Saturday, November 08, 2025
Probabilities, Not Certainties
Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.9.17 (tr. J.E. King):
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I shall humour you and explain what you wish as best I can, not however as if I were the Pythian Apollo making statements to be regarded as certain and unalterable, but following out a train of probabilities as one poor mortal out of many. For further than likelihood as I see it I cannot get. Certainty will be for those who say such things can be known and who claim wisdom for themselves.See Roger Miller Jones, "Posidonius and Cicero's Tusculan Disputations i.17-81," Classical Philology 18.3 (July, 1923) 202-228.
geram tibi morem et ea, quae vis, ut potero, explicabo, nec tamen quasi Pythius Apollo, certa ut sint et fixa quae dixero, sed ut homunculus unus e multis, probabilla coniectura sequens. ultra enim quo progrediar quam ut verisimilla videam non habeo. certa dicent ii, qui et percipi ea posse dicunt et se sapientes esse profitentur.
