 To be sure, Arcesilaus and other Academics, Carneades above all, defended the possibility of a life without knowledge and without assent (Plutarch, Adversus Colotem 1122A–F = L&amp;S] 69A). But that need not show that they somehow held a skeptical position. Instead their aim may have been to counter the Stoic charge that the Academic arguments for the skeptical propositions must be faulty because they render rational action impossible. And Arcesilaus’ account of how one can act in the absence of knowledge and without assent is so heavily dependent on Stoic doctrines that it looks very much like an effort to show the Stoics that their system already contained the resources necessary to explain how action was possible for the skeptic as envisaged in the Academy’s arguments.