Promoting a New Kind of Education: Greek and Roman Philosophical Protreptic

Promoting a New Kind of Education: Greek and Roman Philosophical Protreptic
Author: Daniel Markovich
Publisher: International Studies in the H
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2021
Genre: History
ISBN: 9789004467231

"Authors of Greek and Roman philosophical protreptics imitate a kind of exhortation initially associated with Socrates, creating a thread of typically protreptic intertextuality that classifies protreptic as a genre of philosophical literature. Tracing this intertextuality from the Socratic authors to Boethius, the book shows how Greek and Roman protreptics define philosophy as a revisionary form of education, articulate the ultimate goals of this education, and associate their authors and audiences with philosophy as a new discursive practice and a new way of living. These texts constitute the first chapter in the history of educational revision and thus offer thoughts that continue to inform every debate on educational goals"--

Listening to the Philosophers

Listening to the Philosophers
Author: Raffaella Cribiore
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2024-05-15
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1501774786

Listening to the Philosophers offers the first comprehensive look into how philosophy was taught in antiquity through a stimulating study of lectures by ancient philosophers that were recorded by their students. Raffaella Cribiore shows how the study of notes—whether Philodemus of Gadara's notes of Zeno's lectures in the first century BCE, or Arrian recording the Discourses of Epictetus in the second century CE, or the students of Didymus the Blind in the fourth century and Olympiodorus in the sixth century—can enable us to understand the methods and practices of what was an orally conducted education. By considering the pedagogical and mnemonic role of notetaking in ancient education, Listening to the Philosophers demonstrates how in antiquity the written and the spoken worlds were intimately intertwined.

Lucretian Receptions in Prose

Lucretian Receptions in Prose
Author: George Kazantzidis
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2024-09-02
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3111443817

The examination of Lucretian reception in Latin poetry has been served well by scholars. Lucretius’ presence in later prose writers, on the other hand, is a topic that warrants more investigation. Susanne Gatzemeier’s 2013 monograph (Ut ait Lucretius: Die Lukrezrezeption in der lateinischen Prosa bis Laktanz) is an invaluable contribution to the topic but by no means exhaustive either in terms of the potential intertextualities it traces or in terms of its interpretive methods and insights. At the same time, recent studies implicate Lucretius’ name in discussions of prose writers who were not that often thought in the past to have engaged with the De Rerum Natura in an active way. Caesar and Livy but also Vitruvius and Tacitus are some good examples. The present volume taps into this discussion and broadens further our understanding of Lucretian reception in prose writers, including Cicero, Celsus, Seneca the Younger, Quintilian, Pliny the Younger, Plutarch and Lactantius. Building on the vast scholarship on the significance of Lucretius as a model for later poets, the volume sheds new light on the De Rerum Natura’s afterlife by looking at its presence in philosophical prose, medical writing, oratory, epistolary writing and Christian theology.

Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Corinthians

Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Corinthians
Author: Timothy A. Brookins
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 286
Release: 2024-03-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 146746662X

A bold new reading of 1 Corinthians in light of Greco-Roman philosophy The First Letter to the Corinthians begins with an admonishment of the church over their internal division and reliance on human wisdom. What exactly occasioned Paul’s advice has perennially troubled New Testament scholars. Many scholars have asserted that Paul disapproved of the Corinthians’ infatuation with rhetoric. Yet careful exegesis of the epistle problematizes this consensus. Timothy A. Brookins unsettles common assumptions about the Corinthian conflict in this innovative monograph. His close reading of 1 Corinthians 1–4 presents evidence that the Corinthian problem had roots in Stoicism. The wisdom Paul alludes to is not sophistry, but a Stoic-inspired understanding of natural hierarchy, in which the wise put themselves above believers they considered spiritually underdeveloped. Moreover, Paul’s followers saw themselves as a philosophical school in rivalry with other Christians, engendering divisions in the church. Combining scriptural exegesis and investigation of Greco-Roman philosophical culture, Brookins reconstructs the social sphere of Corinth that Paul addresses in his letter. His masterful analysis provides much needed clarity on the context of a major epistle and on Pauline theology more broadly.

Exhortations to Philosophy

Exhortations to Philosophy
Author: James Henderson Collins II
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2015-03-27
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0190266546

This book is a study of the literary strategies which the first professional philosophers used to market their respective disciplines. Philosophers of fourth-century BCE Athens developed the emerging genre of the "protreptic" (literally, "turning" or "converting"). Simply put, protreptic discourse uses a rhetoric of conversion that urges a young person to adopt a specific philosophy in order to live a good life. The author argues that the fourth-century philosophers used protreptic discourses to market philosophical practices and to define and legitimize a new cultural institution: the school of higher learning (the first in Western history). Specifically, the book investigates how competing educators in the fourth century produced protreptic discourses by borrowing and transforming traditional and contemporary "voices" in the cultural marketplace. They aimed to introduce and promote their new schools and define the new professionalized discipline of "philosophy." While scholars have typically examined the discourses and practices of Plato, Isocrates, and Aristotle in isolation from one another, this study rather combines philosophy, narratology, genre theory, and new historicism to focus on the discursive interaction between the three philosophers: each incorporates the discourse of his competitors into his protreptics. Appropriating and transforming the discourses of their competition, these intellectuals created literary texts that introduced their respective disciplines to potential students.

A History of Alexander the Great in World Culture

A History of Alexander the Great in World Culture
Author: Richard Stoneman
Publisher:
Total Pages: 471
Release: 2022-02-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107167698

Explores how Alexander the Great has influenced literature, art and culture in Europe and the Middle East over two millennia.

The Question of Eclecticism

The Question of Eclecticism
Author: J. M. Dillon
Publisher: University of California Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2021-05-28
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0520362330

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1988.

Plutarch's Maxime Cum Principibus Philosopho Esse Disserendum

Plutarch's Maxime Cum Principibus Philosopho Esse Disserendum
Author: Geert Roskam
Publisher: Leuven University Press
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2009
Genre: Philosophy, Ancient
ISBN: 9058677362

In this short political work, Plutarch demonstrates that the philosopher should especially associate with powerful rulers in order to exert the greatest positive influence on his society and at the same time maximize his personal pleasure.

Aristotle and Xunzi on Shame, Moral Education, and the Good Life

Aristotle and Xunzi on Shame, Moral Education, and the Good Life
Author: Jingyi Jenny Zhao
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2024-04-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0197773168

Despite recent developments in the history of emotions and in comparative studies, sustained cross-cultural comparative studies of the emotions remain few and far between. Jingyi Jenny Zhao has produced the first major work that takes two philosophers from the ancient Greek and early Chinese traditions to stimulate discussion of an interdisciplinary nature on the rich and complex topic of the emotions-in particular, of shame. It features comparative analysis of Greek and Chinese texts while bringing the ancient materials to bear on modern controversies such as the role of shame in moral education and social cohesion. Although unalike in their social-historical and intellectual backgrounds, Aristotle and Xunzi bear striking similarities in several respects: they both conceptualize humans as essentially members of communities, as having a unique set of characteristics that set them apart from other living things, and as beings in need of moral training to fulfil their potential and become integrated into a well-ordered society. The two philosophers' discourses on shame reveal important insights into their ideals of human nature, moral education and the good life. This book tackles directly the methodological problems that are relevant to anyone interested in cross-cultural comparisons and organizes discussions of the ancient sources to facilitate a thorough integration of perspectives from the cultural traditions concerned. This approach provides sufficient focus to allow for detailed textual analysis while giving scope for making constant connections to the broader comparative questions at issue.

The Oxford Handbook of Rhetorical Studies

The Oxford Handbook of Rhetorical Studies
Author: Michael John MacDonald
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 844
Release: 2017
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199731594

Featuring roughly sixty specially commissioned essays by an international cast of leading rhetoric experts from North America, Europe, and Great Britain, the Handbook will offer readers a comprehensive topical and historical survey of the theory and practice of rhetoric from ancient Greece and Rome through the Middle Ages and Enlightenment up to the present day.