È realmente esistita una polemica tra Arcesilao e la scuola epicurea?

• Main Author: Aurora Corti
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: ENS Éditions 2013-11-01
• Series: Aitia : Regards sur la Culture Hellénistique au XXIe Siècle
• Subjects: Adversus Colotem; Epicureanism; philosophical debates; Skeptical Academy
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/aitia/772

The purpose of this work is to attempt a reconstruction of the debate that existed between the Epicurean school and the Sceptic Academy in the 3rd century BC. At issue is a consideration of a section of Plutarch’s Against Colotes (1121E-1122F), which is a particularly important witness in favor of the actual existence of such a debate. The paper focuses not so much on the questions relevant such a debate – which are touched on here, but which themselves have an ample bibliography – but rather on the properly historiographical aspects, such as the identification of the beginner of the polemic or the reasons that brought it about. In reply to these inquiries it is possible to show that the originality of Colotes’ thought deserves much more serious consideration, also because Colotes played an important role within Epicureanism precisely as the originator of anti-Sceptic polemic.