Book contents
- Frontmatter
- General introduction
- I Philosophy in the later Roman Empire
- Introduction to Part I
- 1 The late Roman Empire from the Antonines to Constantine
- 2 The transmission of ancient wisdom: texts, doxographies, libraries
- 3 Cicero and the New Academy
- 4 Platonism before Plotinus
- 5 The Second Sophistic
- 6 Numenius of Apamea
- 7 Stoicism
- 8 Peripatetics
- 9 The Chaldaean Oracles
- 10 Gnosticism
- 11 Ptolemy
- 12 Galen
- II The first encounter of Judaism and Christianity with ancient Greek philosophy
- III Plotinus and the new Platonism
- IV Philosophy in the age of Constantine
- V The second encounter of Christianity with ancient Greek philosophy
- Map 1 The Byzantine Empire, c. 500
Introduction to Part I
from I - Philosophy in the later Roman Empire
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2011
- Frontmatter
- General introduction
- I Philosophy in the later Roman Empire
- Introduction to Part I
- 1 The late Roman Empire from the Antonines to Constantine
- 2 The transmission of ancient wisdom: texts, doxographies, libraries
- 3 Cicero and the New Academy
- 4 Platonism before Plotinus
- 5 The Second Sophistic
- 6 Numenius of Apamea
- 7 Stoicism
- 8 Peripatetics
- 9 The Chaldaean Oracles
- 10 Gnosticism
- 11 Ptolemy
- 12 Galen
- II The first encounter of Judaism and Christianity with ancient Greek philosophy
- III Plotinus and the new Platonism
- IV Philosophy in the age of Constantine
- V The second encounter of Christianity with ancient Greek philosophy
- Map 1 The Byzantine Empire, c. 500
Summary
INTRODUCTION TO PART I
In this section, we aim to provide a survey of philosophy as it was generally understood and practised around 200 ce. One may imagine the array of material confronting an advanced student of philosophy in, say, Rome or Alexandria at this time. We assume that the student would already be acquainted with what were then thought to be the major works of the founders of the great philosophical schools of antiquity – Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus and Zeno. In any case, he or she would have available various doxographical accounts of the ancient practitioners of philosophy. With this acquaintance must have come a considerable degree of perplexity, not the least owing to the apparent conflicts among the conclusions of these giants and the obscurity of many of their writings. Our student, however, would soon discover that these conflicts and obscurities had in fact been the subject of intense philosophical reflection and commentary for the intervening 500 years since the early days of the philosophical schools. Depending on the master whom the student chose to follow, he or she would encounter a complex tradition of defensive explication of one school’s positions against those of opponents. The student would also encounter various philosophical strategies employed to demonstrate that philosophical positions that seemed to be at odds were in fact in harmony. This approach, which certainly antedates our starting point by at least 300 years, will eventually take on an increasing urgency in the minds of Greek philosophers when faced with the growing dominance of Christianity.
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- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity , pp. 11 - 12Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000