Colotes of Lampsacus

Life and Historical Context

Colotes of Lampsacus was a Hellenistic philosopher of the early 3rd century BCE and a member of the Epicurean school. He was born in Lampsacus, a Greek city on the Hellespont (modern-day Dardanelles region in Turkey), around the time when Epicurus was beginning to attract followers in Asia Minor and Athens. Ancient testimonies present him as one of the closest associates and disciples of Epicurus, ranking him among the inner circle that included Metrodorus and Hermarchus.

According to scattered reports, Colotes moved in the same intellectual environment that shaped early Epicurean doctrine. He likely spent time at the Garden in Athens, the Epicurean community founded by Epicurus, where philosophical life centered on close friendship, shared study, and the pursuit of tranquility. The exact dates of his life are uncertain, but he must have been active in the first half of the 3rd century BCE and was presumably younger than Epicurus (341–270 BCE).

Little is recorded about his personal life beyond his philosophical activity. Ancient authors, especially Plutarch, portray him as a sharp and sometimes aggressive polemicist. This reputation reflects not only his personal style but also the broader polemical climate of Hellenistic philosophy, in which rival schools—Epicurean, Stoic, Academic, Peripatetic, and others—engaged in sustained verbal and literary combat.

Works and Sources

No complete work of Colotes survives. His thought is reconstructed mainly from:

• Plutarch’s treatise That It Is Impossible Even to Live Pleasurably in the Manner of Epicurus (Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum), which is a detailed reply to Colotes.
• Plutarch’s *On the Contradictions of the Stoics, which also alludes to Epicurean polemics.
• Isolated references in later authors, including Cicero and others writing about Epicureanism.

Colotes’s most famous work carried the striking title “That It Is Impossible Even to Live in Accordance with the Doctrines of the Other Philosophers” (Greek often paraphrased as Hoti ouk estin kata tas allas philosophias zên). In this treatise, he attacked a broad range of non‑Epicurean positions, aiming to show that their principles would make ordinary life impossible or incoherent.

Other works are reported but are even less securely known. Some sources mention polemics directed specifically against Plato and Democritus, and possibly discussions of mythic figures such as Odysseus and Heracles, using them as test cases for living a practical life. However, our knowledge of these texts is fragmentary and indirect.

Because Colotes’s writings do not survive independently, scholars must reconstruct his arguments mainly through Plutarch, who quotes and paraphrases him while attempting to refute him. This raises interpretive issues: Plutarch is both our chief source and a hostile critic, so it is unclear in some cases how faithfully he preserves Colotes’s formulations and whether he emphasizes certain points for rhetorical effect.

Philosophical Views and Polemics

Colotes operated as a systematic defender of Epicureanism and an aggressor against rival schools. His core argumentative strategy was practical and polemical: he tried to show that the doctrines of other philosophers are “unlivable”—that is, they cannot be coherently followed while conducting an ordinary human life.

Epicurean Background

As a faithful Epicurean, Colotes accepted:

• Atomism and materialism: reality consists of atoms and void; there is no immortal, immaterial soul.
• Empiricist epistemology: all knowledge originates in sense-perception and the feelings of pleasure and pain.
• Ethical hedonism: the highest good is pleasure, understood as the absence of bodily pain and disturbance of the soul (ataraxia).
• Critique of superstition and fear of the gods: the gods exist but do not intervene in human affairs.

Colotes’s originality lay less in developing new doctrines and more in applying these Epicurean principles in hostile analysis of other systems.

“Unlivability” of Other Philosophies

In his main work, Colotes argued that many prominent philosophical doctrines, if consistently applied, would make it “impossible even to live”. Among his targets, as reported by Plutarch, were:

• Skeptical positions that suspend judgment on all matters: Colotes contended that if one truly doubted the reliability of the senses or refused to make any firm beliefs, one could not act, plan, or pursue basic survival, let alone happiness.
• Heraclitean flux doctrines, which hold that everything is in constant change: if nothing is stable and nothing can be firmly known, practical decision-making becomes impossible.
• Plato and the Academics, who place emphasis on intelligible Forms or on the fallibility of sensory experience: Colotes argued that distrust of the senses undermines the very foundation on which everyday life and science rest.
• Certain ethical doctrines, such as those that proclaim virtue to be the only good while dismissing pleasure, or that call for radical indifference to bodily conditions: he maintained that these did not correspond to human nature and could not be genuinely practiced without contradiction.

Colotes’s arguments therefore combine epistemological and ethical critiques. On the epistemological side, he defended the Epicurean canon (the set of criteria of truth—sensations, preconceptions, and feelings) by claiming that abandoning these criteria leads to paralysis. On the ethical side, he used ordinary human needs and instincts (for preservation, comfort, and pleasure) as a test of philosophical viability.

Method and Style

The surviving evidence suggests that Colotes wrote in an aggressive, at times sarcastic tone, typical of many Hellenistic polemics. He used concrete examples—everyday actions, political life, moral decisions—to argue that rival doctrines collapse when one tries to “live by them” rather than merely discuss them in abstract terms.

This method reflects a broader Epicurean tendency to evaluate philosophies by their consequences for the conduct of life. For Colotes, speculative doctrines are not harmless; mistaken views about knowledge, the gods, or the good can produce deep psychological disturbance and make a stable, tranquil life unattainable.

Critics, especially Plutarch, claim that Colotes misrepresented the views of his opponents, simplified complex positions, or interpreted them in the most extreme way to make them appear unlivable. From a historiographical standpoint, this raises questions about the fairness and nuance of his polemical technique.

Reception and Significance

Although Colotes was never as influential as Epicurus or later Epicureans such as Lucretius, he occupies a distinctive role in the history of Hellenistic philosophy.

Impact within Epicureanism

Within the Epicurean school, Colotes appears to have been a respected associate and defender of the master’s doctrines. The fact that his works were preserved long enough to be read and refuted by Plutarch in the 1st–2nd century CE indicates a sustained Epicurean interest in his arguments over several centuries.

His emphasis on the practical test of philosophical coherence became an enduring theme in Epicurean polemics: the idea that non‑Epicurean doctrines generate anxiety, confusion, or inaction remained a common line of argument.

Later Criticism

Plutarch is the major source for Colotes’s reception. In That It Is Impossible Even to Live Pleasurably in the Manner of Epicurus, Plutarch reverses Colotes’s strategy. He tries to show that it is actually Epicureanism that is unlivable, arguing that:

• Pure pleasure cannot provide a stable organizing principle for life.
• The Epicurean view of the gods and the soul undermines traditional morality and civic duties.
• Epicurean epistemology is vulnerable to many of the same criticisms Colotes aimed at other schools.

Plutarch also accuses Colotes of ingratitude toward earlier philosophers, claiming that Epicureans benefited from the intellectual achievements of those they attacked.

Historical and Philosophical Importance

Modern scholars view Colotes as an important witness to:

• The inter-school conflicts of the Hellenistic period.
• The development of Epicurean apologetics, particularly against Skepticism and Platonism.
• Early formulations of pragmatic criteria for evaluating philosophical doctrines, based on their livability and psychological impact.

Because his works survive only in hostile reports, assessment of his originality is cautious. Some scholars see him primarily as an aggressive expositor of Epicurus, while others attribute to him a distinctive emphasis on the practical impossibility of living certain theories.

Despite his fragmentary survival, Colotes of Lampsacus illustrates how second-generation disciples shaped the public image and argumentative strategies of major philosophical schools. His polemics helped articulate a central Epicurean claim: that a philosophy should not only be logically coherent, but also compatible with ordinary human life and the pursuit of tranquility.