Kleitomachos

Kleitomachos ( Greek  Κλειτόμαχος , Latinized Clitomachus ; * probably 187/186 BC in Carthage ; † 110/109 BC in Athens ) was an ancient philosopher in the age of Hellenism . After his hometown he is also called Kleitomachos of Carthage . He was a prominent member of the Platonic Academy in Athens, which he directed as a scholarch for a long time .

Life

Fragment about Kleitomachos from the Academica des Philodemos ( Papyrus Herculanensis 1021, column 30 of the Oxford copy)

Kleitomachos originally had the Punic name Hasdrubal. He is said to have initially practiced philosophy in his Punic mother tongue in his Carthaginian homeland. At the age of 24, probably 163/162, he came to Athens. There he studied the teachings of the three rival philosophy schools Academy, Peripatos and Stoa . He joined the famous philosopher Karneades , one of the most prominent representatives of the skepticism of the "Younger Academy". Skepticism has been the prevailing tendency in the academy since Arkesilaos . Karneades is said to have first taught the Carthaginians the Greek language. After four years, Kleitomachos joined the academy in 159/158. In the following years the city of Athens granted him citizenship. It is possible that he accompanied Karneades on his trip to Rome in 155, which caused a great sensation there. In 146 his hometown Carthage was conquered and destroyed by the Romans at the end of the Third Punic War . Cicero narrates that he sent a consolation to his fellow citizens on the occasion of this event.

In 140/139 Kleitomachos founded his own philosophy school outside the academy in the Palladion, a gymnasium in Athens. This separation from Karneades, who at the time headed the academy as a scholarch, was possibly due to a personal alienation between teacher and student. It is unclear whether the differences in content between the two philosophers also played a role. Kleitomachos' step into independence probably had the consequence that in 137/136, when Karneades resigned for health reasons, he was not considered a successor from the outset.

When Karneades died in 129/128, Kleitomachos returned to the Academy, where he was accompanied by many of his students. He apparently closed his own school. At that time the academy was headed by another student of Carnead, Krates of Tarsus , about whom very little is known; it seems to have been insignificant. The circumstances of Kleitomachos' return after an absence of around eleven years are unknown. In any case, it is very likely that the death of Carnead was a prerequisite for this step, which Kleitomachus did not dare to take during his teacher's lifetime. Apparently it was in fact a violent occupation of the academy, in which Kleitomachos now claimed a decisive position. Apparently, however, Krates was not deposed or forced to resign, but remained at least nominally a Scholarch. When he died two years later (127/126), Kleitomachos formally took over the management of the academy. He held office until his death, which occurred in 110/109.

Allegedly, Kleitomachos put an end to his life himself after he became seriously ill. His successor was his pupil Philon von Larisa .

Works

Clitomachus was known to be extraordinarily hardworking. The fact that, as the doxographer Diogenes Laertios reports, over four hundred writings are ascribed to him is evidence of his zeal for work . Apart from quotations and partly not clearly identifiable excerpts or paraphrases from other authors (mainly Cicero and Sextus Empiricus ), nothing has been preserved. The themes and sparse details of only five of his writings have survived:

• “On Withholding Approval” in four books. In this work he defended the core thesis of skepticism, according to which a philosopher should honestly abstain from judging, against the standpoint of the "dogmatists", that is, of all philosophers who believed that they could assert a verifiable truth claim for their teachings.
• a treatise dealing with the same subject and dedicated to the Roman poet Gaius Lucilius on the criticism of knowledge by the academic skeptics
• another writing in which he also advocated avoiding judgments about the truthfulness of statements. Possibly it was a different version of the treatise dedicated to Gaius Lucilius. Kleitomachus dedicated this work to the Roman politician Lucius Marcius Censorinus , who was consul in 149 . Censorinus played an essential role as the naval commander in the siege of Carthage, which led to the destruction of the city.
• a consolation to his former fellow citizens who were captured and thus fell into slavery after the destruction of Carthage in 146. In it he dealt with the subject of the philosopher's inner independence from external vicissitudes of fate, which is often discussed in philosophical literature. On the basis of oral explanations of Carnead, he argued against the claim that even a sage would be afflicted with grief after losing his home.
• “About Philosophy Schools”, an overview of the teachings of the various schools

Teaching

Kleitomachus was a loyal follower of the philosophy of his teacher Carneades; apparently he deviated only slightly from his point of view. Karneades had claimed, in the spirit of skepticism, that no one had succeeded in gaining reliable, demonstrably accurate knowledge of any question of philosophy. Hence, a philosopher should refrain from agreeing to impressions and conclusions that seem to force themselves upon him. He must forego all utterances that are associated with the claim to establish an objective truth. Only statements about the graded credibility or probability of assumptions are permissible. For Carneades and Kleitomachus, probability was not a criterion of truth, but only a criterion for the practice of action.

Clitomachus endeavored to defend and spread the philosophy of Carnead. This proved problematic because Karneades' own position on the individual questions on which he had spoken was difficult to ascertain, and Kleitomachus complained that he had never been able to find out what his teacher believed was right. Since Karneades had left no philosophical works, the only sources available were transcripts from his students who were influenced by their interpretations. The main obstacle in presenting his view was the fact that, as a consistent skeptic, he was also skeptical about his own thinking and therefore used to bypass the definition of his own standpoint. In his critical discussions of foreign doctrines he only examined the views of other philosophers and left open the question of how he himself felt about the problems discussed.

Like his teacher, Clitomachus devoted himself to refuting the claims of philosophers who - like the Stoics in particular - believed that the correctness of their assumptions could be proven. He tried to show that these were in fact mere opinions that were lightly treated as facts by their followers. In doing so, as was customary with the skeptics, he proceeded from the respective opposing assumptions and tried to prove them to be unconvincing. He also turned against the rhetoricians , who have always been criticized by the Platonists, as they were out to mislead the audience with oratory tricks and to pass opinions off for knowledge.

Apparently Kleitomachos represented a radical skepticism and also interpreted the statements of his teacher in this sense. So he strongly opposed the view that the waiver of “consent” only concerns assertions of fact and therefore, as a skeptic, one should agree to a probability assertion. He regarded such a restriction of the fundamentally skeptical abstention from judgment as an inadmissible concession to dogmatism. He saw this as a partial rehabilitation of the defied by the skeptics of defeating inadequately founded opinions. Opinions about questions of probability are judgments from the point of view of radical skepticism and as such, like other judgments, are philosophically worthless and by their nature illusory. If you cannot see the truth of a statement, you shouldn't presume to judge how likely or credible the assumption is that the statement is correct. Kleitomachus compared the achievement of Carnead, which exterminated approval of the questionable opinions in the human mind "like a wild, terrible animal", with the heroic deeds of Heracles .

Whether Karneades at least occasionally weakened the principle of abstention with regard to the probability statements was debatable among his students. Possibly differences on this point were one of the reasons for Kleitomachos' decision to open his own school during the lifetime of his teacher.

reception

Of the disciples of Clitomachus, only two are known by name: Philo of Larisa , who became his successor, and Herakleitos of Tire . For a time two Romans were among the participants in his courses: Lucius Licinius Crassus and Marcus Claudius Marcellus.

Kleitomachos was the last prominent representative of radical skepticism within the academy. Both his successor Philon and other contemporary academics such as Metrodorus von Stratonikeia and probably Charmadas represented moderate positions with regard to the admissibility of mere "opinions" and the consent to statements of probability. In this way, they mentally prepared a turning point, an initially partial return to "dogmatic" thinking with doctrinal statements that are considered to be true. Finally it came in the 1st century BC. BC to a decisive and permanent aversion of the Platonists from skepticism, with which the epoch of Middle Platonism began.

Kleitomachos' works were the main sources to which the following generations owed, directly or indirectly, their knowledge of the philosophy of Carneades. The later authors who dealt with the writings of Kleitomachos include Cicero, Plutarch and Sextus Empiricus, who was a follower of a non-academic skeptical direction ("pyrrhonic skepticism").

Source collection

• Hans Joachim Mette : Other academics today: From Lakydes to Kleitomachos . In: Lustrum 27, 1985, pp. 39–148 (compilation of the source texts for Kleitomachos pp. 142–148)

literature

• Tiziano Dorandi: Cleitomaque de Carthage . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 2, CNRS Éditions, Paris 1994, ISBN 2-271-05195-9 , pp. 424-425
• Klaus Geus : Hasdrubal of Carthage - Kleitomachos of Athens. Notes on Academic Skepticism . In: Klaus Geus, Klaus Zimmermann (eds.): Punica - Libyca - Ptolemaica. Festschrift for Werner Huss . Peeters, Leuven 2001, ISBN 90-429-1066-6 , pp. 345-354
• Anna Maria Ioppolo: L'assenso nella filosofia di Clitomaco: a problema di linguaggio? In: Anna Maria Ioppolo, David N. Sedley (Eds.): Pyrrhonists, Patricians, Platonizers. Hellenistic Philosophy in the Period 155-86 BC . Bibliopolis, Napoli 2007, ISBN 978-88-7088-536-1 , pp. 225-267
• Woldemar Görler : The academy between Karneades and Philon . In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy . The philosophy of antiquity , Vol. 4: The Hellenistic philosophy . 2nd half volume, Schwabe, Basel 1994, ISBN 3-7965-0930-4 , pp. 898-914

Web links

• Diogenes Laertios: Clitomachus in Perseus Project (biography of Kleitomachos, Greek text and English translation)

Remarks

1. ↑ A different tradition, according to which he was already 40 years old when he moved, is not credible; see Woldemar Görler: The academy between Karneades and Philon . In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy. The philosophy of antiquity , vol. 4: The Hellenistic philosophy , 2nd half volume, Basel 1994, pp. 898–914, here: 899.
2. ↑ One of the proponents of this hypothesis is Klaus Geus: Hasdrubal von Karthago - Kleitomachos von Athen . In: Klaus Geus, Klaus Zimmermann (eds.): Punica - Libyca - Ptolemaica , Leuven 2001, pp. 345–354, here: p. 347, note 8; are skeptical a. Woldemar Görler: The academy between Karneades and Philon . In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy. The philosophy of antiquity , vol. 4: The Hellenistic philosophy , 2nd half volume, Basel 1994, pp. 898–914, here: 899 and Jean-Louis Ferrary: Philhellénisme et impérialisme , Rome 1988, p. 360 f.
3. ↑ Cicero, Tusculanae disputationes 3.54.
4. ^ Tiziano Dorandi: Ricerche sulla cronologia dei filosofi ellenistici , Stuttgart 1991, pp. 11-16; Woldemar Görler: The academy between Karneades and Philon . In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy. The philosophy of antiquity , vol. 4: The Hellenistic philosophy , 2nd half volume, Basel 1994, pp. 898–914, here: 900 f.
5. ↑ Cicero, Tusculanae disputationes 3.54. See Anna Maria Ioppolo: Carneade e il terzo libro delle Tusculanae . In: Elenchos 1, 1980, pp. 76-91; Jean-Louis Ferrary: Philhellénisme et impérialisme , Rome 1988, pp. 425-428.
6. ↑ Woldemar Görler: Karneades advocates the translation of the Greek term pithanón with "probably", which is controversial in research . In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy. The philosophy of antiquity , vol. 4: The Hellenistic philosophy , 2nd half volume, Basel 1994, pp. 849–897, here: 860–866.
7. ↑ Cicero, Lucullus 139.
8. ↑ Cicero, Lucullus 108.