Philo of Larissa Quotes on Knowledge
Philo of Larissa was the last head of the skeptical Platonic Academy, and the quotes gathered here concern his characteristic position on the limits and the possibility of knowledge. Moderating the radical skepticism of earlier Academics, Philo held that knowledge in the strict Stoic sense, certain and infallible cognition, is beyond human reach, but that this does not condemn the inquirer to ignorance: the wise may still hold reasonable opinion, and between certainty and ignorance lies the broad field of the probable. Suspension of judgment, on this view, is a discipline of the mind rather than a refusal to think. Philo's mediating stance shaped his pupil Cicero and the transmission of Academic philosophy to Rome. The quotes here, which distil positions reported of his lost Roman Books, are marked as attributed rather than directly sourced.
Quotes
-
Attributed to Philo of Larissa:
“The wise have not knowledge in the Stoic sense, but they hold reasonable opinion.”
-
Attributed to Philo of Larissa:
“Suspension of judgment is a discipline of the mind, not a refusal to think.”
-
Attributed to Philo of Larissa:
“Plato did not teach a system; he taught a way of inquiry.”
-
Attributed to Philo of Larissa:
“Between certainty and ignorance lies the broad field of the probable.”
-
Attributed to Philo of Larissa:
“The Academy and the Stoa quarrel less than they imagine.”
-
“As parents in private life teach wisdom to their children, so do [poets] in public life to their cities.”
Every Good Man is Free | 143. -
“Nothing will a man rue more than refusal to listen to the wise.”
Every Good Man is Free | 54. -
“A far greater glory is it to the wise to die for freedom, the love of which stands in very truth implanted in the soul like nothing else, not as a casual adjunct but an essential part of its unity, and cannot be amputated without the whole system being destroyed as a result.”
Every Good Man is Free | 75. -
“Wisdom … never closes her school of thought but always opens her doors to those who thirst for the sweet water of discourse, and pouring on them an unstinted stream of undiluted doctrine, persuades them to be drunken with the drunkenness which is soberness itself.”
Every Good Man is Free | 13.