Virtues for the people

aspects of Plutarchan ethics

Plutarch of Chaeronea, Platonist, polymath, and prolific writer, was by no means an armchair philosopher. He believed in the necessity for a philosopher to affect the lives of his fellow citizens. That urge inspired many of his writings to meet what he considered people's true needs. Although these writings on practical ethics illustrate in various ways Plutarch's authorial talents and raise many challenging questions (regarding their overall structure, content, purpose, and underlying philosophical...

Non-Fictie

Niet gecodeerde talen, 320 pagina's (PDF, 1,9 MB), Leuven University Press, Leuven, 2017

E-book

Geert Roskam A commentary on Plutarch's De latenter vivendo

Plutarch's De latenter vivendo is the only extant work from Antiquity in which Epicurus' famous ideal of an 'unnoticed life' (lathe biosas) is thematised as such. Moreover, the short rhetorical work provides a lot of interesting information about Plutarch's polemical strategies and about his own philosophical convictions in the domains of ethics, politics, metaphysics, and eschatology. In this book, Plutarch's anti-Epicurean polemic is understood against the background of the previous philosophical...

Non-Fictie

Engels, 279 pagina's (PDF, 2,2 MB), Universitaire Pers Leuven, Leuven, 2017

E-book

G. Roskam Plutarch's Maxime cum principibus philosopho esse disserendum

an interpretation with commentary

The question of the political relevance of philosophy, and of the role which the philosopher should play in the government of his state, was often discussed in Antiquity. Plato's ideal of the philosopher-king is well-known, but was precisely his failure to realise his political ideal in Syracuse not the best argument against the philosopher's political engagement? Nevertheless, Plato's ideal remained attractive for later Greek thinkers. This is illustrated, for instance, by one of Plutarch's short...

Non-Fictie

Engels, 252 pagina's (PDF, 3,9 MB), Universitaire Pers Leuven, Leuven, 2017

E-book