γ. Finally, “because no conception is a criterion, neither can thought be taken as such, for this depends on conception”—and must hence be just as uncertain as it is. “For to thought, that respecting which it judges must be conception; but conception cannot exist without unthinking sensation”—this may, however, be either true or false, “so that there is no criterion.”[178] This constitutes the principle in the Academic philosophy—that on the one hand the conception is in itself this distinction of thought and existence, and that there is likewise a unity of both, which, however, is no absolutely existing unity. Philosophic culture of those times remained at this standpoint, and in modern times Reinhold also arrived at the same result.
b. Now what Carneades gave expression to of an affirmative nature respecting the criterion, is found in the statement that undoubtedly criteria are to be maintained for the conduct of life and for the acquisition of happiness, but not for the speculative consideration of what is in and for itself. Thus Carneades passes more into what is psychological, and into finite forms of the understanding consciousness; this is consequently no criterion respecting truth, but respecting the subjective habits and customs of the individual, and hence it also is of subjective truth alone, although it still remains a concrete end. “The conception is a conception of something; of that from which it comes as of the externally perceived object, and of the subject in which it is, _e.g._ of man. In this way it has two relationships—on the one hand to the object, and, on the other, to that which forms the conception. According to the former relationship it is either true or false; true if it harmonizes with what is conceived of, false if this is not so.” But this point of view cannot here in any way come under consideration, for the judgment respecting this harmony is most certainly not in a position to separate the matter itself from the matter as conceived. “According to the relationship to that which conceives, the one is conceived (φαινομένε) to be true, but the other is not conceived to be true.” Merely this relationship to the conceiver, however, comes under the consideration of the Academicians. “That conceived of as true is called by the Academician appearance (ἔμφασις) and conviction, and convincing conception; but what is not conceived as true is called incongruity (ἀπέμφασις) and non-conviction and non-convincing conception. For neither that which is presented to us through itself as untrue, nor what is true but is not presented to us, convinces us.”[179]