Download or read book The Cyrenaics written by Ugo Zilioli and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-10-20 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cyrenaic school of philosophy (named after its founder Aristippus' native city of Cyrene in North Africa) flourished in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE and whose importance was much recognized in ancient times. Ugo Zilioli's book provides the first book-length introduction to the school in English. This book begins by introducing the main figures of the Cyrenaic school beginning with Aristippus and by setting them into their historical context. Once the reader is familiar with those figures and with the genealogy of the school, the book offers an overview of ancient and modern interpretations of the Cyrenaics, to provide readers with alternative accounts of the doctrines they endorsed and of the role they played in the context of ancient thought. Finally, this book offers a reconstruction of Cyrenaic philosophy and shows how the ethical side of their speculation connected with the epistemology and ontology they endorsed and that, as a result, the Cyrenaics were able to offer a quite sophisticated philosophy. Indeed, Zilioli demonstrates that they represented, in ancient philosophy, an important and original metaphysical position and alternative to the kind of realism endorsed by Plato and Aristotle.
Download or read book The Birth of Hedonism written by Kurt Lampe and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-09 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to Xenophon, Socrates tried to persuade his associate Aristippus to moderate his excessive indulgence in wine, women, and food, arguing that only hard work can bring happiness. Aristippus wasn't convinced. Instead, he and his followers espoused the most radical form of hedonism in ancient Western philosophy. Before the rise of the better known but comparatively ascetic Epicureans, the Cyrenaics pursued a way of life in which moments of pleasure, particularly bodily pleasure, held the highest value. In The Birth of Hedonism, Kurt Lampe provides the most comprehensive account in any language of Cyrenaic ideas and behavior, revolutionizing the understanding of this neglected but important school of philosophy. The Birth of Hedonism thoroughly and sympathetically reconstructs the doctrines and practices of the Cyrenaics, who were active between the fourth and third centuries BCE. The book examines not only Aristippus and the mainstream Cyrenaics, but also Hegesias, Anniceris, and Theodorus. Contrary to recent scholarship, the book shows that the Cyrenaics, despite giving primary value to discrete pleasurable experiences, accepted the dominant Greek philosophical belief that life-long happiness and the virtues that sustain it are the principal concerns of ethics. The book also offers the first in-depth effort to understand Theodorus's atheism and Hegesias's pessimism, both of which are extremely unusual in ancient Greek philosophy and which raise the interesting question of hedonism's relationship to pessimism and atheism. Finally, the book explores the "new Cyrenaicism" of the nineteenth-century writer and classicist Walter Pater, who drew out the enduring philosophical interest of Cyrenaic hedonism more than any other modern thinker.
Download or read book The Epistemology of the Cyrenaic School written by Voula Tsouna and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-04-23 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cyrenaics were a Hellenistic Greek philosophical school of the fourth century BC, related both to the Socratic tradition and to Greek skepticism. There are further links with modern philosophy as well. This book reconstructs the Cyrenaic theory of knowledge, explains how it depends on Cyrenaic hedonism, locates it in the context of ancient debates and discusses its connections with modern and contemporary views on knowledge.
Download or read book The Epistemology of the Cyrenaic School written by Voula Tsouna and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-12-10 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cyrenaic school was a fourth-century BC philosophical movement, related both to the Socratic tradition and to Greek Scepticism. In ethics, Cyrenaic hedonism can be seen as one of many attempts made by the associates of Socrates and their followers to endorse his ethical outlook and to explore the implications of his method. In epistemology, there are close philosophical links between the Cyrenaics and the Sceptics, both Pyrrhonists and Academics. There are further links with modern philosophy as well, for the Cyrenaics introduced a form of subjectivism which in some ways preannounces Cartesian views, endorsed by Malebranche and Hume and developed by Kant. This 1998 book reconstructs Cyrenaic epistemology, explains how it depends on Cyrenaic hedonism, locates it in the context of ancient debates, and discusses its connections with modern and contemporary epistemological positions.
Download or read book The Pleasures of Reason in Plato Aristotle and the Hellenistic Hedonists written by James Warren and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-11-27 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did ancient philosophers understand the relationship between human capacities for thinking and our experiences of pleasure and pain?
Download or read book Pleasure in Ancient Greek Philosophy written by David Wolfsdorf and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of ancient Greek philosophical conceptions of pleasure, which is the first book to compare them to contemporary conceptions.
Download or read book The Morality of Happiness written by Julia Annas and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1993-08-19 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ancient ethical theories, based on the notions of virtue and happiness, have struck many as an attractive alternative to modern theories. But we cannot find out whether this is true until we understand ancient ethics--and to do this we need to examine the basic structure of ancient ethical theory, not just the details of one or two theories. In this book, Annas brings together the results of a wide-ranging study of ancient ethical philosophy and presents it in a way that is easily accessible to anyone with an interest in ancient or modern ethics. She examines the fundamental notions of happiness and virtue, the role of nature in ethical justification and the relation between concern for self and concern for others. Her careful examination of the ancient debates and arguments shows that many widespread assumptions about ancient ethics are quite mistaken. Ancient ethical theories are not egoistic, and do not depend for their acceptance on metaphysical theories of a teleological kind. Most centrally, they are recognizably theories of morality, and the ancient disputes about the place of virtue in happiness can be seen as akin to modern disputes about the demands of morality.
Download or read book Sayings and Anecdotes written by Diogenes and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-10 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique edition of the sayings of Diogenes, whose biting wit and eccentricity inspired the anecdotes that express his Cynic philosophy. It includes the accounts of his immediate successors, such as Crates and Hipparchia, and the witty moral preacher Bion. The contrasting teachings of the Cyrenaics and the hedonistic Aristippos complete the volume.
Download or read book Plutarch Against Colotes written by Eleni Kechagia and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2011-11-03 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plutarch of Chaeroneia's philosophical work remained largely in the shadow of his celebrated Lives, partly because it was often dubbed 'popular philosophy', and partly because it was thought to be lacking in originality. The tides are, fortunately, changing and current scholarship is showing a growing appreciation of Plutarch's philosophical work. This book contributes to the 'rehabilitation' of Plutarch as a philosopher by focusing on an important aspect of his philosophical self: his work as a teacher, interpreter, and, eventually, historian of philosophy. Eleni Kechagia offers a critical analysis of Plutarch's anti-Epicurean treatise Against Colotes - a unique text that is both rich in philosophical material and has been widely used as a source for ancient Greek philosophy, but which has yet to be studied in its own right. Combining a historical approach with structural analysis and close reading of selected sections of the text, this book demonstrates that Plutarch engaged with the philosophy of his past in a creative way. By refuting Colotes' Epicurean arguments against the main Greek philosophers up to the Hellenistic era, Plutarch gives an insightful critical assessment of the philosophy of his past and teaches his readers how to go about living and reading philosophy. The volume concludes that Plutarch emerges as a respected critic whose 'reviews' of the past philosophical theories are an essential companion when trying to piece together the puzzle of ancient Greek philosophy.
Download or read book Epicurus and Democritean Ethics written by James Warren and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-05-23 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 2002 book explores the origins of the Epicurean philosophical system in the fifth and fourth centuries BC.
Download or read book Strategies of Polemics in Greek and Roman Philosophy written by Sharon Weisser and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-07-18 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together eleven papers written by specialists of ancient philosophy, focusing on philosophical polemics from the Classical to the Roman period, by way of Hellenistic philosophy.
Download or read book Essays in Ancient Epistemology written by Gail Fine and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-13 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing primarily on Plato, Aristotle, and the Pyrrhonian skeptics, Fine discusses the following questions, among others: does Socrates, in the Apology, claim to know that he knows nothing? How do Plato and Aristotle conceive of doxa and epistêmê? Are doxa and epistêmê belief and knowledge as we conceive of them nowadays? Do Plato and Aristotle allow us to have doxa of everything about which we can have epistêmê? How does Plato conceive of perception in the Phaedo and in Theaetetus 184-6? How should we understand his theory of recollection in the Phaedo? Do the Pyrrhonian skeptics disavow all beliefs? Do they have a conception of purely subjective experience? Do they take anything to be subjective? Are they external world skeptics? How do their views of subjectivity and skepticism compare with Descartes'? Taken as a whole, the essays explain why ancient epistemology is instructive and illuminating for us today.
Download or read book Philosophy in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds written by Peter Adamson and published by History of Philosophy. This book was released on 2015 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Peter Adamson offers an accessible, humorous tour through a period of eight hundred years when some of the most influential of all schools of thought were formed: from the third century BC to the sixth century AD. He introduces us to Cynics and Skeptics, Epicureans and Stoics, emperors and slaves, and traces the development of Christian and Jewish philosophy and of ancient science. Chapters are devoted to such major figures as Epicurus, Lucretius, Cicero, Seneca, Plotinus, and Augustine. But in keeping with the motto of the series, the story is told 'without any gaps,' providing an in-depth look at less familiar topics that remains suitable for the general reader. For instance, there are chapters on the fascinating but relatively obscure Cyrenaic philosophical school, on pagan philosophical figures like Porphyry and Iamblichus, and extensive coverage of the Greek and Latin Christian Fathers who are at best peripheral in most surveys of ancient philosophy. A major theme of the book is in fact the competition between pagan and Christian philosophy in this period, and the Jewish tradition also appears in the shape of Philo of Alexandria. Ancient science is also considered, with chapters on ancient medicine and the interaction between philosophy and astronomy. Considerable attention is paid also to the wider historical context, for instance by looking at the ascetic movement in Christianity and how it drew on ideas from Hellenic philosophy. From the counter-cultural witticisms of Diogenes the Cynic to the subtle skepticism of Sextus Empiricus, from the irreverent atheism of the Epicureans to the ambitious metaphysical speculation of Neoplatonism, from the ethical teachings of Marcus Aurelius to the political philosophy of Augustine, the book gathers together all aspects of later ancient thought in an accessible and entertaining way.
Download or read book Cicero on the Emotions written by Marcus Tullius and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-03-05 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The third and fourth books of Cicero's Tusculan Disputations deal with the nature and management of human emotion: first grief, then the emotions in general. In lively and accessible style, Cicero presents the insights of Greek philosophers on the subject, reporting the views of Epicureans and Peripatetics and giving a detailed account of the Stoic position, which he himself favors for its close reasoning and moral earnestness. Both the specialist and the general reader will be fascinated by the Stoics' analysis of the causes of grief, their classification of emotions by genus and species, their lists of oddly named character flaws, and by the philosophical debate that develops over the utility of anger in politics and war. Margaret Graver's elegant and idiomatic translation makes Cicero's work accessible not just to classicists but to anyone interested in ancient philosophy and psychotherapy or in the philosophy of emotion. The accompanying commentary explains the philosophical concepts discussed in the text and supplies many helpful parallels from Greek sources.
Download or read book The Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle written by Sir Ernest Barker and published by . This book was released on 1906 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Book of Dead Philosophers written by Simon Critchley and published by Melbourne Univ. Publishing. This book was released on 2008 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Diogenes died by holding his breath. Plato allegedly died of a lice infestation. Diderot choked to death on an apricot. Nietzsche made a long, soft-brained and dribbling descent into oblivion after kissing a horse in Turin. From the self-mocking haikus of Zen masters on their deathbeds to the last words (gasps) of modern-day sages, The Book of Dead Philosophers chronicles the deaths of almost 200 philosophers-tales of weirdness, madness, suicide, murder, pathos and bad luck. In this elegant and amusing book, Simon Critchley argues that the question of what constitutes a 'good death' has been the central preoccupation of philosophy since ancient times. As he brilliantly demonstrates, looking at what the great thinkers have said about death inspires a life-affirming enquiry into the meaning and possibility of human happiness. In learning how to die, we learn how to live.
Download or read book From the Socratics to the Socratic Schools written by Ugo Zilioli and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-02-20 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the two golden centuries that followed the death of Socrates, ancient philosophy underwent a tremendous transformation that culminated in the philosophical systematizations of Plato, Aristotle and the Hellenistic schools. Fundamental figures other than Plato were active after the death of Socrates; his immediate pupils, the Socratics, took over his legacy and developed it in a variety of ways. This rich philosophical territory has however been left largely underexplored in the scholarship. This collection of eleven previously unpublished essays by leading scholars fills a gap in the literature, providing new insight into the ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology as developed by key figures of the Socratic schools. Analyzing the important contributions that the Socratics and their heirs have offered ancient philosophical thought, as well as the impact these contributions had on philosophy as a discipline, this book will appeal to researchers and scholars of Classical Studies, as well as Philosophy and Ancient History.
