eng URI http://hdl.handle.net/10795/3526 philosophy philosophy of science history Carneades was reputedly the New Academy's greatest dialectician, but little has been established about his dialectical methods. His theological arguments provide an ideal test case, because many of them have survived in Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos 9. Unfortunately our understanding has long been distorted by Cicero's apologetic presentation of them in De natura deorum 3 as ad hominem arguments, aimed merely at exposing the weak intellectual foundations of Stoic theology. Against this near-consensus, I maintain that they are arguments for atheism which, balanced against a corresponding battery of arguments for theism, are meant to result in an agnostic suspension of judgement. Defending this interpretation will involve examining the nature and credentials of the endoxic premises invoked by Carneades. They turn out to be a mixture of philosophical, poetic and popular premises, the philosophical ones being drawn from multiple schools, sometimes even within the confines of a single argument.(David Sedley, University of Cambridge) LOMv1.0 creator LOMv1.0 Project Final Beneficiary LOMv1.0 Project Executing Organisation 2012-12-12 Digital Library of the Operational Programme "Education and Lifelong Learning" abstract types Text Plato's Academy Ancient Athens Ancient Greece Philosophical and scientific thought History of Philosophy History of Science Theological arguments 176382 application/pdf http://repository.edulll.gr/edulll/bitstream/10795/3526/2/3526_Sedley.pdf Wednesday December 12th 2012 Afternoon Session. Chair: Dionysios Anapolitanos (Athens) URI http://hdl.handle.net/10795/3526 LOMv1.0creator 2016-06-01T14:13:02Z LOMv1.0validator 2016-06-01T14:13:02Z LOMv1.0 gre no no Copyright EYD-EPEDBM (Operational Programme "Education and Lifelong Learning")