View source for Philosophy:Philo of Larissa

{{Short description|Ancient Greek philosopher}}
{{Infobox philosopher|name=Philo of Larissa|influenced=[[Biography:Antiochus of Ascalon|Antiochus of Ascalon]], [[Biography:Cicero|Cicero]]|native_name=Φίλων ὁ Λαρισσαῖος|institutions=[[Philosophy:Platonic Academy|Academy]] (scholarch)|school_tradition=[[Philosophy:Academic skepticism|Academic skepticism]]|influences=[[Biography:Plato|Plato]], [[Biography:Clitomachus (philosopher)|Clitomachus]]|birth_date={{circa|159 B.C}}|birth_place=[[Place:Larissa|Larissa]]|death_date={{circa|84 B.C}}|death_place=[[Place:Rome|Rome]]}}

'''Philo of [[Place:Larissa|Larissa]]''' ({{lang-el|Φίλων ὁ Λαρισσαῖος}} ''Philon ho Larissaios''; 159/8–84/3 BC<ref>{{cite book |last1=Woodruff |first1=Paul |title="Ancient Scepticism" from Nicholas D. Smith's "The Philosophy of Knowledge: A History, Volume 1" |date=2019 |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |isbn=978-1-4742-5827-2 |page=210}}</ref>) was a Greek philosopher. He was a pupil of [[Biography:Clitomachus (philosopher)|Clitomachus]], whom he succeeded as head of the [[Philosophy:Platonic Academy|Academy]]. During the Mithridatic wars which would see the destruction of the Academy, he travelled to [[Place:Rome|Rome]] where [[Biography:Cicero|Cicero]] heard him lecture. None of his writings survive. He was an [[Philosophy:Academic skepticism|Academic sceptic]], like Clitomachus and [[Philosophy:Carneades|Carneades]] before him, but he offered a more moderate view of [[Philosophy:Philosophical skepticism|skepticism]] than that of his teachers, permitting provisional beliefs without certainty.

==Life==
Philo was born in [[Place:Larissa|Larissa]] in 154/3 BC. He moved to [[Place:Athens|Athens]] where he became a pupil of [[Biography:Clitomachus (philosopher)|Clitomachus]], whom he succeeded as head of the Third or New [[Philosophy:Platonic Academy|Academy]] in 110–109 BC. According to [[Biography:Sextus Empiricus|Sextus Empiricus]], he was the founder of a "Fourth Academy",<ref>Sextus Empiricus, ''Hypotyp.'' i. 220</ref> but other writers refuse to admit the separate existence of more than three academies. He was the teacher of [[Biography:Antiochus of Ascalon|Antiochus of Ascalon]] who would become his adversary in the Platonist school.

During the Mithridatic wars Philo left [[Place:Athens|Athens]] and took up his residence in [[Place:Rome|Rome]] in 88 BC. In Rome he lectured on rhetoric and philosophy, and collected around him many eminent pupils, amongst whom [[Biography:Cicero|Cicero]] was the most famous and the most enthusiastic.<ref>Cicero, ''ad Fam.'' xiii. 1, ''Academica'', i. 4, ''Brut.'' 89, ''Tusculanae Quaestiones'', ii. 3</ref>

Philo was the last undisputed scholarch of the Academy in direct succession from Plato. After his death in 84/3 BC, the Academy seceded into rivalling factions and eventually disappeared until the Neoplatonist revival.

==Philosophy==
None of Philo's works are extant; our knowledge of his views is derived from [[Biography:Numenius of Apamea|Numenius]], [[Biography:Sextus Empiricus|Sextus Empiricus]] and [[Biography:Cicero|Cicero]]. In general, his philosophy was a reaction against the [[Philosophy:Academic skepticism|Academic skepticism]] of the Middle and New Academy in favor of the dogmatism of [[Biography:Plato|Plato]].

He maintained that by means of conceptive notions (''[[Philosophy:Katalepsis|katalêptikê phantasia]]'') objects could not be comprehended (''akatalêpta''), but were comprehensible according to their nature.<ref>Sextus Empiricus, ''Hypotyp.'' i. 235; Cicero, ''Acad. Quaest.'' ii. 6</ref> How he understood the latter, whether he referred to the evidence and accordance of the sensations which we receive from things,<ref name=Aristocles>Aristocles, in [[Biography:Eusebius|Eusebius]] ''Praeparatio Evangelica'' xiv. 9.</ref> or whether he had returned to the Platonic assumption of an immediate spiritual perception, is not clear. In opposition to his disciple [[Biography:Antiochus of Ascalon|Antiochus]], he would not admit a separation of an Old and a New Academy, but would rather find the doubts of scepticism even in Socrates and Plato,<ref>Cicero, ''Acad. Quaest.'' ii. 4, 5, 23</ref> and not less perhaps in the New Academy the recognition of truth which burst through its scepticism. At least on the one hand, even though he would not resist the evidence of the sensations, he wished even here to meet with antagonists who would endeavour to refute his positions<ref name=Aristocles/> i.e. he felt the need of subjecting afresh what he had provisionally set down in his own mind as true to the examination of scepticism; and on the other hand, he did not doubt of arriving at a sure conviction respecting the ultimate end of life.

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==References==
*{{cite book |last=Dorandi  |first=Tiziano |chapter=Chapter 2: Chronology |editor-last=Algra |editor-first=Keimpe |display-editors=etal |year=1999 |title=The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy |page=48 |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9780521250283 }}
'''Attribution:'''
* {{DGRBM|author=ChAB|title=Philon (3. the Academic)|volume=3|page=313|url=http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moa/acl3129.0003.001/321?page=root;rgn=full+text;size=100;view=image}}

==Further reading==
* Brittain, Charles, ''Philo of Larissa'' (Oxford University Press, 2001) {{ISBN|0-19-815298-1}}

==External links==
* {{cite SEP |url-id=philo-larissa |title=Philo of Larissa |last=Brittain |first=Charles}}

{{Platonists}}
{{skepticism}}


[[Category:Academic philosophers]]
[[Category:1st-century BC philosophers]]

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