Ancient Philosophy

'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 questions 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 language, 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. Taormina is 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 VI century AD 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).

1. East and West M. Laura Gemelli Marciano 2. Ancient philosophy and the doxographical tradition Jaap Mansfeld 2a. The transmission of ancient philosophy Lorenzo Perilli, Daniela P. Taormina, with Jaap Mansfeld 3. Philosophical Stones: Ancient philosophy as reflected in the mirror of inscriptions Georg Petzl 4. Socio-historical outline of the Archaic period Paolo Tuci 5. "You Greeks are always children": The infancy of wisdom Lorenzo Perilli 6. The Presocratics Lorenzo Perilli 6a. New discoveries of ancient philosophical and scientific texts Lorenzo Perilli, Daniela P. Taormina 7. The sophists and Socrates Rick Benitez 7a. The sophists: Key figures Lorenzo Perilli, Daniela P. Taormina, with Rick Benitez 8. Socio-historical outline of the Classical and Hellenistic periods Paolo Tuci 9. Plato Maria Isabel Santa Cruz 10. The Academy from Plato to Polemo Dimitri El Murr 10a. Academic philosophers (4th-1st cent. BC) Tiziano Dorandi 11. Aristotle James G. Lennox 11a. Aristotle's poetics Guido Paduano 12. Hellenistic philosophy Keimpe Algra 13. Socio-historical outline of the Roman period Federico De Romanis 14. Some remarks on ancient science Lorenzo Perilli 14a. Logos and algorithms Paolo Zellini 15. Philosophy in Rome Therese Fuhrer 15a. Lucretius: a failed subversion Luca Canali 16. Socio-historical outline of the later Roman empire Umberto Roberto 17. Platonism, Pythagoreanism, Aristotelianism Dominic J. O'Meara 18. Greek philosophy and philosophers in the 3rd-6th Cent. AD From Plotinus to the last Alexandrian commentators Daniela P. Taormina 19. Augustine of Hippo and the new Christian culture Marta Cristiani Aristotle's Testament Index