De parasito sive artem esse parasiticam

It excels both rhetoric and philosophy, in the first place in its objective reality ; for it has this, and they have not. We do not hold one and the same view about rhetoric; some of us call it an art, some a want of art, others a depraved art, and others something else. So too with philosophy, which is not uniform and consistent ; for Epicurus has on opinion about things, the Stoics another, the Academics another, the Peripatetics another; in brief, everybody claims that philosophy is something different, and up to now, at all events, it cannot be said either that the same men control opinion or that their art is one. By this it is clear what conclusion remains to be drawn. I maintain that there can be no art at all which has not objective reality. For how else can you

explain it that arithmetic is one and the same, and twice two is four not only here but in Persia, and all its doctrines are in tune not only in Greece but in strange lands, yet we see many different philosophies, all of them out of tune both in their beginnings and in their ends ?

TYCHIADES You are right: they say philosophy is one, but they themselves make it many.