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

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    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.

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    There are 31 sections in this text, and to help organize the discussion here is a single sentence condensing each one. 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 sail 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 poetry, 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 one's country, 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.

    21. 21 Yes we should root out superstition but we must retain our faith in providence, because the joy and hope that comes from a true beilef in god is much better than the bad things that come from improper fear and dread of the gods.

    22. 22 It is much better and more productive to rely on the kind and powerful gods than it is to place your hopes in your friends, who are weak and will die.

    23. 23 Epicurus's claim that our troubles will be short, or manageable, or that death will take us from them is no answer at all to the problems of life in comparison to relying on the gods.

    24. 24 The argument so far is not complete; we must address what Epicurus' rejection of the gods really means.

    25. 25 Since Epicurus said that fear of punishment is a bad thing, and it helps men refrain from doing evil if they fear punishment from the gods, men would be better off if they were more superstitious so that they feared the gods and punishment after death even more than they do, and thus refrained from doing evil.

    26. 26 Men get more pleasure thinking the dead continue to exist after death.

    27. 27 The belief that we cease to exist at death is demorailzing and dispiriting and thus prevents us from enjoying life.

    28. 28 Taking away belief in immortality takes away the sweetest joy that most people have, as they lose the hope of a better life and seeing their friends again in the hereafter.

    29. 29 Taking away life after death not only demoralizes the unfortunate and deprives them of hope for better after death, but it harms the fortunate, as it depresses them to know that they will lose the good things that they now have.

    30. 30 To call not being in existence a good is to be ungrateful to existence.

    31. 31 "So large a field and one of so great pleasures Epicurus wholly cuts off, when he destroys ... the hopes and graces we should derive from the Gods, and by that extinguishes both in our speculative capacity the desire of knowledge, and in our active the love of glory, and confines and abases our nature to a poor narrow thing, and that not cleanly neither, to wit, the content the mind receives by the body, as if it were capable of no higher good than the escape of evil."

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    It seems to me that Plutarch in Section 7 does a particularly persuasive job of setting up the question clearly, and I see no way around a direct and pointed confrontation.

    Plutarch is correct that even the "brute animals" do not deny themselves additional pleasure like singing and playing after they have fulfilled their basic needs such as for food and water. And yet Epicurus supposedly advocated that humans should pursue nothing but the most basic satisfaction of necessary needs, and then timidly refrain from any further enjoyment whatsoever as dangerous to our tranquility?

    Plutarch was in a position to know the truth, so he is either shamelessly lying, or - if he were deemed to be correct - I would never recommend anyone have anything to do with Epicurean philosophy.

    Plutarch is shamelessly lying, and probably for the same reason as Cicero. He hates Epicurean philosophy and he has no problem spinning noble lies in the service of what he probably sincerely but mistakenly thinks is the best interest of his readers.

    And yet the criticism Plutarch makes here is not rejected by many so-called friends of Epicurus today. Many self-designated advocates for Epicurus actually accept and embrace Plutarch's accusation as the proper interpretation of what Epicurus was teaching, and defend it as a wise position.

    Paraphrasing Cicero's comment as to Plato, I'd rather adopt Plutarch's philosophy than have as my guide "Epicureans" who would embrace such a low standard of pleasure. And I don't for a second believe that the widespread adoption of Epicurean views by the ancient Romans and Greeks occurred because the Epicureans actually embraced the kind of view that Plutarch is describing.

    I am convinced that the truth is that the ancient Romans and Greeks understood Epicurus to be advocating pleasure as a wide term embracing all mental and physical activities which are not painful. Epicurus' innovation in advocating that pleasure is the goal of life (rather than virtue or piety or any other word) was to hold that all experiences in life are either pleasurable or painful. On that basis, Epicurus concludes that if any mental or physical experience is not painful, then we should consider it to be included under the definition of pleasure. And even painful mental and physical activities are to be chosen when they lead ultimately to more pleasure than pain.

    Under Epicurus' viewpoint minimizing pain means exactly the same thing as maximizing pleasure, but Cicero and Plutarch and many others recognized that if you strip out from Epicurean philosophy the premise that all experiences are to be categorized as either pleasurable or painful, then the result will look like minimizing pain is a goal in itself. Minimizing pain as a goal in itself can be made to look very much like minimizing pleasure, and once you have convinced someone that this was what Epicurus was teaching, you have ripped the heart out of Epicurus' teachings. You will have created a zombie that will see its mission as to search out and destroy whatever is left of Epicurean philosophy.

    The truth is that the texts amply support the conclusion that Epicurus' single test of whether to pursue a particular desire for pleasure is not basic survival through minimalism and asceticism. The true test is whether under all the circumstances you rationally evaluate that pursuing any particular course will lead you to more pleasure than pain. And strong positive emotions like joy and delight are what truly motivates humans, just like they motivate the animals that Cicero and Plutarch look down upon.

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    They therefore assign not only a treacherous and unsure ground of their pleasurable living, but also one in all respects despicable and little, if the escaping of evils be the matter of their complacence and last good. But now they tell us, nothing else can be so much as imagined, and nature hath no other place to bestow her good in but only that out of which her evil hath been driven; as Metrodorus speaks in his book against the Sophists. So that this single thing, to escape evil, he says, is the supreme good; for there is no room to lodge this good in where nothing of what is painful and afflicting goes out. Like unto this is that of Epicurus, where he saith: The very essence of good arises from the escaping of bad, and a man's recollecting, considering, and rejoicing within himself that this hath befallen him. For what occasions transcending joy (he saith) is some great impending evil escaped; and in this lies the very nature and essence of good, if a man attain unto it aright, and contain himself when he hath done, and not ramble and prate idly about it. Oh the rare satisfaction and felicity these men enjoy, that can thus rejoice for having undergone no evil and endured neither sorrow nor pain! Have they not reason, think you, to value themselves for such things as these, and to talk as they are wont when they style themselves immortals and equals to Gods?—and [p. 168] when, through the excessiveness and transcendency of the blessed things they enjoy, they rave even to the degree of whooping and hollowing for very satisfaction that, to the shame of all mortals, they have been the only men that could find out this celestial and divine good that lies in an exemption from all evil So that their beatitude differs little from that of swine and sheep, while they place it in a mere tolerable and contented state, either of the body, or of the mind upon the body's account. For even the wiser and more ingenious sort of brutes do not esteem escaping of evil their last end; but when they have taken their repast, they are disposed next by fulness to singing, and they divert themselves with swimming and flying; and their gayety and sprightliness prompt them to entertain themselves with attempting to counterfeit all sorts of voices and notes; and then they make their caresses to one another, by skipping and dancing one towards another; nature inciting them, after they have escaped evil, to look after some good, or rather to shake off what they find uneasy and disagreeing, as an impediment to their pursuit of something better and more congenial.

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    Wow! Well and passionately said! Are you sure you even need me for the Plutarch episode? I feel like we could just wind you up and let you go.

    In 7, Plutarch goes on about Epicurus' quote (and it is a quote) that "The very essence of good arises from the escaping of bad, and a man's recollecting, considering, and rejoicing within himself that this hath befallen him. For what occasions transcending joy (he saith) is some great impending evil escaped; and in this lies the very nature and essence of good, if a man attain unto it aright, and contain himself when he hath done, and not ramble and prate idly about it." [ U423, source: This section of Plutarch ]

    An alternative translation:

    Plutarch, That Epicurus actually makes a pleasant life impossible, 7, p. 1091A: Not only is the basis that they assume for the pleasurable life untrustworthy and insecure, it is quite trivial and paltry as well, inasmuch as their "thing delighted" – their good – is an escape from ills, and they say that they can conceive of no other, and indeed that our nature has no place at all in which to put its good except the place left when its evil is expelled. … Epicurus too makes a similar statement to the effect that the good is a thing that arises out of your very escape from evil and from your memory and reflection and gratitude that this has happened to you. His words are these: "That which produces a jubilation unsurpassed is the nature of good, if you apply your mind rightly and then stand firm and do not stroll about {a jibe at the Peripatetics}, prating meaninglessly about the good."

    Ibid., 8, p. 1091E: Thus Epicurus, and Metrodorus too, suppose {that the middle is the summit and the end} when they take the position that escape from ill is the reality and upper limit of the good.

    Plutarch whines about this "escape from evil" and the memory of this being the Epicureans' "highest good" and then turns around in other sections (13) to castigate the Epicureans for taking joy in festivals (but not in engaging in critical arguments about music and poetry):

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    Epicurus saith, when he pronounceth in his book called his Doubts that his wise man ought to be a lover of public spectacles and to delight above any other man in the music and shows of the Bacchanals (ἀκροάμασι καὶ θεάμασι Διονυσιακοῖς); and yet he will not admit of music problems or of the critical enquiries of [p. 177] philologists, no, not so much as at a compotation. Yea, he advises such princes as are lovers of the Muses rather to entertain themselves at their feasts either with some narration of military adventures or with the importune scurrilities of drolls and buffoons, than to engage in disputes about music or in questions of poetry. For this very thing he had the face to write in his treatise of Monarchy, as if he were writing to Sardanapalus, or to Nanarus satrap of Babylon. For neither would a Hiero nor an Attalus nor an Archelaus be persuaded to make a Euripides, a Simonides, a Melanippides, a Crates, or a Diodotus rise up from their tables, and to place such scaramuchios in their rooms as a Cardax, an Agrias, or a Callias, or fellows like Thrasonides and Thrasyleon, to make people disorder the house with hollowing and clapping.

    Plutarch is all over the place, in Section 16-17 he rails against Metrodorus:

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    And are not Metrodorus's words something like to these when he writes to his brother thus: It is none of our business to preserve the Greeks, or to get them to bestow garlands upon us for our wit, but to eat well and drink good wine, Timocrates, so as not to offend but pleasure our stomachs. And he saith again, in some other place in the same epistles: How gay and how assured was I, when I had once learned of Epicurus the true way of gratifying my stomach; for, believe me, philosopher Timocrates, our prime good lies at the stomach. In brief, these men draw out the dimensions of their pleasures like a circle, about the stomach as a centre. And the truth is, it is impossible for those men ever to participate of generous and princely joy, such as enkindles a height of spirit in us and sends forth to all mankind an unmade hilarity and calm serenity, that have taken up a sort of life that is confined, unsocial, inhuman, and uninspired [p. 184] towards the esteem of the world and the love of mankind.

    You can't have it both ways, and both Plutarch and Cicero seem to ascribe both debauchery and ascetism to the Epicurean school. It can't be both, and so it comes across as stereotyping, hyperbole, or caricature.

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    Quote from Don

    You can't have it both ways, and both Plutarch and Cicero seem to ascribe both debauchery and ascetism to the Epicurean school. It can't be both, and so it comes across as stereotyping, hyperbole, or caricature.

    Yes, great point. If you're going to be consistent you can either criticize the Epicureans for pursuing gross and debauched pleasures, or criticize them for being ascetic in their view of pleasure, but you can't logically criticize them for both.

    And when you try to accuse them of both, you expose yourself to the question: "Are you lying to me when you accuse them of asceticism, or are you lying when you accuse them of debauchery?"

    Given that their sublime Plato specifically endorses "noble lying," I'd wager that both are lies, and I would also wager it to be a lie when Cicero accuses Epicurus of never endorsing the pleasures of literature, history, current events, and poetry:

    Quote from On Ends Book 1:VII

    What pleasure do you, O Torquatus, what pleasure does this Triarius derive from literature, and history, and the knowledge of events, and the reading of poets, and his wonderful recollection of such numbers of verses? And do not say to me, Why all these things are a pleasure to me. So, too, were those noble actions to the Torquati. Epicurus never asserts this in this manner; nor would you, O Triarius, nor any man who had any wisdom, or who had ever imbibed those principles. And as to the question which is often asked, why there are so many Epicureans—there are several reasons; but this is the one which is most seductive to the multitude, namely, that people imagine that what he asserts is that those things which are right and honourable do of themselves produce joy, that is, pleasure. Those excellent men do not perceive that the whole system is overturned if that is the case. For if it were once granted, even although there were no reference whatever to the body, that these things were naturally and intrinsically pleasant; then virtue and knowledge would be intrinsically desirable. And this is the last thing which he would choose to admit.

    Cicero's argument there needs more examination. I take it Cicero is arguing that Epicurus could not admit that mental pleasures are desirable apart from the body because to do so would be to admit that the mind can generate pleasure apart from the body, and Epicurus insists that all pleasures are bodily, so to admit that the mind can generate pleasure (implicitly by itself) would be to overturn the whole system.

    At least one answer to that, however, is that Epicurus' point is that both the body and mind are material, and that the problem is the Platonists et al. trying to insist that the mind can exist or do things without the body. Epicurus never denies that it is perfectly appropriate and acceptable to talk at some times about the activities of the body and at other times about the activities of the mind. Epicurus simply denies that the mind can exist without the body, and so the pleasures of both go hand in hand and require each other.

    Does anyone see Cicero as arguing something else beyond what is addressed by that response? Or are there better ways to respond to what Cicero argues in the last part of that passage?

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    Cassius really has done a great service in this outline. Kudos to you.

    I also think it's important to put Plutarch into context temporally:

    • Epicurus 341-270 BCE
    • Colotes c. 320 – after 268 BCE
    • Cicero (for additional context): 106 - 43 BCE
      • Cicero was writing his philosophical works around 150 years before Plutarch.
    • Plutarch c. 40 - c. 120s CE

    Plutarch is complaining about a work written by someone (Colotes) who lived around 350 years before him!! Don't forget in all this Colotes has been dead a loooong time before Plutarch started whining about his work. This also shows the stature in which Colotes work was obviously held, likely among the Epicurean school, for it to have survived intact for Plutarch to complain about it. Colotes' work was probably composed around the 270s BCE. Plutarch was writing around the 100 CE.

    Quote from Cassius

    There are 31 sections in this text, and to help organize the discussion here is a single sentence condensing each one. 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.

    I decided to go over to Plutarch's Against Colotes and see what Colotes actually said (well, said according to Plutarch) and what were some of his responses. I find it amusing that Plutarch says that (Impossible 2) he will show that "it is impossible to live a pleasurable life according to their tenets," but Colotes evidently contended that it was impossible to live, no qualifiers, according to the other philosophers. Colotes was saying one couldn't live one's life. In Against Colotes, Plutarch says "And our parents indeed have, with the assistance of the Gods, given us our life; but to live well comes to us from reason, which we have learned from the philosophers, which favors law and justice, and restrains our concupiscence. Now to live well is to live sociably, friendly, temperately, and justly; of all which conditions they leave us not one, who cry out that man's sovereign good lies in his belly, and that they would not purchase all the virtues together at the expense of a cracked farthing, if pleasure were totally and on every side removed from them."

    I don't think Epicurus or Colotes would deny that living pleasurably entails law, justice, sociability, friendliness, temperance, and acting justly. Heck. One of the PDs says this outright. Plutarch (and Cicero) have to set up a straw man to "take down" Epicurus.

    In Against Colotes (AC, from here on out), Plutarch says "the Epicureans reproach the other philosophers, that by their wisdom they bereave man of his life; whilst the others on the contrary accuse them of teaching men to live degenerately and like beasts." Again, straw man.

    Colotes appears to be going hard against the Skeptics. Plutarch quotes him as saying ‘These deny that there is a man, a horse, a wall; but say that they themselves (as it were) become walls, horses, men,’ or ‘are impressed with the images of walls, horses, or men.’ Colotes is striking hard at those who say a man, a horse, a wall don't exist. If they take that position, they literally can't live.

    Quote from Cassius

    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.

    No Epicurean ever said mental pleasures rid one of bodily pains. The strangury etc are obvious jabs against Epicurus. Epicurus never said his pain went away. He said he could do battle with it with his memories of, basically, a life well-lived. His memories gave him joy in the midst of pain. Plutarch's being a jerk.

    Quote from Cassius

    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!

    Epicurus doesn't deny us anything. While we need to make prudent choices of what to pursue and from what to flee (and I use 'flee' on purpose just to poke Cassiusa little ;) ), pleasure is good and Epicurus doesn't deny variations in pleasure.

    Quote from Cassius

    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.

    LOL!! "And who could take greater satisfaction either in eating when a-hungry or drinking when a-dry amongst the Phaeacians, than in going over Ulysses's relation of his own voyage and rambles? And what man could be better pleased with the embraces of the most exquisite beauty, than with sitting up all night to read over what Xenophon hath written of Panthea, or Aristobulus of Timoclea, or Theopompus of Thebe?" Personally, I'd take eating and drinking among the Phaeacians and the embraces of beauty... unless one is in the mood for Ulysses or Xenophon. Epicurus doesn't lay down dictates on this kind of choice. Whichever would lead to more pleasure.

    Quote from Cassius

    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.

    "The bare contemplating and comprehending of these now engender in the learners both unspeakable delights and a marvellous height of spirit." Plutarch, my man, you're describing taking pleasure in something! LOL "comparing with these the fulsome debauchees of victualling-houses and stews" Straw man alert!!

    Quote from Cassius

    12. 12 Epicurus bids us to set sail 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.

    Plutarch quotes Metrodorus: "Wherefore let it never disturb you, if you know not either what side Hector was of, or the first verses in Homer's Poem, or again what is in its middle." If one knows or doesn't know what's in the Iliad, it need not disturb them... Don't worry about a cadre of snooty elite philosophers who want to look down their nose at you for not knowing it.

    That's enough for now. I'll come back and put some notes in for the other sections possibly later. I'm just getting a bunch of sour grapes from Plutarch and his ilk, setting up straw men and knocking them down.

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    Quote from Cassius

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

    It seems to me, the epicureans could take pleasure in the performance and not need to listen to critical analysis or music theory. The Epicureans right from Epicurus took pleasure in the festivals, including music and drama as I remember. Plutarch seems to be saying it's more pleasurable to critique and analyze? Hmmm, I don't think I agree with that.

    On a separate note: In Against Colotes, Plutarch writes

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    And they write in express terms: ‘We are to treat how a man may best keep and preserve the end of Nature, and how he may from the very beginning avoid entering of his own free will and voluntarily upon offices of magistracy, and government over the people.’ And yet again, these other words are theirs: ‘There is no need at all that a man should tire out his mind and body to preserve the Greeks, and to obtain from them a crown of wisdom; but to eat and drink well, O Timocrates, without prejudicing, but rather pleasing the flesh.’

    This goes to the lathe biosas issue, but putting here for further comment later so I don't lose it.

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    Quote from Don

    It seems to me, the epicureans could take pleasure in the performance and not need to listen to critical analysis or music theory.

    Yes, and not only not take part in music theory -- but also not learn to play an instrument.

    P.Herc. 1578 fr. 20, Philodemus (Translated, I think, by D. Blank):

    "It is typical of small-minded people with nothing worthwhile to which they can dedicate themselves, let alone which would make them happy, to toil over learning (to play music) in order to amuse themselves now and again, people who do not see the abundance of public performances or the possibility of partaking in them all the time around the city, if they want to do so, and who do not consider that our nature refuses (to listen to music) for too long and quickly tires of it."

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    So, is Philodemus saying we shouldn't learn to play or just that we don't have to learn to play?

    I'm assuming he'd think someone needs to learn how to play if there are public performances to enjoy?

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    I think it is all in the "toil" over a joy that is only "now and again."

    If I enjoy playing an instrument, and it is "low toil" and "frequent joy," then I am not his target.

    I enjoy playing my banjo (looking into getting a bouzouki) -- but really only at the very end of the day when I have given my greater mental energy to greater things. I do not learn songs, only improvise, every second that I play is the song.

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    Quote from Cassius

    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.

    Plutarch maintains there's a body and there's a soul (mind), σώματος καὶ ψυχῆς, and they have very different desires and pleasure they experience. Epicurus on the other hand acknowledges they are inextricably linked with one relying on the other.

    It's obvious too that Plutarch is vehemently against seeing the gods as irrelevant to one's life in the sense of having blessings come from them or to fear being cursed by the gods. Plutarch sees the gods as being indispensable in living properly. Epicureans obviously threw him into apoplectic rage! He must have saw the school as an extreme danger to society and worked hard to stamp out the Gardens influence. Plutarch goes on a while about the Deity both in Nonne posse and Against Colotes.

    Quote from Cassius

    25. 25 Since Epicurus said that fear of punishment is a bad thing, and it helps men refrain from doing evil if they fear punishment from the gods, men would be better off if they were more superstitious so that they feared the gods and punishment after death even more than they do, and thus refrained from doing evil.

    The way Plutarch puts it ...

    Quote

    And Epicurus is of opinion that the only proper means to keep men from doing ill is the fear of punishments. So that we should cram them with more and more superstition still, and raise up against them terrors, chasms, frights, and surmises, both from heaven and earth, if their being amazed with such things as these will make them become the more tame and gentle. For it is more for their benefit to be restrained from criminal actions by the fear of what comes after death, than to commit them and then to live in perpetual danger and fear.

    So religion is a tool to keep people afraid of punishment after death.

    Quote from Cassius

    27. 27 The belief that we cease to exist at death is demorailzing and dispiriting and thus prevents us from enjoying life.

    This one really annoys me. Plutarch says

    Quote

    Wherefore they must needs cut the very throats of them that shall with Epicurus tell them, We men were born once for all, and we cannot be born twice, but our not being must last for ever. For this will bring them to slight their present good as little, or rather indeed as nothing at all compared with everlastingness, and therefore to let it pass unenjoyed and to become wholly negligent of virtue and action

    The emphasized line is aggravating! So understanding that one ceases to exist should not --does not-- slight the present!! It makes it all the more special and precious.

    Plutarch also denigrates the memory of loved ones...

    Quote

    If then (as Epicurus saith) the remembrance of a dead friend be a thing every way complacent; we may easily from thence imagine how great a joy they deprive themselves of who [p. 200] think they do but embrace and pursue the phantoms and shades of their deceased familiars, that have in them neither knowledge nor sense, but who never expect to be with them again, or to see their dear father and dear mother and sweet wife, nor have any hopes of that familiarity and dear converse they have that think of the soul with Pythagoras, Plato, and Homer.

    I don't expect to "converse" with my deceased loved ones , but remembering times with them brings me joy. I can accept they're not living in the afterlife, and it doesn't diminish the pleasure of recollection. So, with all due respect, Bite me, Plutarch, you insufferable jerk! Egads!

    • New

    Plutarch (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

    Plutarch was a prominent citizen and even the priest of Apollo at Delphi, being instrumental in reviving and reconstructing the site. He traveled extensively, and was a strong proponent and student of Plato's philosophy.

    Plutarch's anti-Stoic and anti-Epicurean writings "are often captious and in many instances betray a less than fair engagement with the views being opposed (see Warren 2011, 290–293 but also Kechagia 2011, 135–294 for a vindication of Plutarch’s polemics in Against Colotes)."

    "both Stoicism and Epicureanism were still thriving, mainly in virtue of their ethics. Plutarch wanted to show that Stoic and Epicurean ethics rest on mistaken assumptions about human nature and reality, which render their ethical doctrines useless"

    "Two further features of Stoic and Epicurean philosophy appear to annoy Plutarch considerably: first, their dismissal of the aporetic/dialectical spirit that Socrates embodies, and which Plutarch regards as central to Plato’s philosophy and also to his teacher’s Ammonius (De E 385C; see also below sections 2, 3), and second, the Stoic and Epicurean adoption of a corporealist or materialist metaphysics and their rejection of the intelligible realm (that comprises God, Forms, intellects, souls), which was essential to Platonism."

    "Ironically, perhaps, Plutarch’s polemical writings are of great value for us today also for the many quotations they contain from Stoics, Epicurus, and other authors whose works were not preserved into modern times, and for his reports and paraphrases of their views drawn from works no longer available to us. Were it not for Plutarch, our grasp of Stoic and Epicurean philosophy would be much less extensive than it is, and our ability to reconstruct and appreciate their ideas much reduced."

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