Cicero’s Skepticism and His Recovery of Political Philosophy

Cicero’s Skepticism and His Recovery of Political Philosophy PDF

Author: Walter Nicgorski

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-08-11

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 1137584130

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This book explores Cicero’s moral and political philosophy with great attention to his life and thought as a whole. The author “thinks through” Cicero with a close reading of his most important philosophical writings. Nicgorski often resolves apparent tensions in Cicero’s thought that have posed obstacles to the appreciation of his practical philosophy. Some of the major tensions confronted are those between his Academic skepticism and apparent Stoicism, between his commitment to philosophy and to politics, rhetoric and oratory, and between his attachment to Greek philosophy and his profound engagement in Roman culture. Moreover, the key theme within Cicero’s writings is his intended recovery, within his Roman context, of both the Socratic focus on great questions of practical philosophy and Socratic skepticism. Cicero’s recovery of Socratic political philosophy in Roman garb is then the basis for recovery of Cicero as a notable political thinker relevant to our time and its problems.

The School of Doubt

The School of Doubt PDF

Author: Orazio Cappello

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2019-03-14

Total Pages: 396

ISBN-13: 9004389873

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In The School of Doubt Orazio Cappello presents a study of Cicero’s fragmentary philosophical treatise on sense-perception, the Academica, examining the dialogue’s literary, historiographical and theoretical texture.

Political Philosophy and the Republican Future

Political Philosophy and the Republican Future PDF

Author: Gregory Bruce Smith

Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess

Published: 2018-07-25

Total Pages: 412

ISBN-13: 0268103925

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Are we moving inevitably into an irreversible era of postnationalism and globalism? In Political Philosophy and the Republican Future, Gregory Bruce Smith asks, if participation in self-government is not central to citizens’ vision of the political good, is despotism inevitable? Smith's study evolves around reconciling the early republican tradition in Greece and Rome as set out by authors such as Aristotle and Cicero, and a more recent tradition shaped by thinkers such as Machiavelli, Locke, Montesquieu, Adam Smith, Madison, and Rousseau. Gregory Smith adds a further layer of complexity by analyzing how the republican and the larger philosophical tradition have been called into question by the critiques of Nietzsche, Heidegger, and their various followers. For Smith, the republican future rests on the future of the tradition of political philosophy. In this book he explores the nature of political philosophy and the assumptions under which that tradition can be an ongoing tradition rather than one that is finished. He concludes that political philosophy must recover its phenomenological roots and attempt to transcend the self-legislating constructivism of modern philosophy. Forgetting our past traditions, he asserts, will only lead to despotism, the true enemy of all permutations of republicanism. Cicero's thought is presented as a classic example of the phenomenological approach to political philosophy. A return to the architectonic understanding of political philosophy exemplified by Cicero is, Smith argues, the key to the republican future.

Cicero's Ideal Statesman in Theory and Practice

Cicero's Ideal Statesman in Theory and Practice PDF

Author: Jonathan Zarecki

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2014-04-10

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 178093470X

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The resurgence of interest in Cicero's political philosophy in the last twenty years demands a re-evaluation of Cicero's ideal statesman and its relationship not only to Cicero's political theory but also to his practical politics. Jonathan Zarecki proposes three original arguments: firstly, that by the publication of his De Republica in 51 BC Cicero accepted that some sort of return to monarchy was inevitable. Secondly, that Cicero created his model of the ideal statesman as part of an attempt to reconcile the mixed constitution of Rome's past with his belief in the inevitable return of sole-person rule. Thirdly, that the ideal statesman was the primary construct against which Cicero viewed the political and military activities of Pompey, Caesar and Antony, and himself.

Cicero

Cicero PDF

Author: Malcolm Schofield

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2021-01-15

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 019968491X

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This book offers an innovative account of Cicero's treatment of key political ideas: liberty and equality, government, law, cosmopolitanism and imperialism, republican virtues, and ethical decision-making in politics. Cicero (106-43 BC), a major figure in Roman politics, was the first to articulate a philosophical rationale for republicanism.

Cicero’s Philosophy

Cicero’s Philosophy PDF

Author: Stefano Maso

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2022-01-19

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 3110661837

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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”.

Academica

Academica PDF

Author: Marcus Tullius Cicero

Publisher: CreateSpace

Published: 2012-05-28

Total Pages: 178

ISBN-13: 9781477548691

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Cicero 106-43 adopted the philosophical view of the Academic skeptics as a young man. In 89, Philo of Larissa, the head of Plato's Academy, fled from Athens to Rome for political reasons. While at Rome, Cicero attended Philo's public lectures and began to study philosophy with him. Cicero also studied with the most prominent representatives of other Hellenistic philosophical schools: Posidonius (a Stoic), Zeno of Citium and Phaedrus (Epicureans), and Cratippus. Although the Academy probably ceased to exist as an institution after Philo's death in 84, Cicero continued to champion its methodology in his philosophical dialogues. The Academic position appealed to Cicero for a variety of reasons (Section 1). The Academics argued on both sides of every issue in order to undermine the dogmatic confidence of their interlocutors. Cicero's teacher Philo also applied this method in order to determine which position enjoyed the most rational support. Given his rhetorical and forensic skills, Cicero likely found this method attractive. It was also ideal for his project of inducing the ruling class Romans to take up the practice of philosophy. Rather than present his personal views, Cicero laid out in dialogue form the strongest arguments he could mine from other philosophical texts. The idea was to encourage the reader to come to his own conclusion, but even more importantly, to adopt the Academic method of inquiry. Perhaps the most attractive feature of Academic philosophy for Cicero was the intellectual freedom guaranteed by the method. The Academic is bound to no particular doctrine as an Academic. He is only bound to accept the verdict of his best rational assessment of the arguments pro and con.

The Ciceronian Tradition in Political Theory

The Ciceronian Tradition in Political Theory PDF

Author: Daniel J. Kapust

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press

Published: 2021-01-26

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 0299330109

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Cicero is one of the most influential thinkers in the history of Western political thought, and interest in his work has been undergoing a renaissance in recent years. The Ciceronian Tradition in Political Theory focuses entirely on Cicero’s influence and reception in the realm of political thought. Individual chapters examine the ways thinkers throughout history, specifically Augustine, John of Salisbury, Thomas More, Machiavelli, Montaigne, Hobbes, Locke, Adam Smith, and Edmund Burke, have engaged with and been influenced by Cicero. A final chapter surveys the impact of Cicero’s ideas on political thought in the second half of the twentieth century. By tracing the long reception of these ideas, the collection demonstrates not only Cicero’s importance to both medieval and modern political theorists but also the comprehensive breadth and applicability of his philosophy.

The Oxford Handbook of Roman Philosophy

The Oxford Handbook of Roman Philosophy PDF

Author: Myrto Garani

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2023-03-24

Total Pages: 649

ISBN-13: 0199328382

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"Several decades of scholarship by now have demonstrated that Roman thinkers have developed in new and stimulating directions the systems of thought they inherited from the Greeks, and that, taken together, they offer a range of perspectives that are of philosophical interest in their own right. This collection of essays pursues a maximally inclusive approach, covering not only authors such as Augustine, but also poets or historians. It pays attention to the mode in which these works were written (giving rhetoric too its due) and their often conscious reflections on the process of translating, or transferring Greek ideas to Roman contexts"--