Having completed a sketch of the history of contemporary treatments of the identity and kinds questions, my aim in this conclusion is to offer some comments on the ancient treatments in light of contemporary treatments.

We have seen that Plato, under the influence of Socrates’ “What is F?” question, is the original source of the identity question. The identity question arises for Plato within the context of ethical inquiry. The question that provokes him is what the value of pleasure is and what place pleasure has within the good life. In the contemporary period, it is Ryle, at least within the context of philosophical discussion, who resurrects the identity question. For Ryle, the identity question arises within the philosophy of mind. The problem that provokes him is what the right sort of analysis of this mental state is insofar as it is a mental state. The distinct theoretical contexts of Plato’s and Ryle’s seminal contributions are representative of ancient and contemporary discussions generally.

While there is some treatment of pleasure within the ancient physical tradition, most accounts fall within the sphere of ethics. This is true even though the Greeks, for the most part, view ethics and physical inquiry as continuous.1 Aristotle’s treatments are a striking testimony to this point. Most of Aristotle’s surviving writing lies in biology, but his central hedonic theorizing occurs within his ethical treatises. In the case of contemporary treatments, there are certainly scholars whose pursuit of the identity question is intended to serve the interests of ethics.

Aristotle brings changes in substance and in style. Consider this quotation from the Poetics (25, 1460b35–61a1):

The compression of this passage is characteristic. Aristotle often presents a key concept, argument or conclusion without full explanation, leaving the reader to unpack the meaning and its unstated rationale. In the present instance, once the meaning is unpacked, the passage appears to take a stance radically opposed to that of Plato. The context is an overview of ‘problems’ in poetry, and the kinds of solution available. Fourth-century intellectuals had subjected the Homeric poems to minute scrutiny, revealing many features that were, at first sight, odd or objectionable. These included apparent implausibilities in the narrative. For example, why does Helen not notice her brothers’ absence from the Greek army until the ninth year of the war (Il. 3.236–42)? Why does the Phaeacian crew that takes Odysseus home to Ithaca not wake him up, but leave him asleep on the shore (Od. 13.116–25)? Other passages were objectionable on moral or theological grounds: for example, Achilles’ insulting outburst against Agamemnon (Il. 1.225–44) or the gods fighting each other (Il. 21.385–513). Moral and theological objections of this kind are familiar from Republic 2 (§2.3), but Aristotle here looks back to Plato’s predecessor, Xenophanes (§1.2).

As in Plato’s corpus so in Aristotle’s, the topic of pleasure arises in numerous passages. By far the most important of these occur in Aristotle’s ethical writings, specifically in Eudemian Ethics and Nicomachean Ethics, more precisely still in Eudemian Ethics, Book 6, sections 4–5 and sections 11–14; and in Nicomachean Ethics, Book 3, section 10; Book 7, section 4–5 and sections 11–14; and Book 10, sections 1–5.

An ethical treatise transmitted in the Aristotelian corpus and entitled Magna Moralia also contains an important discussion of pleasure (precisely, at Magna Moralia 2.7). There has been a long-standing debate over the authenticity of this work.

One further substantial treatment of pleasure occurs in Aristotle’s rhetorical treatise Rhetoric 1.11. Here again the treatment is closely related to ethics. At least, one of the central concerns of Aristotelian ethics is the cultivation of emotional dispositions, and one of the central concerns of rhetoric is manipulation of emotions.

There are also numerous, more cursory treatments or mentions of pleasure scattered throughout Aristotle’s corpus, for example, in the following logical, metaphysical, physical, biological, and psychological works: Posterior Analytics, Topics, Categories, Physics, On the Generation of Animals, On the Soul, and On Sense-Perception and Sensibles. Finally, pleasure plays an important role in a number of the surviving fragments of Aristotle’s Protrepticus, a work whose title translates as “Exhortation” and which, in contrast to all of the other works mentioned, was intended for a relatively broad and public audience as opposed to committed students of philosophy and specifically those of Aristotle’s school, alternately known as the Lyceum or Peripatos.

Later Platonists came to hold a view of poetry – or, more precisely, of Homer and some other ancient poets – radically different from the one which Plato’s Republic seems to offer us. The new consensus is exemplified by Porphyry (in the third century ad), who regards Homer as a profound philosopher (§4.7). This chapter investigates the background to the transformation of Platonist poetics by exploring various ways in which the relationship between poetry and truth was conceived. A preliminary outline may be helpful, since the path will be circuitous and wide-ranging. We begin with Plutarch (around the end of the first century ad), whose approach to poetry in education is motivated by a sense of the dangers of poetry inherited from the Republic (§4.1). We then consider three other approaches which Plutarch mentions and rejects: the alleged Epicurean repudiation of poetry (§4.2); the long-standing tradition of allegorical interpretation (§4.3); and the Stoic approach to myth (§4.4). The Stoics made a distinction between myth in poetry and religious myth; in interpreting the latter they emphasised symbolic representation, and showed respect for non-Greek religious traditions. This constellation of ideas was widely shared: we can trace its influence in Plutarch’s treatise On Isis and Osiris (§4.5), and in Greek debates about images of the gods (§4.6). Against this background, it is easy to define the nature of the transition that occurred between Plutarch and Porphyry: Homer crossed the boundary line between poetic and religious myth, and thus became eligible for a different kind of interpretation.

This chapter discusses Epicurean and Cyrenaic conceptions of pleasure in relation to one another. The reason for juxtaposing their contributions will be clear shortly. For now, let it suffice to say that the Epicureans and Cyrenaics contend over the relation between and the very existence of what they call “katastematic” and “kinetic” pleasures. These terms will be explained in due course. To begin, let us introduce the antagonists.

Epicurus was born in 341 bce and raised on the island of Samos. His father was an Athenian citizen, and at this time Samos was subject to Athenian control. Epicurus left Samos for Athens for a brief stint of mandatory military service in 323. This service happened to coincide with the death of Alexander the Great, upon which the Athenians revolted from Macedonia. Among the ramifications of this revolt was that Alexander’s general Perdiccas expelled the Athenian settlers on Samos. Epicurus’ family emigrated across the water to Colophon on the Ionian coast. This is where Epicurus presumably joined them upon his return from Athens in 322/321. He remained in the east for the next fifteen odd years.

Insofar as we are interested in the Stoic conception of pleasure, we are dealing with a school of thought – as we did in the case of the Cyrenaics – rather than with a single figure such as Plato, Aristotle, or Epicurus. Stoicism endured much longer than Cyrenaicism. In fact, it was the dominant philosophical outlook of the Greco-Roman world from about the third century bce until about the third century ce.

Through these 600 odd years, there was a great deal of continuity among Stoic philosophers. In general, members of the school desired to adhere to the positions of their founders. Inevitably and understandably, however, there were also adjustments, disparities, and renunciations. This applies to the Stoic conception of pleasure as well as to other areas of their thought. Here we focus on the foundational position.

The foundations of Stoic philosophy, normally referred to as the philosophy of the “Old Stoa,” are identified with the views of the first three successive heads of the school: Zeno of Citium (334–262), Cleanthes of Assos (331–232), and Chrysippus of Soli (279–206). Unless otherwise indicated, I will hereafter use “Stoic” to mean “Old Stoic.” Generally, it is agreed that the philosophy of the old Stoa receives its most refined form in the work of Chrysippus. Thus, much of what passes for Stoic philosophy is the philosophy of Chrysippus. For reasons that will become clearer as we proceed, however, the Old Stoic conception of pleasure that we will be discussing cannot or should not straightforwardly be identified as Chrysippus’. Here we can note at least two reasons for this. First, there may be disparities between Zeno and Chrysippus. Second, since a significant portion of Chrysippus’ conception of pleasure derives from Zeno and since we can to some extent specify Zeno’s contribution, we should appreciate originality where it is due. For convenience, I will refer to the “Stoic conception of pleasure,” but now we should understand that this conception itselfmight not have been unified.

Archaic poetry

One of the earliest surviving Greek poems describes the poet’s encounter with the Muses. While Hesiod was tending his sheep on the slopes of Mount Helicon, the goddesses ‘taught him beautiful song’, gave him a staff (the characteristic accoutrement of the poetic performers known as rhapsodes), breathed a divine voice into him, and commissioned him ‘to hymn the race of blessed immortals’. In the course of this encounter, the Muses say (Theogony 26–8):

These puzzling words, by turns mocking and cryptic, are commonly understood as endorsing the truthfulness of Hesiod’s poem. But why, in that case, would Hesiod have advertised his patrons’ deceptive potential? One possibility is that he needed to explain discrepancies between his own and others’ poems. If so, there is no attribution of authority to poetry in general: Hesiod claims a special (though not necessarily unique) authority for his own poetry. But this claim to authority depends on three premises which there is no reason to grant: that Hesiod is telling the truth about his encounter with the Muses; that he correctly understood the Muses’ words as a promise to tell him the truth; and that the Muses made that promise truthfully. The first two premises are unsupported; the Muses’ own words undermine the third. An audience might reasonably view the content of Hesiod’s poetry agnostically, therefore. So might Hesiod himself. In attributing these words to his Muses he acknowledges the uncertainty inherent in any human attempt to account for the origins of the universe and the history of the gods. These are matters beyond direct human knowledge, exceeding our capacity to distinguish truth from plausible falsehood. We are dependent on insights that come from outside us, and cannot confidently pass judgement on the authenticity of what we receive.

According to early Greek poets, poetry bewitches us (§1.1). The state of mind it puts us into inhibits us from thinking critically about what it is saying. It may shape our thoughts, imaginations and actions at a level too deep for us to be aware of or control. That psychological power was still felt in the fifth and fourth centuries. Gorgias speaks of poetry’s overpowering emotional impact: ‘its hearers shudder with terror, shed tears of pity, and yearn with sad longing; the soul, affected by the words, feels as its own an emotion aroused by the good and bad fortunes of other people’s actions and lives’ (B11.9). In Plato’s Ion a rhapsode describes how the recital of dramatic or pathetic scenes from the Iliad and Odyssey grips the emotions of performer and audience alike (535b–e). In the Republic, Socrates acknowledges how intensely we enjoy sharing the emotions of characters in epic or tragedy (10, 605c–d). He strongly disapproves: our enjoyment of this emotional stimulus is morally dangerous. Socrates also maintains, as Xenophanes did (§1.2), that poetry’s theological falsehoods pose a threat to our moral integrity (2, 337d–383c). The critique of poetry in the Republic is the primary focus of this chapter. Sporadic reference will be made to other works, but there will be no attempt to produce a synthesis of Plato’s views on poetry. Since Plato is an implicit background or explicit source to most subsequent discussions of poetry, there will be opportunities to fill in some of the gaps in later chapters (especially, but not only, §5.1). Here we will take the opportunity to examine in some detail the philosophical critique of the poetic tradition in its most sophisticated and radical form – a complex but (I shall contend) coherent argument about poetry, developed in the context of broader issues.

Let us turn now from pleasure in the early ethical tradition to pleasure in the early tradition of physiologia, that is, the tradition of the study (logos) of what the Greeks call “physis.” Recall our encounter with the word “physis” in the context of the opening fragment of Democritus’ On Contentment. Democritus there speaks of a man’s “own power and physis.” Here and often, “physis” is translated as “nature.” In the context of physiologia, then, the Greeks were concerned with the study of nature. Yet their conception of physis or nature may be broader than ours. Physiologia also includes the study of non-terrestrial objects and phenomena; it saliently includes astronomy and cosmology.

Physiologia is the field from which Socrates turned when he took his path-breaking steps in ethics. In Plato’s dialogue Phaedo, the character Socrates describes his early intellectual interests prior to the break. The passage is often referred to as Socrates’ early intellectual (auto)biography. Consider the beginning of the passage:

It is tempting to speak of a later Platonist reconciliation of Homer and Plato. But from their point of view, this description would miss the point. According to them, Homer and Plato have no need of reconciliation, since they were never seriously estranged. Perhaps, then, marriage provides a more appropriate symbolic image of their relationship. As Homer says, ‘there is nothing better or finer than this, when husband and wife keep house, the two of one mind in their thinking’ (Od. 6.182–4). The question which this chapter addresses is not whether the later Platonists were right to believe that Homer and Plato were of one mind, nor whether the interpretative approach to Plato that sustained this conclusion was correct. The aim is to understand how the later Platonist consensus, paradoxical though it may seem, was a reasonable one, relative to its own premises. There is not space to follow in detail the development of the tradition from Porphyry (§4.7) to Syrianus and his pupils Hermias and Proclus in the fifth century ad. I have therefore chosen to focus on three case studies from the late second and third centuries, illustrating different ways in which these ideas could be applied at the transition between what modern scholarship terms Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism. But first, I survey some of the resources available to later Platonists when they attempted to demonstrate that Homer and Plato were of one mind.

Preface

My first debt is to the series editors, John Ferrari and Catherine Osborne, for inviting me to write this book. My second, and most important, is to the students on my course ‘Should We Ban Homer?’ in 2009/10: without their engaged and intelligent contributions, developing the material would have been much harder, and much less enjoyable. An anonymous reader for Cambridge University Press provided insightful commentary on the initial outline proposal. Without that stimulus, Chapter 4 would have had even less to say about the Epicureans than it does, and I might have persisted (with however bad a conscience) in my pretexts for not engaging with Plotinus: the resulting change of plan has had beneficial consequences, direct and indirect, throughout Chapters 4 and 5. Chapter 5 also benefited from Timothy Costelloe’s timely invitation to contribute to an edited collection on the history of the sublime (Heath 2012). Some of the ideas in Chapter 2 were refined in the light of discussion of Republic 2–3 and 10 at two meetings of the Yorkshire Ancient Philosophy Network in 2010/11. The editors put me further in their debt by making extremely helpful comments on a draft, as did my colleague Regine May.

Chapter 3 draws in part on work undertaken for an ongoing project on Aristotle and the anthropology of poetry (Heath 2008; 2009c; 2009d; 2011); the approach outlined here will in due course be worked out in more detail in a monograph, provisionally entitled Poetical Animals. I am grateful to the Arts Humanities Research Council and the Leverhulme Trust for their financial support for this project.