Against the Academics

Against the Academics (Contra academicos, 386) was Augustine of Hippo's first writing after his conversion to Christianity. It is a polemic against the value of academic skepticism as found in Cicero's philosophical dialogue Academica. A similar refutation to skepticism can be found in his more mature On the Trinity (De trinitate, 400-416). Academic skepticism was the product of two centuries of debate within Greek Hellenistic thought, ending just after the time of Cicero (died 43 BC).

Further reading

• Evenings with the Skeptics, Or, Free Discussion on Free Thinkers, John Owen, Longmans, Green, and co. 1881
• Augustine's Conversion Colin Starnes, Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press, 1990
• Outward Signs: The Powerlessness of External Things in Augustine's Thought, Phillip Cary, Oxford University Press, 2008
• The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science, Peter Harrison, Cambridge University Press, 2007