Hellenistic and Later Ancient Philosophy

The Cynic exhortation to live according to nature is far from transparent. I defend a traditional interpretation: to live in accordance with nature is to live in accordance with human nature, which is to live as a rational animal. After discussing methodological concerns, I consider the theriophilic proposal that the ideal Cynic lives like an animal. I marshal evidence against this view and in favor of the alternative of Cynics as rational animals. Finally, I anticipate and address the concern that (...) mine is an unduly idealized and Stoicized account. (shrink)

Este capítulo se propõe a analisar os fundamentos utilizados por Aristóteles (2006) para justificar a escravidão. Para isso, é tomada como chave de leitura a categorização das atividades humanas fundamentais proposta por Hannah Arendt (2008). A escravidão no mundo grego antigo era tida como uma forma de liberar o cidadão dos afazeres domésticos e do trabalho para que pudesse ter ócio e, assim, dedicar-se às atividades entre seus iguais, sobretudo à política.

The volume studies, from different perspectives, the relationship between ancient thought and biopolitics, that is, theories, discourses, and practices in which the biological life of human populations becomes the focal point of political government. It thus continues and deepens the critical examination, in recent literature, of Michel Foucault's claim concerning the essentially modern character of biopolitics. The nine contributions comprised in the volume explore and utilize the notions of biopolitics and biopower as conceptual tools for articulating the differences and continuities (...) between antiquity and modernity and for narrating Western intellectual and political history in general. Without committing itself to any particular thesis or approach, the volume evaluates both the relevance of ancient thought for the concept and theory of biopolitics and the relevance of biopolitical theory and ideas for the study of ancient thought. The volume is divided into three main parts: part I studies instances of biopolitics in ancient thought; part II focuses on aspects of ancient thought that elude or transcend biopolitics; and part III discusses several modern interpretations of ancient thought in the context of biopolitical theory. (shrink)

In this chapter, I explore Seneca’s characterization of becoming and being good, wise, or virtuous, which for a Stoic always amount to the same thing. There is one passage in which Seneca says it is an ars to become good; in another, he says wisdom is an ars, namely an ars vitae. If one bears in mind that wisdom in Stoic philosophy stands for the best possible moral state of character a human being can develop, Seneca’s remarks cannot but attract (...) our attention: it is an ars to become good and an ars to be good. Since it is natural to regard becoming and being (good) as two different things, it is natural to assume that the ars of the person who is striving after virtue (the proficiens) cannot be identical to the ars of the person who already is virtuous. I want to ask what the difference is. (shrink)

In the midst of the renewed interest of philosophers and scholars in Classical Antiquity, the Italian Quattrocento bears testimony to the discovery, study and translation of many works from the Greek Patristic tradition, which nurture the humanists’ desire for a Poetic Theology and a new Anthropology. In that context, some of Gregory of Nyssa’s texts that had remained unknown to the West during the Medieval period receive their first Latin translations, made by prominent representatives of the Italian and Byzantine cultures. (...) Arrived in Calabria early in the XVth century, the monk Athanasius Chalkéopoulos, who became bishop of Gerace and a close collaborator in the Roman Academy of Bessarion, translates Nyssen’s De oratione dominica and dedicates it to Pope Paul II. We present a critical edition of his version in this same volume. Here we will analyse the way in which the Byzantine translator pours into Latin the most interesting anthropological passages of Gregory of Nyssa’s homilies, which contain themes very dear to Renaissance humanists. Based on numerous conceptual affinities and on the marginal annotations to an Italian autograph copy by Chalkéopoulos himself, today at the National Library of Madrid, we will consider the possible reception of Gregory’s treatise by the count Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, on such topics as assimilation to God and spiritual ascent, freedom from necessity and the creativity of free choice, the nature of human conflicts and their inner pacification, the problem of evil and the image of the serpent. (shrink)

Books and journal articles have become the dominant modes of presentation in contemporary philosophy. This historically contingent paradigm prioritises textual expression and assumes a distinction between philosophical practice and its presented product. Using Socrates and Diogenes as exemplars, we challenge the presumed supremacy of the text and defend the importance of ways of life as modes of practiced presentation. We argue that text cannot capture the embodied activity of philosophy without remainder, and is therefore limited and incomplete. In particular, we (...) contend that a static text is essentially alienated from our practices of philosophising, words cannot unambiguously represent lives, and practiced presentation enriches our understanding beyond words alone. After discussing some pedagogical implications, we conclude with a plea for a pluralistic approach that recognises lives as legitimate and valuable modes of philosophical presentation. (shrink)

Ancient ethics was an exercise of good life. This study examines how this is reflected in the forms of speech that ancient ethics developed. It is shown that, in antiquity, discursive practices were not considered neutral methods of ethical thinking but rather ways of life to be cultivated as ethical practices in their own right. This book describes central aspects of this ethical culture of speech from the times of the sophists and Socrates up to hellenistic philosophy.

У овом раду ћемо анализирати неке темељне тријадолошке појмове богословља Кападокијских Отаца, и покушати да докажемо да из њиховог учења произилази специфична релациона онтологија. Показаћемо да ипостас не може да буде редукована на партикуларну природу са својствима, пошто су ипостасна својства Свете Тројице сводива једино на стварност односа. Јединствена ипостасна својства, која се означавају као нерођеност, рођеност и исхођење, представљају начин постојања (τρὁπος ἠπαρξεως) конкретних Личности, и јесу називи за однос (σχέσις) који те Личности међусобно имају. У истом кључу треба (...) да буде схваћено и учење о монархији Оца, односно о Оцу као извору Божијег јединства и једности. (shrink)

U ovom tekstu ćemo istražiti na koji način i na kojoj osnovi je ideja napredovanja doživela svoju transformaciju u neoplatonizmu i hrišćanskoj teologiji. Pokazaćemo da se elementi ove ideje javljaju kod Plotina i pojedinih patrističkih autora, ali da je konačno uobličenje i razradu doživela prvenstveno u delu svetog Grigorija Niskog, koji je priznat kao najzaslužniji za njeno postuliranje.

ABSTRACT In his 1981–82 lectures The Hermeneutics of the Subject, Michel Foucault claims that a significant portion of the modern historiography of ancient philosophy tends to discredit the ethical framework of epimeleia heautou. The thematic analysis of knowledge in the historiography of ancient philosophy overshadows the theme of care of the self. Taking Foucault’s claim as a point of departure, the aim of this paper is twofold. First, the paper provides a genealogy of the early Hellenistic Academy, from Polemo to (...) Arcesilaus. Second, the paper demonstrates that for Arcesilaus, the alleged pioneer of what modern historiography has designated the Academy’s epistemological scepticism, philosophy is not restricted to a continual search for knowledge at a theoretically rarefied level of challenging arguments or discursive statements. This paper situates Arcesilaus’ opposition to early Stoic epistemology within the framework of Academic epimeleia heautou, and defends the thesis that under Arcesilaus the Hellenistic Academy undergoes a shift in the practice of care of the self. (shrink)

This paper critically examines the use of the name 'Pseudo-Archytas' to refer to two aspects of the reception of Archytas of Tarentum in antiquity: the 'author-inflection' and the 'authority-inflection'. In order to make progress on our understanding of authority and authorship within the Pythagorean tradition, it attempts to reconstruct Porphyry's views on the importance of Archytas as guarantor of Pythagorean authenticity in the former's lost work On the History of the Philosophers by considering a fragment preserved in Arabic by Ibn (...) Abī Uṣaybi‘a. The article finally argues that a range of problems attend our use of the term 'pseudo-Archytas', which is not fit for purpose when considering the evidence regarding authorship and authority in the Pythagorean tradition. It recommends a more critical approach to the notion of authenticity within the Pythagorean tradition and suggests a new term, 'Archytism', as a more useful point of reference. (shrink)

This is a big book. Literally. Each of its almost 800 pages is 6.75” x 9.75” (rather than the somewhat more usual 5.75” x 8.75” sized page of an academic hardcover book), with words in a small font and short margins all-around. It would appear that the publisher used a number of production tricks to squeeze in as many words as possible. Which is understandable because Politics & Philosophy at Rome contains the collected papers (mostly published, but several unpublished) of (...) Miriam T. Griffin, one of the biggest and most important Anglophone scholars of Roman philosophy, who passed away shortly before the book was completed in 2018. Students of Cicero, Tacitus, and Seneca are especially in debt to her for the rigorous and richly contextualized studies she has produced of their ethical, historical, and political works. And all students of ancient Rome are in debt for the republication of fifty of her papers, which range over three areas (and are organized into three subsections in the book). The first part of the book includes ten papers on Roman history (in both the republican and imperial periods). The second part of the book includes seven published papers, five unpublished lectures, and three “occasional pieces” on Roman historiography (especially in the case of Tacitus). A third and final section of the book includes 25 papers on Roman politics and philosophy (which includes almost 400 pages of material). (shrink)

This volume consists of fourteen essays in honor of Daniel Devereux on the themes of love, friendship, and wisdom in Plato, Aristotle, and the Epicureans. Philia (friendship) and eros (love) are topics of major philosophical interest in ancient Greek philosophy. They are also topics of growing interest and importance in contemporary philosophy, much of which is inspired by ancient discussions. Philosophy is itself, of course, a special sort of love, viz. the love of wisdom. Loving in the right way is (...) very closely connected to doing philosophy, cultivating wisdom, and living well. The first nine essays run the gamut of Plato's philosophical career. They include discussions of Plato's Alcibiades, Euthydemus, Gorgias, Phaedo, Phaedrus, and Symposium; and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, Protrepticus and Magna Moralia. It ends with a discussion of Epicurean friendship. (shrink)

Many of the philosophical treatises which Cicero wrote in the last years of his life quote, discuss, and debate the various doctrines and philosophical systems of the Hellenistic schools of philosophy. Although Cicero sometimes represents himself as only translating or reproducing Greek ideas for a Latin or Roman audience, his actual philosophical practice is much more subtle and varies from treatise to treatise. In some treatises, such as On the Nature of the Gods or Tusculan Disputations, Cicero incorporates the views (...) of the Hellenistic schools into a philosophical presentation oriented by the methodology of the New Academy, which sought to call into question the dogmas of those schools. In other treatises, such as On Duty, Cicero philosophizes in light of Hellenistic views, but he does so critically and discriminately, arriving at a novel philosophical position which is responsive to the intellectual predicaments occasioned by the collapse of the Roman Republic. (shrink)

This contribution argues that the physiological and psychological chapters of Nemesius of Emesa’s highly influential conspectus of late-antique anthropology, De natura hominis, are not random memoranda on the human organism or disjecta membra extracted from a range of late-antique sources. On the contrary, it is claimed here that De natura hominis 6-28, in which the medical anthropology of the Platonic–Galenic tradition comes to the fore, mark a decisive phase in the argument of Nemesius’ text. The human is defined by Nemesius (...) as the only living being which is at once ruler and ruled. In De natura hominis 6-28, this image of humankind is given an anatomical proof. (shrink)

The revised and polished version of Inwood’s 2011 Carl Newell Jackson at Harvard University, Ethics after Aristotle surveys the ethical teachings of the original “neo-Aristotelians,” namely those self-identified (although not always named) members of the Peripatetic school from the time of Theophrastus (fl. 300 BCE) until that of Alexander of Aphrodisias (fl. 200 CE). An initial chapter surveys the sorts of problems in Aristotle’s ethical corpus which would generate subsequent debate amongst members of the Peripatetic school. Chapter Two examines the (...) views of “Magnus,” the name which Inwood gives to the anonymous 3rd century author of the Magna Moralia (which Inwood takes to be pseudo-Aristotle), and those of Strato of Lampsacus, Lycon, and Hieronymus, 3rd century heads of the Peripatetic school, all of whom show the influences of Epicureanism in their re-articulations of Aristotelian positions. Chapter Three, entitled “The Turning Point,” finds in the work of Critolaus—head of the Peripatetic school in the middle of the 2nd century BCE—a move away from the centrality of activity within Aristotelian ethical thought, which Critolaus instead replaces with the notion of possessing specific goods, namely those of the body, the soul, and what is external. The same chapter argues that at approximately the same historical point Cicero, in the character of Piso in De finibus, articulated an account of Peripatetic ethics that was far more faithful to 4th century Aristotelianism. The final two chapters focus on neo-Aristotelian ethical philosophizing within a new and explicitly Roman cultural setting. (shrink)