Epicureans, Stoics and Sceptics
ARISTOTLE DIED ONE YEAR AFTER HIS FORMER PUPIL, ALEXANDER the Great. By common convention, Alexander's death in 323 BC marks the start of a new era in ancient history, the 'Hellenistic age', which has a convenient terminus nearly 300 years later with the picturesque death of Cleopatra, the Roman annexation of Egypt and the rise of a new empire as Greece gave way to Rome. Alexander's achievement had been to carry Greek culture into far-flung territories in a ten-year rampage south to Egypt and east to India. After his death, leaving no clear successor to run an empire that had anyway been too quickly assembled to stay in one piece, the newly enlarged Greek-speaking world became a patchwork of monarchies ruled by Alexander's former generals (Cleopatra was the last ruler of the dynasty established by Ptolemy Soter, one of Alexander's generals in Egypt). Now that it was spread thinly over a wide area, Greek culture inevitably became diluted in a soup of foreign ideas and religions. Alexander's former domain became a Hellenistic world rather than a Hellenic one—that is to say, it was Greek-ish rather than purely Greek. Athens ceased to be the centre of the intellectual map, as Alexandria in Egypt, Antioch in Syria, Pergamon in Asia Minor and later Rhodes in the eastern Aegean became rival centres of learning. Athens remained unchallenged as the capital of philosophy until well into Christian times. But philosophy itself was changing; it had a wider, more cosmopolitan audience to satisfy. 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. By contrast, many of the new Hellenistic philosophers were keen popularizers…
The new schools of thought owed more to Socrates than they did to Plato or Aristotle. It was Socrates who had stressed the practical relevance of philosophy. Its point, he urged, was to change your priorities and thereby your life. The Hellenistic philosophies tried to deliver on this Socratic promise. In particular, they claimed to be able to produce the sort of peace of mind and tranquil assurance that Socrates himself had conspicuously possessed."
— Dream of Reason: A History of Western Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance by Anthony Gottlieb
https://a.co/eiPYB2m
No comments:
Post a Comment