Aristotle observes, De Animâ, i. p. 407, b. 2:— ἐπίπονον δὲ καὶ τὸ μεμίχθαι τῷ σώματι μὴ δυνάμενον ἀπολυθῆναι, καὶ προσέτι φευκτόν, εἴπερ βέλτιον τῷ νῷ μὴ μετὰ σώματος εἶναι, καθάπερ εἴωθέ τε λέγεσθαι καὶ πολλοῖς συνδοκεῖ.
We find in one of the Fragments of Cicero, quoted by Augustin from the lost work Hortensius (p. 485, ed. Orelli):— “An vero, inquit, voluptates corporis expetendæ, quæ veré et graviter dictæ sunt à Platone illecebræ et escæ malorum? Quis autem bonâ mente præditus, non mallet nullas omnino nobis à naturâ voluptates esse datas?” This is the same doctrine as what is ascribed to Speusippus.
[140] Aristot. Ethic. Nikom. vii. 14, p. 1153, b. 5; x. 2, p. 1173, a. 8; Aulus Gellius, ix. 5. “Speusippus vetusque omnis Academia voluptatem et dolorem duo mala esse dicunt opposita inter se: bonum autem esse quod utriusque medium foret.”
Compare Plato, Philêbus, pp. 43 D-E, 33 B.
To whom does Plato here make allusion, under the general title of the Fastidious (οἱ δυσχερεῖς) Pleasure-haters? Schleiermacher (note to his translation, p. 487), Stallbaum, and most critics down to Dr. Badham inclusive, are of opinion, that he alludes to Antisthenes — among whose dicta we certainly read declarations expressing positive aversion to pleasure — μανείην μᾶλλον ἢ ἡσθείην Diog. L. vi. 3; compare ix. 101, and Winckelmann, Frag. Antisthen. xii. Mr. Poste, on the contrary, thinks it improbable that Antisthenes is alluded to (see p. 80 of his Philêbus). I confess that I think so too. Mr. Poste points out that these δυσχερεῖς are characterised by Plato (p. 44 B), as μάλα δεινοὺς λεγομένους περὶ φύσιν:— whereas we are informed that speculations on φύσις were neglected by Antisthenes, who confined his attention to τὰ ἠθικά. This is a strong reason for believing that Antisthenes cannot be here meant; and there are some other reasons also.
First, in describing the δυσχερεῖς, Plato notes it as one among their attributes, that they hold in thorough detestation the indecorous pleasures (τὰς τῶν ἀσχημόνων ἡδονάς, ἃς οὓς εἴπομεν δυσχερεῖς μισοῦσι παντελῶς, p. 46 A). Now this is surely not likely to have been affirmed about Antisthenes. It was the conspicuous characteristic of the Cynic sect, begun by Antisthenes, and carried still farther by his pupil Diogenes, that they reduced to its minimum the distinction between the decorous and the indecorous.
Next, we may observe that these δυσχερεῖς, whoever they were, are spoken of with much respect by Plato, even while he combats their doctrine (p. 44 C). I think it not likely that he would have spoken thus of Antisthenes. We are told that there prevailed between the two a great and reciprocal acrimony. And this sentiment is manifested in the Sophistês (p. 251 B), where the opponents whom Plato is refuting are described with the most contemptuous bitterness — and where Schleiermacher, and the critics generally, declare that he alludes to Antisthenes. The passage in the Sophistês represents, in my judgment, the probable sentiment of Plato towards Antisthenes: the passage in the Philêbus is at variance with it.
I imagine that the δυσχερεῖς to whom Plato makes allusion in the Philêbus, are the persons from whom his nephew and successor Speusippus derived the doctrine declared in the first portion of this note. The “vetus omnia Academia” of Aulus Gellius is an exaggerated phrase; but many of the old Academy, or companions of Plato, probably held the theory that pleasure was only one form of evil, — especially the pythagorising Platonici, adopting the tendencies of Plato himself in his old age. That Speusippus was among the borrowers from the Pythagoreans, we know from Aristotle (Eth. Nikom. i. 4, 1096, b. 8).
Now the Pythagorean canon of life, like the Orphic (both of them supposed by Herodotus to be derived in great part from Egypt — ii. 81), was distinguished by a multiplicity of abstinences, disgusts, antipathies, in respect to alimentation and other physical circumstances of life — which were held to be of the most imperative force and necessity; so that offences against them were of all others the most intolerable. A remarkable fragment of the Κρῆτες of Euripides (ed. Dind., vol. ii. p. 912) describes a variety of this purism analogous to the Orphic and Pythagorean:— Πάλλευκα δ’ ἔχων εἴματα, φεύγω γένεσίν τε βρότων, καὶ νεκροθήκης οὐ χριμπτόμενος· τὴν τ’ ἐμψύχων βρῶσιν ἐδεστῶν πεφύλαγμαι. Compare Eurip. Hippol. 957; Alexis Comicus, ap. Athenæ, iv. p. 161. See the work of M. Alfred Maury, Histoire des Religions de la Grèce Antique, vol. iii. pp. 368-384.
It appears to me that the δυσχερεῖς, to whom Plato alludes in the Philêbus, were most probably pythagorising friends of his own; who, adopting a ritual of extreme rigour, distinguished themselves by the violence of their antipathies towards τὰς ἡδονὰς τὰς τῶν ἀσχημόνων. Plato speaks of them with respect; partly because ethical theorists, who denounce pleasure, are usually characterised in reverential terms, as persons of exalted principle, even by those who think their reasonings inconclusive; partly because these men only pushed the consequences of Plato’s own reasonings, rather farther than Plato himself did. In fact they were more consistent than Plato was: for the principles laid down in the Philêbus, if carried out strictly, would go to the exclusion of all pleasures — not less of the few which he tolerates, than of the many which he banishes.