The Philosophical Books of Cicero PDF Download

Author: Paul Lachlan MacKendrick
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
Cicero was keenly interested in Greek philosophy and his philosophical books were an important popular vehicle of Greek philosophy in later ages. Professor MacKendrick presents a useful conspectus of all Cicero's philosophical books with an analysis of their structure, background and intention. His thesis is that most if not all of them are cast in a rhetorical form; that for Cicero rhetoric and philosophy have the same goals: proving his point, winning adherents to it and stimulating his auditory, for most of these books are conceived as dialogues. Unity of form suggests that Cicero planned them as a unified whole. Ironically, their very charm of style has caused them to be dubbed superficial and unoriginal, but Cicero lived with philosophers all his life, and many an alleged source may in fact be a set of ideas assimilated by a well-read mind. Open-minded readers will respond warmly to his high morality, his respect for the rule of law, his humanism, scepticism and flair. A final chapter and appendix outline the immense influenc that Cicero's philosophical books exerted on the history of European thought.

Author: Robert T. Radford
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004458646
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
This book presents Cicero's natural law theory, including valuable definitions of the state, the ideal state, the ideal ruler, and the laws for the ideal state. Explanations are offered of the Greek sources of Cicero's republican philosophy, his influence on the Principate of Augustus, and his role in the development of modern political philosophy. As all the ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher united than Cicero, his authority should have great weight (John Adams, 1787).

Author: J. P. F. Wynne
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107070481
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Do the gods love you? Cicero gives deep and surprising answers in two philosophical dialogues on traditional Roman religion.

Author: Stefano Maso
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110661837
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Cicero was not only a great Roman politician, lawyer and orator: he also dealt extensively with philosophy, which he believed constituted the surest foundation for his commitment to civic affairs. Not limiting himself to the translation of previous philosophical thought, he critically addressed central theoretical questions, and thereby made a lasting impact on Roman intellectual life. This book offers a modern guide to interpretations of Cicero’s philosophical studies, one that ranges across his numerous philosophical works. Addressed to students and scholars of ancient philosophy, and to interested readers in the humanities more generally, the volume aims to break down the boundaries between the philosophical, literary and linguistic dimensions of Cicero’s highly influential oeuvre. Stefano Maso is a full professor in Ancient Philosophy at the University of Ca’ Foscari – Venice. Among his books are: Grasp and Dissent: Cicero and Epicurean Philosophy (Brepols 2015); Epicurus on Eidola: Peri Phuseos Book II. Update, Proposals, and Discussions (ed. with F. Masi, Hakkert 2015). He is co-editor of “Lexis. Poetica, retorica e comunicazione nella tradizione classica”.

Author: J. G. F. Powell
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781383005011
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Cicero may be best known as a politician, but he was also one of the few significant Roman writers of philosophy. This text presents a selection of current scholarly work on this neglected side of Cicero and attempts to show him as a serious philosophical writer.

Author: Jed W. Atkins
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108265642
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 357

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Book Description
Cicero is one of the most important and influential thinkers within the history of Western philosophy. For the last thirty years, his reputation as a philosopher has once again been on the rise after close to a century of very low esteem. This Companion introduces readers to 'Cicero the philosopher' and to his philosophical writings. It provides a handy port-of-call for those interested in Cicero's original contributions to a wide variety of topics such as epistemology, the emotions, determinism and responsibility, cosmopolitanism, republicanism, philosophical translation, dialogue, aging, friendship, and more. The international, interdisciplinary team of scholars represented in this volume highlights the historical significance and contemporary relevance of Cicero's writings, and suggests pathways for future scholarship on Cicero's philosophy as we move through the twenty-first century.

Author: Matthew Fox
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199211922
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
A provocative study of Cicero's use of history, revealing that, rather than promoting his own values, Cicero uses historical representation to explore the difficulties of finding any ideological coherence in Rome's political or cultural traditions.

Author: Yelena Baraz
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400842166
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
In the 40s BCE, during his forced retirement from politics under Caesar's dictatorship, Cicero turned to philosophy, producing a massive and important body of work. As he was acutely aware, this was an unusual undertaking for a Roman statesman because Romans were often hostile to philosophy, perceiving it as foreign and incompatible with fulfilling one's duty as a citizen. How, then, are we to understand Cicero's decision to pursue philosophy in the context of the political, intellectual, and cultural life of the late Roman republic? In A Written Republic, Yelena Baraz takes up this question and makes the case that philosophy for Cicero was not a retreat from politics but a continuation of politics by other means, an alternative way of living a political life and serving the state under newly restricted conditions. Baraz examines the rhetorical battle that Cicero stages in his philosophical prefaces--a battle between the forces that would oppose or support his project. He presents his philosophy as intimately connected to the new political circumstances and his exclusion from politics. His goal--to benefit the state by providing new moral resources for the Roman elite--was traditional, even if his method of translating Greek philosophical knowledge into Latin and combining Greek sources with Roman heritage was unorthodox. A Written Republic provides a new perspective on Cicero's conception of his philosophical project while also adding to the broader picture of late-Roman political, intellectual, and cultural life.

Author: Marcus Tullius
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226305198
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
The third and fourth books of Cicero's Tusculan Disputations deal with the nature and management of human emotion: first grief, then the emotions in general. In lively and accessible style, Cicero presents the insights of Greek philosophers on the subject, reporting the views of Epicureans and Peripatetics and giving a detailed account of the Stoic position, which he himself favors for its close reasoning and moral earnestness. Both the specialist and the general reader will be fascinated by the Stoics' analysis of the causes of grief, their classification of emotions by genus and species, their lists of oddly named character flaws, and by the philosophical debate that develops over the utility of anger in politics and war. Margaret Graver's elegant and idiomatic translation makes Cicero's work accessible not just to classicists but to anyone interested in ancient philosophy and psychotherapy or in the philosophy of emotion. The accompanying commentary explains the philosophical concepts discussed in the text and supplies many helpful parallels from Greek sources.

Author: Marcus Tullius Cicero
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780140440997
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Collecting the most incisive and influential writings of one of Rome's finest orators, Cicero's Selected Works is translated with an introduction by Michael Grant in Penguin Classics. Lawyer, philosopher, statesman and defender of Rome's Republic, Cicero was a master of eloquence, and his pure literary and oratorical style and strict sense of morality have been a powerful influence on European literature and thought for over two thousand years in matters of politics, philosophy, and faith. This selection demonstrates the diversity of his writings, and includes letters to friends and statesmen on Roman life and politics; the vitriolic Second Philippic Against Antony; and his two most famous philosophical treatises, On Duties and On Old Age - a celebration of his own declining years. Written at a time of brutal political and social change, Cicero's lucid ethical writings formed the foundation of the Western liberal tradition in political and moral thought that continues to this day. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.