Arcesilaus was born in Pitane in Aeolis. His early education was provided by Autolycus the mathematician, with whom he migrated to Sardis. Afterwards, he studied rhetoric in Athens. He then studied philosophy, becoming a disciple first of Theophrastus and afterwards of Crantor. He also attended the school of Pyrrho, whose philosophy he maintained, except in name. He subsequently became intimate with Polemo and Crates of Athens, who made Arcesilaus his successor as scholarch of the Platonic Academy. Diogenes Laërtius says that, like his successor Lacydes, Arcesilaus died of excessive drinking, but the testimony of others and his own precepts discredit the story. He is known to have been much respected by the Athenians.
Philosophy
Arcesilaus committed nothing to writing. His opinions were imperfectly known to his contemporaries, and can now only be gathered from the statements of later writers. This makes his philosophy difficult to evaluate and partly inconsistent. This led scholars to see his skepticism in several ways. Some see his philosophy as completely negative or destructive of all philosophical views. Others regard him as taking the position that nothing can be known on the basis of his philosophical arguments. Others claimed he held no positive views on any philosophical topic, including the possibility of knowledge. Sextus Empiricus said that Arcesilaus' philosophy appeared essentially the same as Pyrrhonism, but granted that this might have been superficial. On the one hand, Arcesilaus is said to have restored the doctrines of Plato in an uncorrupted form; while, on the other hand, according to Cicero, he summed up his opinions in the formula, "that he knew nothing, not even his own ignorance." There are two ways of reconciling the difficulty: either we may suppose him to have thrown out such aphorisms as an exercise for his pupils, as Sextus Empiricus, who calls him a "skeptic", would have us believe; or he may have really doubted the esoteric meaning of Plato, and have supposed himself to have been stripping his works of the figments of the Dogmatists, while he was in fact taking from them all certain principles. Cicero attributes the following argument to Arcesilaus: it is rash and shameful to assent to something false or unknown, but since nothing can be known, we should suspend judgment about everything Zeno of Citium and the other Stoics were the chief opponents of Arcesilaus. He attacked their dogma of katalêptikê phantasia as understood to be a mean between episteme and doxa. He argued that this mean could not exist. It involved a contradiction in terms, as the very idea of phantasia implied the possibility of false as well as true conceptions of the same object. As such, it was merely the interpolation of a name.
Commentary on Arcesilaus
The Pyrrhonist philosopher and contemporary of Arcesilaus, Timon of Phlius ridiculed Arcesilaus in his Silloi, but also praised him in Funeral Banquet of Arcesilaus. Fragments from Timon about Arcesilaus include:
"Having the lead of Menedemus at his heart, he will run either to that mass of flesh, Pyrrho, or to Diodorus."
I have seen changes in all nations and men, and thus after many changes of judgement regarding true justice, I have recognized that our nature was but in continual change, and I have not changed since; and if I changed, I would confirm my opinion. The skeptic Arcesilaus, who became a dogmatist.
