ABSTRACT
Upon Arcesilaus’s death (c. 240 BC), the headship of the Academy passed to Lacydes of Cyrene. He is said (as is Arcesilaus: DL 4 44) to have died of alcohol poisoning (DL 4 61): such stories are no doubt designed to emphasize the sceptic’s lack of ordinary prudence (cf. those told of Pyrrho: 79-80). A dubious tradition associates him with Chrysippus (or perhaps vice versa: DL 7 182), and he is said to have known Timon. We know little else about him (Numenius, in Eusebius, Praep. Ev. 14 7 14, says he was influential: ‘he found many hearers, one of whom was the distinguished Aristippus of Cyrene’):1 however, a story, reported in Diogenes (DL 4 59) and in more detail by Numenius (Praep. Ev. 14 7 1-6), concerns Lacydes’ conversion to Academic akatalēpsia. The tale is apocryphal: but it is philosophically significant. Lacydes developed an elaborate system of locking his storeroom door, sealing it, then posting the signet-ring through it; his slaves observed and copied it, sealing up the door after them after they had taken what they wanted:
so Lacydes, having left his jars full and finding them empty, was nonplussed (aporōn) by what had happened; and having heard that akatalēpsia was philosophized about by Arcesilaus, he thought that that was what was happening in his storeroom. This was how he started philosophizing with Arcesilaus that nothing can be seen or heard that is clear and unassailable. (128: Numenius, in Eusebius, Praep. Ev. 14 7 4)
Lacydes found himself in an aporia, or impasse, unable to explain the mysterious evaporation of his provender: and he was seduced into scepticism because he abandoned the search for a rational solution too soon. The slaves then turn Lacydes’ own philosophy against him: if the seal was broken, how can he be sure that he sealed the key in? And if it was resealed, how could he tell the difference between the old and the new seal (Praep. Ev. 14 7 8)? A central plank of the Academic attack on the cataleptic impression was the claim that two impressions could be indistinguishable: and Zeno likened perception to impressions in wax (115). The slaves argue that Lacydes’ own philosophy makes him unable to affirm that the seal has been broken and resealed, since the difference between two seals is akatalēpton. Lacydes reacted with ‘subtle demonstrations’; but the slaves simply went to the Stoics and learned some new sophistries. So the ‘battle of contradictions’ went on until all the contents of the store were quite exhausted (Praep. Ev. 14 7 9-11). When the seal is found broken, the slaves invoke the uncertainty of memory:
for Lacydes had decided that he should be opinion-free, and hence put no trust in memory, since memory is a form of opinion. (129: Praep. Ev. 14 7 9)
In the end, exhausted and completely out of food and wine, Lacydes is forced to concede that
we talk in one way in our discussions, but we live in another. (130: Praep. Ev. 147 13)
130 exemplifies the topos of the unliveability of the sceptical life; 129 is of more philosophical interest-and it points to a Lacydean innovation. No earlier philosopher is known to have invoked the fallibility of memory. But is memory plausibly a species of opinion (and hence untrustworthy)? Perhaps Lacydes argued as follows:
(1) memory traces are akin to impressions; but (2) not all apparent memories are genuine, since (3) not all memories are accurate; furthermore (4) the accuracy of a memory consists in its relation to an actual event; (5) there is no internal characteristic that will distinguish a genuine from a rogue
memory; (6) but neither is there a reliable external method of distinguishing genuine from rogue
memories; (7) treating a memory trace as a case of genuine memory involves judgement; but given (5) and (6) (8) that judgement cannot be objectively grounded, hence (9) the claim that a memory is genuine is an opinion. There is something to that argument-memory plays tricks on us, and there is clearly
no way of directly verifying its truth. Empiricists of various stamps will take issue with (6): perhaps by comparing our own memories with those of others we can establish their plausibility or otherwise-but that will cut little sceptical ice. Heroic rationalists might argue that (5) was false-I submit that (5) is obviously true.
