Plutarch saw himself primarily as a philosopher, standing in the long Academic tradition that could be followed back to the ‘divine’ Plato (De cap. ex inim. 90C; Per. 8.2). But when he took his first steps as a philosopher, Plato's works had been (re)read and interpreted for several centuries. As a result, Plutarch had to acquaint himself with a rich exegetical tradition that would shape the lens through which he read Plato and would turn his attention to specific dialogues. For some Platonic dialogues had during this time received a privileged position. In particular, the Timaeus was intensively studied, which led to heated discussions about the correct interpretation of specific passages.Footnote 1 A detailed exegesis of this dialogue, complemented with material carefully selected from a few other dialogues, yielded a few Platonic ‘core doctrines’. Many Platonists, for instance, endorsed three fundamental principles, viz. God, matter, and the Forms (the so-called Dreiprinzipienlehre). These Forms were often regarded as the thoughts of God, and the final end of life (the τέλος) was nearly always defined as an assimilation to God (ὁμοίωσις θεῷ) – as far as possible (κατὰ τὸ δυνατόν) – on the basis of a celebrated passage from the Theaetetus (176b1). Such doctrines found their way into school handbooks (like Alcinous’ Didaskalikos or Apuleius’ De Platone), which provided the reader with a systematized Plato. Inconsistencies in Plato's works were explained away, obscure passages were clarified, and later insights (including Peripatetic and Stoic doctrines) were used to reconstruct a coherent Platonic philosophy.Footnote 2
This does not imply, however, that there existed in Plutarch's day a kind of standard school doctrine that strictly defined what should be considered as orthodox Platonism. The Academy no longer existed as an official institution;Footnote 3 in its place were several private schools under the inspiring leadership of local teachers who knew the exegetic tradition and its basic ideas, and dealt with it in their own way.
1. A doxographical Plutarch
Plutarch's Platonic philosophy should be understood in this light. Its leading ideas have often been studied and if we reduce them to their very core (adopting, as it were, the approach of ancient doxographers), we may end up with the following picture:Footnote 4
• Plutarch accepts two fundamental principles: the One (identified with the Demiurge) and the indeterminate dyad.Footnote 5 The One is the principle of sameness and is situated at the intelligible level where we also find the Forms.Footnote 6 The indeterminate dyad, on the other hand, is the principle of difference. Yet the two principles are not on the same level. Although several passages in Plutarch's works suggest that he endorsed a dualistic worldview (see esp. De Is. et Os. 369A–371A and De an. procr. 1026B–C), closer inspection reveals that he advocated a mitigated dualism in which the positive pole dominates and which makes room for several middle terms.
• Plutarch is well known for his idiosyncratic interpretation of Plato's Timaeus (see §3.1). In his view, amorphous and obscure matter and a confused irrational soul already existed before creation. The Demiurge then gave this precosmic soul a share in his own rationality by ordering it according to numerical ratios, thus turning it into the World Soul. This World Soul then ordered precosmic matter. However, it still contains a residue of the maleficent precosmic soul, which now and then makes its influence felt, and this (not unqualified matter) explains the existence of evil.
• Between God and human beings are demons (sometimes understood as separate souls or intellects), who can act as guardian spirits and are in charge of oracles and rites. Plutarch believes in divination and in a providential God,Footnote 7 and recommends a pious acceptance of the patrios pistis, steering a middle course between atheism and superstition (see Chapter VII, §§2 and 6).
• Plutarch shows a great interest in physical phenomena and in explaining their causes. He makes room for a double causality, distinguishing between divine and material causes.Footnote 8 He rejects atomistic theory and prefers the theory of the elements, which he derives in a Platonic vein from geometrical solids.Footnote 9 While recognizing that theories about the world of sense perception can at best claim plausibility (τὸ εἰκός), he also believes that this world, and several of its constituents, can function as an image (εἰκών) of the divine.Footnote 10
• The structure of our human soul reflects that of the World Soul,Footnote 11 which entails a close link between Plutarch's cosmological thinking and his ethics.Footnote 12 Our human soul basically consists of two parts: a rational one and an irrational one (that can be subdivided into an appetitive and a spirited part; De virt. mor. 441E–442B). Virtue, then, consists in controlling the irrational passions (often seen as sickness of the soul) by reason. In doxographical terms: virtue is metriopatheia (restraint over the passions, which was the ideal of the Peripatetic school) rather than apatheia (complete eradication of the passions, as pursued by the Stoics). Furthermore, such virtue, which rests on a fundamental choice (προαίρεσις), can be taught and usually requires a long and gradual process of moral progress. Real friendship is based on virtue, as is conjugal love. In the field of politics, Plutarch accepts the Platonic ideal of the philosopher-king, while also bearing in mind the demands of a pragmatic course adapted to concrete political circumstances. He is less critical of the poets than Plato and argues that their poetry can be used as propaedeutics to philosophy. Finally, like all Platonists, Plutarch regards assimilation to God (as far as possible) – ὁμοίωσις θεῷ (κατὰ τὸ δυνατόν) – as the final end of life.Footnote 13
• In general, scholars usually distinguish between three main strands in Plutarch's philosophy: Plato, later views developed in the Academy, and Pythagoreanism.Footnote 14 Plutarch had a very detailed knowledge of Plato's dialogues.Footnote 15 He frequently quotes from them for different purposes, not only concerning their basic ideas but also regarding trivial details. Academic thinking certainly exerted significant influence on him: Xenocrates in particular was an important source of inspiration,Footnote 16 but also later philosophers such as Arcesilaus and Carneades, who preferred a sceptical approach.Footnote 17 In a lost work, Plutarch defended the unity of the Academy after the time of Plato (Lamprias catalogue 63).Footnote 18 Finally, Pythagoreanism comes to the fore in number speculations and in several works such as On Socrates’ divine sign. Its influence should not be exaggerated, although Plutarch did adopt several ‘Pythagorean’ ideas which could in his view be perfectly reconciled with Plato's philosophy. This holds true for other philosophical traditions as well (e.g. Aristotle's philosophyFootnote 19 and subsequent Peripatetic thinking) and even for the whole intellectual Greek tradition as such.
The above doxographical survey sketches the broad outlines of Plutarch's thought. This is more or less how Diogenes Laertius (or any other ancient doxographer) would have presented it, and, although such a picture is limited to the bare essentials, it is not wrong in itself. Yet it unduly ignores several important aspects of Plutarch's philosophy. No attention is given to the intellectual context and to the relation between Plutarch's views and those of contemporary schools or movements.Footnote 20 Even worse, the creative process of thinking through which these ideas are gradually developed and argued, and the particular way in which they are expressed,Footnote 21 are entirely ignored: this doxographical survey rests on a methodologically problematic approach in which particular ideas are isolated from their context and presented as apodictic convictions. As a result, philosophical wonder is largely replaced by a soulless set of doctrines.
It would therefore be better to follow another approach that does justice to the dynamics of Plutarch's thinking. What did it actually mean for Plutarch to be a philosopher? And what was his philosophical method (if indeed he had one)? When we try to answer such questions, it soon becomes clear that Plutarch was far less systematic and apodictic than the above doxographical picture suggests.
2. Beyond doxographical schemes: looking for the truth
For Plutarch, philosophizing was essentially looking for the truth: philosophy is zetesis, that is, a seeking or searching, and a philosophical approach is tantamount to a ‘zetetic’ approach.Footnote 22 A good philosopher raises an interesting question and then comes up with different answers. This is a pattern that very often occurs in Plutarch's works and to which we shall return in due course. Here, I confine myself to one first example: the Platonic questions. This is a series of ten questions regarding the correct interpretation of a particular passage from one of Plato's dialogues: ‘Why did Plato call the supreme God father and maker of all things?’ (1000E, with reference to Tim. 28c3–4); ‘What does Timaeus mean by saying that the souls were sowed in earth and moon and all the rest of the instruments of time?’ (1006B, referring to Tim. 42d4–5); and so on. The last question is as follows (1009B–C):
What was Plato's reason for saying that speech is a blend of nouns and verbs [see Pl. Soph. 262b9–c7]? For it seems that except these two Plato dismissed all the parts of speech whereas Homer in youthful exuberance went so far as to pack all together in a single line, the following:
Tentward going myself take the guerdon that well you may know it. [Il. 1.185]
In this there are in fact a pronoun and participle and noun and verb and preposition and article and conjunction and adverb, for the suffix ‘ward’ has here been put in place of the preposition ‘to,’ the expression ‘tentward’ being of the same kind as the expression ‘Athensward.’ What, then, is to be said on behalf of Plato?
This is a typical example of Plutarch's talent for problematizing. At first sight, Plato's saying is obscure if not patently wrong. For does not everybody know that other words apart from nouns and verbs exist? The challenge of the problem is cleverly illustrated by a well-chosen verse from Homer, which contains eight parts of speech. This, then, is grammatical erudition in the service of philosophical wonder. That Plato simply had it wrong is not an option, of course. We should rather reflect about the meaning and relevance of Plato's words and see how he can be defended. As a matter of fact, several alternative solutions are conceivable and they are elaborated one after the other in the remainder of the text.Footnote 23
Such concatenation of different possible solutions, however, should not be regarded as a mere juxtaposition of equally relevant and plausible answers to the question. As a rule, the compositional pattern of the questions shows an ascending structure in which the most convincing answer is placed at the end.Footnote 24 Yet this does not imply that the previous solutions are useless (for then Plutarch could equally well have immediately jumped to the ultimate answer). The first solutions often provide an interesting introduction to the problem, making clear where the difficulties are and what is at stake.Footnote 25 They are what Plutarch metaphorically calls an ἐνδόσιμον (De an. procr. 1012D; see also Quaest. conv. 704E): the note that gives the key to the tune. Moreover, they also have a pedagogical relevance, providing a concise synthesis of the previous tradition and illustrating the broad-ranging erudition of the pepaideumenos (see Chapter III).
But that is not all. These first solutions are neither a ladder that can be thrown away once the problem has become clear, nor interesting pieces of knowledge that can be secured in the storehouse of our minds. They have a relative value on their own, and omitting them would mean a clear loss in our attempt to reach the truth. We should therefore take the consequences of the ‘zetetic’ aspect of Plutarch's philosophy more radically than is usually done. Far too often, indeed, scholars almost exclusively focus on the final answer as the one preferred by Plutarch. For instance, Plutarch's ultimate answer to the question of the enigmatic E that was dedicated in the Delphic shrine of Apollo is simply equated with that of Ammonius, his true view of the myth of Isis and Osiris is found in his metaphysical interpretation, and so on. This, I contend, is an oversimplifying reduction of the zetetic process. The other answers make sense too, and likewise contain germs of the truth, even the first, problematic ones.Footnote 26 Plutarch's zetetic approach is characterized by intellectual honesty and great open-mindedness. He sees that the final solution often ignores several aspects that are part and parcel of the problem, whereas earlier, less plausible answers throw an interesting light on them. Rather than ignoring these elements or explaining them away, he prefers to mention them and try to explain them by different hypotheses. As a result, the definitive answer is usually beyond human reach: it is simply impossible to combine the different, sometimes even opposite solutions and fuse them together into one comprehensive answer. Every solution remains valuable in its own way, although this does not mean, of course, that they are all equally valuable. Looking for the truth, then, means entering a field of tension, bidding farewell to peremptory truth claims and tentatively indicating the direction in which the truth may be found, while collecting as many pieces of the puzzle as possible. In short, Plutarch's zetetic philosophy is refreshingly open-minded.
Furthermore, this zetetic approach has an important dialogical aspect.Footnote 27 No wonder, then, that Plutarch wrote many dialogues. This, indeed, is a constitutive element of his Platonism. Plutarch's dialogues, however, usually lack the lively Socratic interaction with question and answer but are rather fashioned after the zetesis approach. An initial question is followed by several interventions in which different characters develop their own answer. These characters also interact, of course, in a critical but respectful and friendly way, as educated men (πεπαιδευμένοι).Footnote 28 Thus, in Plutarch's dialogues zetesis becomes syzetesis: a learned joint enquiry into the truth.
The genre of the dialogue yields an additional advantage, in that the characters do not merely elaborate their own view but also embody their own philosophical approach. In On Socrates’ divine sign, for instance, the different characters illustrate through their behaviour different ways of dealing with the Academic tradition.Footnote 29 Similarly, in On the E at Delphi, Ammonius personifies the metaphysical approach, whereas Theon shows how a dialectician would think about this problem (386D–E), and the character of the young ‘Plutarch’ reveals the perspective of persons with mathematical interests (387D–F).Footnote 30 In the Table Talk, doctors, grammarians, philosophers, and others all illustrate different points of view. The recurrent motif of the extreme character who leaves the scene before the discussion actually starts should be understood in this light as well:Footnote 31 it is not merely an element in the setting of the dialogue but also illustrates a particular attitude, viz. that of the man who radically sticks to his own convictions and is not willing to enter the dialogical process of syzetesis. Such people condemn themselves to isolation and thus utterly fail to come closer to the truth.
A better insight into the zetetic basis of Plutarch's dialogues also throws light on a notorious crux in Plutarch studies. Scholars often struggle with the question of which character in a certain dialogue can be regarded as Plutarch's mouthpiece. There is a large consensus about some characters, like Ammonius in On the E at Delphi or Theon in That the Pythia now does not give her oracles in verse, but, in many cases, it is far from clear to what extent the ideas of specific characters can simply be ascribed to Plutarch himself.Footnote 32 In my view, the fundamental answer to this difficult question should be sought in the underlying zetetic approach. Just as the final answer should not be regarded as the one and only, definitive solution to every aspect of the problem, so no single character should be considered as the one and only mouthpiece of Plutarch himself. Every character in his own way clarifies the question and therefore deserves to be taken seriously.Footnote 33 Again, this does not mean that the view of every character is equally plausible, but as soon as we decide to regard one character as Plutarch's mouthpiece, we unduly undermine the dialogical and zetetic aspect of his philosophy, which is always searching.
A process of broad-minded and erudite zetesis, then, is Plutarch's way of practising Platonic dialectics. But next to dialectics stands myth, in Plutarch as in Plato. Plutarch wrote three big eschatological myths and in this showed himself to be a true follower of Plato. I here confine myself to a short presentation.Footnote 34
On the slowness of divine punishments concludes with the story of Aridaeus of Soli, a man notorious for his wickedness (563B–568A). Due to an accident, the intelligent part of his soul leaves his body and he sees other souls ascending like flamelike bubbles, some of them straight ahead, others in a whorled movement. A kinsman then addresses him as Thespesius and tells him he is not really dead: rather, his intelligence has been detached from the rest of his soul, which still remains in the body as an anchor. Aridaeus/Thespesius also learns how the souls are punished in different ways for their crimes. Some of them are punished by Poinē (‘Punishment’) while still being in the body, greater criminals are penalized after death by Dikē (‘Justice’), and incurable souls undergo most cruel torments by the avenging Erinys. Next Aridaeus/Thespesius is brought to a seductive chasm, called the place of Lēthē (‘Forgetfulness’), where Dionysus has ascended and where the intelligent part of the soul risks being dissolved by pleasures. He is not allowed to stay there, yet is unable to reach the oracle of Apollo, since the stern cable of his soul does not allow him to proceed to such heights. Then he witnesses the excruciating torments of the bad souls (including that of his own father) and the return of the souls to a second birth, taking the form of animals adapted to their character (567F–568A):
And he saw among the others Nero's soul, which was in a bad way, not least because it had been run through with red-hot nails. The artisans had a form already prepared for him – that of the Indian viper, in which he would live once, as a foetus, he had eaten his way out of his mother; but suddenly, he said, an intense light blazed forth, and a voice arose from the light, ordering them to transfer Nero's soul to another, more inoffensive species by fashioning the form of a musical animal which could live near marshes and ponds. For, the voice announced, he had already been punished for his crimes, and moreover the gods owed him a favour for freeing the nation which, of all those he ruled, was the best and the most favoured by the gods.Footnote 35
After this spectacle, Aridaeus/Thespesius is suddenly cast back into his body. He gets the message, completely changes his life, and becomes a paragon of piety and virtue.Footnote 36
At the end of On the face that appears in the orb of the moon (942D–945D), Sulla tells what he has heard from one of Cronus’ servitors. The main idea of the myth is that human beings consist of three parts: body, soul, and mind. Earth, the realm of Demeter, provides the body, whereas the moon, Persephone's realm, furnishes the soul, and the sun gives the mind. In consequence, we also die two deaths. First, the soul is separated from the body on earth, in a quick and violent way. The souls then dwell in the region between earth and moon, where the bad ones are punished and the good ones are purged from corporeal pollution. When they reach the moon, they live a peaceful life as daimones, yet they sometimes descend in order to take part in rites, take charge of oracles, or intervene in human affairs. Whenever they go wrong, they are punished and are reborn. Finally, they die a second death on the moon, when their mind is separated through love for the image of the good that can be perceived in the sun. The nature of the soul withers away on the moon, quite quickly in the case of temperate souls, less so for passionate ones. A new cycle begins when the sun sows mind in the moon, the moon adds new souls, and the earth provides the bodies.
In On Socrates’ divine sign, finally, Simmias relates the story of Timarchus of Chaeronea, who has descended into the crypt of Trophonius in an attempt to learn more about Socrates’ divine sign (589F–592E). There he lies down and suddenly has the impression that his head is struck, his skull is opened, and his soul leaves his body. He sees innumerable islands, spherical and fiery, in a vast sea, as well as a great abyss from which all kinds of lamentations emerge. A voice informs him about the region of Persephone where he is at that moment, and characterizes the moon as the turning point (καμπή) of birth. Timarchus sees many stars moving to and from the abyss. The voice explains that these are souls. Whereas some of them have completely sunk into the body, others leave outside their purest part. This part, then, is the mind (νοῦς), or better, the daimōn, since it remains external to the body, as a kind of buoy floating above a man's head. Those stars that seem to be extinguished are souls that sink completely into the body; the stars that are rekindled, as it were, are souls that have left their bodies; and those that move on high are the daimones of men said to ‘possess understanding’ (νοῦν ἔχειν). Some souls move in a disordered way, struggling with their passions, while others follow a straight and regular course, being obedient to their daimōn.
These far too short summaries are, in a way, parallel to the doxographical survey of Plutarch's philosophy presented above. They capture the main lines and basic ideas of the myths but omit their context (every myth is embedded in a broader discussion) and their literary embellishment and lively presentation – in short, everything that makes them so attractive. Plutarch's rich myths, which are inspired by those of Plato, still repay further study. They abound in clever and subtle allusions, all combined into one sophisticated feast of intertextuality. Here, I would only underscore their philosophical value. Indeed, the opposition between mythos and logos is far too absolute, for Plutarch's myths – like those of Plato – contain an important component of logos too.Footnote 37 In this respect, his myths significantly contribute to the search for the truth and can be perfectly integrated within the zetetic approach, as appears from De genio Socratis, where the myth provides one of the answers (not the last one). Theocritus there insists that myth also touches on the truth, albeit in a less precise manner (589F). Myth, in short, is part and parcel of Plutarch's zetetic philosophy.
3. Challenging Plutarch's intellectual honesty
We have seen so far that Plutarch's philosophy is a sincere search for the truth, characterized by zetetic open-mindedness, great respect for the tradition and for all available evidence, and intellectual honesty. Plutarch readily recognizes that different, partly opposite opinions can all contain at least germs of the truth, and thus prefers nuance and qualification to oversimplification. This picture will be corroborated with many more examples in the following chapters. At this point, we should deal with two aspects of his thinking that at first sight seem to refute it.
3.1. Plutarch's interpretation of Plato's Timaeus
Plutarch's treatise On the generation of the soul in the Timaeus is a particularly interesting work that contains much valuable information about the metaphysical and cosmological foundations of his Platonic philosophy. He there proposes his own interpretation of a notoriously obscure and controversial passage from the Timaeus where Plato deals with the creation of the World Soul (Tim. 35a1–36b5).Footnote 38 The work consists of two parts, each of which is introduced by a verbatim quotation of Plato's text (respectively 34a1–b4 and 35b4–36b5), followed by an elaborate commentary. Unlike most Platonists, who were convinced that Plato was not thinking of a real creation but only presented it as such for the sake of examination (θεωρίας ἕνεκα, 1013A; cf. 1017B), Plutarch insists that we have to take Plato's words literally. We are dealing, then, with a real creation of the World Soul, which is composed by the Demiurge out of different components.
In order to understand Plutarch's interpretation, we should begin with Plato's view. According to current Platonic exegesis, Plato probably said that the Demiurge first made three different mixtures: a blend of divisible and indivisible being, a blend of divisible and divided sameness, and a blend of divisible and divided otherness.Footnote 39 From these three preliminary mixtures he then created the World Soul:
According to Plutarch's interpretation, the Demiurge first blended the indivisible and the divisible. Then, he blended this preliminary mixture with the two extreme poles of sameness and difference. This is a considerable simplification of what Plato presumably meant:
The principle of indivisible being may be identified with the Demiurge. The radically innovative part of Plutarch's interpretation, however, has to do with the principle of divisible being (or, more correctly, the principle of being ‘that becomes divisible in the realm of the bodies’; thus Plato, Tim. 35a2–3). This principle is equated with a precosmic soul that existed before the creation, together with eternal intelligible being and chaotic matter. This precosmic soul became the World Soul through the demiurgic process of blending illustrated by the above scheme.
Specialists in Plato now usually agree that Plutarch had it wrong. But, even worse, his general approach in On the generation of the soul in the Timaeus at first sight seems to be diametrically opposed to his zetetic open-mindedness, in more than one respect. First, he seems quite apodictic about his own interpretation. The views of Xenocrates, Crantor, and Posidonius are categorically rejected,Footnote 40 for they, in Plutarch's view, promote their own doctrines rather than explaining what Plato meant (1013B), and to that purpose misrepresent the latter's position (1013E). Secondly, Plutarch's usual respect for the available evidence may be seriously questioned in this case, for he even goes so far as to manipulate the texts of Plato, or so it seems. By quoting from the Statesman and the Phaedrus, he strategically omits words that may cause problems for his interpretation,Footnote 41 and he even changes the text of the key passage from the Timaeus, reading αὐτήν instead of αὐτῶν. This different reading has crucial implications for the interpretation of the passage, but, although it supports Plutarch's view, it has no manuscript authority at all. Where is Plutarch's usual respect for the tradition, or his open-minded search for the truth? Furthermore, the view which Plutarch elaborates in this treatise has important implications for his philosophical thinking as a whole, which makes the question even more urgent. What kind of zetesis is this?
Part of the answer may be found in the precise context in which the treatise was written. As Plutarch relates in the introduction, he wrote the work at the request of his sons Autobulus and Plutarch, who had asked their father to give a systematic presentation of the various views he had often developed on different occasions (1012B). Their question, then, is at least partly motivated by a concern for pedagogical clarity, and this pedagogical perspective indeed returns in the treatise (1012D and especially 1022C). More importantly, the question of Autobulus and Plutarch interferes with Plutarch's usual zetetic approach. After all, what they want to hear is not a nuanced survey of different perspectives that have been elaborated in the previous tradition,Footnote 42 but a straightforward presentation of Plutarch's own view. In such a perspective, the views of others can be no more than an ἐνδόσιμον (see above, §2) indeed, and it is actually characteristic of the zetetic-minded Plutarch that he nevertheless mentions them.Footnote 43 Moreover, while his criticism of other alternatives is perhaps stronger and more explicit than elsewhere, it is not unfair, and his own position is not presented as the simple and certain truth but is introduced as plausible (1014A; cf. 1013B: κανόνι τῷ πιθανῷ – ‘plausibility as the criterion’).Footnote 44
Finally, Plutarch's manipulation of the evidence should not be exaggerated.Footnote 45 He may have used passages from Plato's dialogues ‘creatively’, but nothing suggests that he had the intention of suppressing unwelcome elements or that he was not arguing in good faith. Yet there remains the different reading αὐτήν: the fact that this reading has no manuscript authority suggests that Plutarch here deliberately changed the text. On closer inspection, however, things are not so easy and it is perfectly possible that αὐτήν was already in the text which Plutarch received from the previous tradition.Footnote 46 Nevertheless, if we assume, for the sake of the argument, that it was indeed Plutarch who changed the text, we should at least add that he was not the only Platonist to do so,Footnote 47 and that he did not regard Plato's text as sacrosanct.Footnote 48 Text changes are allowed, but only with justification, and thus it is important to see what is at stake here. In Plutarch's view, his interpretation saves Plato from an embarrassing inconsistency. For in the Phaedrus (245d1 and 3; 246a1), Plato called the soul unsubject to generation, whereas in the Timaeus he argued that it came to be. Plutarch argues that one would not even attribute such a blatant contradiction to a drunken sophist (1016A).
In Plutarch's interpretation, this problem is easily solved: the uncreated soul of the Phaedrus points to the precosmic soul, the created one of the Timaeus to the World Soul (1015F–1016D). Moreover, Plutarch succeeds in better explaining another aspect of Plato's position. Plato explicitly underlines that the soul is senior to the body (Tim. 34c4–35a1). In Plutarch's view, this means that the Demiurge first created the World Soul, which then in turn ordered the body of the universe. This priority of soul over body is extremely important for a Platonist: it is a matter of piety, and denying this hierarchy even amounts to atheism (1013E). All this shows how much is at stake here, and all these huge problems can easily be solved by changing one (just one!) letter in Plato's text. Again, it is far from certain whether Plutarch tampered with the text, but if he did so, he probably regarded the reading αὐτήν as a conjectura palmaris (to use a term of modern textual criticism, referring to a virtually certain text emendation that is ‘worthy of a prize’).Footnote 49
On the generation of the soul in the Timaeus, then, can be perfectly reconciled with Plutarch's zetetic philosophy. He never claims to say the last word, but enthusiastically defends his own exegesis, pointing to its important advantages. He is convinced that he has thrown a new light on the truth, that his exegesis solves significant difficulties and better captures the meaning of the obscure passage from the Timaeus. This, indeed, is the product of genuine and painstaking philosophical zetesis, inspired by Plato, critical yet respectful of the tradition to which it contributes, and breathing the spirit of Plutarch's most fundamental convictions.
3.2. Plutarch's polemics against Stoicism and Epicureanism
Plutarch's Platonic outlook was in many respects fundamentally different from Stoic and Epicurean convictions. No wonder, then, that he frequently attacks these rival schools in his writings.
Many passages from his oeuvre contain polemical attacks against the Stoics.Footnote 50 More than that, several works are entirely devoted to anti-Stoic polemics.Footnote 51 In On the contradictions of the Stoics, Plutarch tries to show that the Stoics contradict themselves in different ways: they do not practise what they preach and they often defend doctrines that are diametrically opposed to each other.Footnote 52 In On common conceptions, against the Stoics, he argues that Stoic doctrine is at odds with our common convictions (the κοιναὶ ἔννοιαι).Footnote 53 Few people believe that one single drop of wine tempers the whole sea and even the whole universe (1078E), or that nothing touches anything (1080D). The whole work is one rich collection of such counter-intuitive Stoic doctrines. In Plutarch's view, Stoic philosophy ‘snatches away and abducts the genuine conceptions like babes from her breast while substituting other spurious ones, brutish and uncouth, and constraining her to nurse and to cherish these in place of those’ (1070C).
In That the Stoics talk more paradoxically than the poets, Plutarch confronts several Stoic paradoxes about the sage with stories from the poets. Caeseus, for instance, was invulnerable to iron, but the Stoic sage, sarcastically called the ‘Lapith of the Stoics’, forged of adamantine apatheia, is, though not immune to wounds, invincible, even while wounded, in pain, under torture, while his fatherland is being destroyed and he himself suffers his own disasters (1057C–E).
Epicurean philosophy is no less problematic.Footnote 54 Against Colotes in defence of the other philosophers results from Plutarch's teaching activities. Colotes was a friend and pupil of Epicurus and the author of a provocative work entitled That it is not even possible to live when following the doctrines of the other philosophers. Plutarch read this polemical work with his students and then elaborated a detailed and fairly systematic reply, in which he not only defended the distinguished philosophers from the past but also turned Colotes’ attacks against Colotes himself. Not Democritus, Parmenides, or Empedocles, nor Socrates, Plato, and later philosophers are guilty of stupid mistakes, but Epicurus and Metrodorus!Footnote 55 The dialogue That it is not even possible to live pleasantly when following the doctrines of Epicurus is the sequel to Against Colotes. Plutarch's students continue the discussion and now try to demonstrate the truth of this title. They argue that Epicurus’ corporeal understanding of pleasure is a very shaky basis for happiness and, moreover, it deprives his followers of the much greater pleasures yielded by a contemplative and active life and by a belief in divine providence and the immortality of the soul.Footnote 56 Finally, Is ‘live unnoticed’ well said? contains a vigorous refutation of Epicurus’ notorious advice to ‘live unnoticed’ (λάθε βιώσας). Epicurus’ view is rejected with many different arguments, from observations concerning daily life and the nature of man up to ethical and metaphysical reflections, culminating in an eschatological perspective. This is a short work but it illustrates Plutarch's authorial strategies and his deepest convictions as a Platonist very well.Footnote 57
While all of these works show Plutarch's cleverness and virtuosity as a polemicist, they may also question the above conclusions regarding Plutarch's zetetic approach. As a matter of fact, these works have often been depreciated by specialists in Hellenistic philosophy: Plutarch must simply have misunderstood his opponents, as he misrepresents their position, manipulates their doctrines, and raises unconvincing and biased objections. At best, these polemics contain an oversimplifying confirmation of Plutarch's own view. We find no sincere search for the truth, let alone a genuine appreciation of germs of the truth that can also be found in Stoic or Epicurean philosophy. Where, then, has Plutarch's open-mindedness gone?
A correct answer to this question requires a great deal of nuance and fairness. To begin with, we should bear in mind the particular scope and purpose of Plutarch's polemical works. They have a completely negative purpose: that is, the refutation of erroneous views that interfere with the (Platonic) truth. In other words, in these works we enter the field of elenchos. This reflects only one aspect of Plutarch's zetetic philosophy. Criticism of problematic opinions does occur in the zetetic dialogues too, but there it is complemented by a more constructive pole. In such works, Sarapion the Stoic or Boethus the Epicurean can make a positive contribution to the conversation.Footnote 58 In the polemical works, however, the focus is entirely on criticism and refutation.
Secondly, this focus determines Plutarch's authorial strategies and polemical method. In these works, he is not looking for elements of the truth that can be found in Stoic or Epicurean philosophy, but only for arguments that undermine the philosophy of his opponents. To that end, he often assumes their point of view in order to refute it from the inside, revealing, for instance, the internal contradictions in their system or showing that their own goals cannot be reached by putting their doctrines into practice. Another polemical strategy is to insist on the absurdity (ἀτοπία) of the opponents’ doctrines by pointing out that they endorse a view that nobody shares. In the anti-Stoic polemics, the Stoics prove even worse than Epicurus; in the anti-Epicurean works, Epicurus proves far less intelligent than the Stoics. Time and again, Plutarch opposes the view of his opponent to the rest of the philosophical tradition and even to widespread opinions. An appeal to sober-mindedness and common sense is one of his most frequent polemical tools. All this shows that Plutarch's elenchos in these polemical works is at least as much a rhetorical as a dialectical one.
Thirdly, the choice for this rhetorical approach in turn conditions Plutarch's heuristics. Plutarch is not interested in quotations that lay bare all the subtleties and technical details of the Stoic or Epicurean convictions. What he needs are the weak points in his opponents’ philosophy, possible flaws or inconsistencies in their arguments, or extreme positions. Metrodorus’ notorious statement that there is no need to save Greece or receive crowns for wisdom, but only to eat and drink and gratify the belly without harming it, is an easy target, of course.Footnote 59 The same holds true for Chrysippus’ view that abstention from an old crone with one foot in the grave, or the courageous endurance of the bite of a fly, are also virtuous deeds, even as virtuous as abstaining from beauties like Lais or Phryne or enduring scalpel and cautery.Footnote 60 When the opponents refrain from such radical positions, Plutarch kindly lends a helping hand by himself deriving absurd conclusions from their view. For instance, according to the Stoics, friendship only exists among the sages and exists among all of them (SVF 1.223; 3.630–1 and 635). Plutarch translates this as ‘If a single sage anywhere at all extends his finger prudently, all the sages throughout the inhabited world are benefited. This is their amity's work’ (De comm. not. 1068F). While Epicurus emphasizes the importance of the recollection of past pleasures (e.g. fr. 138, 444, and 579 Us.), Plutarch (following Carneades) interprets this as ‘gathering as from an official journal statistics about “how often I had a meeting with Hedeia or Leontion,” or “where I drank Thasian wine,” or “on what twentieth of the month I had the most sumptuous dinner”’ (Non posse 1089C).
How, then, should such polemical arguments be evaluated? In these polemical works, Plutarch often fails to do justice to Stoic and Epicurean philosophy, which was usually more nuanced than he suggests. This is the direct consequence of his heuristics and his rhetorical approach. Nevertheless, his verbatim quotations are as a rule reliable and correct, and often even contain traces of nuance. In this respect, he cannot be accused of manipulation: he sticks to the material which his opponents indeed offer him.Footnote 61 But he often isolates this material from its original context, which of course makes it much easier to derive absurd or extreme conclusions from it. From Plutarch's own Platonic point of view, however, such inferences are neither unreasonable nor dishonest. Even in these polemical works, then, he is usually bona fide.
Moreover, Plutarch repeatedly comes up with ingenious and clever observations, and he likes to season his sharp polemical attacks with refined humour, as, for instance, in the following passage about the Stoic sage (Stoic. absurd. poet. 1057E–F):
The Iolaus of Euripides makes a prayer, and all of a sudden his superannuated impotence has become youthfulness and martial might; but the sage of the Stoics, though yesterday he was most ugly and at the same time most vicious, today all of a sudden has been transformed into virtue and from being a wrinkled and sallow and, as Aeschylus [TrGF 3.361] says,
Lumbago-ridden, wretched, pain-distraught Elder
has become a man of comely bearing, divine aspect, and beauteous form.
Or, on the base Epicurean pleasures (Non posse 1093C):
Who would take greater pleasure in stilling his hunger or quenching his thirst with Phaeacian good cheer than in following Odysseus’ tale of his wanderings? Who would find greater pleasure in going to bed with the most beautiful of women than in sitting up with Xenophon's story of Pantheia, Aristobulus’ of Timocleia, or Theopompus’ of Thebe?
Such passages characterize Plutarch's general approach in these works very well. Time and again, his polemical arguments combine sophisticated phraseology, imagery, and clever references to the rich cultural tradition with a touch of humour. His rhetorical approach, then, is coupled with a rhetorical style. More often than not, these works are entertaining reading.
But what is their philosophical value? We may seriously doubt whether Plutarch's arguments were compelling or even plausible for a Stoic or Epicurean philosopher. They could, of course, explain the precise meaning of their views, point to the context of Plutarch's quotations and argue their convictions in detail. In that sense, Plutarch certainly did not speak the last word that definitively silenced his opponents.
That does not mean, however, that his polemic is worthless. There are at least three important ways in which Plutarch's anti-Stoic and anti-Epicurean polemics prove valuable from a philosophical point of view, even for specialists in Hellenistic philosophy in our own day. First, his rhetorical arguments usually appeal to non-rational reflexes, but these need not always be wrong or philosophically problematic. We often indeed feel that specific doctrines are problematic, even when they are supported by a series of clever arguments. The excessive claims about the Stoic sage, for instance, remain counter-intuitive. Or take the following thought experiment directed against Epicurus (Non posse 1099A–B):
If some person of only average weakness, on the point of death, should be granted by his sovereign, whether a god or a king, an hour's grace, to use for some honourable action or else for a good time, and then die immediately after, who in that hour would rather lie in Laïs’ arms and drink Ariusian wine than slay Archias and deliver Thebes? No one, I think.
This is a clever manipulation of common-sense opinions, indeed, and there can be little doubt that Epicurus would prefer the happy hour to the heroic one. Yet Plutarch's argument at least stimulates thinking. Notwithstanding all rational arguments, we may still feel that there is something problematic about several extreme aspects of Stoic and Epicurean philosophy.
Secondly, Plutarch raises pertinent questions: he is not only focusing on old crones or impotent sages (Non posse 1094E) but also on more fundamental topics like virtue, truth, or the good life. Of course his polemical arguments often (at least partly) rest on his own philosophical presuppositions, yet this allows him to detect and lay bare blind spots in the position of his opponents.Footnote 62 Plutarch simply had it right when he regarded the precise place of the indifferents in Stoic philosophy, or the Stoic view of the final end or of divine providence, as problematic.Footnote 63 He was correct when he argued against Epicurus that a political life could be a meaningful alternative to the Epicurean unnoticed life, or that belief in an afterlife for the soul could be helpful for reaching tranquillity of mind.Footnote 64 His attacks were not always justified, no doubt, but he was not always wrong either! Finally, his polemical questions were an interesting challenge, an invitation to his opponents to render account (λόγον διδόναι) of their view. This philosophical challenge, supported itself by a thoroughly Platonic perspective, is suffused with a spirit that is perfectly reconcilable with Plutarch's zetetic approach.
