Psychology and Value in Plato, Aristotle, and Hellenistic Philosophy

Psychology and Value in Plato, Aristotle, and Hellenistic Philosophy PDF

Author: Fiona Leigh

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022-11-24

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0192672916

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Ancient Greek thought saw the birth, in Western philosophy, of the study now known as moral psychology. In its broadest sense, moral psychology encompasses the study of those aspects of human psychology relevant to our moral lives—desire, emotion, ethical knowledge, practical moral reasoning, and moral imagination—and their role in apprehending or responding to sources of value. This volume draws together contributions from leading international scholars in ancient philosophy, exploring central issues in the moral psychology of Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic schools. Through a series of chapters and responses, these contributions challenge and develop interpretations of ancient views on topics from Socratic intellectualism to the nature of appetitive desires and their relation to goodness, from the role of pleasure and pain in virtue, to our capacities for memory, anticipation and choice and their role in practical action, to the question of the sufficiency or otherwise of the virtues for a flourishing human life.

Psychology and Value in Plato, Aristotle, and Hellenistic Philosophy

Psychology and Value in Plato, Aristotle, and Hellenistic Philosophy PDF

Author: Fiona Leigh

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2023-01-22

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0192858106

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Ancient Greek thought saw the birth, in Western philosophy, of the study now known as moral psychology. In its broadest sense, moral psychology encompasses the study of those aspects of human psychology relevant to our moral lives--desire, emotion, ethical knowledge, practical moral reasoning, and moral imagination--and their role in apprehending or responding to sources of value. This volume draws together contributions from leading international scholars in ancient philosophy, exploring central issues in the moral psychology of Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic schools. Through a series of chapters and responses, these contributions challenge and develop interpretations of ancient views on topics from Socratic intellectualism to the nature of appetitive desires and their relation to goodness, from the role of pleasure and pain in virtue, to our capacities for memory, anticipation and choice and their role in practical action, to the question of the sufficiency or otherwise of the virtues for a flourishing human life.

The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy

The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy PDF

Author: J. Sihvola

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-03-09

Total Pages: 402

ISBN-13: 9401590826

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Discussions about the nature of the emotions in Hellenistic philosophy have aroused intense scholarly interest over the last few years. The topics covered by the essays in this volume range from the classical background of Hellenistic theories, through debates on emotion in the major Hellenistic schools, to discussions in later antiquity. Special emphasis is placed on the development of the Stoic views on the nature and value of the emotions. The essays are written with a high level of philosophical and classical scholarship, but contain no exclusive technicalities. Audience: This first comprehensive treatment of the emotions in Hellenistic philosophy can be read with pleasure and profit not only by professionals in ancient philosophy but also all those who are interested in the philosophy of mind and its history.

Soul and Mind in Greek Thought. Psychological Issues in Plato and Aristotle

Soul and Mind in Greek Thought. Psychological Issues in Plato and Aristotle PDF

Author: Marcelo D. Boeri

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-06-06

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 3319785478

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This book offers new insights into the workings of the human soul and the philosophical conception of the mind in Ancient Greece. It collects essays that deal with different but interconnected aspects of that unified picture of our mental life shared by all Ancient philosophers who thought of the soul as an immaterial substance. The papers present theoretical discussions on moral and psychological issues ranging from Socrates to Aristotle, and beyond, in connection with modern psychology. Coverage includes moral learning and the fruitfulness of punishment, human motivation, emotions as psychic phenomena, and more. Some of these topics directly stemmed from the Socratic dialectical experience and its tragic outcome, whereas others found their way through a complex history of refinements, disputes, and internal critique. The contributors present the gradual unfolding of these central themes through a close inspection of the relevant Ancient texts. They deliver a wide-ranging survey of some central and mutually related topics. In the process, readers will learn new approaches to Platonic and Aristotelian psychology and action theory. This book will appeal to graduate students and researchers in Ancient philosophy. Any scholar with a general interest in the history of ideas will also find it a valuable resource.

Plato on Pleasure and the Good Life

Plato on Pleasure and the Good Life PDF

Author: Daniel Russell

Publisher: Clarendon Press

Published: 2005-09-15

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 019153613X

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Daniel Russell examines Plato's subtle and insightful analysis of pleasure and explores its intimate connections with his discussions of value and human psychology. Russell offers a fresh perspective on how good things bear on happiness in Plato's ethics, and shows that, for Plato, pleasure cannot determine happiness because pleasure lacks a direction of its own. Plato presents wisdom as a skill of living that determines happiness by directing one's life as a whole, bringing about goodness in all areas of one's life, as a skill brings about order in its materials. The 'materials' of the skill of living are, in the first instance, not things like money or health, but one's attitudes, emotions, and desires where things like money and health are concerned. Plato recognizes that these 'materials' of the psyche are inchoate, ethically speaking, and in need of direction from wisdom. Among them is pleasure, which Plato treats not as a sensation but as an attitude with which one ascribes value to its object. However, Plato also views pleasure, once shaped and directed by wisdom, as a crucial part of a virtuous character as a whole. Consequently, Plato rejects all forms of hedonism, which allows happiness to be determined by a part of the psyche that does not direct one's life but is among the materials to be directed. At the same time, Plato is also able to hold both that virtue is sufficient for happiness, and that pleasure is necessary for happiness, not as an addition to one's virtue, but as a constituent of one's whole virtuous character itself. Plato therefore offers an illuminating role for pleasure in ethics and psychology, one to which we may be unaccustomed: pleasure emerges not as a sensation or even a mode of activity, but as an attitude - one of the ways in which we construe our world - and as such, a central part of every character.

Psychology and Ontology in Plato

Psychology and Ontology in Plato PDF

Author: Luca Pitteloud

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-01-11

Total Pages: 143

ISBN-13: 3030046540

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This edited volume brings together contributions from prominent scholars to discuss new approaches to Plato’s philosophy, especially in the burgeoning fields of Platonic ontology and psychology. Topics such as the relationship between mind, soul and emotions, as well as the connection between ontology and ethics are discussed through the analyses of dialogues from Plato’s middle and late periods, such as the Republic, Symposium, Theaetetus, Timaeus and Laws. These works are being increasingly studied both as precursors for Aristotelian philosophy and in their own right, and the analyses included in this volume reveal some new interpretations of topics such as Plato’s attitude towards artistic imagination and the possibility of speaking of a teleology in Plato. Focusing on hot topics in the area, Psychology and Ontology in Plato provides a good sense of what is happening in Platonic scholarship worldwide and will be of interest to academic researchers and teachers interested in ancient philosophy, ontology and philosophical psychology.

Greek Models of Mind and Self

Greek Models of Mind and Self PDF

Author: A. A. Long

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2015-01-05

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 0674967348

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This lively book offers a wide-ranging study of Greek notions of mind and human selfhood from Homer through Plotinus. A. A. Long anchors his discussion in questions of recurrent and universal interest. What happens to us when we die? How is the mind or soul related to the body? Are we responsible for our own happiness? Can we achieve autonomy? Long asks when and how these questions emerged in ancient Greece, and shows that Greek thinkers’ modeling of the mind gave us metaphors that we still live by, such as the rule of reason or enslavement to passion. He also interrogates the less familiar Greek notion of the intellect’s divinity, and asks what that might mean for us. Because Plato’s dialogues articulate these themes more sharply and influentially than works by any other Greek thinker, Plato receives the most sustained treatment in this account. But at the same time, Long asks whether Plato’s explanation of the mind and human behavior is more convincing for modern readers than that contained in the older Homeric poems. Turning to later ancient philosophy, especially Stoicism, Long concludes with an exploration of Epictetus’s injunction to live life by making correct use of one’s mental impressions. An authoritative treatment of Greek modes of self-understanding, Greek Models of Mind and Self demonstrates how ancient thinkers grappled with what is closest to us and yet still most mysterious—our own essence as singular human selves—and how the study of Greek thought can enlarge and enrich our experience.