Table Of ContentANCIENT PHILOSOPHY
This book gives an excellent overview of the development of philosophy in the
classical world. Perilli and Taormina have put together an innovative history of
ancient philosophy.
Teun Tieleman, Utrecht University, Netherlands
‘We are all Greeks. Our laws, our literature, our religion, our arts, have their root
in Greece’, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley once wrote. It is in Greek that the ques -
tions which shaped the destiny of Western culture were asked, and so were the
first attempts at an answer, and the search for a method of investigation. This book
tries to rediscover the propulsive force that for over two millennia spread, and still
lives in our system of thought. By systematically quoting the very words of the
leading actors and by tracing their sources, it leads the reader along a path where
they will be able to observe the establishment of philosophical ideas and lang uage,in
an updated and balanced picture of archaic lore, of the thought of the classical and
hellenistic ages, and of the philosophy of late antiquity. The book looks closely at
the progress of scientific thought and at its increasing autonomy, while following
the evolution of the fruitful yet problematic relationship between the Greek world
and the Near East.
Lorenzo Perilli is Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Rome
‘Tor Vergata’, Italy, and the Director of the transdisciplinary Research Centre in
Classics, Mathematics and Philosophy ‘Forms of Knowledge in the Ancient World’.
His research interests include Ancient medicine and science, Presocratic philosophy,
textual criticism, and humanities computing.
Daniela P. Taorminais Professor in Greek Philosophy at the University of Rome
‘Tor Vergata’, Italy. Her research activity concerns especially the philosophy of
Late Antiquity, from Middle-Platonism to the Platonic philosophers of the sixth
century CE and is focused in particular on the domains of psychology and post-
Plotinian ontology. Most recently, she is co-editor and contributor of Plotinus and
Epicurus. Matter, Perception, Pleasure (2016).
ANCIENT
PHILOSOPHY
Textual Paths and Historical
Explorations
Edited by
Lorenzo Perilli
Daniela P. Taormina
First published 2018
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This book has been translated thanks to a translation grant awarded by
the Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs and to financial support provided
by the University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’.
Questo libro è stato tradotto grazie ad un contributo alla traduzione assegnato
dal Ministero degli Affari Esteri Italiano e al sostegno finanziario fornito
dall’Università degli Studi di Roma ‘Tor Vergata’.
© 2018 selection and editorial matter, Lorenzo Perilli and Daniela P. Taormina;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material,
and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance
with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Perilli, Lorenzo, editor.
Title: Ancient philosophy : textual paths and historical explorations /
edited by Lorenzo Perilli and Daniela P. Taormina.
Description: First [edition]. | New York : Routledge, 2017. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017014802| ISBN 9781138680999 (hardback : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781138668812 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315179339 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Philosophy, Ancient.
Classification: LCC B171 .A47 2017 | DDC 180–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017014802
ISBN: 978-1-138-68099-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-66881-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-17933-9 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo and Stone Sans
by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon, UK
CONTENTS
Contributors ix
Preface xv
Bibliographical outline on the history of scholarship on ancient philosophy xix
Abbreviations xxv
1. East and West 1
M. Laura Gemelli Marciano
2. Ancient philosophy and the doxographical tradition 41
Jaap Mansfeld
Focus Box 1: The transmission of ancient philosophy 61
Lorenzo Perilli, Daniela P. Taormina, Jaap Mansfeld
3. Philosophical stones: ancient philosophy as reflected
in the mirror of inscriptions 65
Georg Petzl
4. Socio-historical outline of the Archaic period 79
Paolo A. Tuci
5. ‘You Greeks are always children’: the infancy
of wisdom 85
Lorenzo Perilli
6. The Presocratics 103
Lorenzo Perilli
vi Contents
Focus Box 2: New discoveries of ancient
philosophical and scientific texts 215
Lorenzo Perilli and Daniela P. Taormina
A map of the philosophical schools in ancient
Athens. Drawing by Francesco Fazzio 222
7. The sophists and Socrates 225
Eugenio (Rick) Benitez
Focus Box 3: The sophists: key figures 251
Lorenzo Perilli, Daniela P. Taormina,
Eugenio (Rick) Benitez
8. Socio-historical outline of the Classical and
Hellenistic periods 253
Paolo A. Tuci
9. Plato 259
María Isabel Santa Cruz
10. The Academy from Plato to Polemo 337
Dimitri El Murr
Focus Box 4: Academic philosophers
(fourth–first century BCE) 355
Tiziano Dorandi
11. Aristotle 361
James G. Lennox
Focus Box 5: Aristotle’s Poetics 405
Guido Paduano
12. Hellenistic philosophy 409
Keimpe Algra
13. Socio-historical outline of the Roman period 495
Federico De Romanis
14. Some remarks on ancient science 499
Lorenzo Perilli
Contents vii
Focus Box 6: Logos and algorithms 541
Paolo Zellini
15. Philosophy in Rome 545
Therese Fuhrer
Focus Box 7: Lucretius: a failed subversion 573
Luca Canali
16. Socio-historical outline of the later Roman empire 577
Umberto Roberto
17. Platonism, Pythagoreanism, Aristotelianism 583
Dominic J. O’Meara
18. Greek philosophy and philosophers in the
third–sixth century CE: from Plotinus to the
last Alexandrian commentators 603
Daniela P. Taormina
19. Augustine of Hippo and the new Christian culture 677
Marta Cristiani
Appendix: Aristotle’s Testament 739
Index locorum (by Rosario Giovanni Scalia) 743
Index (by Rosario Giovanni Scalia) 771
CONTRIBUTORS
Keimpe Algra is Professor in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy at Utrecht Uni -
versity. He has published mainly on Hellenistic philosophy and ancient physics. He
is the author of Concepts of space in Greek thought (Leiden 1995) and co-editor of
several scholarly volumes, including the Cambridge history of Hellenistic philosophy
(1999). Since 1997 he has been the managing editor of the journal on ancient
philosophy Phronesis.
Eugenio (Rick) Benitezis Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney. He
has published extensively on Socrates and Plato and has recently completed an
Australia Research Council project on myth in Plato. His current research concerns
Socrates’ views about death, and their impact on later thinkers.
Luca Canali (1925–2014) was a leading Italian latinist, writer and poet. He was
also involved in the Italian resistance movement and in political activity during
and after WWII. He was Professor of Latin literature at the University of Pisa, and
the author of very many publications, such as Lucrezio poeta della ragione (1963);
Giulio Cesare (2006); Come leggere Virgilio (2007), Augusto braccio violento della storia
(2011). He translated the most important Latin poets, among them the whole of
Vergil, Lucretius, Horace and Catullus.
Marta Cristiani is Professor Emerita in History of Philosophy, University of Rome
‘Tor Vergata’. Her research interests include the Platonic tradition from Augustine
to the Middle Ages, the philosophy of space and time, and religious-anthropolo-
gical themes in the Middle Ages. Among her works are Giovanni Scoto, Il Prologo
di Giovanni(Milan 1987); Introduction and commentary to Augustine’s Confessions books
3 and 11(Milan 1992 and 1996); Lo sguardo a Occidente. Religione e cultura in Europa
nei secoli IX–XI (Rome 1995); (with M. Pereira) Ildegarda di Bingen, Il libro delle
