The Skepticism of Cicero

I think more and more scholars are recognizing that the way he writes indicates that there's much more going on than the sort of simple transmission of other people's ideas. Is one reason why he's now thought to be more interesting that he's himself coming out of a certain tradition within Hellenistic philosophy, namely the skeptical tradition? Yes, I think that's certainly one aspect of it. He actually doesn't want to tell us what to think about the philosophers that he discusses. And I think the skepticism is one feature of that. It was the last of what's known as academic skepticism - we don't take any notice of philosophical theories. So every position that either you or anybody else might