Cicero

(106-43 B.C.E.)

 

Cicero, Marcus Tullius of Arpinum, Roman orator and statesman, had a lifelong interest in philosophy and wrote a number of philosophical works during periods of forced retirement from public life. He was well acquainted with the four main Greek schools of his time and counted among his friends and teachers the Epicureans Phaedrus and Zeno, the Stoic Posidonius, the Peripatetic Staseas, the Academics Philo and Antiochus, and many others. He identified himself primarily with the Academy, though he found much to admire also in the Stoa and Lyceum. He rejected Epicureanism.

In a famous passage in a letter to Atticus with reference to some of his books on philosophy, Cicero calls them copies ("apographa"), written with little effort; he supplied only the words "Verba tantum adfero, quibus abundo". A week earlier he had written: "It is incredible how much I write, even at night; for I cannot sleep." Modern scholars have found in such passages support for the view that these writings are chiefly valuable for the reconstruction of lost Greek originals, which Cicero in his haste sometimes misunderstood or jumbled together. The search for sources has been a major preoccupation Ciceronian scholars for almost a century.

A more generous view is that in spite of his own statements Cicero’s philosophical writings are more than hasty copies of Greek originals; they present a fairly coherent and modestly original system of thought. At a minimum Cicero took from the Academy a framework for his views. The Platonism of the New Academy had abandoned the search for truth and was preoccupied with the confrontation of conflicting opinions. Carneades, its leading spokesman, had even devised criteria for preferring one opinion to another. Within such a framework Cicero examines alternative views and makes his selection (though not necessarily in terms of Carneades’ criteria). The views examined extend to all three commonly accepted branches of philosophy - logic, physics, ethics - and the presentation follows an orderly plan. Within the broad coverage, however, are many unresolved conflicts; clearly, Cicero’s primary purpose was to offer his Roman readers a wide range of philosophical opinions rather than to construct a well integrated system.

Philosophy and Rhetoric

Whatever originality Cicero’s views possesses is not in their components (he believed that the Greeks had already exhausted the varieties of possible opinions) but in their combination. The most conspicuous feature of his thought is the union of philosophy and rhetoric. This union carries with it some criticism of Socrates, who was blamed for their separation and appears to align Cicero with Isocrates rather than Plato; yet he does not consider the union incompatible with Platonism. Carneades had prepared the way for a reconciliation between rhetoric and the Academy when he made philosophy a contest between opinions, and Greek theoretical rhetoricians had long since sought to implement Plato’s prescription in the Phaedrus for a scientific rhetoric. Cicero could also point to the literary excellence of the dialogues as evidence that Plato was a master of the rhetorical art.

The union of rhetoric and philosophy gave Cicero the materials for construction of his humanistic ideal. The highest human achievement lies in the effective use of knowledge for the guidance of human affairs. Philosophy and the specialized disciplines supply the knowledge, and rhetorical persuasion makes it effective. Each is useless without the other, and the great man is master of both. Cicero associates this ideal with a free society - that is, a constitutional republic in which persuasion rather than violence is the instrument of political power. He believes that Rome has the essential features of such a state but that unless a great man is found to guide it, its freedom is in jeopardy.

Commitment to the union of elegance and knowledge lead Cicero to the view that if the statesman-philosopher is to speak persuasively on all subjects, he must have knowledge of all subjects. But recognizing the impossibility of such a requirement, Cicero advocated liberal education as the best approximation. An important part of liberal education is the study of philosophy, and Cicero’s philosophical works provided materials for this study. Thus in his philosophical writings no less than in his great public orations, he was combining wisdom and eloquence in the service of the Roman people.

Philosophical Works

The literary form that Cicero used emphasized his didactic intent. Most of the philosophical works are dialogues, preceded by and introduction in defense of philosophical studies. The speakers are distinguished Romans, including Cicero himself, and frequently the listeners are young men just beginning their political careers. Conflicting views are presented in long speeches, with few interruptions. Sometimes the clash of opinions leads to insult and denunciation, especially when Epicureans are involved, but personal abuse of one speaker by another is avoided. There is hardly a vestige of conflict in such dialogues as Tusculanae Disputationes, where the conversation is between a young man and his preceptor. In two late works, De Officiis (On Duties, addressed to Cicero’s son) and Topica (addressed to a young lawyer, Trebatius), the dialogue form is discarded.

In logic Cicero wrote Academica, in two versions on the dispute between dogmatists and academic skeptics about the criterion of truth; only portions of these are extant. Topica, though usually grouped with the rhetorical groups, is also on logic. The title is from Aristotle, but the treatment is not. Cicero compiles a single exhaustive list of kinds of argument without distinction between the philosophical and the rhetorical.

These three works, planned as a unit, on physics: (1) De Natura Deorum, (2) De Divinatione, and (3) De Facto (45-44 B.C.E.). They present Epicurean, Stoic, and Academic arguments and counterarguments about religion and cosmology. Cicero himself was inclined to accept the Stoic arguments for a divine providence, but he rejected the Stoic doctrine of faith.

The major ethical writings are De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum in which Epicurean, Stoic, and Peripatetic ethical views are examined; Tusculanae Disputationes, on fear of death, on pain, on distress of mind, and on other matters; and De Officiis, a practical ethics based on Stoic principles. Some of the rhetorical works, especially the first book of De Oratore, discuss the relation of philosophy to rhetoric and present the ideal of the great man in whom both are united.