The Scepticism of Plato's Academy

The idea that pyro actually behaved like the cartoon character mister mgo, blinded by his lack of beliefs, rather than by real blindness is clearly silly. But a serious point underlies the stories, namely that life without belief seems downright impossible, at least for humans. Fortunately, the sceptical tradition is only just starting. Soon enough, there will come a new group of thinkers who avoid commitment, belief and assertion. These new sceptics arise within plato's academy, of all places. One can easily imagine plato to say nothing of his immediate successors, busippus and xenocrates, spinning in their graves at the thought of their academy being run by sceptics. They looked