Carneades

The influence of conscience on the happiness of men, 62 Carneades, his expulsion from Rome proposed by Cato, i.

The visit of the three great philosophers, Diogenes the “Babylonian,” Critolaus and Carneades in 155, was an epoch-making event in the history of Hellenism at Rome.

The atheistic enthusiasm of Lucretius and the sceptical enthusiasm of some of the disciples of Carneades were isolated phenomena, and the great majority of the ancient philosophers, while speculating with the utmost freedom in private, or in writings that were read by the few, countenanced, practised, and even defended the religious rites that they despised.

Such, it is said, was the habit of Carneades, whose doctrines might well have been applied to this very day to many theories, since he denied that any thing in the world could be perceived or understood.

Acatalepsy, a-kat-a-lep′si, n. incomprehensibility, a term of the sceptic school of Carneades, who thought nothing could be known to certainty by man.—adj.