Authors and Authorities in Ancient Philosophy

Offers a collection of essays exploring notions of authority and authorship through ancient Greek and Roman philosophy.

Jenny Bryan (Edited by), Robert Wardy (Edited by), James Warren (Edited by)

9781316510049, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 September 2018

382 pages, 1 b/w illus.
22.3 x 14.4 x 2.1 cm, 0.64 kg

Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy is often characterised in terms of competitive individuals debating orally with one another in public arenas. But it also developed over its long history a sense in which philosophers might acknowledge some other particular philosopher or group of philosophers as an authority and offer to that authority explicit intellectual allegiance. This is most obvious in the development after the classical period of the philosophical 'schools' with agreed founders and, most importantly, canonical founding texts. There also developed a tradition of commentary, interpretation, and discussion of texts which itself became a mode of philosophical debate. As time went on, the weight of a growing tradition of reading and appealing to a certain corpus of foundational texts began to shape how later antiquity viewed its philosophical past and also how philosophical debate and inquiry was conducted. In this book leading scholars explore aspects of these important developments.

Introduction: authorship and authority in ancient philosophy Jenny Bryan, Robert Wardy and James Warren
1. Reconsidering the authority of Parmenides' Doxa Jenny Bryan
2. Authority and the dialectic of Socrates Nicholas Denyer
3. Socratic discussions of death and immortality in Plato Alex Long
4. A superannuated student: Aristotle and authority in the Academy Dorothea Frede
5. Words, deeds, and lovers of truth in Aristotle Sarah Broadie
6. Aristotle's Categories 7 adopts Plato's view of relativity Matthew Duncombe
7. Theophrastus and the authority of the de Sensibus Kelli Rudolph
8. Pseudo-Archytas and the Categories Myrto Hatzimichali
9. Numenius on intellect, soul, and the authority of Plato George Boys-Stones
10. Demetrius of Laconia on Epicurus On the Telos (Us. 68) James Warren
11. Lucretius the madman on the gods David Butterfield
12. In and out of the Stoa: Diogenes Laertius on Zeno A. A. Long
13. The emergence of Platonic and Aristotelian authority in the First Century BCE Georgia Tsouni
14. Cicero on auctoritas Malcolm Schofield
15. Authors and authorities in ancient China: some comparative observations G. E. R. Lloyd
16. Antique authority? Robert Wardy.

Subject Areas: Western philosophy: Ancient, to c 500 [HPCA], History of Western philosophy [HPC], Philosophy [HP], Humanities [H]