Richard Sorabji presents a ground-breaking study of ancient Greek views of the emotions and their influence on subsequent theories and attitudes, Pagan and Christian. While the central focus of the book is the Stoics, Sorabji draws on a vast range of texts to give a rich historical survey of how Western thinking about this central aspect of human nature developed.

This book is designed to appeal both to those interested in Roman poetry and to specialists in ancient philosophy. In it David Sedley explores Lucretius ' complex relationship with Greek culture, in particular with Empedocles, whose poetry was the model for his own, with Epicurus, the source of his philosophical inspiration, and with the Greek language itself. He includes a detailed reconstruction of Epicurus' great treatise On Nature, and seeks to show how Lucretius worked with this as his sole philosophical (...) source, but gradually emancipated himself from its structure, transforming its raw contents into something radically new. By pursuing these themes, the book uncovers many unrecognised aspects of Lucretius ' methods and achievements as a poetic craftsman. (shrink)

Epicurus in Lycia is the first full-length study of this eccentric second-century C.E. philosopher from Oenoanda, a small city in the mountains of Lycia (now Turkey). Toward the end of his life, Diogenes presented his town with a large limestone inscription that proclaimed the wisdom of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, who had lived five centuries earlier. This unique text, which was discovered in the late nineteenth century, has attracted many modern readers. Previous work on Diogenes, however, has concentrated on the (...) reconstruction of Diogenes' fragmentary Greek text and on the information he offers on lost teachings of Epicurus. Gordon's study offers a new approach to Diogenes and to the history of ancient Epicureanism in general. Rather than considering Diogenes simply as an orthodox Epicurean, Gordon draws attention to his engagement with the bustling world of second-century Roman Asia Minor and demonstrates that his historical setting shaped the way he understood and promoted Epicurean philosophy. Gordon shows that Diogenes participated in the fashionable revival of traditional Greek erudition, but that he parted company with his contemporaries regarding popular religion and the general notoriety of Epicureanism. (shrink)

Provides a critical and analytical history of ancient Greek theories on the nature of pleasure, and of its value and rolein human lfie, from the ealriest times down to the period of Epicurus and the early Stoics.

This study examines various inconsistencies in Epicurus' ethical theory and attempts to trace them to a common source, namely, his claim that eudaimonia is entirely up to us and invulnerable to outside intrusions. The first chapter discusses his hedonism and shows the effect of this claim on his conception of pleasure. In attempting to equate ataraxia, a pleasant state entirely up to us, with eudaimonia, Epicurus fails to capture central intuitions which locate happiness in states and activities not always in (...) our own control. The second chapter shows how this claim underlies his theory of responsibility and describes his attempt to accommodate it in the framework of his physical theories. Various indeterminist theories of action and character needlessly have been attributed to Epicurus. We need to ascribe indeterminism to his theory only at the microscopic level of explanation, since he thinks that macroscopic explanations are not strictly reducible to explanations at the micro-level. ;Two subsequent chapters describe Epicurus' attempt to account for other-regarding features of morality. Epicurus endorses a Socratic view of the virtues. He argues that all the virtues are species of knowledge and infallibly secure ataraxia. Surprisingly, he attempts to give a contractual defense of justice. It seems, however, that an agent has reasons for being just which are independent of the contract. Moreover, if eudaimonia is entirely up to us and invulnerable to outside interference, there would be few compelling reasons for contracting with others. Similar difficulties arise in his account of friendship. Epicurus concedes that friendship is choiceworthy for itself regardless of instrumental benefit. He also argues that friendship requires valuing others for their own sakes. This is inconsistent with the claims of his hedonism. If happiness is entirely up to us and friendship is an external good not always in our control, Epicurus should weaken his commitment to friendship. By refusing to do so, he is forced into an inconsistency. ;These inconsistencies in Epicurus' thought are of historical interest, in that we see a hedonist attempting to return to Socratic conceptions of happiness and rational agency. Of philosophical interest is Epicurus' inability to give a plausible account of happiness without valuing states and activities not entirely subject to our own control. (shrink)

Many Greek moralists are eudaemonists; they assume that happiness is the ultimate end of rational human action. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and most of their successors treat this assumption as the basis of their ethical argument. But not all Greek moralists agree; and since the eudaemonist assumption may not seem as obviously correct to us as it seems to many Greek moralists, it is worth considering the views of those Greeks who dissent from it.