Academic and Peripatetic Views on Natural and Moderate Passions and a Case of Intertextuality in Plutarch

Abstract

An example of intertextuality in Plutarch and Cicero shows the use of a common source stemming from the treatise On Grief of the Academic philosopher Crantor. The use made of this source in both authors reveals a line of reasoning advocating the natural character and utility of certain passions. The advocacy of the natural character of passions is further connected in both Plutarch and Cicero to the normative ideal of ‘moderation of passions’ (metriopatheia) and is contrasted to the Stoic ideal of ‘absence of passions’ (apatheia). This may be further linked to a Plutarchan hermeneutical approach which conflates Academic and Peripatetic ethical views for the sake of constructing an alternative to the Stoic approach towards the elimination of passions. This strategy, which has its starting point in passages in Cicero which draw on Antiochus, is indicative of the way Plutarch connected Platonic and Aristotelian/Peripatetic authority in the domain of ethics in order to answer to Stoic positions in ethics which he found unpalatable.