Beyond Aristotle

At the outset of this section I made reference to what I call the ‘Guthrie’ approach. Although a perfectly reasonable way to structure a course on ancient philosophy, one drawback is that it neglects those ancient philosophers who came after Aristotle. The increase in scholarly interest in Hellenistic and Late Ancient philosophy during the last three decades or so is beginning to percolate down into the classroom, but only slowly. A number of the approaches that I have touched upon already involve Post-Aristotelian material but it may be helpful to address this issue directly here.

• Hellenistic Philosophy. Hellenistic philosophy is now well served by two collections of fragments in translation: Inwood and Gerson’s Hellenistic Philosophy and the first volume of Long and Sedley’s The Hellenistic Philosophers. Alternatively one could structure an introduction to all three Hellenistic schools around a close study of one of Cicero’s dialogues. For an ancient sourcebook, one could read Books 7, 9, and 10 of Diogenes Laertius (all in the second volume of the ‘Loeb Classical Library’ edition). Sharples’ recent introduction offers a thematic guide to the philosophical topics of this period.
• Roman Philosophy. Traditionally, very few scholars have claimed that the Romans made any significant contribution to philosophy. However, more recent studies have attempted to challenge (or at least qualify) this claim. According to the ancient sources, philosophy was introduced to the Romans by the famous embassy of three Athenian philosophers in 155 BC, and this forms a natural point of departure for a course devoted to Roman philosophy. It might be appropriate for such a course to concentrate upon Latin philosophical works, including those of Cicero, Lucretius, and Seneca. However, one might prefer to extend the story to include works by Philodemus, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. A recent collection of essays and an introductory survey may prove useful.
• Philosophy at the End of Antiquity. The works of Augustine form one of the largest body of philosophical texts to survive from antiquity. Alan Perreiah has argued eloquently that Augustine’s Confessions form a ideal text with which to introduce students to medieval philosophy. He also acknowledges that in order to understand Augustine one must also be familiar with a number of earlier ancient philosophical movements, including Neoplatonism, Stoicism, and the work of Cicero. Thus a course built around the Confessions, looking both backwards and forwards, might offer a prefect bridge between the study of ancient and medieval philosophy. A similar argument could perhaps be made for Boethius, equally dependent on the Neoplatonic and Stoic traditions and equally influential in the Middle Ages. The Consolation of Philosophy offers itself as an equally readable text around which such a course might be constructed.
• The Commentators. Under the direction of Richard Sorabji, the vast corpus of late antique commentaries on Aristotle are currently being translated into English for the first time. From the numerous volumes that have been published to date, materials will be extracted in order to form three sourcebooks under the common title The Philosophy of the Commentators 200-600 AD: A Sourcebook. The three volumes will be dedicated to ‘Psychology’, ‘Physics’, and ‘Logic and Metaphysics’. Although not yet available (due 2003), these are likely to be useful textbooks for intermediate or advanced courses. They may perhaps be most useful when adopting one of the thematic approaches outlined above.

Links: Review of Long & Sedley and Inwood & Gerson / Review of Perreiah

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