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Author: Paul Fairfield
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793614822
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 267
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Book Description
Philosophical Reflections on Antiquity: Historical Change addresses the question of whether there is a logic of historical change, and whether the collapse of teleology should deter us from inquiring anew whether any recurring patterns and themes show themselves amid the complexity of historical life. Paul Fairfield argues that if any conception of universal history remains possible, it is one that rejects teleology and causal laws while identifying thematic tendencies that afford some semblance of unity, including the enduring phenomena that are interlocution, the struggle for predominance, and the endless back and forth that play out between them. This book examines the transitional periods of archaic Greece and late antiquity, the ostensible birth and death of the ancient west. Fairfield argues that an interpretation of the social, political, and intellectual history of these important turning points brings to light some philosophical understanding of the dynamics of change itself, observing that the transition from archaic to classical Greece was no miracle, while the end of the Roman era can no longer be conceived as a story of decline and fall. Rather, Fairfield posits, these were not complete breaks, but relative beginnings and endings in narratives that are ongoing. Scholars of philosophy, history, and anthropology will find this book particularly useful.
Author: Paul Fairfield
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793614822
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 267
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Book Description
Philosophical Reflections on Antiquity: Historical Change addresses the question of whether there is a logic of historical change, and whether the collapse of teleology should deter us from inquiring anew whether any recurring patterns and themes show themselves amid the complexity of historical life. Paul Fairfield argues that if any conception of universal history remains possible, it is one that rejects teleology and causal laws while identifying thematic tendencies that afford some semblance of unity, including the enduring phenomena that are interlocution, the struggle for predominance, and the endless back and forth that play out between them. This book examines the transitional periods of archaic Greece and late antiquity, the ostensible birth and death of the ancient west. Fairfield argues that an interpretation of the social, political, and intellectual history of these important turning points brings to light some philosophical understanding of the dynamics of change itself, observing that the transition from archaic to classical Greece was no miracle, while the end of the Roman era can no longer be conceived as a story of decline and fall. Rather, Fairfield posits, these were not complete breaks, but relative beginnings and endings in narratives that are ongoing. Scholars of philosophy, history, and anthropology will find this book particularly useful.
Author: Cinzia Arruzza
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004324623
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 191
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Book Description
Philosophy and Political Power in Antiquity is a collection of essays examining ancient philosophers' reflections on the connection between political power and philosophy. The ancient Greeks both invented political philosophy and were the first to conceptualize the implicit tension between political activity and the contemplative life as found in ideal political institutions and under conditions of repressive rule. These essays examine discussions of these issues within a wide variety of the major schools of antiquity from both interpretive and analytical perspectives. While providing novel approaches to ancient philosophical texts, this volume attests to the importance of political reflection, deliberation, and resistance for ancient thought, and to the enduring strength and relevance of these reflections for contemporary debates within political philosophy.
Author: Geoffrey Lloyd
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191558443
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 234
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Book Description
Geoffrey Lloyd engages in a wide-ranging exploration of what we can learn from the study of ancient civilisations that is relevant to fundamental problems, both intellectual and moral, that we still face today. How far is it possible to arrive at an understanding of alien systems of belief? Is it possible to talk meaningfully of 'science' and of its various constituent disciplines, 'astronomy', 'geography', 'anatomy', and so on, in the ancient world? Are logic and its laws universal? Is there one ontology - a single world - to which all attempts at understanding must be considered to be directed? When we encounter apparently very different views of reality, how far can that be put down to a difference in conceptions of what needs explaining, or of what counts as an explanation, or to different preferred modes of reasoning or styles of inquiry? Do the notions of truth and belief represent reliable cross-cultural universals? In another area, what can ancient history teach us about today's social and political problems? Are the discourses of human nature and of human rights universally applicable? What political institutions do we need to help secure equity and justice within nation states and between them? Lloyd sets out to answer all these questions, and to convince us that the science and culture of ancient Greece and China provide precious resources to advance modern debates.
Author: Boris Vezjak
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527570711
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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Book Description
Thought experiments by ancient philosophers are often open to debate: in what sense did their reasoning really concern thought experimentation? For instance, in Plato’s Republic, Glaucon uses the myth of Gyges to demonstrate why people who practice justice do so unwillingly. A challenge, posed to Socrates and provided through some sort of thought experiment by imagining the effects of using the ring of invisibility, was intended to answer the question of human nature and our basis for the inclination towards justice or injustice. This collection expands the current, but rare, topic of whether it is possible to articulate a discussion about thought experiments and their arguments from the historical perspective of philosophy and science. It may sometimes seem that, in a loose sense, any philosophical reflection can already be interpreted as some form of thought experiment. Although the functions of it are very diverse and complex, and often closely linked to other cognitive tools, such as visualization, imagination or idealization, the contributions in this book provide new insights into how the concept of a thought experiment coincides with more modern perceptions. The purpose of the book is to show how philosophers, already in antiquity, began to use thought experiments and argumentation to convey theories in an accessible manner and how philosophical hypotheses, often being subjective and impossible to prove through empirical evidence, helped to promote scientific knowledge and discoveries. Different authors develop several lines of argumentation, claiming that philosophical thinking can be understood by comparing it to scientific experimenting, or vice versa: if empirical evidence is usually necessary for science, thought experiments may be used to develop a hypothesis or to prepare for experimentation. The analysis of historical examples of thought experiments might also contribute to a better understanding of philosophical endeavour in antiquity as a whole.
Author: Pierre Hadot
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674013735
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 390
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Book Description
Hadot shows how the schools, trends, and ideas of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy strove to transform the individual's mode of perceiving and being in the world. For the ancients, philosophical theory and the philosophical way of life were inseparably linked. Hadot asks us to consider whether and how this connection might be reestablished today.
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004429565
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 358
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Book Description
The essays in Eastern Christianity and Late Antique Philosophy provide valuable insights into the central role of philosophical ideas in a period when paganism was in decline and Eastern Christians were forging their community identities.
Author: John M. Cooper
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069115970X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 458
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Book Description
This is a major reinterpretation of ancient philosophy that recovers the long Greek and Roman tradition of philosophy as a complete way of life--and not simply an intellectual discipline. Distinguished philosopher John Cooper traces how, for many ancient thinkers, philosophy was not just to be studied or even used to solve particular practical problems. Rather, philosophy--not just ethics but even logic and physical theory--was literally to be lived. Yet there was great disagreement about how to live philosophically: philosophy was not one but many, mutually opposed, ways of life. Examining this tradition from its establishment by Socrates in the fifth century BCE through Plotinus in the third century CE and the eclipse of pagan philosophy by Christianity, Pursuits of Wisdom examines six central philosophies of living--Socratic, Aristotelian, Stoic, Epicurean, Skeptic, and the Platonist life of late antiquity. The book describes the shared assumptions that allowed these thinkers to conceive of their philosophies as ways of life, as well as the distinctive ideas that led them to widely different conclusions about the best human life. Clearing up many common misperceptions and simplifications, Cooper explains in detail the Socratic devotion to philosophical discussion about human nature, human life, and human good; the Aristotelian focus on the true place of humans within the total system of the natural world; the Stoic commitment to dutifully accepting Zeus's plans; the Epicurean pursuit of pleasure through tranquil activities that exercise perception, thought, and feeling; the Skeptical eschewal of all critical reasoning in forming their beliefs; and, finally, the late Platonist emphasis on spiritual concerns and the eternal realm of Being. Pursuits of Wisdom is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding what the great philosophers of antiquity thought was the true purpose of philosophy--and of life.
Author: Geoffrey Ernest Richard Lloyd
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 222
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Book Description
Geoffrey Lloyd engages in a wide-ranging exploration of what we can learn from the study of ancient civilizations that is relevant to fundamental problems, both intellectual and moral, that we still face today.
Author: Lloyd P. Gerson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316175936
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 1584
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Book Description
The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity comprises over forty specially commissioned essays by experts on the philosophy of the period 200–800 CE. Designed as a successor to The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy (edited by A. H. Armstrong), it takes into account some forty years of scholarship since the publication of that volume. The contributors examine philosophy as it entered literature, science and religion, and offer new and extensive assessments of philosophers who until recently have been mostly ignored. The volume also includes a complete digest of all philosophical works known to have been written during this period. It will be an invaluable resource for all those interested in this rich and still emerging field.
Author: James Nicholas Jordan
Publisher: Pearson
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 516
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Book Description
Twenty-six hundred years ago, among the Ionian Greeks, there arose the kind of reasoned inquiry after truth that characterizes philosophy in Western civilization. A path with many twists and turns (and desolate stretches as well) is traceable from this ancient beginning to the types of philosophy pursued in the West today. The aim of the present volume is to acquaint the reader with landmarks along this path as far as the end of the Middle Ages, until about 1350, when the Renaissance began its work of shaping the modern era. Western philosophers of the Ancient and Medieval periods have had great influence not only upon later philosophers but also upon the general culture of the West. Politics, religion, the arts, the sciences, the very notions that pass for common sense -- all have been complexly affected, directly and indirectly, by the philosophical methods and findings of Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Plotinus, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Ockham, and others to be examined herein. Some knowledge of these thinkers is essential to any real understanding of the whys and wherefores of Western cultural history. Moreover, because most of the philosophicl issues investigated in modern times first came up in Ancient or Medieval discussions, a grasp of the latter is necessary to a just estimate of more recent discussions and to an avoidance of blind alleys and delayed insights in one's own philosophical reflections. It is also true that the ideas and intellectual careers of Ancient and Medieval philosophers are matters of absorbing interest on their own account. Simply as personalities these thinkers are extraordinary, and their respective contributions toward overcoming the "reign of chaos and old night" are among the noblest of human achievements. - Introductory note.
