Carneades

Born in Cyrene around 214/3 BC, Carneades became scholarch of the Academy and the sharpest critic of Stoic and Epicurean certainties. In 155 BC he was sent with two other philosophers to Rome, where his lectures unsettled the establishment by arguing that neither senses nor reason could deliver truth. What survived him was a pragmatic compromise: we can't know, but we can weigh what's persuasive — an argument earns provisional trust if it's convincing, consistent with other claims, and holds up under testing. His student Clitomachus recorded the ideas; Clitomachus's books vanished, but Cicero…