Democritus and Epicurus on Sensible Qualities in Plutarch’s Against Colotes 3-9

Abstract

Through a close reading of Plutarch’s Against Colotes 3-9, the paper reconstructs and interprets (1) the original Epicurean criticism against Democritean epistemology and ontology, and in particular against Democritus’ theory of sensible qualities, and (2) Plutarch’s twofold criticism of (2a) Epicurean epistemology, on similar grounds, and of (2b) the questionable exegetical and argumentative manoeuvres used by the Epicurean Colotes. In the process of interpreting Plutarch’s text, (3) the paper reflects on the nature, motivation and plausibility of Plutarch’s own exegetical and argumentative strategies. Finally, (4) the paper suggests that a careful reading of Against Colotes will help us to put into focus the important question of whether, independently of their apparently opposite claims about the “reality” of secondary qualities, Democritus and Epicurus shared either a form of radical relativism or a form of commonsense “intersubjectivism” in their evaluations of ascriptions of such qualities to macroscopic objects.

Keywords

• Plutarch
• Democritus
• Epicureans
• sensible qualities
• ancient epistemology