1. See 949E. It might be worth noting that the Stoics use the pores as a prime example of something whose existence cannot be perceived: their existence is deduced from the fact that sweat flows through the skin: S.E. adv. math.8.306. This presumably leaves wide open to debate j the Stoics′ assertion that we are cool after a sweat because the pores are relaxed and the air flows in, for we can see neither the pores and their relaxed state nor the supposed influx of air.
2. That neither of these passages brings out the fact that earth is colderthan water (as fire is warmerthan air), which is part of the Platonic schema, and part of the conclusion of the deprim. frig.,is to be explained by the contexts from which they are taken. For neither Atticus nor Macrobius are making points which require this level of detail, whereas the question is, of course, central to Plutarch′s investigation.
3. Philo′s philosophical development has been the subject of some controversy. Scholars have tended to recognize twostages (generally compounding in one way or another what I would identify as the second and third phases of Philo′s epistemology): cf. e.g. R. Hirzel, Untersuchungen zur Ciceros philosophischen Schriften(Leipzig, 1883), vol. Ill, pp. 195–341; V. Brochard, Les Sceptiques Grecs(Paris, 1887), pp. 192–205; D. Sedley, ‘The End of the Academy’, Phronesis26 (1981), 67–75. However, see now W. Gorler′s article ‘Philon aus Larissa’ in H. Flashar (ed.), Die Philosophic der Antike(Basel, 1994), vol. IV, pp. 915–37; C. Brittain, Philo of Larissa and the Fourth Academy(unpublished diss., Oxford, 1996).
4. For the ‘clarity’ and positive usefulness of sense impressions, cf. e.g. de soil. an.966BC, where sense-perception gives us ‘clear and unanswerable examples’ of what Plutarch seems to take to be an example of a genuinely plausible position. In de E392AB, Ammonius (whose views are presumably meant to represent those of Plutarch as well) talks of the ‘great clarity’ of objects of perception in the very midst of an argument for the strict unknowability of the world.
5. Cf. Donini (note 2 above): he discusses at length Plutarch′s frequent displays of evXdfieiatowards theological and metaphysical claims, but draws the conclusion that Plutarch thinks this is allthat is possible in respect of them. (In general, Donini does not seem to take the transcendence of the metaphysical world in Plutarch very seriously and, for example, blurs the distinction between the physical and metaphysical worlds by suggesting that in questions of physics is needed because physical questions ‘hanno un fondamento o un esito nella sfera dell′intelligibile e del divino’ [213].) In fact Donini seems to read too much into the term . Plutarch does not think that there is a certain class of propositions (e.g. theological propositions) which can only ever be given conditional assent.He rather thinks that for anykind of proposition (physical or metaphysical) one should not assent rashly, and to this extent one should exercise caution.If Plutarch is generally cautious in the metaphysical assertions he makes, this does not show that he thinks unconditional knowledge of metaphysics is, even in theory, unobtainable.