caption death_date death_place influenced era birth_place school_tradition influences image_size main_interests notable_ideas name birth_date image article_title region
arcesilaus and carneades 241/0 bc athens lacydes , carneades , clitomachus , philo of larissa ancient philosophy pitane , aeolis platonism pyrrho , crates of athens , plato , theophrastus , crantor , polemo 200px platonism , academic skepticism founder of academic skepticism arcesilaus 316/5 bc , arcesilaus and carneades.jpg arcesilaus
 western philosophy
arcesilaus

arcesilaus -lrb- ; ; 316/5 -- 241/0 bc -rrb- was a greek philosopher and founder of the second or middle academy -- the phase of academic skepticism .
arcesilaus succeeded crates as the sixth head -lrb- scholarch -rrb- of the academy c. 264 bc .
he did not preserve his thoughts in writing , so his opinions can only be gleaned second-hand from what is preserved by later writers .
he was the first academic to adopt a position of philosophical skepticism , that is , he doubted the ability of the senses to discover truth about the world , although he may have continued to believe in the existence of truth itself .
this brought in the skeptical phase of the academy .
his chief opponents were the stoics and their belief that reality could be comprehended with certainty .
