Plutarch is well known as a generally even-tempered expositor of the great tapestry of Greek history, literature, and philosophy, and a benign counselor on questions of ethical conduct and social mores, but there is another side to him, that of the accomplished polemicist, primarily in the area of philosophy, but also concerning his predecessors in the craft of history, and on occasion the poets as well. In all of Plutarch’s polemics, we can discern common threads. While historians (especially Herodotus) and poets are criticized primarily for their flawed socioethical views, the Stoics, Epicureans, and even Plutarch’s predecessors in the Platonic tradition have the inconsistencies in their positions relentlessly skewered, and the most absurd consequences of their misguided arguments teased out. This essay surveys a selection of Plutarch’s critiques of previous historians, then casts a brief glance at his censure of the poets, before turning to an examination of his polemics against rival philosophical schools, and lastly rival views within the Platonist tradition.

This chapter examines two versions of hedonist theories of the life worth living, one rather pessimistic, adopted by the Cyrenaics, particularly Hegesias, another more optimistic, adopted by the Epicureans. Both these approaches tend to diminish the gap between the best possible life and a life at least barely worth living, though they do so in converse directions. According to Hegesias, the best possible life falls to the level of a life just barely worth living, that is, a life in which there is no more pain than pleasure. According to the Epicureans, the threshold of a life at least barely worth living is raised to the proximity of the best possible life. A happy life, that is, a life of pleasure, must be a philosophical life, since only philosophy can guarantee freedom from disturbance. But freedom from disturbance is also required for a life worth living, so that a life is not worth living unless it is guided by philosophy, with the important caveat that a progress in philosophy, or the promise of such a progress, is sufficient for a worthwhile life.

This paper offers a provocative re-reading of the passage about the sizes of the sun, moon, and stars late in Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura (5.564-613). Attention to not only details of argumentation but also shades of meaning and contorted syntax shows a more complex, ambiguous presentation than generally acknowledged. This paper suggests that Lucretius' narrator—rather than merely parroting wrong, ridiculed doctrines—pulls student-readers into the process of inquiry. It becomes the didactic audience’s task to receive data from sense-perception and use lessons learned earlier in the poem in making correct judgments based upon that data. In Epicurean and Lucretian accounts of reality, the senses themselves are infallible; so the Lucretius-ego’s assertion that the sun as big as perceived by our senses must also be infallible. But our interpretation of what that assertion entails about the sun’s actual size is a matter of judgment, and thus fallible and uncertain indeed.

This paper offers a provocative re-reading of the passage about the sizes of the sun, moon, and stars late in Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura (5.564-613). Attention to not only details of argumentation but also shades of meaning and contorted syntax shows a more complex, ambiguous presentation than generally acknowledged. This paper suggests that Lucretius' narrator—rather than merely parroting wrong, ridiculed doctrines—pulls student-readers into the process of inquiry. It becomes the didactic audience’s task to receive data from sense-perception and use lessons learned earlier in the poem in making correct judgments based upon that data. In Epicurean and Lucretian accounts of reality, the senses themselves are infallible; so the Lucretius-ego’s assertion that the sun as big as perceived by our senses must also be infallible. But our interpretation of what that assertion entails about the sun’s actual size is a matter of judgment, and thus fallible and uncertain indeed.

This chapter is about the achievement of immortality in contexts where an everlasting future for the subject is not envisaged. I start with Aristotle’s advice in the Nicomachean Ethics to ‘act as an immortal’ and argue that the talk of immortality does not derive from Aristotle’s own theories about the soul and intellect but rather should be understood with reference to the immediate dialectical context. I then relate Epicurean and Stoic discussions of immortality and ‘imperishability’ to the relevant parts of their theology. The early Epicurean tradition mentions ‘immortal goods’ that can be attained by human beings and are enough to make human beings, in the relevant ethical respect, godlike. Epicureanism contains more than one conception of these ‘goods’, although they should never be identified with either immortality or imperishability. In Stoicism the attribution of mortality and immortality is controlled by strict adherence to a Platonic definition of death (the separation of soul from body) – stricter adherence than we find in the Phaedo itself.

These two chapters form a conceptual unity. Their aim is, first, to present and, then, to compare the concepts of technê (art, craft, discipline, expertise) used, respectively, by the Stoics and the Epicureans in different philosophical domains – notably, in cosmology, epistemology and ethics. The main issues to be discussed include the definition of a technê; the criteria determining a technê, the importance of rules and method, the role of experience and practice, the structure of every technê in so far as it is directed towards a goal, the necessary and sufficient conditions for the transmissibility of different sorts of technai and the common assumption that the technai are beneficial for life. Moreover, Tsouna argues that the notions of technê occurring in Stoic and Epicurean texts differ, and she explains how they differ. She suggests that one reason for that fact is that these two schools react in different ways to Plato’s rationalism about technê. On the one hand, the Stoics’ creative appropriation of Plato leads them to formulate a principally rationalistic notion of technê, which is manifest, for example, in their cosmological creationism (cf. the notion of technikon pur), the epistemological distinction between first-order technai and the epistêmê of the wise man, and their ethical conception of the art of living. On the other hand, the Epicureans react to the Platonic heritage in a more negative way and appear to modify their views about technê accordingly. Vis-à-vis the Stoics, they exhibit greater flexibility regarding the criteria of ‘technicity’ and attribute more value to common experience than many Stoics do. Their physical theory precludes any idea of divine craftsmanship. As for Epicurean epistemology and ethics, both involve uses of technê consistent with Epicurean empiricism and the ethical view that pleasure or the absence of pain is the supreme good.

These two chapters form a conceptual unity. Their aim is, first, to present and, then, to compare the concepts of technê (art, craft, discipline, expertise) used, respectively, by the Stoics and the Epicureans in different philosophical domains – notably, in cosmology, epistemology and ethics. The main issues to be discussed include the definition of a technê; the criteria determining a technê, the importance of rules and method, the role of experience and practice, the structure of every technê in so far as it is directed towards a goal, the necessary and sufficient conditions for the transmissibility of different sorts of technai and the common assumption that the technai are beneficial for life. Moreover, Tsouna argues that the notions of technê occurring in Stoic and Epicurean texts differ, and she explains how they differ. She suggests that one reason for that fact is that these two schools react in different ways to Plato’s rationalism about technê. On the one hand, the Stoics’ creative appropriation of Plato leads them to formulate a principally rationalistic notion of technê, which is manifest, for example, in their cosmological creationism (cf. the notion of technikon pur), the epistemological distinction between first-order technai and the epistêmê of the wise man, and their ethical conception of the art of living. On the other hand, the Epicureans react to the Platonic heritage in a more negative way and appear to modify their views about technê accordingly. Vis-à-vis the Stoics, they exhibit greater flexibility regarding the criteria of ‘technicity’ and attribute more value to common experience than many Stoics do. Their physical theory precludes any idea of divine craftsmanship. As for Epicurean epistemology and ethics, both involve uses of technê consistent with Epicurean empiricism and the ethical view that pleasure or the absence of pain is the supreme good.

Broadly speaking, there are two contrasting attitudes towards common sense prevalent in ancient Greek philosophy. On the one hand, there is a dismissive attitude: common sense, understood as what people in general routinely think, is regarded as simply misguided and out of touch with the way things really are. On the other hand, there is a tendency to regard human beings as such as having cognitive capacities that can afford them correct insights – if only they will let these capacities operate as they could or should, without being distracted or misled by various factors that throw them off course. Although these two attitudes are in a clear tension with one another, we frequently find them together in the same philosophers. Indeed, it is not too much to say that we find both strands present, to varying degrees, almost throughout the history of Greek philosophy. This chapter pursues these themes chronologically, touching on several Presocratic thinkers, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Epicureans, and the Pyrrhonian sceptic Sextus Empiricus. Of these, Aristotle is the most sympathetic to common sense, and the Presocratics perhaps the most dismissive, with the others somewhere between these extremes.