The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy
Page 7
SUCCESSIONS, DIOGENES LAERTIUS
Another type of literature dealing with the early Greek philosophers is the so-called Diadochai tôn philosophôn, (Successions of the philosophers).29 This is an originally Hellenistic genre, of which no pure instances or large portions are extant.30 The first to write a work with this title was Sotion (early second century B.C.), often quoted by Diogenes Laertius; he had many successors also cited by Diogenes. Aristotle speaks of a “succession” in the field of rhetoric (SE 34 183b17-33) by which he means that a pupil takes over from the master, though not necessarily in an institutional sense. The motivation for writing a history of philosophy in this manner mainly derives from the institutional practice of the established philosophical schools, starting with the Academy. In these schools, the head of the association had a successor (diadochos) who was appointed or chosen. Retrospectively, such lines of succession were also constructed for the Preplatonic period, and these successions of Pre-platonics were in various way linked with the later philosophical schools.
Thus, a succession could be postulated in cases where a real or purported doctrinal affinity was sought and found. Aristotle, Plato, and Theophrastus, much interested in classifying people according to their doctrinal affinities, already speak of teachers and pupils.31 Plato speaks of the “Eleatic clan” (Soph. 242d), whereas Aristotle designates the Pythagoreans as Italikoi (Metaph. I.5 987a10, I.6 987a31). All three are concerned with the relative chronology of their predecessors, especially Theophrastus in the fragments about the principles from the Physics.32 Information of some sort about these matters must have been available.
What played an important part as well was the desire of some of the later “sects” to find themselves a venerable ancestor. The Stoics wanted to derive their philosophy from Heraclitus, and so provided a stoicizing (and quite influential) interpretation of Heraclitus.33 The Neopyrrhonists (to some extent following the third-century Pyrrhonist Timon) looked for predecessors, or at least partial predecessors, as far afield as Xenophanes and other Eleatics. They also included Democritus, thus providing Pyrrhonist interpretations of these earlier thinkers or at least emphasizing aspects of their thought that were compatible with a creative interpretation.34 Epicurus pretended to be an autodidact and to have learned nothing from the early Atomists, but the authors of the Diadochai included him and his followers nevertheless.
For philosophy itself there are successions comprising the whole of the field from Thales on the one hand and Pythagoras on the other to the Hellenistic period. We have the Ionian line, starting with Thales and including the Ionians and the “Socratics,” who include the so-called minor Socratics and the Academy, Peripatos, Cynics, and Stoa. The Italian line, starting with Pythagoras, includes the Eleatics, Atomists, Early Pyrrhonists, and Epicureans. We also may find a third line called Eleatic that begins with Xenophanes and contains the Atomists, Pyrrhonists, and Epicureans. Some philosophers were considered to be outside these lines (D.L. VIII.91-IX.20). There are even occasional references to successions in Aetius’ Placita (e.g., ps.-Plutarch I.3.1-9, Ionians and Italians) that Diels either ignored or declared to be later accretions. Hippolytus, presumably following Middle Platonist examples, presents us with a bizarre Pythagorean succession that has come to include Empedocles, Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics.35
Diogenes Laertius’ work, though for the most part a treatment of the sects, is structured according to lines of succession, the Ionian in books II-VII and the Italian in books VIII-X. Hence, we find the early Greek philosophers who are Ionians starting with Anaximander (said to be the pupil of Thales and so linked to book I) at the beginning of book II, and the Italians-cum-Eleatics together with Heraclitus and Xenophanes (who are counted as “random”) in books VIII and IX.1-49. Protagoras is added at IX.50-6 because he was purportedly a pupil of Democritus, and Diogenes of Apollonia at IX.57 for no visible reason.36 Diogenes’ treatment is very uneven. The early Ionians get only brief chapters, and the sections about the early Eleatics are also relatively short. Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism are treated on an extraordinarily large scale, though not yet in the mystagogical way of a Porphyry, or an Iamblichus; Empedocles (included among the Pythagoreans), Heraclitus, and Democritus are presented in fairly long sections.37
It would seem that Diogenes here reflects the preferences of his own day, or of the immediately preceding centuries. Before Philo of Alexandria, interest in Heraclitus and Empedocles (interpreted in a platonizing and pythagoreanizing way) already was quite strong in Middle Platonist circles.38 The first Neopyrrhonist, Aenesidemus (first half of first century B.C.), is several times said by Sextus Empiricus to have philosophized “in accordance with Heraclitus.” Although it is not entirely clear what this means, it must involve some kind of creative interpretation of Heraclitus. The pythagoreanizing Platonist Thrasyllus (early first century A.D.) wrote an Introduction to Democritus consisting of a biography and a catalogue of his works, the latter fully quoted at D.L. IX. 46-48.39 Interest in the “ancients” is also noticeable in Plutarch, who is a Middle Platonist. His quotations seem to indicate that he had read a number of original texts, at least Parmenides, Empedocles, Heraclitus, and he defended the doctrines of several early Greek philosophers against an Epicurean attack (written more than four hundred years before) in his Against Colotes.40 It would seem moreover that he was not so much dependent on doxographies.
The doxographies in Diogenes Laertius that are concerned with Pythagoras, Empedocles, Heraclitus, and Democritus are preceded by fairly extensive biographies, whereas biographical information about the other early Greek philosophers is thin, or even, as in Leucippus’ case, absent (though he is part of the succession). This too shows that Diogenes Laertius, or the traditions he is following, attached a special importance to these figures. The biography of Heraclitus is perhaps the most interesting. Factually, little was known, so stories about his character, his behaviour, and his death were fabricated from the utterances in his book – an interesting example of the idea, prominent in Diogenes Laertius but also quite common in a variety of other authors, that a philosopher’s life and his work should agree with each other.41 The study of the life, activities, and sayings of a philosopher was in fact regarded as an indispensable preliminary to the study of his writings and doctrines. In the cases where no books were available, the philosopher’s “life” itself, including acts, apophthegms, and so on had to suffice. Conversely, if biographical data were unavailable, they were made up from what a person wrote, or from what others were believed to have written about him. These practices gave ancient biography, or at least part of it, its bad name.42
BIOGRAPHY AND DOXOGRAPHY; HIPPOLYTUS
The genre of doxography, in Diels’ view, was to be sharply distinguished from fanciful biography (in which he included the Successions literature and that On sects). There is some truth to this distinction, but generally it does not hold.43
An interesting feature of “lives” (especially in the context of a succession) is that various alternative versions of a person’s affiliations, schooling, and personal fortunes may be given. Here not merely antiquarian interest but the desire not to lose possibly relevant information is at work. The alternatives are often interesting: Parmenides as a follower of Xenophanes, or perhaps rather as one of the Pythagoreans (D. L. IX.21). The choice depends on which interpretation of his philosophy is preferred, and so may influence his position in the succession. One should tread carefully and not attempt, at least not always, to cut knots. By citing such alternatives or varieties as are not patently absurd, an ancient author may at least be certain of preserving what is useful. In Diogenes Laertius this conservative fondness for alternatives involves his giving explicit references to a plurality of traditions, or more or less recherché sources for the cited bits of information. This feature is also characteristic of, for instance, Porphyry’s Life of Pythagoras, that – like numerous Laertian lives, including Pythagoras’ – also contains doxai. Whether or not these are his
torically correct is not to the point. (As regards Pythagoras most of them are not, in both authors.) The anecdotes cited in the lives serve to depict the character of the person concerned.44
A number of other so-called doxographies found in Diogenes Laertius, Hippolytus I, and ps.-Plutarch Stromateis, are widely believed, following Diels, to derive ultimately from Theophrastus.45 Although it is impossible to go into the details here, a few remarks are in order.
First, the correspondences with the Placita literature are undeniable. But Theophrastus’ Physikai doxai (as I prefer to call it) and the Vetusta placita are believed to have been structured according to topics. In fact, the version cited by Chrysippus (see p. 31) must have been topic-oriented, for the correspondences with the chapter on the seat of the ruling part of the soul in Aetius (ps.-Plut. IV.5) and others, who are representatives of Vetusta placita traditions, are really striking.
Secondly, Diogenes Laertius, Hippolytus, and ps.-Plutarch Stromateis are not topic oriented but person oriented: all the tenets held by an individual philosopher to be found there are collected in chapters or paragraphs dealing with this person. Thus at some time someone, or quite possibly even several people, must have gone through one or more topic-oriented collections of placita, and collected the tenets plus the appended individual name labels from the various chapters dealing with topics. The lost treatises by Aristotle and Theophrastus dealing with individual philosophers may also have been of some influence, but there is no evidence. If Diogenes Laertius is to be trusted, and I fail to see why he should not be in this case, the two instances where a double doxography is found, a general and a detailed one (for Heraclitus, IX.7-12 and for Leucippus, IX.30-33), show that both shorter and more detailed collections of placita concerned with individuals must have been current. Accordingly, the relation of this material to Theophrastus’ Physical tenets is as tenuous as that of the Placita literature itself, or even more so.
The detailed account of Heraclitus’ doxai includes remarks about the Ephesian’s lack of information on some points (D.L. IX.11), and this is similar to what Theophrastus (Sens. 3-4) says about Parmenides; however, this similarity is by no means proof that Diogenes Laertius ultimately depends here on Theophrastus.46 Where the dox-ographies that since Diels have been ascribed to Theophrastus are concerned, scholars who are quite severe in other cases, accepting as fragments only passages where a philosopher’s name and/or the title of one of his works is found, tend to be quite soft-boiled.47
As to Hippolytus’ Refutation, Diels strongly condemned the chapters dealing with Empedocles and Heraclitus in the first book as biographical and entirely neglected the treatment of these two philosophers in the later books, even though they include a number of important verbatim fragments, some of which are not found anywhere else.48 Moreover, in these later books the interpretative point of view is the same as in the first. The intermediate origin of these fragments is disputed. I think that Hippolytus, for whom Empedocles and Heraclitus belong with a Pythagorean succession, here depends on a Middle Platonist-cum-Pythagorean tradition (see n. 37). The two early Greek philosophers are thus presented in a particular light, but the way they are coupled is not entirely different from the way they are linked together by Plato (Soph. 242d).
OTHER SOURCES
Interesting information, including a number of verbatim quotations from, among others, Heraclitus and Democritus, is to be found in the works of the Neopyrrhonist philosopher/physician Sextus Empiricus (probably second century A.D.). Most of these references are concerned with epistemological issues, and of course we owe the transmission of Parmenides’ proem to Sextus.49 But we should note that Sextus’ aim is not to tell us what certain historical figures believed, but rather to tell us what, in general, the dogmatists believed and then to show the weaknesses of dogmatism. He also cites early Greek philosophers (including some verbatim fragments) who were thought to be close to Neopyrrhonism.
Plotinus (A.D. 205–70), on the other hand, is inclined to give a positive, though neoplatonically coloured account of those early Greek philosophers whom he believes to be important forerunners of a dogmatic Plato. His selection is restricted to individuals who figure in Plato’s dialogues, and, though he is indebted to his Middle Platonist predecessors, some of his (sparse) quotations may point to a reading of the originals.50
The learned Christian Clement of Alexandria (later part of the second century A.D.), whose generally positive attitude to Greek philosophy is indebted to Philo of Alexandria, has worked important bits of information into the extant eight books of his Strômateis (Patchworks).51 The fragments he has preserved include passages of Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Empedocles (again betraying a Middle Platonist background, of which stoicizing interpretations had become an integral part), but these are almost always integrated in a patchwork of quotations with connecting exegetic text.52 Numerous other Christian authors who refer to the early Greek philosophers do so only to exploit the contradictions among their views and so to expose the follies of the Greeks. But they at least prove to have understood the structure and aims of the later Placita literature, which they exploited for a new purpose, namely to prove Christianity right.
To the anthology of Ioannes Stobaeus we owe not only otherwise unattested portions of Aetius, but also verbatim fragments (and pseudo-fragments) of Philolaus (this reflects the interest in Pythagoreanism of late antiquity), and a great number of gnômai taken no doubt from an existing anthology of the ethical writings of Democritus. It would seem that Thrasyllus, whose catalogue begins with the ethical treatises, exercised some influence on the later tradition (see n. 39).
THE COMMENTATORS, IN PARTICULAR SIMPLICIUS
Philosophical commentators explain texts, and if these texts contain remarks on philosophers, or arguments of philosophers, the commentators will have to explain these remarks; now and then too they will quote evidence to clarify their text or to underpin their interpretation. For example, the Neoplatonist Proclus’ commentary on Plato’s Parmenides has preserved several important verbatim fragments, or parts of fragments, of Parmenides that are extant nowhere else.53 Proclus undoubtedly had access to a copy of the text. But far more important for early Greek philosophy are the commentaries on Aristotle’s Physics and De caelo by another Neoplatonist, Simplicius.54 The De caelo commentary is the earlier. According to the hypothesis of Tardieu,55 both these commentaries were composed after 532, when Simplicius – after the closing of the Neoplatonist school at Athens and after the signing of the peace treaty with Persia that contained a clause pertaining to protection for the philosophers – would have settled and taught at Carrhae in Syria, close to the Persian border. But this is far from certain.
Simplicius cites several early Greek philosophers on an unprecedented scale. Presumably his motive was that their works had become rare.56 Pagan Greek culture, especially philosophy, was persecuted by the Christian authorities, as Simplicius had experienced for himself, so he apparently did what he could to ensure its survival. In quoting on this scale, he may have been inspired by Christian authors such as Eusebius, who in the Praeparatio evangelica copied out passages from numerous pagan philosophers (most of the time to show how wrong they were). However this may be, we should be most grateful to Simplicius, for he is our only source for the extant verbatim fragments of Zeno and Melissus, for almost all the verbatim fragments of Anaxagoras and Diogenes of Apollonia, for the more important fragments of Parmenides, and for a great number of fragments from Empedocles’ physical poem. Not all these texts were equally amenable to a Neoplatonist interpretation, though a number of passages in Parmenides and Empedocles certainly were.
In several cases these philosophers but for Simplicius would be little more than names today, and our view of Parmenides’ difficult ontology and Empedocles’ difficult physics would be quite deficient. Parmenides’ cosmology did not interest him as much, so we are not well enough informed about it. But other works by early Greek philosophers were apparently no longer accessible to Simp
licius. Heraclitus’ name occurs in thirty-two passages in Simplicius’ extant works, but even references resembling verbatim quotes are extremely rare and are at second hand. Why quote Diogenes of Apollonia and Anaxagoras extensively, and refrain from quoting Heraclitus? The same holds for Democritus, whose name occurs 163 times, and for Leucippus, with 26 mentions, who are often discussed by Aristotle. Their works are not quoted by Simplicius. Had they been available to him, we would beyond doubt have a different or at any rate a more complete view of Heraclitus and the early Atomists.