GREEK PHILOSOPHY

 

 

POST-ARISTOTELIAN PHILOSOPHY ( 322 B.C. — 4th Century A.D.)

With the disintegration of the city-state Greek philosophical thought became less speculative and concerned more narrowly with ethical problems alone. The role of the individual in a cosmopolitan society came to be of particular interest. The period falls into two main phases: (1) Hellenistic Philosophy (Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Scepticism); and (2) Neoplatonism. To provide metaphysical support for their views Hellenistic philosophers look back to the Presocratics or to the minor schools of philosophy contemporaneous with Plato, namely the Sophists, the Cynics and the Cyrenaics. Neoplatonists — as the name implies — looked to Plato for inspiration, and were to be a major influence on Christianity.

 

READING

General introductions

A. H. Armstrong, An Introduction to Ancient Philosophy.

T. H. Irwin, Classical Thought.

D. Sedley (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Philosophy.

Hellenistic Philosophy

A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, vol. 1. (Primary source book and commentary; vol. 2 contains the original texts.)

M. Schofield, M. F. Burnyeat, J. Barnes (eds), Doubt and Dogmatism: Studies in Hellenistic Epistemology.

M. Schofield and G. Striker (eds), The Norms of Nature.

Neoplatonism

J. M Dillon, The Middle Platonists.

R. T. Wallis, The Neoplatonists.