A Hot Take: Hellenistic and Roman Commentators Are Better

a short essay published in volume 1 of the Journal of Hot Takes

According to a centuries-old standard narrative, the early history of philosophy can be summed up in a manner just slightly more complex than the succession of Socrates-Plato-Aristotle that probably still shows up in Western Civ or World History classes. The idea here is that the period we typically call “ancient philosophy” follows a storyline that first has various thinkers working on interestingly implausible research projects (from which we just have fragments), and then this Socrates guy comes along. He then “brings philosophy from heaven back down to earth” by concentrating on ethical matters (and maybe also affirming his wisdom of recognizing he doesn’t know anything). 

Then there’s his most important student, Plato, who more or less faithfully represents his teacher in early dialogues, and uses Socrates as a mouthpiece for new, distinctively Platonic philosophy in later dialogues. And then, we get Plato’s most brilliant student, Aristotle, who founds his own school, and leaves behind an equally large body of writing, in which he articulates his own position, sometimes by way of criticism of Plato and his predecessors.

After that, in the wake of the decline of the independent Greek city-state, we have Hellenistic philosophy — Epicureans, Cynics, Stoics, Skeptics, among others. (This then continues into the Roman imperial era, during which all of these schools continue to attract adherents, and develop further through their interpreters and teachers.)

In one version of what we might call the “standard narrative”, these Hellenistic schools of philosophy that arise after these two luminaries — Plato and Aristotle — can be of interest, but whatever philosophy they have to offer is just not as good. They lack the scope of thought, the metaphysical depth, the insight, the rigor, or whatever other positive quality you want to attribute exclusively to those earlier thinkers. You can call them philosophy in some sense, but they’re regarded as not quite as philosophical.

That remains a pretty common take not just in philosophy (where it is widespread), but in the broader present-day intellectual culture. And that’s unfortunate, since — to speak frankly — such a stance is often the product of intellectual laziness.

Decades of excellent scholarship have demonstrated the value, and elaborated key concepts, practices, and traditions of the great Hellenistic schools. Translations of their texts are readily available. So there’s really no good reason these days to assert that the Stoic school, for example, doesn’t bring as much of value and interest to the philosophical table as Aristotle or Plato do.

But, I needn’t make this case — enough other people are already doing that quite well. I’ve got a somewhat different axe to grind here. My hot take does touch upon the Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics, but it’s a different set of Hellenistic philosophers whose underrated and less-well-known value I’m going to highlight. Or rather, several sets. 

Some of them are best described as eclectic philosophers. You might even use the broader terms “writers” or “thinkers”, since I’d include the medical writer, Galen (who engages closely with philosophers). Cicero would be another prime example (to be sure, he says he belongs to the Academy, but his works provide good reason to view him as an eclectic). Not belonging exclusively to one school doesn’t preclude a philosopher from competently drawing upon and integrating the ideas from that school into a new critical synthesis.

Both the Platonic Academy and the Aristotelian Lyceum continued on as schools with a rich institutional life and vast literary output long past the deaths on their founders. Unfortunately, most of the writings of the scholarchs and other notable members of those schools in their early generations were lost. We know about them largely through fragments and passages culled out of latter works, and from accounts of them provided by later writers. 

Long after the official schools in Athens ceased to be such a central destination — when philosophy was being done just as well in Rhodes, Alexandria, Rome, or even, say Nicopolis (where Epictetus taught Stoic philosophy at his school) — a number of later authors took up key ideas, methods, approaches of Aristotelian and Platonic philosophy. They were very well-versed in the works not only of the founders of their school, but also in works that continued the development of those philosophical traditions. They also wrote from a vantage point centuries later, in an era during which yet other schools had arisen and developed, rivaling their own, providing new problems, challenges, and criticisms that had to be addressed.

There is a tendency to dismiss Middle Platonism (the reinterpretations of Platonic philosophy arising after the Academy’s generations-long lapse into skepticism, and before the movement that came to be called “neo-Platonism”) as being unimportant, derivative, syncretistic, and another of other things that are supposed to in some way make their philosophy of less value. 

Sometimes the criticisms actually contradict each other. Later Platonists are just “commentators,” providing nothing original of their own, merely explaining a few points left murky in the luminary dialogues of the master, Plato . Or alternately, they are far too original, but not in the right way, introducing additional speculations going far beyond the pale of Plato’s own thought (usually these get dismissed as signs of the “syncretism” or “eclecticism” of the later writers, and indeed the school itself. The Aristotelian commentary tradition (which overlaps considerably with the Platonic writers) often gets written off, or just downright ignored, with similar justifications.

If we refuse to accord authority or prestige to the “standard view” — holding that Plato and Aristotle represent the apexes of ancient philosophical thought — and actually read works by later members of those schools, it is surprising just how well they measure up against Plato and Aristotle themselves. In fact, if we set aside preconceptions and things “we all know”, and just think about why this might be the case, it’s surprising that we’re all so surprised by this.

Having used more than my fair share of space for this particular hot take already, I’ll just confine myself to two points. The first seems rather trivial. Thinkers like the Platonist Plutarch or the Aristotelian Alexander of Aphrodisias actually possessed an incredible advantage over Plato and Aristotle. 

They encountered, and had to address, well-articulated thought of rival schools that had been developed, applied, and experimented with for centuries. Plato and Aristotle could not have engaged with the Epicureans, Cynics, Stoics, and Skeptics as rivals. 

Later Aristotelians and Platonists could not avoid that agonistic engagement, and often their thought is the better for that. For anyone who thinks that philosophical perspectives and traditions develop through constructively engaging rivals (say, Alasdair MacIntyre), it would be irrational to expect that the “great founders” somehow articulated the most developed and robust versions of their philosophy.

That brings me to my second point. Matters that remain underdetermined and underdeveloped in the existing texts of Plato and Aristotle — and there are a lot of these such matters — often get better-developed, more thought-through treatment in works of later members of their traditions. 

The Platonic tripartite conception of the soul provides an excellent example, as does Aristotle’s conception of “prohairesis” (usually translated as “choice”, “deliberate choice”, or “moral choice”). Problems, confusions, implausibilities arising when one puzzles through Plato and Aristotle’s texts on their own are examined, illuminated, and occasionally even resolved in the works of their later, faithfully innovative interpreters.

What keeps the “standard view” as precisely that — the long-standing status quo in philosophy — is a confluence of several factors, which I’ll explore sometime later in another “hot take”. Suffice it to say here, by way of conclusion, that one factor is a vicious circle familiar to historians of philosophy. 

Few members of our profession read much ancient philosophy beyond Plato and Aristotle. When they do, they often add Epicurus, a Stoic or two, and Sextus Empiricus, maybe Plotinus. Eclectic authors and later Platonists and Aristotelians typically get ignored. You can’t teach, think about, research, and write about what you don’t even suspect exists. So those who teach, those who talk, those who write. . . they replicate that very condition of ignorance.