Acadēmica (Academics), dialogue by Cicero ((1) 5) discussing the philosophical views of the Greek New Academy, particularly the Sceptic view of Carneades on the impossibility of attaining certain knowledge. The work, written in 45 BC, was originally in two books, but while Cicero's ‘publisher’ Atticus was having copies of it produced, Cicero remodelled it into four books. Both ‘editions’ went into circulation; of the first edition we possess the second book, Lucullus; of the second edition we possess part of the first book, known as Academica posteriora. In the latter, Varro expounds the evolution of the doctrines of the Academy, from early dogmatism to the Scepticism of Arcesilaus and Carneades. In Lucullus that interlocutor attacks the position of the Sceptics. Cicero defends the Sceptic view and approves Carneades' doctrine of accepting what seems most probably true.
