A History of Ancient Philosophy III

Systems of the Hellenistic Age

By Giovanni Reale
Edited and translated by John R. Catan

Subjects: Metaphysics
Series: SUNY series in Philosophy
Paperback : 9780887060083, 527 pages, June 1985
Hardcover : 9780887060274, 527 pages, June 1985
Out of print (Hardcover)

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Table of contents

Foreword
Preface to the American Edition
Translator's Preface

The Systems of the Hellenistic Age

Introduction to the Philosophy of the Hellenistic Age

 

1. The spiritual consequences of the revolution produced by Alexander the Great
2. The development and diffusion of the cosmopolitan ideal
3. The discovery of the individual
4. The equalization of Greeks and barbarians and the breakdown of ancient ethnic prejudices
5. The transformation of Hellenic culture into Hellenistic culture
6. The addition in breadth and the loss in depth of Hellenistic philosophy
7. The revival of the Socratic spirit
8. The ideal of autarcheia
9. The ideal of ataraxy
10. The ideal of the Sage
11. The deification of the founders of the great systems of the Hellenistic Age

First Part
THE DECLINE OF THE MINOR SOCRATIC SCHOOLS AND THE SCHOOLS OF PLATO AND ARISTOTLE
First Section
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MINOR SOCRATIC SCHOOLS AND THE REASONS FOR THEIR DECLINE AND DISAPPEARANCE

I. Diogenes "The Dog" and the Development of Cynicism

 

1. Diogenes and the radicalization of Cynicism
2. Parrhesia and anaideia
3. The practice of discipline (askesis) and work (ponos)
4. Autarcheia and apatheia
5. Diogenes and the Hellenistic Age
6. Crates of Thebes and other followers of Diogenes
7. Cynicism up to the end of the Pagan Era
8. The value and limits of Cynicism

 

II. The Decline and End of the Cyrenaic School

 

1. The development and diffusion of Cyrenaicism
2. Hegesias and his followers
3. Anniceris and his followers
4. Theodorus and his followers
5. The end of Cyrenaicism

 

III. The Dialectical Developments of the Megaric School and its Dissolution

 

1. The development of the Megaric doctrines and their characteristics
2. Eubulides and the Megaric "paradoxes"
3. Diodorus Cronos and the polemic against the Aristotelian notion of "potency"
4. Stilpo and the final affirmations of Megaricism
5. The end of the Megaric school

 

IV. The Rapid Dissoultion of the Elean-Eretrian School

 

Second Section
THE FIRST ACADEMY AND THE RAPID DESTRUCTION OF THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE "SECOND VOYAGE"

I. The Platonic Academy, its Aim, its Organization, and its Rapid Decline

II. Eudoxus of Cnidus, an Astronomer Guest of the Academy

 

1. The immanent nature of the Ideas
2. The hedonism of Eudoxus

 

III. Heraclides, Ponticus, Head of the Academy during the Absence of Plato

 

1. The neglect of intelligible reality
2. The conception of the soul
3. The rejection of the geocentric view

 

IV. Speusippus, First Successor to Plato

 

1. The rejection of the Platonic Ideas
2. The levels of reality
3. The highest principles of reality
4. Knowledge
5. Ethics

 

V. Xenocrates, Second Successor to Plato

 

1. The tripartition of philosophy
2. The doctrine of knowledge
3. Physics (the doctrine of the principles)
4. The religious interpretation of the cosmos
5. Ethics

 

VI. The Final Representatives of the Old Academy: Polemon, Crates, and Crantor

 

1. Polemon
2. Crates
3. Crantor

 

VII. Conclusions Concerning the Old Academy

 

Third Section
THE FIRST PERIPATOS AND THE RAPID LOSS OF THE MEANING OF THE METAPHYSICAL DIMENSION

I. The Aristotelian Peripatos, its Organization, and its Rapid Decline

II. Theophrastus and the Loss of the Speculative Component

 

1. Metaphysics
2. Physics and psychology
3. Logic
4. Ethics
5. Conclusions concerning Theophrastus

 

III. The Other Immediate Followers to Aristotle: Eudemus, Dicaearchus, Aristoxenus

 

1. Eudemus
2. Dicaearchus
3. Aristoxenus of Tarantum

 

IV. Strato of Lampsacus, Second Successor to Aristotle

 

1. Physics
2. Psychology

 

V. Conclusions Concerning the First Peripatos

 

Second Part
EPICUREANISM FROM ITS ORIGINS TO THE END OF THE PAGAN ERA

 

First Section
EPICURUS AND THE FOUNDING OF THE GARDEN

I. The Development and Characteristics of the Garden

 

1. The polemic of Epicurus against Plato and Aristotle
2. The rejection of the "second voyage"
3. The renewal of atomism and the Eleatic categories fundamentally connected to it
4. The relations between Epicurus, Socrates, and the minor Socratics
5. The predominant role of ethics
6. The purpose of the Garden and its originality

 

II. The Epicurean Canonic

 

1. The "Canonic" as determining the criteria of truth
2. Sensation and its absolute validity
3. Prolepses or anticipations and language
4. The feelings of pleasure and pain
5. Opinion
6. Aporias and limits of the Epicurean canonic

 

III. Epicurean Physics

 

1. The ontological foundations: the characteristics of reality as such, bodies, the void, and the infinite
2. The atoms
3. The structural characteristics of the atom
4. The doctrine of the "minima"
5. The structural characteristics of the void
6. Movement
7. The "clinaman" or "swerve" of the atoms
8. The universe and infinite worlds
9. Celestial phenomena and their multiple explanations
10. Soul, its materiality and mortality
11. The likenesses and knowledge
12. The conception of the Gods and the Divine

 

IV. Epicurean Ethics

 

1. Pleasure as the foundation of ethics
2. Reform as Cyrenaic hedonism
3. The hierarchy of pleasures and wisdom
4. Epicurean asceticism and autarcheia
5. The absolute character of pleasure
6. The relative character of pain
7. Death is nothing for human beings
8. Epicurean virtue and Socratic intellectualism
9. The devaluation of the State and political life and the elevation of the "hidden life"
10. Friendship
11. The fourfold remedy and the ideal of wisdom

 

V. The followers of and Successors to Epicurus

 

Second Section
THE SPREAD OF EPICUREANISM AT ROME AND LUCRETIUS

I. The First Attempts to Introduce Epicureanism at Rome and the Circle of Philodemus

 

1. The attempt of Alceus and Philiscus and its failure
2. The attempt of Amafinius
3. The circle of Philodemus

 

II. Lucretius and Epicurean Doctrine Presented through Elevated Poetry

 

1. The inadequacy of some judgments concerning Lucretius
2. The initial pessimism and the victory of reason in Lucretius and Epicurus
3. The truth which eases pain and produces peace
4. The principles of true Epicureanism and the poem of Lucretius
5. Pity through pain in the poem of Lucretius
6. The significance of life and death

 

 

Third Part
STOICISM FROM ITS ORIGINS TO THE END OF THE PAGAN ERA

 

First Section
ANCIENT STOICISM

I. Zeno, the Foundation of the Stoa, and the Different Phases of Stoicism

 

1. The meeting of Zeno with Crates and with Socraticism
2. The rejection of the "second voyage"
3. The reinterpretation of Heraclitus and the concept of "physis" as fire-maker
4. Relations with Epicurus
5. The origin of the Stoa and its development

 

II. The Tripartition of Philosophy and the Logos

III. The Logic of the Ancient Stoa

 

1. The role and the articulations of Stoic logic
2. The criteria of truth: sensation and cataleptic presentation
3. Intellectual knowledge, prolepses, and universal concepts
4. The "expressibles" and their "incorporeity"
5. Dialectic
6. Rhetoric
7. Conclusions: the relations between logic and reality

 

IV. The Physics of the Ancient Stoa

 

1. The characteristics of Stoic physics and its relation to Epicurean physics
2. The materialism and corporealism of the Stoa
3. Pantheistic monism
4. The ontological emptying of the incorporeal
5. The further determination of the Stoic coneception of God and the Divine
6. Finality and Providence (Pronoia)
7. Fate (Heimarmene)
8. Necessity and Liberty
9. The cosmos and man's place in it
10. The universal conflagration and the eternal return
11. Man
12. The destiny of the soul

 

V. The Ethics of the Ancient Stoa

 

1. The logos as the foundation of ethics
2. The primary instinct
3. The principle of the evaluations: good, evils, and indifferents
4. Relative values: "preferables" and "non-preferables"
5. Virtue and happiness
6. Virtue as science, its unity and multiplicity
7. The identity of virtues in all rational beings
8. Correct action (katorthoma)
9. Duty (kathekon)
10. Eternal law and the law of nature
11. Cosmopolitanism
12. Passions and apatheia
13. The ideal of wisdom

Second Section
MIDDLE STOICISM

I. The Middle Stoicism of Panaetius

 

1. The new direction imposed on the Stoa by Panaetius
2. Innovations in the physical doctrines of the ancient Stoa
3. Psychological doctrines
4. Ethics and politics
5. The rejection of apatheia
6. The humanism of Panaetius and the significance of his philosophy

 

II. The Middle Stoicism of Posidonius

 

1. The Posidonian problem
2. The characteristics of Posidonian Stoicism
3. Physics
4. Anthropology and morality
5. The destiny of the soul
6. Conclusions concerning Posidonius

 

 

Fourth Part
SCEPTICISM AND ECLECTICISM FROM THEIR ORIGINS TO THE END OF THE PAGAN ERA

 

First Section
PYRRHONIAN SCEPTICISM AND THE SCEPTICISM OF THE ACADEMY

I. The Moral Scepsis of Pyrrho and Pyrrhonism

 

1. The origin of the Sceptic movement
2. Pyrrho and the revolution of Alexander
3. The meeting with the East and the influence of Gymnosophists
4. The influence of the Megarics and the Atomists
5. The radical overturning of ontology
6. Pyrrhonism as a practical system of wisdom and its three fundamental rules
7. The nature of things as undifferentiated appearance and the nature of the divine and the good
8. The attitude that man must assume towards things: indifference and abstention from judgment
9. The attainment of aphasia, ataraxia, and apatheia
10. The successors to Pyrrho, with special regard to Timon

 

II. Sceptic Tendencies in the Academy of Arcesilaus

 

1. The "second Academy"
2. The dialectical basis of the scepticism of Arcesilaus
3. The epoche of Arcesilaus
4. The doctrine of the eulogon or the "reasonable"
5. The so-called "esoteric dogmatism" of Arcesilaus
6. The aporetic nature and the limits of the Scepticism of Arcesilaus

 

III. Further Affirmations of Scepticism in the Academy with Carneades

 

1. The "third Academy"
2. Criticism of the Stoic criterion of truth
3. The doctrine of pithanon or "probability"
4. The evaluation of the position of Carneades

Second Section
THE ECLECTICISM OF THE ACADEMY AND CICERO

I. Reasons for and Characteristics of Eclecticism

II. Philo of Larissa and the Fourth Academy

 

1. The five Academies
2. The originality of Philo
3. From dialectical probabilism to positive probabilism
4. The origins of evidence
5. Ethics

 

III. Antiochus of Ascalon and the Fifth Academy

 

1. The position of Antiochus
2. Criticism of Academic scepticism
3. Logic, physics, and ethics

 

IV. Cicero and the Eclecticism of the Academy in Rome

 

1. The philosophical position of Cicero
2. The eclectic probabilism of Cicero
3. Logic: the criterion of truth
4. Physics, theology, and psychology
5. Ethics

Conclusions about the Philosophical Systems of the Hellenistic Age

I. The Prejudices which Impeded the Correct Understanding and Adequate Evaluation of the Hellenistic Systems

II. The Significance of the Philosophy of the Hellenistic Age

Abbreviations

Notes

Bibliography

Index of Names Cited

Index of Greek Terms Cited

Index of Citations of Classical Sources

Description

Reale's volume supplies a synthesis previously lacking—a synthesis in the historical treatment of the great philosophies of the Hellenistic Age: the Academy, the Peripatos, the Stoa, the Garden of Epicurus, Scepticism, and Eclecticism. Reale's extensive and fully documented treatment of the major schools of the period is unified by his thesis that the ethics developed by these major schools were secular faiths that sprang from intuitions about the meaning of life first emotionally grasped and then systematically and rationally developed. It is for this reason that the teachings of these schools endured almost continuously for about 500 years. It is for the same reason that the founders of the schools were considered gods and were actually, in a certain sense, the saints of secular faiths and religions.

In this book, Reale traces the decline of the philosophical schools of the classical period, the post-Platonic Academy, the post-Aristotelian Peripatos, and the minor socratic schools. The destruction of the polis and the incapacity of the schools to address the concerns of the new age were the fertile grounds from which the new schools developed. The Garden of Epicurus, the Porch of Zeno, and the sceptical movement initiated by Pyrrho form the core of the volume. The volume contains a select bibliography and an index of names and Greek terms, as well as an index of citations.

Giovanni Reale is full Professor and holder of the Chair in the History of Ancient Philosophy at the Catholic University of Milan. His studies and philosophical works cover the whole of ancient philosophy. Reale's The Concept of First Philosophy and the Unity of the Metaphysics of Aristotle, edited and translated by John R. Catan, is also published by SUNY Press. John R. Catan is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York College at Brockport. Co-editor of the journal Paideia, he is also editor of Aristotle: The Collected Papers of Joseph Owens and Saint Thomas Aquinas on the Existence of God: The Collected Papers of Joseph Owens, both published by SUNY Press.