 Another approach to Carneades’ stance toward belief is to ask whether he might invoke Platonic considerations. Consider that Socrates, when asked in the Republic what he thinks the good is, refuses to reply because he thinks beliefs without knowledge are shameful (Rp. 506c). In response to this, his interlocutors point out that there is a difference between putting forward one’s beliefs as if one knew them to be true, and putting them forward with the proviso that they are merely beliefs (Vogt 2012a, ch. 2). The shamefulness of mere belief might disappear through this proviso. A passage in Cicero’s Academica suggests that Carneades invokes this thought. According to Carneades, the wise person can hold beliefs if they fully understand them to be beliefs (2.148). Along similar lines, it has been suggested that Carneades might conceive of a hypothetical mode of believing (Striker 1980 [1996, 112]), perhaps engaging with a move in Plato’s Meno. Investigation cannot get off the ground if we do not, in some sense, begin with our beliefs about the matter under investigation. But how can we do so without endorsing our beliefs, not knowing whether our views are true? Plato’s answer at this point is: by hypothesizing our beliefs. Today we would insist that hypotheses are not beliefs. However, it is conceivable that Carneades argued along these lines, and that the details of his vocabulary got lost or confused in doxography.