JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. University of California Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Classical Antiquity.
While Gorgias’ surviving speeches take few positions on ethics, they can be viewed as thought experiments about the psychological, epistemological, sociological, and metaphysical presuppositions of ethical thought. “The Logos of Ethics in Gorgias’ Palamedes, On What is Not, and Helen” attempts to illuminate those thought experiments by taking inspiration from a range of interpretive traditions of early Greek sophistics. The chapter argues that this “metaethical” approach allows us to appreciate the ambition and subtlety of Gorgias’ longest speech, which has received little attention hitherto; moreover, it reveals one sense in which his three surviving speeches belong to a unified ongoing project.
According to Xenophon, Socrates tried to persuade his associate Aristippus to moderate his excessive indulgence in wine, women, and food, arguing that only hard work can bring happiness. Aristippus wasn't convinced. Instead, he and his followers espoused the most radical form of hedonism in ancient Western philosophy. Before the rise of the better known but comparatively ascetic Epicureans, the Cyrenaics pursued a way of life in which moments of pleasure, particularly bodily pleasure, held the highest value. This book provides the most comprehensive account in any language of Cyrenaic ideas and behavior, revolutionizing the understanding of this neglected but important school of philosophy. The book reconstructs the doctrines and practices of the Cyrenaics, who were active between the fourth and third centuries BCE. The book examines not only Aristippus and the mainstream Cyrenaics, but also Hegesias, Anniceris, and Theodorus. Contrary to recent scholarship, the book shows that the Cyrenaics, despite giving primary value to discrete pleasurable experiences, accepted the dominant Greek philosophical belief that life-long happiness and the virtues that sustain it are the principal concerns of ethics. The book also offers the first in-depth effort to understand Theodorus' atheism and Hegesias' pessimism, both of which are extremely unusual in ancient Greek philosophy and which raise the interesting question of hedonism's relationship to pessimism and atheism. Finally, the book explores the “new Cyrenaicism” of the nineteenth-century writer and classicist Walter Pater, who drew out the enduring philosophical interest of Cyrenaic hedonism more than any other modern thinker.
General rightsThis document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/pure/userguides/explore-bristol-research/ebr-terms/ ! ! ! 1! Kristeva, Stoicism, and the "True Life of Interpretations" The repertory of theories, practices, and stories associated with Greek and Roman Stoicism fills a significant compartment in the western philosophical archive, the meaning and value of which are ceaselessly reconfigured by each generation's archivists. In the recent decades it is not only specialists who have browsed, rearranged, and relabeled these shelves; following Foucault's Hermeneutics of the Subject as well as a powerful synergy between Anglophone scholars and cognitive-behavioral therapists, there is now a wave of enthusiasm, inquiry, and experimentation. 1 Into these vigorous currents I propose that we release yet another stream, namely the numerous commentaries on Stoicism in the psychoanalytic, literary, and broadly cultural criticism of Julia Kristeva. My first objective in this article is to explain the scattered, elliptical, but insightful and coherent remarks Kristeva threads throughout her oeuvre. 2 These remarks are difficult to understand, both because they require familiarity with the audacious scholarship of Émile Bréhier and Victor Goldschmidt, and because Kristeva eschews dispassionate clarity in favor of affective involvement with the topics and situations on which she writes. 3 In other words, she performs her ethics of interpretation. "Interpretation" for Kristeva designates an ethico-epistemic attitude, and the "true life of interpretations" designates a personally and politically healthy form of this attitude. Working through these scholarly and methodological challenges is a good way to appreciate how the theme of "interpretation" can tie together her reflections on language, ethics, politics, theology, and metaphysics, all of which emerge in response to the Stoics' renowned systematicity.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.