New Essays on Plato: Language and Thought in Fourth-Century Greek Philosophy by Fritz-Gregor Herrmann

Phoenix ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 63 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 179-180
Author(s):  
Nicholas Denyer
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Language And Thought

Milesian Measures: Time, Space, and Matter

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen A. White
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Natural World ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Time Space ◽  
Complementary Problems

Any attempt to trace the origin of Greek philosophy faces two complementary problems. One is the fact that evidence for the early philosophers is woefully meager. The other problem raises a question of what is to be counted as philosophy. Yet neither problem is insuperable. This article proposes to reorient the search for origins in two ways, corresponding to these two problems. First, rather than trying to reconstruct vanished work directly, this article focuses on a crucial stage in its ancient reception, in particular, the efforts by Aristotle and his colleagues in the latter half of the fourth century to collect, analyze, and assess the evidence then available for earlier attempts to understand the natural world. The other shift in focus this article makes is from philosophy to science; or rather, it focuses on evidence for the interplay between observation, measurement, and explanation in the work of three sixth-century Milesians.

Christian Philosophy

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hubertus R. Drobner
Keyword(s):  
Second Century ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Christian Philosophy ◽  
Language And Thought ◽  
Mediterranean Culture ◽  
Roman Culture ◽  
Original Question

Having reached its fully developed form in Plato and Aristotle, Greek philosophy formed influential schools, such as Stoicism, Middle Platonism, and Neoplatonism, which were to have a major impact on Christianity. When Rome eventually incorporated Greece into its Empire in the second century BCE, Greek language and thought began to pervade the whole Mediterranean culture. When Christ was born, this ‘Hellenism’ had shaped a new composite Graeco-Roman culture. However, all studies of Christian philosophy come down to the original question asked at the beginning: What does the juxtaposition of the adjective ‘Christian’ to the noun ‘philosophy’ mean? This article argues that in the same way that philosophy formed the understanding of the Christian faith, faith changed and moulded philosophy. Still, the basic questions of ‘Christian philosophy’ remain: What did Christians accept from philosophy, and how did this change Christianity?

Early Christian Political Philosophy

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Coherent System ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Political Thinking ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Social Pressures

Early Christian political philosophy is not a unified, theoretical, and coherent system, but is embedded in a range of Christian works of apology, theology, and exegesis. Literate (and therefore elite) Christians from the apologists to Augustine were subject to a range of political and social pressures, and their political thinking was often contingent and incidental. What is the ultimate goal of political life for Christians? What is the good life for Christians? Between Constantine's reign and that of Theodosius at the close of the fourth century, emperors veered from the pious to the “heretical,” with a single pagan interruption. It was a common rhetorical conceit for Christians to redefine philosophy as Christianity, and one that became more urgent during Julian's reign. He attempted to wrest Greek philosophy and culture from the Christians for his revived paganism, dubbed “Hellenism,” and even barred Christians from teaching in his school edict of 362. This article focuses on early Christian political philosophy as well as ecclesiology, eschatology, and asceticism.

scholarly journals PLATO'S PILOT IN THE POLITICAL STRATEGY OF JULIAN AND LIBANIUS

2017 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 607-616
Author(s):  
David Neal Greenwood
Keyword(s):  
Golden Age ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
Philosophical Concept ◽  
Rhetorical Strategy ◽  
Constantius Ii

The rhetorical career of Libanius of Antioch (a.d.314–c.393) spanned the reigns of a number of fourth-century emperors. Like many orators, he used the trope of the emperor as a pilot, steering the ship of state. He did this for his imperial exemplar Julian and in fact for his predecessor Constantius II as well. Julian sought to craft an identity for himself as a theocratic king. He and his supporters cast him as an earthly parallel to the Christ-like versions of Heracles and Asclepius he constructed, which was arguably a co-opting of Christian and particularly Constantinian themes. In a public oration, Julian even placed himself in the role of Christ in the Temptation in the Wilderness. This kind of overtly Christian metaphor was not Libanius’ preferred idiom, however, and he wrote of Julian as another kind of chosen and divine saviour-figure, one with its roots in the golden age of Greek philosophy. The figure of the κυβερνήτης, the ‘pilot’ or ‘helmsman’, is a philosophical concept with roots in the thought of the pre-Socratics but most familiar from Plato. The uses of this metaphor by Julian and Libanius highlight the rhetorical strategy and self-presentation the emperor employed during his reign.

Miskawayh’s Apologia for Greek Philosophy

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 107
Author(s):  
Mohd Nasir Omar
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Philosophical Study ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Major Work ◽  
Islamic Studies ◽  
Greek Thought ◽  
The Many ◽  
Important Evidence

In the East, Greek philosophy was studied as early as the fourth century, not however, by the Muslims but by the Arab Syrian Christians. It was Syrian Christians who brought wine, silk and other precious items to the West, but it was the Syrians also who cultivated Greek sciences for many centuries before they eventually transmitted them to the Muslim philosophers, especially in the tenth and eleventh century Baghdad. Miskawayh (d.1030), a great Muslim moralist, was among the philosophers who flourished in Baghdad at such times. He was well educated in Islamic studies as well as in philosophy, especially Greek philosophy. The many quotations from Greek sources which are found in Miskawayh’s works, especially in his major work on ethics, Tahdhib al-Akhlaq (The Refinement of Character), provide important evidence for this study to argue that they also have contributed to the formation of his moral philosophy. This paper thus, seeks to investigate Miskawayh’s own attraction to Greek ideas, which eventually led him towards the acceptance of Greek thought and also towards the need for an apologetic on behalf of philosophical study and on the relations between philosophy and the divine revelation.

Miskawayh’s Apologia for Greek Philosophy

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 107
Author(s):  
Mohd Nasir Omar
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Philosophical Study ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Major Work ◽  
Islamic Studies ◽  
Greek Thought ◽  
The Many ◽  
Important Evidence

In the East, Greek philosophy was studied as early as the fourth century, not however, by the Muslims but by the Arab Syrian Christians. It was Syrian Christians who brought wine, silk and other precious items to the West, but it was the Syrians also who cultivated Greek sciences for many centuries before they eventually transmitted them to the Muslim philosophers, especially in the tenth and eleventh century Baghdad. Miskawayh (d.1030), a great Muslim moralist, was among the philosophers who flourished in Baghdad at such times. He was well educated in Islamic studies as well as in philosophy, especially Greek philosophy. The many quotations from Greek sources which are found in Miskawayh’s works, especially in his major work on ethics, Tahdhib al-Akhlaq (The Refinement of Character), provide important evidence for this study to argue that they also have contributed to the formation of his moral philosophy. This paper thus, seeks to investigate Miskawayh’s own attraction to Greek ideas, which eventually led him towards the acceptance of Greek thought and also towards the need for an apologetic on behalf of philosophical study and on the relations between philosophy and the divine revelation.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document