Calling Philosophers Names (eBook)

On the Origin of a Discipline

Christopher Moore (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF | EPUB

2019
440 Seiten
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-0-691-19742-5 (ISBN)

Infos

An original and provocative book that illuminates the origins of philosophy in ancient Greece by revealing the surprising early meanings of the word "e;philosopher"e;Calling Philosophers Names provides a groundbreaking account of the origins of the term philosophos or "e;philosopher"e; in ancient Greece. Tracing the evolution of the word's meaning over its first two centuries, Christopher Moore shows how it first referred to aspiring political sages and advice-givers, then to avid conversationalists about virtue, and finally to investigators who focused on the scope and conditions of those conversations. Questioning the familiar view that philosophers from the beginning "e;loved wisdom"e; or merely "e;cultivated their intellect,"e; Moore shows that they were instead mocked as laughably unrealistic for thinking that their incessant talking and study would earn them social status or political and moral authority.Taking a new approach to the history of early Greek philosophy, Calling Philosophers Names seeks to understand who were called philosophoi or "e;philosophers"e; and why, and how the use of and reflections on the word contributed to the rise of a discipline. Drawing on a wide range of evidence, the book demonstrates that a word that began in part as a wry reference to a far-flung political bloc came, hardly a century later, to mean a life of determined self-improvement based on research, reflection, and deliberation. Early philosophy dedicated itself to justifying its own dubious-seeming enterprise. And this original impulse to seek legitimacy holds novel implications for understanding the history of the discipline and its influence.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 17.12.2019
• Zusatzinfo: 1 map
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Vor- und Frühgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Geschichte der Philosophie
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Philosophie Altertum / Antike
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Philosophie der Neuzeit
• Schlagworte: Alcidamas • Ambiguity • Anachronism • Analogy • Anaxagoras • Anaximander • Ancient Philosophy • Anecdote • Antidosis • Antisthenes • Apotheosis • Archetype • Archilochus • Aristotle • Calculation • Center for Hellenic Studies • Charmides (dialogue) • Clement of Alexandria • Clitophon (dialogue) • Concept • Consciousness • Critias (dialogue) • Criticism • critique • Decision-Making • Demetrius of Phalerum • Democritus • Dialectic • Dissoi logoi • Empedocles • Epistemology • etymology • Euripides • Explanation • Flourishing • glaucon • Good and evil • Gorgias • Gorgias (dialogue) • Herodotus • Hippias • Historiography • hypothesis • Iamblichus • inference • Inquiry • Intellectual history • Ionians • Isocrates • Literature • Logos • Meditations • Mythology • narrative • neologism • Nicomachean Ethics • On Ancient Medicine • Parmenides • pessimism • Phaedo • Phaedrus (dialogue) • phenomenon • Philosopher • Philosophy • Philotimo • Plato • Platonic Academy • Polymath • Princeton University Press • Prodicus • Prose • Protagoras • Protrepticus (Aristotle) • Pythagoras • Pythagoreanism • reason • referent • Relevance • rhetoric • Self-control • Self-knowledge (psychology) • Self-reliance • sensibility • seriousness • skepticism • socratic • SOPHISM • Sophist • Sosicrates • Suggestion • Superiority (short story) • Theaetetus (dialogue) • theory • Thought • Thucydides • treatise • Understanding • Usage • Writing • Xenophanes
• ISBN-10: 0-691-19742-3 / 0691197423
• ISBN-13: 978-0-691-19742-5 / 9780691197425