding of the Nile, or the various explanations of visual perception. Neither a suspension of judgement, in the manner of the Skeptics, nor a positive outcome, in the manner of Aristotle or the Stoics, is ever formulated, no explicit advice ever given either way. Only very rarely is there a critical note.  Furthermore, there is a significant difference between Aristotle’s overviews (which we know much better than those of Theophrastus, so for the sake of clarity one may restrict oneself to Aristotle) and the corresponding passages and sections in Aëtius and his family. Aristotle’s purpose was to make a choice and to find a solution, and many later authors also wanted this. But numerous chapters in the Placita literature when taken at face-value seem to make a decision impossible, because the bald diaeretic contrast between the tenets listed in the lemmata results in a logjam, or diaphonia (‘discordance’), as the ancient Skeptics called it. It might be concluded from this stalemate that the only remaining option is to suspend one’s judgment. It was at the time impossible, for instance, to find out whether there is one cosmic system, or more. It is an attractive idea that at least part of the material (in the course of time naturally updated by the inclusion of post-Aristotelian tenets) was adapted by Academic Skeptics to induce the tranquillity of mind which follows upon suspension of judgment.