Aristotle, Plato and Pythagoreanism in the First Century BC

New Directions for Philosophy

Malcolm Schofield

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9781107020115
• eBook ISBN:
  9781139603638
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Philosophy

This book presents an up-to-date overview of the main new directions taken by ancient philosophy in the first century BC, a period in which the dominance exercised in the Hellenistic age by Stoicism, Epicureanism and Academic Scepticism gave way to a more diverse and experimental philosophical scene. Its development has been much less well understood, but here a strong international team of leading scholars of the subject reconstruct key features of the changed environment. They examine afresh the evidence for some of the central Greek thinkers of the period, as well as illuminating Cicero's engagement with Plato both as translator and in his own philosophising. The intensity of renewed study of Aristotle's Categories and Plato's Timaeus is an especially striking outcome of their discussions. The volume will be indispensable for scholars and students interested in the history of Platonism and Aristotelianism.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Notes on contributors
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 The texts of Plato and Aristotle in the first century bc
• Chapter 2 Platonist approaches to Aristotle: from Antiochus of Ascalon to Eudorus of Alexandria (and beyond)
• Chapter 3 Boethus’ Aristotelian ontology
• Chapter 4 Aristotelianism in the first century bc: Xenarchus of Seleucia
• Chapter 5 Posidonius as historian of philosophy: an interpretation of Plutarch, de Animae Procreatione in Timaeo 22, 1023b–c
• Chapter 6 Asclepiades of Bithynia and Heraclides Ponticus: medical Platonism?
• Chapter 7 The eclectic Pythagoreanism of Alexander Polyhistor
• Chapter 8 Pythagoreanising Aristotle: Eudorus and the systematisation of Platonism
• Chapter 9 Cicero and the Timaeus
• Chapter 10 Plato's Laws and Cicero's de Legibus
• Chapter 11 Of Cicero's Plato: fictions, Forms, foundations
• Bibliography
• Index of passages
• General index