Episode 356 - EATAQ38 - Continuing in Part 18 of Book 2 of Academic Questions - Not Yet Recorded

"Book 2 Section 18" is Yonge's chapter numbering. In the modern numbering used by Rackham and Brittain this is §58. Brittain's note 77 (which points to 65 above) and Rackham's footnote are on this sentence.

The Three Translations

Yonge:

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And that must be very absurd which you sometimes are in the habit of saying, when perceptions are imprinted on the mind, that what you say is, not that there is no difference between the impressions, but only that there is none between certain appearances and forms which they assume. As if perceptions were not judged of by their appearance, which can deserve or obtain no credit if the mark by which we are to distinguish truth from falsehood be taken away.

Rackham (Loeb):

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...so that even the remark that you have a way of occasionally making will be absurd—namely, that what you assert is not that when presentations are impressed on to the mind there is no difference between the imprints themselves, but that there is no difference between their 'species,' or so to say their class-forms. As if forsooth presentations were not judged with reference to their class, and will have no reliability if the mark of truth and falsehood is abolished!

Brittain:

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Hence another view you sometimes express is also absurd—that, when impressions are stamped on our minds, you don't assert that there is no difference between the stampings themselves, but only between their 'looks' or, as it were, 'forms'. As if impressions were not judged by their 'looks'! And they won't have any credibility once the mark of true and false has been removed.

The Latin

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Ut illud etiam absurdum sit quod interdum soletis dicere, cum visa in animos imprimantur, non vos id dicere, inter ipsas impressiones nihil interesse, sed inter species et quasdam formas eorum. Quasi vero non specie visa iudicentur! quae fidem nullam habebunt sublata veri et falsi nota.

Two words carry the argument:

• impressiones: the physical stamping itself. For the Stoics a phantasia (Cicero's visum) was literally a typōsis, an imprint made in the soul's ruling part, like a seal pressed into wax.
• species / formae: the look of the impression, meaning how it appears to the person who has it. Species comes from specio, "to look."

Rackham's "class-forms" is misleading. It reads species in the logical sense of genus and species, but nothing here is about classification. Brittain's "looks" or "forms" is correct, and Yonge's "appearances and forms" is close.

The Debate This Sentence Belongs To

The Stoic claim. Zeno defined the "kataleptic" (grasping) impression as one that (1) comes from what really exists, (2) is stamped in exact accord with that thing, and (3) is of such a kind that it could not come from what does not exist. The third clause is the key one. It requires a true impression to carry an internal mark (nota, Greek idiōma) that no false impression could have. That mark is what makes it a criterion of truth.

The Academic attack (Arcesilaus, then Carneades). Their main weapon was indiscernibility (aparallaxia). Twins such as the Servilii, eggs, seal impressions from one ring, dreams and madness all supposedly produce cases where a false impression is exactly like a true one. If that happens even once, clause (3) fails, and no impression certifies itself.

The Stoic reply in §§54–57. Lucullus answers in two ways:

• Nature has no two truly identical things. Every egg and every hair has its own distinguishing character. Mothers can tell their twins apart, and the poultry-keepers of Delos can tell whose hen laid which egg.
• Where the sage really cannot tell two things apart, he simply withholds assent.

What §58 Is About

At this point the Academics had a refined, defensive version of their claim, and §58 is Lucullus's answer to it. The Academics would say something like this:

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"We're not claiming the imprints themselves are identical. Grant that the stamping from a real Servilius differs from the stamping from his twin, or from a dream. It differs in cause and origin, and perhaps physically. We claim only that their looks are identical. Nothing in how they present themselves to the mind tells them apart."

This is a clever concession. The Academics give up the metaphysical point that Stoic physics insists on (no two things are identical, and every impression is a different physical event). They keep the point about what can be known, which is the one that matters: the difference is undetectable from the inside.

There is a close parallel in Sextus Empiricus, Against the Logicians (M VII.402–410). He reports that the Academics placed indiscernibility in the impression's vividness and convincing force, not necessarily in its imprint or shape.

Lucullus's Rebuttal

He says the refinement is "absurd" because it concedes nothing useful:

1. Impressions are judged by their look (specie visa iudicantur). The mind only ever has access to how an impression appears. A difference hidden in the wax, which the perceiver can't see, is no use to anyone judging.
2. So if the Academics admit the looks can be identical, they have admitted the whole point: no mark of truth exists (sublata veri et falsi nota).
3. Without a mark of truth, impressions "have no credibility" (fidem nullam habebunt). The opening of §58 already said what follows from that: "not only knowledge but the very nature of true and false is abolished... I would confound everything" (ne confundam omnia).

In short, Lucullus says the Academics can't hide behind a difference nobody can perceive. A criterion has to work at the level of appearance. If it fails there, it fails completely.

The Two Sides in Summary

Lucullus's Position

Lucullus speaks for Antiochus of Ascalon. Antiochus called his view the "Old Academy," but on this question it is plain Zenonian Stoicism. His position:

• Knowledge is possible only if some impressions carry a mark of truth that is visible in their appearance and that no false impression can share.
• Such impressions exist, because nature never makes two truly identical things, and a trained mind can perceive the differences.
• The sage assents only to these grasping impressions. In doubtful cases, such as twins, eggs or dreams, he suspends judgment rather than err.
• An Academic who concedes "different imprints, identical looks" has conceded indiscernibility, because judgment happens only through looks. So the refinement is no defense, and the Academic position becomes self-defeating: it destroys even the distinction between true and false that the Academics need in order to talk about "the persuasive."

How This Bears on Our Material

The Stoics could be cornered here only because they made the impression itself a judgment-bearing item that has to certify itself. The Epicureans never accepted that premise. For Epicurus every sensation reports truly, and indiscernible twins pose no threat, because error lies in the opinion added afterward. That opinion gets tested through confirmation and non-contestation, not by an internal mark.

Lucullus's warning ne confundam omnia is strikingly close to Principal Doctrine 24: reject any one sensation and "you will confound all the rest." Both sides feared the same collapse. Only Epicurus avoided it without relying on a mark that the Skeptics could show to be fallible.