  We can see why Arcesilaus’ dialectical method cautions against accepting this suggestion by looking at the model he claimed to be following: Socrates’ practice in the dialogues of Plato (see Cicero, Academica 1.44–5, De oratore 3.67, De finibus 2.2, On the Nature of the Gods 1.11). In Plato’s Socratic dialogues, at least, Socrates challenges the pretensions of his interlocutors to knowledge by showing, through premises they accept, that they are committed to inconsistent beliefs. To achieve this result, it is crucial that the arguments—the premises, the inferences, and the conclusions—depend entirely on the beliefs of the interlocutors. If they do, the result of a successful Socratic encounter will be that the interlocutor is at a loss: the interlocutors now recognize that they have inconsistent beliefs, since they have both their initial reasons for the thesis or knowledge-claim they made and their newly-discerned reasons against it.  If they also hold some generally accepted views about knowledge (for example, that one can’t know something about which one holds inconsistent beliefs), the interlocutors will be rationally constrained to aver that they don’t know whether their thesis is true or false, and hence to suspend assent on the thesis while awaiting further investigation and argument. But no such result holds for Socrates. For, although he represents himself as being in the same aporetic boat—and may in fact be perplexed for exactly the same reasons—his method does not commit him to the premises, inferences or conclusions of the arguments, or even to the regulating ideas about knowledge. His views (if he has any) are not at issue in the argument.