Plutarch's point-by-point rebuttal of the Epicurean Colotes, who had charged every rival philosopher (Democritus, Parmenides, Socrates, Plato, the Stoics, the Academic skeptics) with making life impossible to live.
Adversus Colotem ("Against Colotes") is Plutarch's defense of the older Greek philosophers against an attack by Colotes, a student of Epicurus. Colotes had written a book arguing that the doctrines of virtually every non-Epicurean philosopher — Democritus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Socrates, Plato, Stilpo, Arcesilaus, and the Academic skeptics — make ordinary life impossible, since their theories about being, sensation, and knowledge supposedly leave no stable ground for action. The dialogue frame has Plutarch reading Colotes's treatise aloud to friends, including Aristodemus of Aegium, and then answering it charge by charge.
Plutarch's method is to take each accusation and turn it back on Epicurus himself: if Democritus's claim that sensible qualities are 'no more this than that' destroys life, then Epicurus's own atomism, which likewise strips secondary qualities from atoms, destroys it too. He works through Parmenides's unity of being, Empedocles on mixture, Socrates's admission that he does not know what a human being is, Stilpo's puzzles about identity and predication, and finally the Cyrenaics and the Academic doctrine of suspended judgment (epoche), defending each as a coherent and livable position rather than the nihilism Colotes portrays. A famous biographical detail surfaces along the way: Epicurus's own letter describing how Colotes once fell to his knees in reverence during one of Epicurus's lectures, which Plutarch uses to needle the disciple's servility.
The treatise matters for two reasons. First, it is one of the richest surviving sources for the actual arguments of pre-Socratic and Hellenistic philosophers, since Plutarch quotes and paraphrases Colotes's citations of texts now otherwise lost. Second, it closes with a sharp reversal: Plutarch argues that it is Epicureanism, not Academic skepticism, that truly undermines civic life, because Epicurus counseled withdrawal from politics, hostility to lawgivers, and (per Epicurus's own book of Perplexities) indifference to law-breaking so long as detection is avoided. The essay is as much a defense of philosophy's public usefulness as a technical refutation.
“Colotes, whom Epicurus used to call by the pet names Colotaras and little Colotarion, has published a book, Saturninus, entitled "That According to the Doctrines of the Other Philosophers It Is Not Ev”
— Adversus Colotem · read this chapter →
“And living well is living sociably and with friendship, with self-control and with justice.”
— Adversus Colotem · read this chapter →
“But if it is not possible to live according to the doctrines of Democritus, as Colotes supposes, then Epicurus was ridiculous to follow Democritus, who leads one to not living.”
— Adversus Colotem · read this chapter →
“As for sensation, soul, mind, and thought—these atomists cannot, even if they wished, form any conception of how such things could arise in void and atoms, entities which, taken by themselves, possess no quality”
— Adversus Colotem · read this chapter →
“The doctrine of suspension of judgment, then, is not a fable, nor a device for hunting down impudent and reckless young men, as Colotes supposes; it is a settled state and disposition of grown men”
— Adversus Colotem · read this chapter →
It is Plutarch's rebuttal of a book by Colotes, a student of Epicurus, who had argued that the doctrines of nearly every non-Epicurean philosopher make ordinary life impossible to live. Plutarch answers charge by charge, defending Democritus, Parmenides, Socrates, Plato, Stilpo, and the Academic skeptics, and repeatedly shows that Epicurus's own atomism suffers from the same supposed flaws Colotes attacks in others.
Colotes was a follower of Epicurus known for reverent devotion to his teacher; Plutarch mentions an anecdote, drawn from Epicurus's own letters, of Colotes falling to his knees before Epicurus during a lecture. Colotes wrote a treatise attacking rival philosophical schools as impractical, which is the target of this essay.
Plutarch argues that Epicurus counseled his followers to withdraw from public affairs and showed hostility to lawgivers, and cites Epicurus's book of Perplexities asking whether a wise man would break the law if certain of escaping detection. Plutarch uses this to claim Epicureanism, not Academic skepticism, is what truly undermines civic and human life.
It is the practice of withholding assent from uncertain sense-impressions rather than affirming or denying them outright. Plutarch calls it not a trick for confusing the young, as Colotes charged, but a mature, deliberate discipline that guards against error where the senses are unreliable or conflicting.
Yes. Because Plutarch quotes and paraphrases the specific arguments Colotes cited from Democritus, Parmenides, Empedocles, and Stilpo, Adversus Colotem is a significant secondary source for otherwise fragmentary Presocratic and Hellenistic philosophy.
He systematically reverses each accusation: whatever Colotes claims makes a rival doctrine unlivable, Plutarch shows applies equally, or more severely, to Epicurus's own atomist theory of matter and sensation.
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