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Sex, Love, and Marriage In Pagan Philosophy and the Use Of Catharsis

Richard Sorabji

in Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation

In ancient philosophy, sex, being in love (erôs), marriage, and rearing children each got advocated in separation from the others. Moreover, a good form of erôs got distinguished from one or two bad ... More

In ancient philosophy, sex, being in love (erôs), marriage, and rearing children each got advocated in separation from the others. Moreover, a good form of erôs got distinguished from one or two bad forms, most influentially by Plato's Socrates. The Stoics agree and so are able to advocate a good form of erôs as not emotional, namely being led by beauty to make friends in order to inculcate virtue. The Epicureans are against erôs and in most circumstances against marriage. Sex would be alright as a palliative, if it did not lead to illusion, harm, and pain, so casual sex is better. Among the Neoplatonists, Porphyry wants the philosopher to avoid anything that might even arouse sexual desire, but Iamblichus rebukes him: erotic rituals for ordinary people provide Aristotelian catharsis.Less

Emotion As Cognitive and Its Therapy

Richard Sorabji

in Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation

The idea of philosophy as psychotherapy goes back to 5th century BCE Presocratics. All ancient philosophers regard emotions as involving cognition in some way, though the point is hidden in Gorgias. ... More

The idea of philosophy as psychotherapy goes back to 5th century BCE Presocratics. All ancient philosophers regard emotions as involving cognition in some way, though the point is hidden in Gorgias. In the 4th century BCE, Plato's Socrates goes so far as to say that fear actually is expectation of harm, but that intellectualist treatment of an emotion was not further developed until the Stoics. Aristotle discusses emotion in psychology, logic, ethics, rhetoric, and poetics. The last two contexts are inter-related and require close attention to the content of thoughts, but he does not yet contrast appearance with judgement, like the Stoics. The Epicureans recognize the role of cognition and even of unconscious beliefs. But this book focuses more on the Stoics, because they took the subject much further forward, and had a huge influence on philosophers, including the Christians.Less

Kantian Unsocial Sociability: Good Out of Evil

J. B. Schneewind

in Essays on the History of Moral Philosophy

Commenting on the Fourth Proposition in Kant's ‘Idea for a Universal History’, this chapter discusses earlier ideas of sociability to bring out the originality of Kant's notion of ‘unsocial ... More

Commenting on the Fourth Proposition in Kant's ‘Idea for a Universal History’, this chapter discusses earlier ideas of sociability to bring out the originality of Kant's notion of ‘unsocial sociability’. The Epicureans, the Stoics, Grotius, Hobbes, Pufendorf, Mandeville, Hutcheson, and Rousseau are among those mentioned. Kant sees our unsocial sociability as a spur to individual and social improvement. What makes sociability so difficult for us, Kant thinks, is the radical evil in the human will, which perversely leads us to freely choose what we ought to avoid.Less

The Sceptics

TERENCE IRWIN

in The Development of Ethics: Volume 1: From Socrates to the Reformation

The most extensive evidence on Sceptical argument about ethics comes from Sextus Empiricus, writing in the second century AD. Sextus describes his ... More

The most extensive evidence on Sceptical argument about ethics comes from Sextus Empiricus, writing in the second century AD. Sextus describes his outlook as ‘Pyrrhonian’, referring to Pyrrhon, who lived around 360 to 270 BC, and hence was a contemporary of Aristotle, Zeno, and Epicurus. It is reasonable to discuss Scepticism between Aristotle and the Epicureans and Stoics. Even if the specific Sceptical arguments in Sextus were formulated long after the lifetime of Aristotle, it is useful to see how they emerge naturally from arguments and claims in Plato and Aristotle. Moreover, both the Epicureans and the Stoics regard their views as offering replies to Sceptical objections. Sextus' ethical arguments often apply to ethics some of the argumentative techniques that rest on his general epistemological assumptions. The chapter sketches some influential Sceptical ideas that raise questions about the prospects of constructive moral philosophy and about the outlook that replaces it for a Sceptic. Some of Sextus' arguments also anticipate arguments in modern philosophy against moral objectivity.Less

The Case for Infinite Divisibility

Thomas Holden

in The Architecture of Matter: Galileo to Kant

Documents and examines the main arguments for the infinite divisibility of space found in the early modern literature (in figures such as Descartes, Hobbes, and Kant). Also surveys the criticisms of ... More

Documents and examines the main arguments for the infinite divisibility of space found in the early modern literature (in figures such as Descartes, Hobbes, and Kant). Also surveys the criticisms of these arguments found among the small group of so‐called ‘ungeometrical philosophers’ (including Berkeley and neo‐Epicureans like Gassendi). In assessing this debate, explores the rival rationalist and empiricist accounts of the epistemology of geometry in early modern philosophy. In the end, argues that the case for infinite divisibility falls short: no a priori argument can show that space is infinitely divisible.Less

Life as Play, Life as a Play: Montaigne and the Epicureans

Phillip Mitsis

in Classical Constructions: Papers in Memory of Don Fowler, Classicist and Epicurean

This chapter begins with a passage from Montaigne’s Essays and the use that it makes of Lucretius, and concentrates on is its image of life as a play. It is interested in the way that the passage ... More

This chapter begins with a passage from Montaigne’s Essays and the use that it makes of Lucretius, and concentrates on is its image of life as a play. It is interested in the way that the passage gives voice to a deeper set of conceptual tensions that can be found in our thinking about death generally — tensions, for instance, between our expectations for complete lives and the suspicion that any such plans are likely to prove illusory, or tensions between the idea that we can self-consciously pattern our lives and experience into satisfying wholes and the contrary worry that such patterning is little more than wilful self-delusion. At the same time, laying aside this conceptual dimension, one can hardly fail to notice how utterly literary our deaths become in Montaigne’s hands. Even if we come to agree with Lucretius that death may unmask us at any time as we are play-acting, such an agreement still remains couched in terms that are relentlessly literary: for example, taking on a role, unmasking, and playing a final scene.Less

Ancient Greek concepts of causation in comparativist perspective

Geoffrey Lloyd

in Causal Cognition: A Multidisciplinary Debate

This chapter discusses the legal, philosophical, and scientific sources of Greek ideas of causation, and their evolution from the pre-Socratics to the Stoics and Epicureans. It also compares Greek ... More

This chapter discusses the legal, philosophical, and scientific sources of Greek ideas of causation, and their evolution from the pre-Socratics to the Stoics and Epicureans. It also compares Greek and classical Chinese ideas of causation. While Greek ideas are focused on natural regularities, Chinese ideas are focused on exceptional occurrences.Less

Stoics, Epicureans, and the New Academy

in How Philosophers Saved Myths: Allegorical Interpretation and Classical Mythology

This chapter analyses the De natura deorum (DND), in which Cicero systematically covered what the three predominant philosophical currents of the time had to say on the various gods and on the ... More

This chapter analyses the De natura deorum (DND), in which Cicero systematically covered what the three predominant philosophical currents of the time had to say on the various gods and on the interpretations that each of these figures generated. Only fragments of the works of the Stoics, the Epicureans, and the philosophers of the New Academy have survived. Balbus, the representative of Stoicism, wonders about the origins of the gods of the popular religion, in the second book of DND. The doctrine against which the attacks of the Epicureans and the Academicians converge is that of the Stoics, which is characterized by two traits, that is, the acceptance of the existence of all the traditional divinities, and the allegorical justification of their nature. Hence, the allegorical interpretation advocated by the Stoics remained predominant for centuries despite of all the attacks.Less

The Place of Kant’s Theism in His Moral Philosophy

John Hare

in Kant on Practical Justification: Interpretive Essays

This paper is about Kant's view of the relation of belief in God to the moral life. It proceeds in three sections. The first examines the first sentence of Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of ... More

This paper is about Kant's view of the relation of belief in God to the moral life. It proceeds in three sections. The first examines the first sentence of Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, and shows that it is consistent with Kant's statement, in the third paragraph, that morality inevitably leads to religion. The second section is about Kant's view of the role of God’s grace in accomplishing the revolution of the will. The third section discusses Kant’s account of moral depravity, and its connection with the views he attributes to the Stoics and the Epicureans.Less

Lunar Revolutions: The Triumph of the New Astronomy

Daniel W. Graham

in Science before Socrates: Parmenides, Anaxagoras, and the New Astronomy

Scientific discovery requires not only that one correctly explain phenomena, but that one persuade one’s peers. Anaxagoras’ theory was accepted by Empedocles, Diogenes of Apollonia, and even ... More

Scientific discovery requires not only that one correctly explain phenomena, but that one persuade one’s peers. Anaxagoras’ theory was accepted by Empedocles, Diogenes of Apollonia, and even Philolaus (who had a radically different model of the heavens), and apparently Democritus. The doxographic tradition shows a mixture of different theories competing with heliophotism and antiphraxis. But when errors are corrected and the theories are put in chronological order (as they are not in doxographies), we see that there were virtually no new theories of lunar light and eclipses proposed after the time of Anaxagoras. Indeed, Aristotle himself uses antiphraxis as a paradigm of successful scientific explanation–even though it fits poorly with his own model of the heavens. Mathematical astronomers from Aristarchus to Ptolemy adopted heliophotism as an axiom and antiphraxis as a theorem. No competing hypothesis was even considered from the time of Ptolemy to the present day.Less

Why There Are Ends of Both Goods and Evils in Ancient Ethical Theory

James Allen

in Strategies of Argument: Essays in Ancient Ethics, Epistemology, and Logic

This chapter adds a new twist to the ancient Greek question about what the ultimate human end is: it asks why Cicero presents ancient ethical theories (e.g., those of Aristotle, the Stoics, and the ... More

This chapter adds a new twist to the ancient Greek question about what the ultimate human end is: it asks why Cicero presents ancient ethical theories (e.g., those of Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Epicureans) in answer to the question ‘What are the ends of goods and evils?’ For if an end (telos) is something for the sake of which we should do things, then bad and evil things should not have ends at all. The chapter argues that ‘end’ here has the earlier senses of (i) a result, and (ii) a criterion. A theory of the ends of goods and evils will thus allow one to judge which things are ends by means of a criterion, namely, by the ends in the sense of results that typically follow for things of that kind.Less

Sophists, Epicureans, and Stoics

A. G. Long

in The Hellenistic Reception of Classical Athenian Democracy and Political Thought

The sophists were some of the most important pioneers of Greek political philosophy. This paper discusses how Stoics and Epicureans engaged with sophistic thought and with previous critiques of ... More

The sophists were some of the most important pioneers of Greek political philosophy. This paper discusses how Stoics and Epicureans engaged with sophistic thought and with previous critiques of sophistic thought. Plato’s accounts of sophists are a central object of study, because Plato and the Academy were, most probably, a key target of polemic in Stoic and Epicurean discussions of sophists. But sometimes the paper tries to get away from Plato, as for example when it considers Epicurean theories of conventions and contracts. Section 5.1 sets out the broader evidence for Stoic and Epicurean engagement with sophists, and the philosophical and/or polemical motivations for such engagement. Section 5.2 considers the Hellenistic, and particularly the Stoic, discussion of the teachability of virtue. Section 5.3 considers the origin of justice and disagreement between cities about what justice demands.Less

Knowing How to Ask: A Discussion of Gail Fine, The Possibility of Inquiry

Raphael Woolf

in Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Volume 49

This is a review chapter of Gail Fine, The Possibility of Inquiry: Meno’s Paradox from Socrates to Sextus. The chapter begins with a summary of the book and raises some questions about its ... More

This is a review chapter of Gail Fine, The Possibility of Inquiry: Meno’s Paradox from Socrates to Sextus. The chapter begins with a summary of the book and raises some questions about its restriction of discussion of the paradox in Plato to the Meno. It then explores Fine’s view of Platonic enquiry and the Socratic elenchus and argues that she underestimates their importance in ways which lead her to misinterpret the force both of the paradox and of Plato’s response to it. Fine’s investigation of post-Platonic responses is then discussed, and while some scepticism is expressed about Fine’s view of the extent to which Aristotle offers a response to the paradox, it is also suggested that more attention might have been given to assessing the relative explanatory power of these responses.Less

Heresy without Orthodoxy: Josephus and the Rabbis on Dangerous Beliefs

Jonathan Klawans

in Heresy, Forgery, Novelty: Condemning, Denying, and Asserting Innovation in Ancient Judaism

This chapter probes heresiological tendencies in the works of the first-century CE Jewish historian Josephus. Josephus hones in on what he considers dangerous beliefs, such as the denial of ... More

This chapter probes heresiological tendencies in the works of the first-century CE Jewish historian Josephus. Josephus hones in on what he considers dangerous beliefs, such as the denial of providence or renunciation of punishments after death. Josephus’s works prove even more important when considering how he constructs what he calls the “Fourth Philosophy”—rebels whose philosophy is not only dangerous but new. Using many strategies adopted by later Christian heresiologists, Josephus describes this group as recently created, by a named founder, whose distinctive and dangerous ideas are entirely novel, unjustified by scripture or tradition. Examining Josephus as well as some later rabbinic works illustrates the need to separate out heresy from orthodoxy, for in both bodies of literature one can find evidence for heresy without evidence of orthodoxy. Rather, in both Josephus and the rabbis, beliefs deemed dangerous are set against a looser notion of consensus.Less

Plotinus’ Way of Defining ‘Eudaimonia’ in Ennead I 4 [46] 1–3

Alexandrine Schniewind

in The Quest for the Good Life: Ancient Philosophers on Happiness

This chapter discusses Plotinus’ attempt, at the beginning of his treatise On Happiness (Ennead I 4 [46]), to define what is a genuinely good life as opposed to approaches by some of his predecessors ... More

This chapter discusses Plotinus’ attempt, at the beginning of his treatise On Happiness (Ennead I 4 [46]), to define what is a genuinely good life as opposed to approaches by some of his predecessors such as Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Epicureans. It is argued that before presenting his own view on happiness, Plotinus picks out several technical terms, traditionally used by Aristotelians, Stoics, or Epicureans, such as good life (to eu zēn), good feelings (eupatheia), and emotion (pathos), in order to show that they can lead to erroneous conceptions of happiness. It is shown that Plotinus does not give a fair tribute to the genuine doctrines he criticizes. Plotinus’ own approach of happiness is then presented in detail.Less

On Happiness and Time

Eyjólfur Kjalar Emilsson

in The Quest for the Good Life: Ancient Philosophers on Happiness

This chapter considers the different views of Herodotus (Solon) and Aristotle, on the one hand, and post-Aristotelian thinkers such as the Epicureans, the Stoics, and Plotinus, on the other, on ... More

This chapter considers the different views of Herodotus (Solon) and Aristotle, on the one hand, and post-Aristotelian thinkers such as the Epicureans, the Stoics, and Plotinus, on the other, on happiness in relation to the passage of time. The latter consider the length of happy time lived and the direction for the better or the worse as irrelevant to the question of whether one is happy at a given time, whereas the former think that this matters. It is argued that Aristotle’s claims about happiness reveal a tension between a position that insists on the narrative structure of life, and in particular on a successful ending, and a view that does not. The position of the post-Aristotelian thinkers is expounded. The conclusion is that at least two very different views on happiness and time were advocated by the ancient philosophers, and that this difference amounts to different conceptions of happiness itself.Less