The Academic Questions, Treatise De Finibus, and Tusculan Disputations, of M.T. Cicero, With a Sketch of the Greek Philosophers Mentioned by CiceroCicero, Marcus Tullius
Philosophy
The Academic Questions, Treatise De Finibus, and Tusculan Disputations, of M.T. Cicero, With a Sketch of the Greek Philosophers Mentioned by Cicero
Cicero, Marcus Tullius
Ethics -- Early works to 1800; Happiness -- Early works to 1800
XIII. Now let us examine the arguments which are commonly advanced by this
school in opposition to these principles. But, first of all, you have it
in your power to become acquainted with what I may call the foundations of
their system. They then, first of all, compound a sort of art of those
things which we call perceptions, and define their power and kinds; and at
the same time they explain what the character of that thing which can be
perceived and comprehended is, in the very same words as the Stoics. In
the next place, they explain those two principles, which contain, as it
were, the whole of this question; and which appear in such a manner that
even others may appear in the same, nor is there any difference between
them, so that it is impossible that some of them should be perceived, and
that others should not be perceived; but that it makes no difference, not
only if they are in every part of the same character, but even if they
cannot be distinguished.
And when these principles are laid down, then these men comprehend the
whole cause in the conclusion of one argument. But this conclusion, thus
compounded, runs in this way: “Of the things which are seen, some are true
and some are false; and what is false cannot be perceived, but that which
appears to be true is all of such a character that a thing of the same
sort may seem to be also false. And as to those things which are perceived
being of such a sort that there is no difference between them, it cannot
possibly happen that some of them can be perceived, and that others
cannot; there is, then, nothing seen which can really be perceived.”
But of the axioms which they assume, in order to draw the conclusions
which they desire, they think that two ought to be granted to them; for no
one objects to them. They are these: “That those perceptions which are
false, cannot really be perceived;” and the second is—“Of those
perceptions between which there is no difference, it is impossible that
some should be of such a character that they can be perceived, and others
of such a character that they cannot.”
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