Ancient Philosophy: Textual Paths and Historical Explorations

820 Pages·2017·6.417 MB·English

by  Perilli Lorenzo, Taormina Daniela

ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY
This book gives an excellent overview of the development of philosophy in the
classical world. Perilli and Taormina have put together an innovative history of
ancient philosophy.
Teun Tieleman, Utrecht University, Netherlands
‘We are all Greeks. Our laws, our literature, our religion, our arts, have their root
in Greece’, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley once wrote. It is in Greek that the ques -
tions which shaped the destiny of Western culture were asked, and so were the
first attempts at an answer, and the search for a method of investigation. This book
tries to rediscover the propulsive force that for over two millennia spread, and still
lives in our system of thought. By systematically quoting the very words of the
leading actors and by tracing their sources, it leads the reader along a path where
they will be able to observe the establishment of philosophical ideas and lang uage,in
an updated and balanced picture of archaic lore, of the thought of the classical and
hellenistic ages, and of the philosophy of late antiquity. The book looks closely at
the progress of scientific thought and at its increasing autonomy, while following
the evolution of the fruitful yet problematic relationship between the Greek world
and the Near East.
Lorenzo Perilli is Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Rome
‘Tor Vergata’, Italy, and the Director of the transdisciplinary Research Centre in
Classics, Mathematics and Philosophy ‘Forms of Knowledge in the Ancient World’.
His research interests include Ancient medicine and science, Presocratic philosophy,
textual criticism, and humanities computing.
Daniela P. Taorminais Professor in Greek Philosophy at the University of Rome
‘Tor Vergata’, Italy. Her research activity concerns especially the philosophy of
Late Antiquity, from Middle-Platonism to the Platonic philosophers of the sixth
century CE and is focused in particular on the domains of psychology and post-
Plotinian ontology. Most recently, she is co-editor and contributor of Plotinus and
Epicurus. Matter, Perception, Pleasure (2016).
ANCIENT
PHILOSOPHY
Textual Paths and Historical
Explorations
Edited by
Lorenzo Perilli
Daniela P. Taormina
First published 2018
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This book has been translated thanks to a translation grant awarded by
the Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs and to financial support provided
by the University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’.
Questo libro è stato tradotto grazie ad un contributo alla traduzione assegnato
dal Ministero degli Affari Esteri Italiano e al sostegno finanziario fornito
dall’Università degli Studi di Roma ‘Tor Vergata’.
© 2018 selection and editorial matter, Lorenzo Perilli and Daniela P. Taormina;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material,
and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance
with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Perilli, Lorenzo, editor.
Title: Ancient philosophy : textual paths and historical explorations /
edited by Lorenzo Perilli and Daniela P. Taormina.
Description: First [edition]. | New York : Routledge, 2017. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017014802| ISBN 9781138680999 (hardback : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781138668812 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315179339 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Philosophy, Ancient.
Classification: LCC B171 .A47 2017 | DDC 180–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017014802
ISBN: 978-1-138-68099-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-66881-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-17933-9 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo and Stone Sans
by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon, UK
CONTENTS
Contributors ix
Preface xv
Bibliographical outline on the history of scholarship on ancient philosophy xix
Abbreviations xxv
1. East and West 1
M. Laura Gemelli Marciano
2. Ancient philosophy and the doxographical tradition 41
Jaap Mansfeld
Focus Box 1: The transmission of ancient philosophy 61
Lorenzo Perilli, Daniela P. Taormina, Jaap Mansfeld
3. Philosophical stones: ancient philosophy as reflected
in the mirror of inscriptions 65
Georg Petzl
4. Socio-historical outline of the Archaic period 79
Paolo A. Tuci
5. ‘You Greeks are always children’: the infancy
of wisdom 85
Lorenzo Perilli
6. The Presocratics 103
Lorenzo Perilli
vi Contents
Focus Box 2: New discoveries of ancient
philosophical and scientific texts 215
Lorenzo Perilli and Daniela P. Taormina
A map of the philosophical schools in ancient
Athens. Drawing by Francesco Fazzio 222
7. The sophists and Socrates 225
Eugenio (Rick) Benitez
Focus Box 3: The sophists: key figures 251
Lorenzo Perilli, Daniela P. Taormina,
Eugenio (Rick) Benitez
8. Socio-historical outline of the Classical and
Hellenistic periods 253
Paolo A. Tuci
9. Plato 259
María Isabel Santa Cruz
10. The Academy from Plato to Polemo 337
Dimitri El Murr
Focus Box 4: Academic philosophers
(fourth–first century BCE) 355
Tiziano Dorandi
11. Aristotle 361
James G. Lennox
Focus Box 5: Aristotle’s Poetics 405
Guido Paduano
12. Hellenistic philosophy 409
Keimpe Algra
13. Socio-historical outline of the Roman period 495
Federico De Romanis
14. Some remarks on ancient science 499
Lorenzo Perilli
Contents vii
Focus Box 6: Logos and algorithms 541
Paolo Zellini
15. Philosophy in Rome 545
Therese Fuhrer
Focus Box 7: Lucretius: a failed subversion 573
Luca Canali
16. Socio-historical outline of the later Roman empire 577
Umberto Roberto
17. Platonism, Pythagoreanism, Aristotelianism 583
Dominic J. O’Meara
18. Greek philosophy and philosophers in the
third–sixth century CE: from Plotinus to the
last Alexandrian commentators 603
Daniela P. Taormina
19. Augustine of Hippo and the new Christian culture 677
Marta Cristiani
Appendix: Aristotle’s Testament 739
Index locorum (by Rosario Giovanni Scalia) 743
Index (by Rosario Giovanni Scalia) 771
CONTRIBUTORS
Keimpe Algra is Professor in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy at Utrecht Uni -
versity. He has published mainly on Hellenistic philosophy and ancient physics. He
is the author of Concepts of space in Greek thought (Leiden 1995) and co-editor of
several scholarly volumes, including the Cambridge history of Hellenistic philosophy
(1999). Since 1997 he has been the managing editor of the journal on ancient
philosophy Phronesis.
Eugenio (Rick) Benitezis Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney. He
has published extensively on Socrates and Plato and has recently completed an
Australia Research Council project on myth in Plato. His current research concerns
Socrates’ views about death, and their impact on later thinkers.
Luca Canali (1925–2014) was a leading Italian latinist, writer and poet. He was
also involved in the Italian resistance movement and in political activity during
and after WWII. He was Professor of Latin literature at the University of Pisa, and
the author of very many publications, such as Lucrezio poeta della ragione (1963);
Giulio Cesare (2006); Come leggere Virgilio (2007), Augusto braccio violento della storia
(2011). He translated the most important Latin poets, among them the whole of
Vergil, Lucretius, Horace and Catullus.
Marta Cristiani is Professor Emerita in History of Philosophy, University of Rome
‘Tor Vergata’. Her research interests include the Platonic tradition from Augustine
to the Middle Ages, the philosophy of space and time, and religious-anthropolo-
gical themes in the Middle Ages. Among her works are Giovanni Scoto, Il Prologo
di Giovanni(Milan 1987); Introduction and commentary to Augustine’s Confessions books
3 and 11(Milan 1992 and 1996); Lo sguardo a Occidente. Religione e cultura in Europa
nei secoli IX–XI (Rome 1995); (with M. Pereira) Ildegarda di Bingen, Il libro delle
x Contributors
opere divine (Milan 2003); Lumières du Haut Moyen Âge. Héritage classique et sagesse
chrétienne aux tournant de l’histoire (Florence 2014).
Federico De Romanis is currently Professor of Roman History at the University
of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’. His research focuses on Roman trade and on the grain
consumption in ancient Rome. His publications include Cassia, cinnamomo,
ossidiana.Uomini e merci tra Oceano Indiano e Mediterraneo(Rome 1996, repr. 2006).
He is co-editor and contributor of Crossings. Early Mediterranean contacts with India
(New Delhi 1997); Dal denarius al dinar. L’Oriente e la moneta romana. Atti dell’
Incontro di studio (Rome 2006); Across the Ocean. Nine chapters on Indo-Mediterranean
trade (Leiden/Boston 2015).
Tiziano Dorandiis Director of Research in the French National Center of Scien -
tific Research (CNRS), Centre J. Pépin UMR 8230. His interests include
papyrology, textual criticism and ancient philosophy. Selected publications:
Filodemo. Storia dei filosofi. Platone e l’Academia (PHerc. 1021 e 164) (Naples 1991);
Ricerche sulla cronologia dei filosofi ellenistici (Stuttgart 1991); Filodemo. Storia dei
filosofi. La Stoà da Zenone a Panezio (PHerc. 1018) (Leiden 1994); Antigone de Caryste.
Fragments (Paris 1999); Nell’officina dei classici(Rome 2007); Laertiana. Capitoli sulla
tradizione manoscritta e sulla storia del testo delle Vite dei filosofi di Diogene Laerzio
(Berlin/New York 2009); Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of eminent Philosophers(Cambridge
2013).
Dimitri El Murr is Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the Ecole Normale
Supérieure – PSL Research University, and a Member of the Centre Jean Pépin,
UMR 8230, CNRS. His research area is ancient philosophy, especially Socrates,
Plato, and political Platonism in antiquity and beyond. He has published many
articles on Plato and platonism; he recently edited a volume on the Theaetetus(La
Mesure du savoir. Études sur le Théétète, Paris 2013) and coedited, with G. Boys-
Stones and Ch. Gill, The Platonic art of philosophy(Cambridge 2013). He also directed
a special issue of the Revue française d’histoire des idées politiques (vol. 37, 2013) on
the reception of Plato’s political philosophy from the eighteenth century to the
present. His latest book, dedicated to Plato’s Politicus, is Savoir et gouverner. Essai
sur la science politique platonicienne (Paris 2014).
Therese Fuhrer has held Chairs of Latin at the Universities of Trier, Zürich,
Freiburg, the Free University of Berlin, and since 2013 at the LMU Munich. She
is currently engaged in a number of major research projects in the field of Roman
rhetoric, on the authorial voice and on Roman Carthage in Latin literature. She
is the author and editor of several books, including (with M. Formisano) Décadence:
‘Decline and fall’ or ‘Other antiquity’? (Heidelberg 2014); (with F. Mundt and
J. Stenger) Cityscaping. Constructing and modelling images of the city (Berlin/Boston
2015); (with M. Hose) Das antike Drama (Munich 2017); (with S. Adam) Augustinus,
Contra Academicos, De beata vita, De ordine(Bibliotheca Teubneriana 2012) (Berlin/
Contributors xi
Boston 2017). She is an associate editor of the journal Philologus, of the Augustinus-
Lexikon, and Realenzyklopädie für Antike und Christentum.
M. Laura Gemelli Marcianois TitularprofessorinEmerita in Classical Philology atthe
University of Zurich. Her interests include: ancient philosophy, ancient medicine
and ancient mysticism. Selected publications: Le metamorfosi della tradizione. Muta-
menti di significato e neologismi nel PERI PHYSEOS di Empedocle(Diss., Bari 1990).
Democrito e l’Accademia. Studi sulla trasmissione dell’atomismo antico da Aristotele a Simplicio
(Berlin/New York 2007). Die Vorsokratiker, Griechisch-lateinisch-deutsch. Auswahl
der Fragmente und Zeugnisse, Übersetzung und Erläuterungen, 3 vols (Düsseldorf
2007–2010, 2nd ed. of vol. II–III, Berlin 2013). Parmenide: suoni, immagini, esperi-
enza. Con alcune considerazioni ‘inattuali’ su Zenone, ed. by M. Pulpito e L. Rossetti
(Sankt Augustin 2013).
James G. Lennox is Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of
Science at the University of Pittsburgh. His interests are focused on scientific inquiry
and explanation in historical context and include ancient Greek philosophy
and science, especially Aristotle’s biology and philosophy of biology, William
Harvey, Darwin, and Darwinism. Among his publications are Aristotle: On the Parts
of Animals I–IV (Clarendon Aristotle Series) (Oxford 2001); Aristotle’s philosophy of
biology: Studies in the origins of life science (Cambridge 2001). Most recently he was
co-editor of Being, nature, and life in Aristotle (Cambridge 2010).
Jaap Mansfeldis Professor Emeritus in Ancient Philosophy at Utrecht University.
He has published extensively on ancient philosophy and its traditions, and was given
a Humboldt Research Award in 1998.
Dominic J. O’Meara, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of Fribourg
(Switzerland), has published Plotinus(Oxford 1993), Pythagoras revived(Oxford 1989),
Platonopolis(Oxford 2003) and has collaborated in the new edition of Middle Platon-
ist philosophers by M.-L. Lakmann, Platonici minores (Leiden 2017).
Guido Paduano is Professor Emeritus of Classical Philology at the University of
Pisa. He wrote monographic studies and essays on ancient tragedies and comedies,
both Greek and Latin. Among his books is a wide comprehensive work, Il teatro
antico. Guida alle opere (Rome/Bari 2005). He has also studied classical epics and
published the translation of Homeric poems for Einaudi publishers and the first
Italian translation of Apollonius Rhodius. Among his fields of interest are the theory
of literature – starting with Aristotle’s Poetics–, the persistence of classical elements
in modern literatures and the thematic study of musical dramaturgy within operas
(monographs on Verdi and Puccini).
Lorenzo Perilli is Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Rome ‘Tor
Vergata’, and Director of the transdisciplinary Research Centre in Classics, Mathe -