Download or read book The Ethics of the Family in Seneca written by Liz Gloyn and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the vital role played by the family in Stoic ideas of moral development found in Seneca's philosophical writing.
Download or read book The Ethics of the Family in Seneca written by Liz Gloyn and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-15 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Model mothers -- A band of brothers -- The mystery of marriage -- The desirable contest between fathers and sons -- The imperfect imperial family -- Rewriting the family
Download or read book The Ethics of the Family in Seneca written by Elizabeth A. Gloyn and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seneca, a Roman philosopher of the first century AD, provides our best source for understanding Stoicism under the early Roman empire. Seneca's writing focuses heavily on the family, especially the consolations addressed to people mourning the loss of relatives. My dissertation focuses on family relationships in Seneca's philosophical writing. I seek to explain how Seneca's emphasis on correct familial conduct is not only compatible with the sage's self-sufficiency, but enriches our understanding of how the Stoic wise man attains virtue. I argue that throughout his philosophical works, Seneca demonstrates the importance of the family to the sage as a resource for moral development. Chapter I considers the nature of motherhood and a mother's relationship to her children. Through two case studies, we see that a mother provides her children with the model from which one may learn how to become a Stoic sage. Chapter II turns to the "Consolation to Polybius" and examines the relationship between brothers. Seneca reminds Polybius of his duty to his surviving brothers, and of the supportive network they provide him in his grief for his biological brother's death. Chapter III examines Seneca's conception of marriage as a site of stability and a relationship which should result in a couple's mutual progress towards virtue. It includes the first discussion in English of the fragmentary evidence for Seneca's "On Marriage". Chapter IV examines how Seneca uses the imperial family as an example of how not to act within familial relationships. Their failings remind the reader that only the Stoic sage is capable of virtue; worldly power does not lead to moral perfection. Chapter V considers the picture of family relationships found in the "Moral Epistles". Seneca writes for a philosophically-inclined reader, and so focuses on helping the reader acquire a virtuous disposition. However, he does not omit the practical implications of Stoic virtue for the family. He introduces discussion of familial topics as the collection progresses and the reader advances on the path to becoming a Stoic wise man. Even this work, which primarily discusses the sage's internal disposition, ultimately reconciles the sage with his family.
Download or read book The Ethics of the Family in Seneca written by Liz Gloyn and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-15 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first extensive study of the role of the family in the work of Seneca. It offers a new way of reading philosophy that combines philosophical analysis with social, cultural and historical factors to bring out the ways in which Stoicism presents itself as in tune with the universe. The family serves a central role in an individual's moral development - both the family as conventionally understood, and the wider conceptual family which Stoicism constructs. Innovative readings of Seneca's work bring out the importance of the family to his thought and how it interacts with other Stoic doctrines. We learn how to be virtuous from observing and imitating our family, who can be biological relatives or people we choose as our intellectual ancestors. The Ethics of the Family in Seneca will be of particular interest to researchers in Roman Stoicism, imperial culture and the history of the family.
Download or read book Letters on Ethics written by Lucius Annaeus Seneca and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-11-20 with total page 633 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An exceptionally accessible” new translation of “the lively and urgent writings of one of classical antiquity’s most important ethicists” (Choice). The Roman statesman and philosopher Seneca (4 BCE–65 CE) recorded his moral philosophy and reflections on life as a highly original kind of correspondence. Letters on Ethics includes vivid descriptions of town and country life in Nero’s Italy, discussions of poetry and oratory, and philosophical training for Seneca’s friend Lucilius. This volume, the first complete English translation in nearly a century, makes the Letters more accessible than ever before. Written as much for a general audience as for Lucilius, these engaging letters offer advice on how to deal with everything from nosy neighbors to sickness, pain, and death. Seneca uses the informal format of the letter to present the central ideas of Stoicism, for centuries the most influential philosophical system in the Mediterranean world. His lively and at times humorous expositions have made the Letters his most popular work and an enduring classic. Including an introduction and explanatory notes by Margaret Graver and A. A. Long, this authoritative edition will captivate a new generation of readers.
Download or read book The Role Ethics of Epictetus written by Brian E. Johnson and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2013-12-04 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Role Ethics of Epictetus: Stoicism in Ordinary Life offers an original interpretation of Epictetus’s ethics and how he bases his ethics on an appeal to our roles in life. Epictetus believes that every individual is the bearer of many roles from sibling to citizen and that individuals are morally good if they fulfill the obligations associated with these roles. To understand Epictetus’s account of roles, scholars have often mistakenly looked backwards to Cicero’s earlier and more schematic account of roles. However, for Cicero, roles are merely a tool in the service of the virtue of decorum where decorum is one of the four canonical virtues—prudence, justice, greatness of spirit, and decorum. In contrast, Epictetus sets those virtues aside and offers roles as a complete ethical theory that does the work of those canonical virtues. This book elucidates the unique features of Epictetus’s role based ethics. First, individuals have many roles and these roles are substantial enough that they may conflict. Second, although Epictetus is often taken to have only a sparse theory of appropriate action (or “duty” in older translations), Brian E. Johnson examines the criteria by which appropriate action is measured in order to demonstrate that Epictetus does have an account of appropriate action and that it is grounded in his account of roles. Finally, Epictetus downplays the Stoic ideal of the sage and replaces that figure with role-bound individuals who are supposed to inspire each of us to meet the challenges of our own roles. Instead of looking to sages, who have a perfect knowledge and action that we must imitate, Epictetus’s new ethical heroes are those we do not imitate in terms of knowledge or action, but simply in the way they approach the challenges of their roles. The analysis found in The Role Ethics of Epictetus will be of great value both to students and scholars of ancient philosophy, ethics and moral philosophy, history, classics, and theology, and to the educated reader who admires Epictetus.
Download or read book Seneca Moral and Political Essays written by Lucius Annaeus Seneca and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1995-06-22 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume offers clear and forceful contemporary translations of the most important of Seneca's 'Moral Essays': On Anger, On Mercy, On the Private Life and the first four books of On Favours. They give an attractive, full picture of the social and moral outlook of an ancient Stoic thinker intimately involved in the governance of the Roman empire in the mid first century of the Christian era. A general introduction describes Seneca's life and career and explains the fundamental ideas underlying the Stoic moral, social and political philosophy that informs the essays. Individual introductions, footnotes and biographical notes place the essays in their historical and philosophical contexts, and further assistance to students is provided by section headings in the translations which organize the principal transitions in the argument and the more unfamiliar aspects of Seneca's writing.
Download or read book Reading Seneca written by Brad Inwood and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2005-06-16 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brad Inwood presents a selection of his most influential essays on the philosophy of Seneca, the Roman Stoic thinker, statesman, and tragedian of the first century AD. Including two brand-new pieces, and a helpful introduction to orient the reader, this volume will be an essential guide for anyone seeking to understand Seneca's fertile, wide-ranging thought and its impact on subsequent generations. In each of these essays Seneca is considered as a philosopher, but with as much account as possible taken of his life, his education, his intellectual and literary background, his career, and his self-presentation as an author. Seneca emerges as a discerning and well-read Stoic, with a strong inclination to think for himself in the context of an intellectual climate teeming with influences from other schools. Seneca's intellectual engagement with Platonism, Aristotelianism, and even with Epicureanism involved a wide range of substantial philosophical interests and concerns. His philosophy was indeed shaped by the fact that he was a Roman, but he was a true philosopher shaped by his culture rather than a Roman writer trying his hand at philosophical themes. The highly rhetorical character of his writing must be accounted for when reading his works, and when one does so the underlying philosophical themes stand out more clearly. While it is hard to generalize about an overall intellectual agenda or systematic philosophical method, key themes and strategies are evident. Inwood shows how Seneca's philosophical ingenium worked itself out in a fundamentally particularistic way as he pursued those aspects of Stoicism that engaged him most forcefully over his career.
Download or read book Philosophy and Community in Seneca s Prose written by Carey Seal and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Today philosophy's promises to enhance the lives of those who study it are couched, like justifications for the humanistic disciplines more generally, in circumspect terms. In the ancient world, however, philosophy commonly claimed for itself the status of an exclusive guide to happiness. Through philosophy's characteristic practices of argument and rational inquiry, its advocates believed, human beings could learn what was really good for themselves and free themselves from illusion. In the process, they would necessarily come to lead happier lives. This link between learning and action meant that philosophy was often regarded as an entire way of life, in which intellectual activity and practice were closely associated and mutually interdependent. Nowhere else in ancient literature is this ideal given such full and nuanced exposition as in the prose writings of Seneca, in which we can see a philosopher and literary artist of the first rank exploring in detail the dilemmas posed by the confrontation of the idea of the philosophical life with the historical and cultural specificity of the first-century CE Rome in which he wrote. His vast prose oeuvre defends, elaborates, and aims to make appealing this ideal of a life guided by disciplined thought. He is unequivocal about the necessary centrality of philosophy to any attempt at living a good life: philosophy, he writes, "shapes and forges the mind, it puts life in order, it directs actions, it points out what is to be done and what is not to be done, it sits at the helm and steers a course through the hazards of the waves" (animum format et fabricat, vitam disponit, actiones regit, agenda et omittenda demonstrat, sedet ad gubernaculum et per ancipitia fluctuantium derigit cursum, Ep. 16.3). A successful life, for Seneca as for many other ancient philosophers, is governed by, indeed constituted by, the practice of philosophy. His rich and varied corpus, I argue, presents us with a unique opportunity to learn how one reflective and well-informed ancient philosopher reconciled this ideal of philosophical living, and all the aspirations to independence and universality that come with it, to the fact that he and his readers were living in a sociopolitical setting with its own set of norms and customs. These customs, and the claims of community more generally, stand in potential contradiction with the practical guidance philosophy aims to supply. For Seneca, as we will see, this tension was a prodigiously fruitful one. Recent work has rehabilitated Seneca's standing as a major philosopher"--
Download or read book Seneca s Morals of a Happy Life Benefits Anger and Clemency written by Lucius Annaeus Seneca and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2022-05-28 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seneca's Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency is a work by Seneca. The author was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman and dramatist who here presents his moral philosophy.
Download or read book Dying Every Day written by James Romm and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2014-03-11 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From acclaimed classical historian, author of Ghost on the Throne (“Gripping . . . the narrative verve of a born writer and the erudition of a scholar” —Daniel Mendelsohn) and editor of The Landmark Arrian:The Campaign of Alexander (“Thrilling” —The New York Times Book Review), a high-stakes drama full of murder, madness, tyranny, perversion, with the sweep of history on the grand scale. At the center, the tumultuous life of Seneca, ancient Rome’s preeminent writer and philosopher, beginning with banishment in his fifties and subsequent appointment as tutor to twelve-year-old Nero, future emperor of Rome. Controlling them both, Nero’s mother, Julia Agrippina the Younger, Roman empress, great-granddaughter of the Emperor Augustus, sister of the Emperor Caligula, niece and fourth wife of Emperor Claudius. James Romm seamlessly weaves together the life and written words, the moral struggles, political intrigue, and bloody vengeance that enmeshed Seneca the Younger in the twisted imperial family and the perverse, paranoid regime of Emperor Nero, despot and madman. Romm writes that Seneca watched over Nero as teacher, moral guide, and surrogate father, and, at seventeen, when Nero abruptly ascended to become emperor of Rome, Seneca, a man never avid for political power became, with Nero, the ruler of the Roman Empire. We see how Seneca was able to control his young student, how, under Seneca’s influence, Nero ruled with intelligence and moderation, banned capital punishment, reduced taxes, gave slaves the right to file complaints against their owners, pardoned prisoners arrested for sedition. But with time, as Nero grew vain and disillusioned, Seneca was unable to hold sway over the emperor, and between Nero’s mother, Agrippina—thought to have poisoned her second husband, and her third, who was her uncle (Claudius), and rumored to have entered into an incestuous relationship with her son—and Nero’s father, described by Suetonius as a murderer and cheat charged with treason, adultery, and incest, how long could the young Nero have been contained? Dying Every Day is a portrait of Seneca’s moral struggle in the midst of madness and excess. In his treatises, Seneca preached a rigorous ethical creed, exalting heroes who defied danger to do what was right or embrace a noble death. As Nero’s adviser, Seneca was presented with a more complex set of choices, as the only man capable of summoning the better aspect of Nero’s nature, yet, remaining at Nero’s side and colluding in the evil regime he created. Dying Every Day is the first book to tell the compelling and nightmarish story of the philosopher-poet who was almost a king, tied to a tyrant—as Seneca, the paragon of reason, watched his student spiral into madness and whose descent saw five family murders, the Fire of Rome, and a savage purge that destroyed the supreme minds of the Senate’s golden age.
Download or read book Oxford Handbook of Epicurus and Epicureanism written by Phillip Mitsis and published by Oxford Handbooks. This book was released on 2020 with total page 848 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume offers authoritative discussions of all aspects of the philosophy of Epicurus (340-271 BCE) and then traces Epicurean influences throughout the Western tradition. It is an unmatched resource for those wishing to deepen their knowledge of Epicureanism's powerful arguments about death, happiness, and the nature of the material world.
Download or read book Seneca written by Lucius Annaeus Senenca and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2021-11-16 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A selection of Seneca’s most significant letters that illuminate his philosophical and personal life. “There is only one course of action that can make you happy. . . . rejoice in what is yours. What is it that is yours? Yourself; the best part of you.” In the year 62, citing health issues, the Roman philosopher Seneca withdrew from public service and devoted his time to writing. His letters from this period offer a window onto his experience as a landowner, a traveler, and a man coping with the onset of old age. They share his ideas on everything from the treatment of enslaved people to the perils of seafaring, and they provide lucid explanations for many key points of Stoic philosophy. This selection of fifty letters brings out the essentials of Seneca’s thought, with much that speaks directly to the modern reader. Above all, they explore the inner life of the individual who proceeds through philosophical inquiry from a state of emotional turmoil to true friendship, self-determination, and personal excellence.
Download or read book Seneca s Moral epistles written by Lucius Annaeus Seneca and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seneca's Moral Epistles offers an intriguing selection in unadapted Latin of 40 letters of Seneca on philosophical and practical topics ranging from the lofty ("On Integrating Knowledge" and "God Within You") to the nitty-gritty: debauchery at resort baths ("Baiae and Vice") and the woes of over-training ("Against Strenuous Physical Exercise"). These letters provide a fascinating glimpse into the daily life of Rome in the Empire and one man's contemplation of it. Seneca's is a Roman voice not often heard: he condemns slavery, and denounces the gladiatorial combats and the excesses for which the Roman Empire became notorious. Living in an era of corruption and tyranny, Seneca came forth as a "physician of souls," eager to impart ethical and moral precepts that would enable his fellow men to overcome their weaknesses and attain true happiness, and offer significant ethical concepts to St. Paul. Seneca's Moral Epistles is an excellent introduction to Seneca's stoic moral and practical philosophy for intermediate and advanced students of Latin. This redesigned reprint of the 1985 Scholar's Press edition is an attractive, affordable, and user-friendly edition. --Publisher description.
Download or read book How to Be a Stoic written by Massimo Pigliucci and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2018-05-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of How to Live and How Proust Can Change Your Life, a philosopher asks how ancient Stoicism can help us flourish today Whenever we worry about what to eat, how to love, or simply how to be happy, we are worrying about how to lead a good life. No goal is more elusive. In How to Be a Stoic, philosopher Massimo Pigliucci offers Stoicism, the ancient philosophy that inspired the great emperor Marcus Aurelius, as the best way to attain it. Stoicism is a pragmatic philosophy that focuses our attention on what is possible and gives us perspective on what is unimportant. By understanding Stoicism, we can learn to answer crucial questions: Should we get married or divorced? How should we handle our money in a world nearly destroyed by a financial crisis? How can we survive great personal tragedy? Whoever we are, Stoicism has something for us--and How to Be a Stoic is the essential guide.
Download or read book Moral Essays De providentia De constantia De ira De clementia written by Lucius Annaeus Seneca and published by . This book was released on 1928 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Dialogues and Essays written by Lucius Annaeus Seneca and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-09-11 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stoic philosopher and tutor to the young emperor Nero, Seneca wrote moral essays - exercises in practical philosophy - on how to live in a troubled world. Strikingly applicable today, his thoughts on happiness and other subjects are here combined in a clear, modern translation with an introduction on Seneca's life and philosophy.
