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Full Idea
Carneades used to say that not even Apollo could tell any future events except those whose causes were so held together that they must necessarily happen.
Gist of Idea
Even Apollo can only foretell the future when it is naturally necessary
Source
report of Carneades (fragments/reports [c.174 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 14.32
Book Ref
Cicero: 'On Fate, Stoic Paradoxes, Oratory', ed/tr. Rackham,H. [Harvard Loeb 1942], p.229
A Reaction
Carneades is opposing the usual belief in divination, where even priests can foretell contingent future events to some extent. Careneades, of course, was defending free will.
| 2666 | Carneades' pinnacles of philosophy are the basis of knowledge (the criterion of truth) and the end of appetite (good) [Carneades, by Cicero] |
| 21390 | Future events are true if one day we will say 'this event is happening now' [Carneades] |
| 21672 | We say future things are true that will possess actuality at some following time [Carneades, by Cicero] |
| 21389 | Carneades distinguished logical from causal necessity, when talking of future events [Long on Carneades] |
| 21671 | Voluntary motion is intrinsically within our power, and this power is its cause [Carneades, by Cicero] |
| 21391 | Some actions are within our power; determinism needs prior causes for everything - so it is false [Carneades, by Cicero] |
| 21674 | Even Apollo can only foretell the future when it is naturally necessary [Carneades, by Cicero] |
| 7398 | Carneades said that after a shipwreck a wise man would seize the only plank by force [Carneades, by Tuck] |
| 21392 | People change laws for advantage; either there is no justice, or it is a form of self-injury [Carneades, by Lactantius] |
| 15825 | Carneades denied the transitivity of identity [Carneades, by Chisholm] |