CICERO'S PHILOSOPHY — In a letter to Atticus in 45 BCE (Ad Att., XVI, 12, 5) discussing the works he had composed, Cicero writes: «ἀπόγραψα sunt, minore labore fiunt, verba tantum adfero quibus abundo». In fact, the material he expounds and the arguments he employs are largely drawn from Greek sources. From this perspective, Cicero’s originality can only be limited or even non-existent. Yet this dependence is neither servile nor mechanical: he selects, judges, and to the opinions of professional philosophers he brings the contribution or correction of his Roman experience, his broad and profound humanity. «Non interpretum fungimur munere», he writes more truthfully in De finibus (I, 6; cf. De off. I, 6), «sed tuemur ea quae dicta sunt ab iis quos probamus, eisque nostrum iudicium et nostrum scribendi ordinem adiungimus». All this implies a certain spiritual stance, namely a personality. When we consider his form—generalizing the motives that inspire and drive him—it can be defined as humanism, understood as that conception of life which aims to elevate, on the model of an ideal form, the specific activities of man as a rational and virtuous being. From this standpoint, Cicero’s philosophical position becomes logically clear and shows greater coherence than is usually granted II.
Cicero found himself confronted with three currents of thought: Epicureanism, Stoicism, and the Academy (the latter skeptical until Philo of Larissa, Cicero’s teacher and friend, while the other two were dogmatic). He was always hostile to Epicureanism, which he knew directly from its most esteemed teachers such as Phaedrus, Zeno, and Philodemus: it debased man too much and undermined the foundations of the state, contradicting everything Cicero felt to be proper to Roman moral and civic tradition. Stoicism better suited his idealistic aspirations and the social aims he, as a Roman, placed before every form of spiritual activity, yet he disliked its excessive subtlety, extreme rigorism, and dogmatism. The Academy seemed to him the most suitable school, not only because its method of discussing every thesis pro and contra best suited an orator, but also because it left room for his intelligence and his keen historical and human sense. Yet this adherence did not lead him to reject what he found in the other schools, especially Stoicism, regarding different problems. In this respect, he was an eclectic—not, however, in a systematic sense, but with a view to a philosophy that would not contradict the demands of a spirit deeply conscious of human nobility and the value of human community. It is thus understandable why the works in which Cicero most closely approaches Stoicism are those of a political nature and, at the end of his life, that which is his ethical testament, namely De officiis; and it is in these that he finds his most moving and sincere accents. So too in the Tusculanae Disputationes and in part in De finibus. It is here, faced with the problems of society and morality, that he appeals to the testimony of conscience and the consensus of mankind. This does not place him in contradiction with his principles, for while no representation can be said to be absolutely true, there is a degree of probability that can stand in the place of truth. These criteria come particularly into play in the problem of the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. The existence of God, though it cannot be demonstrated with the rigor the Stoics demand (De nat. deor., III, 10), is sufficiently rendered probable by universal consent (ibid., III, 95; Tusc., I, 30; De leg., I, 24). Cicero rejects popular mythology and considers belief in a single God as more probable (De leg., I, 23; Tusc., I, 70). He treats the problem of the immortality of the soul in the same way, affirming its kinship with God (Tusc., I, 65). A lively religious vibration is present in the Somnium Scipionis.
LA FILOSOFIA DI C
BIBL.: For the works, the editions of the "Bibliotheca Teubneriana" should be noted: edited by R. Klotz, 2nd ed., Leipzig 1863–71; edited by C. F. W. Müller and G. Friedrich, ibid. 1878 ff.; a new critical edition is in progress, edited by K. Ziegler, C. Flasberg, Th. Schichs, M. Pohlenz, and others. For editions of individual works with commentary, cf.: F. Überweg–K. Praechter, Die Philosophie des Altertums, 12th ed., Berlin 1926, and for subsequent years the Année bibliographique of J. Marouzeau. For progress in Ciceronian studies, see the reports in the Jahresberichte über die Fortschritte der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft of Bursian, beginning in 1881. A fundamental work for research into Cicero’s sources is H. Hirzel, Untersuchungen zu Ciceros philosophischen Schriften, I–III, Leipzig 1877–83. The question remains open. A broad exposition of Cicero’s philosophy is found in H. Ritter, Geschichte der Philosophie, IV, Hamburg 1838, pp. 106–176; cf. also E. Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen, III, 1, edited by E. Wofimann, Leipzig 1909, pp. 672–92. General works: G. Barzellotti, Delle dottrine filosofiche di C., Florence 1867; C. Thiancourt, Essai sur les traités philosophiques de C., Paris 1882; id., Les traités de philosophie religieuse et les opuscules philosophiques de C., ibid. 1902. On Cicero’s influence on posterity, see Th. Zielinski, Cicero im Wandel der Jahrhunderte, 3rd ed., Leipzig 1912.