Philosophy: Ancient: General Overviews

A magisterial mappa mundi of the terrain that Pierre Hadot has so productively worked for decades, this ambitious work revises our view of ancient philosophy--and in doing so, proposes that we change the way we see philosophy itself. Hadot takes ancient philosophy out of its customary realm of names, dates, and arid abstractions and plants it squarely in the thick of life. Through a meticulous historical reading, he shows how the various schools, trends, and ideas of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy all tended toward one goal: to provide a means for achieving happiness in this life, by transforming the individual's mode of perceiving and being in the world. Most pressing for Hadot is the question of how the ancients conceived of philosophy. He argues in great detail, systematically covering the ideas of the earliest Greek thinkers, Hellenistic philosophy, and late antiquity, that ancient philosophers were concerned not just to develop philosophical theories, but to practice philosophy as a way of life-a way of life to be suggested, illuminated, and justified by their philosophical "discourse." For the ancients, philosophical theory and the philosophical way of life were inseparably linked. What Is Ancient Philosophy? also explains why this connection broke down, most conspicuously in the case of academic, professional philosophers, especially under the influence of Christianity. Finally, Hadot turns to the question of whether and how this connection might be reestablished. Even as it brings ancient thoughts and thinkers to life, this invigorating work provides direction for those who wish to improve their lives by means of genuine philosophical thought.

Sir Anthony Kenny here tells the fascinating story of the birth of philosophy and its remarkable flourishing in the ancient Mediterranean world. This is the initial volume of a four-book set in which Kenny will unfold a magisterial new history of Western philosophy, the first major single-author history of philosophy to appear in decades. Ancient Philosophy spans over a thousand years and brings to life the great minds of the past, from Thales, Pythagoras, and Parmenides, to Socrates, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Augustine. The book's great virtue is that it is written by one of the world's leading authorities on the subject. Instead of an uncritical, straightforward recitation of known facts--Plato and his cave of shadows, Aristotle's ethics, Augustine's City of God--we see the major philosophers through the eyes of a man who has spent a lifetime contemplating their work. Thus we do not simply get an overview of Aristotle, for example, but a penetrating and insightful critique of his thought. Kenny offers an illuminating account of the various schools of thought, from the Pre-Socratics to the Epicureans. He examines the development of logic and reason, ancient ideas about physics ("how things happen"), metaphysics and ethics, and the earliest thinking about the soul and god. Vividly written, but serious and deep enough to offer a genuine understanding of the great philosophers, Kenny's lucid and stimulating history will become the definitive work for anyone interested in the people and ideas that shaped the course of Western thought.

The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Philosophy is a wide-ranging 2003 introduction to the study of philosophy in the ancient world. A team of leading specialists surveys the developments of the period and evaluates a comprehensive series of major thinkers, ranging from Pythagoras to Epicurus. There are also separate chapters on how philosophy in the ancient world interacted with religion, literature and science, and a final chapter traces the seminal influence of Greek and Roman philosophy down to the seventeenth century. Practical elements such as tables, illustrations, a glossary, and extensive advice on further reading make it an ideal book to accompany survey courses on the history of ancient philosophy. It will be an invaluable guide for all who are interested in the philosophical thought of this rich and formative period.

Part of the Meridian books series

Compact but singularly well thought out material of a theological, logical, poetic as well as philosophical nature.

Surveys philosophy from the neo-Platonists to St. Anselm, showing how Greek philosophy took the form in which it was known to its cultural inheritors and how they interpreted it.

This introduction to philosophy in the Latin West between 1150 and 1350 combines an historical approach, which concentrates on the sources, forms and backgrounds of the medieval works, with philosophical analysis of thirteenth and fourteenth-century writing in terms comprehensible to a modern reader. Part One looks at the intellectual and historical context of medieval thought. It examines the courses in the medieval universities; the methods of teaching; the forms of written work; the logical techniques used for argument and analysis; the translation and the availability of Ancient Greek, Arab and Jewish philosophical texts; the challenges the new material presented and the various ways in which Western thinkers responded to them. Part Two focuses on one important problem in later medieval thought: the nature of intellectual knowledge. It explains the arguments given by Aristotle, his antique commentators and the Arab philosophers Avicenna and Averroes, and traces how a series of Western thinkers, including Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham, developed, modified or rejected them.

Sir Anthony Kenny continues his magisterial new history of Western philosophy with a fascinating guide through more than a millennium of thought from 400 AD onwards, charting the story of philosophy from the founders of Christian and Islamic thought through to the Renaissance. The middle ages saw a great flourishing of philosophy, and the intellectual endeavour of the era reaches its climax in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with the systems of such great thinkers as Thomas. Aquinas and John Duns Scotus. Specially written for a broad popular readership, but serious and deep enough to.

Tackling the question of why medieval philosophy matters in the current age, Stephen Boulter issues a passionate and robust defence of this school in the history of ideas. He examines both familiar territory and neglected texts and thinkers whilst also asking the question of why, exactly, this matters or should matter to how we think now. Why Medieval Philosophy is also provides a introduction to medieval philosophy more generally exploring how this area of philosophy has been received, debated and, sometimes, dismissed in the history of philosophy.