Episode 295 - Not Yet Recorded - Review of Plutarch's "Against Colotes" / That Epicurus Makes A Pleasant Life Impossible

Welcome to Episode 295 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world.

Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.

This week Joshua will be away, and Don has kindly agreed to step in during his absence. Rather than continue in Tusculan Disputations in Joshua's absence, we will briefly take up a topic we have not previously addressed: Plutarch's essay Against Colotes. Here Plutarch notes that Colotes had written an essay to the effect that it is impossible to live happily under the non-Epicurean philosophers, and Plutarch attempts to turn the tables on Colotes and argue that the opposite is true.

This essay contains many specific allegations against Epicurus that are not well documented elsewhere, so even if we have only a short time, it will be good for us to point out to our podcast listeners the existence and general content of this ancient source.

We won't have time to read long sections from the text but what we hope to do is to make you familiar with the general outline of Plutarch's argument so you can come back to it again in the future and know what to expect.

There are 31 sections in this text, and I will work on condensing each one into a single sentence to help organize the discussion. Links are to the Perseus edition:

1. 1 Colotes has written a book "That It Is Impossible To Live According to the Tenets of The Other Philosophers" and this will be in response.

2. 2 The speakers will respond to the Epicureans' name-calling against the other philosophers, and prove that it impossible to live pleasantly according to the philosophy of Epicurus.

3. 3 The Epicureans base their claim to pleasure in the body, a "poor, rotten, and unsure" thing that experiences more pains than pleasures, both in terms of intensity and duration, and yet Epicurus has made "the removal of all that pains the common definition of pleasure."

4. 4 Epicurus' emphasis on mental pleasure is of no avail to him, because when he talks about mental pleasures he focuses on memory of bodily pleasures, and these are only an empty shadow - a dream - a fume - of the body's pleasure.

5. 5 Mental pleasures cannot rid us of bodily pains, as we see from the fact that the Epicureans themselves suffered diseases such as strangury, gripes, consumptions and dropsies; and life in this condition cannot really be pleasant, as they claim.

6. 6 Just like the Epicureans claim that the unjust man lives in fear of punishment, they too must live in fear of bodily pain.

7. 7 It is ridiculous for the Epicureans to argue that when all pain is driven out there is no further room for pleasure, and that to be without pain makes them equal to the gods -even the brute animals sing and fly about after they have satisfied their longings, and Epicurus would deny us even that!

8. 8 Those things that we require for life do not deserve the name of good, nor even the name of pleasure, any more than does a rogue's freedom from being in jail, and even brute animals are free from the worries of hell or gods - and yet Epicurus praises such freedom so highly!

9. 9 The bodily pleasures and memories of them are but slight, and have nothing in them that is great and considerable like that which comes from the contemplative and active and heroic aspects of life.

10. 10 The pleasures of the body, or memories of our dead friends, are nothing in comparison with the pleasures of the mind that come from contemplating Homer or Xenophon.

11. 11 The Epicureans chase away the pleasures of mathematics and history and geometry and music and the like, and these are far more pleasurable than the pleasures of the body.

12. 12 Epicurus bids us to set said and fly from these greater pleasures of liberal arts, mathematics, poets, and especially history, which was derided by Metrodorus, in favor of grosser pleasures of the body.

13. 13 Epicurus was particularly hypocritcal in disdaining the discussion or study of music and poetr, since he himself said that the wise man will love the music of public events.

14. 14 Given that we have both a mind and a body, it is ridiculous for Epicurus to place the good entirely in the body, and say that the mind has no good of its own.

15. 15 The pleasures of food and of drink and of the body are nothing in comparison to the pleasures of actions taken, such as by the heroic deeds of great men of the past.

16. 16 The pleasures of the stomach and the body that Epicurus finds so elating are nothing in comparison with the pleasures of the active and engaged life that Epicurus rejects.

17. 17 The pleasures of food and of the body are far surpassed by the pleasures of being brave and generous and honorable, and this is shown by what people choose to do in th short time left to them if they know they are about to die.

18. 18 Thus no one will believe Epicurus when he claims that he bore up to his final pains by thinking about his former bodily pleasures, and even Epicurus admits there are pleasures in fame, which is why he spent so much time writing books and exclaiming about how wise he was.

19. 19 Epicurus was illogical and hypocritcal in casting away the fame and pleasure that comes from holding public office, and serving their countries as that is far greater than private pleasures such as eating and drinking.

20. 20 Epicurus deprives us of the pleasures that come from knowing that the gods are in control and provide for us in our misfortunes and in death.