Download or read book Ancient Ethics written by Susan Sauvé Meyer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-11-13 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first comprehensive guide and only substantial undergraduate level introduction to ancient Greek and Roman ethics. It covers the ethical theories and positions of all the major philosophers (including Socrates, Plato and Aristotle) and schools (Stoics and Epicureans) from the earliest times to the Hellenistic philosophers, analyzing their main arguments and assessing their legacy. This book maps the foundations of this key area, which is crucial knowledge across the disciplines and essential for a wide range of readers.
Download or read book Ancient Ethics and the Natural World written by Barbara M. Sattler and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-08-31 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores a distinctive feature of ancient philosophy: the close relation between ancient ethics and the study of the natural world. Human beings are in some sense part of the natural world, and they live their lives within a larger cosmos, but their actions are governed by norms whose relation to the natural world is up for debate. The essays in this volume, written by leading specialists in ancient philosophy, discuss how these facts about our relation to the world bear both upon ancient accounts of human goodness and also upon ancient accounts of the natural world itself. The volume includes discussion not only of Plato and Aristotle, but also of earlier and later thinkers, with an essay on the Presocratics and two essays that discuss later Epicurean, Stoic, and Neoplatonist philosophers.
Download or read book Virtue and Knowledge written by William J. Prior and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-08-19 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1991, this book focuses on the concept of virtue, and in particular on the virtue of wisdom or knowledge, as it is found in the epic poems of Homer, some tragedies of Sophocles, selected writings of Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers. The key questions discussed are the nature of the virtues, their relation to each other, and the relation between the virtues and happiness or well-being. This book provides the background and interpretative framework to make classical works on Ethics, such as Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, accessible to readers with no training in the classics.
Download or read book Introduction to Virtue Ethics written by Raymond J. Devettere and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2002-09-26 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fascinating examination of the development of virtue ethics in the early stages of western civilization deals with a wide range of philosophers and schools of philosophy—from Socrates and the Stoics to Plato, Aristotle, and the Epicureans, among others. This introduction examines those human attributes that we have come to know as the "stuff" of virtue: desire, happiness, the "good," character, the role of pride, prudence, and wisdom, and links them to more current or modern conceptions and controversies. The tension between viewing ethics and morality as fundamentally religious or as fundamentally rational still runs deep in our culture. A second tension centers on whether we view morality primarily in terms of our obligations or primarily in terms of our desires for what is good. The Greek term arete, which we generally translate as "virtue," can also be translated as "excellence." Arete embraced both intellectual and moral excellence as well as human creations and achievements. Useful, certainly, for classrooms, Virtue Ethics is also for anyone interested in the fundamental question Socrates posed, "What kind of life is worth living?"
Download or read book Exemplary Ethics in Ancient Rome written by Rebecca Langlands and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-13 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The well-known mythographer Marina Warner has described the process of reading fairy tales and folktales as 'tasting the dragon's blood' - a magical and transformative process by which one's ears are opened to the voices of the past and of other worlds. Roman exempla, which constitute a national story-telling tradition, are very different in many ways from the dream-like fantasies of fairy-tales and other narrative folk traditions that have been the subject of Warner's studies. In (supposedly) true stories from history, battle-hardened warriors, noble maidens and honourable sons of the soil face impossible dangers, take terrible decisions and sacrifice their lives, their limbs and even their own children for the sake of justice, discipline and the Roman community. Yet for the ancient Romans too, hearing the blood-soaked stories of their ancestral heroes was an intimate and potent experience, and this 'taste of the hero's blood' had an intoxicating effect similar to the blood of Warner's dragon: evoking other worlds, shaping understanding of their own world"--
Download or read book Ethics in Ancient Greek Literature written by Maria Liatsi and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-08-24 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interpretation of ancient Greek literature is often enough distorted by the preconceptions of modern times, especially on ancient morality. This is often equivalent to begging the question. If we think e.g. of aretê, which has different meanings in different contexts, we shall think in English (or in Modern Greek or in French or in German) and shall falsify the phenomena. If we are to understand the Greek concept e.g. of aretê we must study the nature of the situations in which it is applied. For it is an important fact in the study of Greek society that the Greeks used the one word (e.g. aretê) where we use different words. If we are to understand properly the texts, we have to view them in their historical and social context. Ancient Greek thought needs to be studied together with politics, ethics, and economic behaviour. Moreover, the best insights can be found in those who confine themselves to the terms of each ancient author's analysis. From this principle each of the contributions of the volume begins.
Download or read book Moral Codes and Social Structure in Ancient Greece written by Joseph M. Bryant and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1996-01-01 with total page 600 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exercise in cultural sociology, Moral Codes and Social Structure in Ancient Greece seeks to explicate the dynamic currents of classical Hellenic ethics and social philosophy by situating those idea-complexes in their socio-historical and intellectual contexts. Central to this enterprise is a comprehensive historical-sociological analysis of the Polis form of social organization, which charts the evolution of its basic institutions, roles, statuses, and class relations. From the Dark Age period of "genesis" on to the Hellenistic era of "eclipse" by the emergent forces of imperial patrimonialism, Polis society promoted and sustained corresponding normative codes which mobilized and channeled the requisite emotive commitments and cognitive judgments for functional proficiency under existing conditions of life. The aristocratic warrior-ethos canonized in the Homeric epics; the civic ideology of equality and justice espoused by reformist lawgivers and poets; the democratization of status honor and martial virtue that attended the shift to hoplite warfare; the philosophical exaltation of the Polis-citizen bond as found in the architectonic visions of Plato and Aristotle; and the subsequent retreat from civic virtues and the interiorization of value articulated by the Skeptics, Epicureans, and Stoics, new age philosophies in a world remade by Alexander's conquests--these are the key phases in the evolving currents of Hellenic moral discourse, as structurally framed by transformations within the institutional matrix of Polis society.
Download or read book Stoic Ethics written by William O. Stephens and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2007-05-10 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soon after Aristotle's death, several schools of ancient philosophy arose, each addressing the practical question of how to live a good, happy life. The two biggest rivals, Stoicism and Epicureanism, came to dominate the philosophical landscape for the next 500 years. Epicureans advised pursuing pleasure to be happy, and Stoics held that true happiness could only be achieved by living according to nature, which required accepting what happens and fulfilling one's roles. Stoicism, more than Epicureanism, attracted followers from many different walks of life: slaves, laborers, statesmen, intellectuals, and an emperor. The lasting impact of these philosophies is seen from the fact that even today 'Stoic' and 'Epicurean' are household words. Although very little of the writings of the early Stoics survive, our knowledge of Stoicism comes largely from a few later Stoics. In this unique book, William O. Stephens explores the moral philosophy of Epictetus, a former Roman slave and dynamic Stoic teacher whose teachings are the most compelling defense of ancient Stoicism that exists. Epictetus' philosophy dramatically captures the spirit of Stoicism by examining and remedying our greatest human disappointments, such as the death of a loved one. Stephens shows how, for Epictetus, happiness results from focusing our concern on what is up to us while not worrying about what is beyond our control. He concludes that the strength of Epictetus' thought lies in his conception of happiness as freedom from fear, worry, grief, and dependence upon luck.
Download or read book Death and Immortality in Ancient Philosophy written by Alex Long and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-06-13 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides an accessible account of the variety and subtlety of Greek and Roman philosophy of death, from Homer to Marcus Aurelius.
Download or read book Skill in Ancient Ethics written by Tom Angier and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-09-23 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Illustrating the centrality of skill within ancient ethics, including Socrates' search for expertise in virtue, the Republic's 'craft of justice', Aristotle's delineation of the politike techne, the Stoics' 'art of life' and ancient Chinese ethics, this collection shows how skill has been an ethical touchstone from the beginning of philosophical thought. Divided into six sections – on Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Mencius and Xunzi, the Mohists and Zhuangzi, and comparative perspectives – world-leading philosophers explore the significance of skill according to traditional figures, as well as lesser-known philosophers such as Carneades and Antipater, and texts such as the Zhuangzi. In doing so, the seventeen contributors illustrate how skill, expertise and 'know how' are essential to and foundational within ancient ethical thought. As the first collection to foreground skill as central to ancient Greek, Roman and Chinese ethics, this is an essential resource for anyone interested in the value of cross-cultural philosophy today.
Download or read book Ancient Ethics written by Susan Sauvé Meyer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-11-13 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first comprehensive guide and only substantial undergraduate level introduction to ancient Greek and Roman ethics. This book maps the foundations of ethical thought, which is crucial knowledge across the disciplines for a wide variety of readers.
Download or read book The Quest for the Good Life written by Øyvind Rabbås and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-10-08 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How should I live? How can I be happy? What is happiness, really? These are perennial questions, which in recent times have become the object of diverse kinds of academic research. Ancient philosophers placed happiness at the centre of their thought, and we can trace the topic through nearly a millennium. While the centrality of the notion of happiness in ancient ethics is well known, this book is unique in that it focuses directly on this notion, as it appears in the ancient texts. Fourteen papers by an international team of scholars map the various approaches and conceptions found from the Pre-Socratics through Plato, Aristotle, Hellenistic Philosophy, to the Neo-Platonists and Augustine in late antiquity. While not promising a formula that can guarantee a greater share in happiness to the reader, the book addresses questions raised by ancient thinkers that are still of deep concern to many people today: Do I have to be a morally good person in order to be happy? Are there purely external criteria for happiness such as success according to received social norms or is happiness merely a matter of an internal state of the person? How is happiness related to the stages of life and generally to time? In this book the reader will find an informed discussion of these and many other questions relating to happiness.
Download or read book Ethics in Ancient Israel written by John Barton and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2014-11-06 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ethics in Ancient Israel is a study of ethical thinking in ancient Israel from around the eighth to the second century BC. The evidence for this consists primarily of the Old Testament/ Hebrew Bible and Apocrypha, but also other ancient Jewish writings such as the Dead Sea Scrolls and various anonymous and pseudonymous texts from shortly before the New Testament period. Professor John Barton argues that there were several models for thinking about ethics, including a 'divine command' theory, something approximating to natural law, a virtue ethic, and a belief in human custom and convention. Moreover, he examines ideas of reward and punishment, purity and impurity, the status of moral agents and patients, imitation of God, and the image of God in humanity. Barton maintains that ethical thinking can be found not only in laws but also in the wisdom literature, in the Psalms, and in narrative texts. There is much interaction with recent scholarship in both English and German. The book features discussion of comparative material from other ancient Near Eastern cultures and a chapter on short summaries of moral teaching, such as the Ten Commandments. This innovative work should be of interest to those concerned with the interpretation of the Old Testament but also to students of ethics.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Ethics written by Lorelle D. Semley and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-07-27 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive and up-to-date exploration of ancient Greek ethical thought, investigating the figures, movements, and themes of this branch of philosophy.
Download or read book Ancient Ethics written by Jörg Hardy and published by V&R Unipress. This book was released on 2014-05-14 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents essays on Ancient ethics from Homer to Plotinus with a focus on the significance of Ancient ethical thinking for contemporary ethics. Adapting Kant's words, we might describe philosophers today as holding that meta-ethics without normative ethics is empty; normative ethics without meta-ethics is blind. One fascinating feature of Ancient ethics is its close connection between content and method, between normative ethics and meta-ethics. In connecting ethical, epistemological, and cosmological issues, Ancient ethical theories strive for an integrated understanding of normativity. The project of this volume is to capture some of the colours of the bright spectrum of ancient ethics. The goal of bundling them together is, ultimately, to shed better light on the issues of contemporary ethics. Topics: Classical Chinese Ethics, Indian Ethics, Homeric Ethics, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Hellenistic philosophy, Plotinus, Ancient and Modern Moral Psychology, Hybrid Theories of Normativity, The Unity of the Virtues, The Art of Life and Morality (Lebenskunst und Moral). Contributors: J. Annas, M. Anagnostopoulos, R. Aprressyan, Th. C. Brickhouse / N. D. Smith, J. Bussanich, C. Collobert, S. Delcomminette, W. Detel, D. Frede, L. Gerson, Ch. Halbig, J. Hardy, O. Höffe, B. Inwood, M.-Th. Liske, L. Pfister, M. McPherran, J. Piering, G. Rudebusch, D. Russell, G. Santas, Ch. Shields, M. Sim, C. C. Taylor.
Download or read book Nicomachean Ethics written by Aristotle and published by SDE Classics. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Confronting Aristotle s Ethics written by Eugene Garver and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010-10 with total page 590 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the good life? Posing this question today would likely elicit very different answers. Some might say that the good life means doing good - improving one's community and the lives of others. Others might respond that it means doing well - cultivating one's own abilities in a meaningful way. But for Aristotle these two distinct ideas - doi...
