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Delight Springs

Saturday, February 6, 2021

"a therapeutic art"

The Hellenistic period brought a new era in philosophy as well as in general history. It was in those days that Western philosophy came to be seen as above all a guide to life and a source of comfort:

"Empty are the words of that philosopher who offers no therapy for human suffering. For just as there is no use in medical expertise if it does not give therapy for bodily diseases, so too there is no use in philosophy if it does not expel the suffering of the soul."

So said Epicurus (341–271 BC), the most famous of the new Hellenistic philosophers, and on this point he spoke for all of them. There were three main new schools of thought: the Epicureans, the Stoics and the Sceptics. On the whole, if an Epicurean said one thing, a Stoic would say the opposite and a Sceptic would refuse to commit himself either way. But there was something about which they could all agree: philosophy was a therapeutic art, not just an idle pastime for people who were too clever by half. Epicureanism and Stoicism were to some extent popular creeds in a way that the drier teachings of Plato and Aristotle could never be. The Platonic and Aristotelian schools continued to exist in one form or another throughout the Hellenistic period, doing research and teaching an elite. They certainly had something to say about how one should live, but not perhaps much that could readily be understood and even applied by the ordinary man in the market-place...

The Dream of Reason: A History of Western Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance (New Edition)" by Anthony Gottlieb: https://a.co/fUmMJ

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