  If we accept that these considerations constrain us to look for a positive answer to the first question, at least as regards the recommendation of suspending assent about everything, the second question is which of the three candidate doctrines—viz., [i] inapprehensibility, [ii] universal suspension, and [iii] a theory of action without assent—was Arcesilaus committed to. Since, as numerous sources suggest, universal suspension is the prescriptive claim that one ought not to form any beliefs, then Arcesilaus cannot follow it and at the same time believe it, or anything else, to be true. If we do not wish to saddle Arcesilaus with a self-defeating skepticism, we are then faced with a third question: what was the nature of Arcesilaus’ commitment to his doctrines? The answers to these two questions remain open. But the dominant solutions on offer fall roughly into three groups, each identifying a different kind of commitment compatible with universal suspension, and so a different answer to the third question. If the sort of commitment prohibited by universal suspension is rational belief, then three weaker kinds of commitment seem to have been open to Arcesilaus: