Plutarque juge et partie : à propos des débats entre l’Académie, le Jardin et le Portique

Abstract

In this article I show:(1) Plutarch’s inclusion of Heraclitus among the list of Presocratics at Adv. Col. 1121E-1122A should lead us to conclude that this philosopher was included by the New Academy among those predecessors who had advocated the suspension of judgement. (2) The passage (1122A-F) that deals with Colotes’ formulation of criticisms of the New Academy’s suspension of judgement should not be taken as evidence that Plutarch’s response to these criticisms derives solely from Arcesilaus and has a positive assertive character. Rather, it is a patchwork assembled by Plutarch from various sources and has a markedly dialectical aspect. (3) Plutarch’s anti-Epicurean polemic at 1123A-1124C offers a distorted picture of Epicureanism as a paradoxical form of Scepticism, based not on an aversion to error but the certainty that sense-perception is never misleading. According to Plutarch, the principle that all perceptions are true should have led the Epicureans, if they were being consistent, to aphasia or, in other words, a position that would make them close to the most radical form of Pyrrhonism.

Keywords

• Academy
• apraxia
• Arcesilaus
• Cicero
• Colotes
• Epicureanism