The Lives of the Sophists
The Lives of the Sophists

Author: Philostratus (the Athenian)

Publisher:

Published: 1921

Total Pages: 656

ISBN-13:

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PHILOSTRATUS AND EUNAPIUS. (a) Of the distinguished Lemnian family of Philostrati, Flavius Philostratus, 'the Athenian', was a Greek sophist (professor), c. A.D. 170-205, who studied at Athens and later lived in Rome. He was author of the admirable Life of Apollonius of Tyana (Loeb Nos. 16 and 17) and Lives of the Sophists (which are really impressions of investigators alert but less fond of scientific method and discovery than of stylish presentation or things known), one part concerning some older, the other some later 'provessors'. Other extant works of this Philostratus are Letters and Gymnasticus, but the Heroicus or Heroica is apparently by another Philostratus, and the Eikones (Imagines, skilful descriptions of pictures, Loeb No. 256) were probably by two Philostrati, on being the son of Nervianus and born c. A.D. 190, the other his grandson who wrote c. AD. 300. (b) The Greek Sophist and historian Eunapius was born at Sardis in A.D. 347, but went to Athens to study and lived much of his life there teaching rhetoric and possibly medicine. He was initiated into the 'mysteries' and was hostile to Christians. Lost is his historical work (covering the years A.D. 270-404) but for excerpts and the use of it made by Zosimmus, but we have his Lives of Philosophers and Sophists mainly contemporary whth himself. Eunapius is our only source of our knowledge of Neo-Platonism in the latter part of the fourth century A.D.

The First Philosophers
The First Philosophers

Author: Robin Waterfield

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2009-03-26

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 019953909X

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These first philosophers paved the way for the work of Plato and Aristotle - and hence for the whole of Western thought. This is a unique and invaluable collection of the works of the Presocratics and the Sophists. Waterfield brings together the works of these early thinkers with brilliant new translation and exceptional commentary. This is the ideal anthology for the student of this increasingly appreciated field of classical philosophy.

Sophistry and Political Philosophy
Sophistry and Political Philosophy

Author: Robert C. Bartlett

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2016-09-12

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 022639428X

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It was Nietzsche who first identified the similarities between the radical sophistry of antiquity and the contemporary relativism that has come to characterize modern thought. The anti-foundationalism of contemporary thought can be said to have been born with the Sophists, and, of all the Sophists who have come down to us, Protagoras is the most famous and challenging of them. Robert Bartlett s masterful book is the first to examine Plato s Protagoras and Theaetetus together to uncover what lies at the heart of Protagoras teaching, both its moral and political components and its theoretical and epistemological groundings. His superb exegesis of these two dialogues allows one to see more clearly the power of radical relativism: its strengths and its deficiencies. Bartlett notes that political philosophy has been supplanted in the modern era either by the study of the history of political philosophy or by relativism. Although "Understanding Political Philosophy and Sophistry" can certainly be taken as an example of the former, it is much more than that. It seeks to uncover what Socrates, in responding to that teaching, begins to reveal of his own understanding and characteristic activity. It helps us begin to understand, in other words, the phenomenon of philosophy, not just as a system of thought, but as Socrates lived it."

Socrates and the Sophists
Socrates and the Sophists

Author: Plato

Publisher: Hackett Publishing

Published: 2012-07-01

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 1585105058

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This is an English translation of four of Plato’s dialogue (Protagoras, Euthydemus, Hippias Major, and Cratylus) that explores the topic of sophistry and philosophy, a key concept at the source of Western thought. Includes notes and an introductory essay. Focus Philosophical Library translations are close to and are non-interpretative of the original text, with the notes and a glossary intending to provide the reader with some sense of the terms and the concepts as they were understood by Plato’s immediate audience.

Greek Philosophers and Sophists in the Fourth Century A.D.
Greek Philosophers and Sophists in the Fourth Century A.D.

Author: Robert J. Penella

Publisher:

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13:

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Eunapius's Lives of Philosophers and Sophists is a work of considerable importance for the cultural history of the eastern Roman Empire in the fourth century A.D. In particular, it opens a window onto two central aspects of late ancient paganism, Iamblichan Neoplatonism and academic rhetorical culture. This volume offers a close study of the Lives , much of it amounting more or less to a commentary in continuous prose. Greek Philosophers and Sophists in the Fourth Century A.D. will interest classicists, students of the later Roman empire and those interested in the history of ancient philosophy.

Pursuits of Wisdom
Pursuits of Wisdom

Author: John M. Cooper

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2013-08-25

Total Pages: 458

ISBN-13: 069115970X

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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.

The Sophistic Movement
The Sophistic Movement

Author: G. B. Kerferd

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1981-09-03

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13: 9780521283571

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This book offers an introduction to the Sophists of fifth-century Athens and a new overall interpretation of their thought. Since Plato first animadverted on their activities, the Sophists have commonly been presented as little better than intellectual mountebanks - a picture which Professor Kerferd forcefully challenges here. Interpreting the evidence with care, he shows them to have been part of an exciting and historically crucial intellectual movement. At the centre of their teaching was a form of relativism, most famously expressed by Protagoras as 'Man is the measure of all things', and which they developed in a wide range of views - on knowledge and argument, virtue, government, society, and the gods. On all these subjects the Sophists did far more than simply provoke Plato to thought. Their contributions were substantial and serious; they inaugurated the debate on many central philosophical questions and decisively shifted the focus of philosophical attention from the cosmos to man.

Plato’s Protagoras
Plato’s Protagoras

Author: Olof Pettersson

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-11-30

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 3319455850

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This book presents a thorough study and an up to date anthology of Plato’s Protagoras. International authors' papers contribute to the task of understanding how Plato introduced and negotiated a new type of intellectual practice – called philosophy – and the strategies that this involved. They explore Plato’s dialogue, looking at questions of how philosophy and sophistry relate, both on a methodological and on a thematic level. While many of the contributing authors argue for a sharp distinction between sophistry and philosophy, this is contested by others. Readers may consider the distinctions between philosophy and traditional forms of poetry and sophistry through these papers. Questions for readers' attention include: To what extent is Socrates’ preferred mode of discourse, and his short questions and answers, superior to Protagoras’ method of sophistic teaching? And why does Plato make Socrates and Protagoras reverse positions as it comes to virtue and its teachability? This book will appeal to graduates and researchers with an interest in the origins of philosophy, classical philosophy and historical philosophy.

Diogenes Laertius: Lives of Eminent Philosophers
Diogenes Laertius: Lives of Eminent Philosophers

Author:

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-06-03

Total Pages: 528

ISBN-13: 1108851703

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A pioneering work in the history of philosophy, the ancient text of the Lives presents engaging portraits of nearly a hundred Greek philosophers. It blends biography with bibliography and surveys of leading theories, peppered with punchy anecdotes, pithy maxims, and even snatches of poetry, much of it by the philosophers themselves. The work presents a systematic genealogy of Greek philosophy from its origins in the sixth century BCE to its flowering in Plato's Academy and the Hellenistic schools. In this fully up-to-date and accessible translation, based on the most accurate texts and the latest advances in scholarship, Stephen White provides a valuable resource for students and scholars of ancient philosophy. Highlights include extended treatment of the 'Seven Sages' (Book 1), Socrates and his Socratic followers (Book 2), Plato (Book 3), Aristotle and his school (Book 5), Diogenes the Cynic (Book 6), Stoicism (Book 7), Pythagoreans (Book 8), Pyrrhonian skepticism (Book 9), and Epicureanism (Book 10).