The Rhetorical Requirement in utramque partem and the Topic of Skepticism. Some Reflections About Public Reasons by Andrés Rosler

Abstract

Considering Andrés Rosler’s book, Public Reasons, in this paper I attempt to focus on the very nature of political debate about the model of the classical Roman republic. In order to accomplish this goal, I recon- struct which were the historical-philosophical bases that this debate had in Cicero’s reflections. I argue that the rhetorical requirement in utramque partem was linked to the ancient weak skepticism of academics Arcesilau s and Carneades. Subsequently, I hold that this type of skepticism mutated towards a strong type in the work of Pyrrho and Sextus Empiricus. In the next step, I try to show the connections of this kind of skepticism with contemporary political and moral theory. Moreover, in the following lines, I attempt to explain what I call a political skepticism. But, changing the professorial style of my paper, I present contemporary examples of Argentine politics in order to identify what I call skeptical matrix scenarios. One of the theses that I want to defend is that the indefinite epoché is impossible, as well as full ataraxia, both are problematic to admit in a field, such as the political, directed to the resolution of problems.