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How does one die by philosophy? In Diogenes Laertius, philosophers jump into volcanoes, bury themselves in dung, get eaten by dogs, hang themselves, drown, and vanish into thin air -- sometimes all in a single lifetime. But what happens when we look beyond the fantastic and absurd to examine the particular ways that the philosophers' lives and deaths are recounted?
Ava Chitwood's reexamination of Diogenes Laertius's philosophical biographies opens a new window on the intellectual culture and context in which the work of philosophers like Empedocles, Heraclitus, and Democritus was read, received, and transmitted. Chitwood's analysis also suggests a methodology for understanding the interplay between biography and philosophy and for evaluating biographical sources.
While Chitwood's approach combines the disciplines of classical philology and philosophy, Death by Philosophy is not intended solely for the specialist. This investigation offers the modern reader a fascinating, fresh, and entertaining view of the ancient literary and philosophical world.
Ava Chitwood is Assistant Professor of Classics, at the University of South Florida.
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This study provides a unified framework within which to view the development of pre-Socratic thought. It points out three aspects of Xenophanes' scepticism, and shows how Heraclitus responded to each. Key issues concerning "psyche" and "logos" are summarized and an attempt is made to settle certain long-standing debates concerning them. The author argues that Heraclitus' concepts of "psyche" and "logos" resulted from his need to construct an epistemological theory in order to counter Xenophanean scepticism. The book makes use of various traditional Greek assumptions such as the principles of "like-to-like," the analogy of microcosm and macrocosm, and the concepts of balance and measure as exemplified in the ideal of "sophrosune". In doing so, it aims to illustrate the usefulness and importance of an approach to the Presocratics which takes into account beliefs which may seem odd to modern ones. ... Read more

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This is the first English translation of the only extended ancient treatise on Homer that survives today. It provides a detailed allegorical discussion of controversial passages in the Iliad and the Odyssey and is a mine of information on ancient approaches to allegory and to literary criticism. ... Read more

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Heraclitus the Stoic: In Defense of Homer
Little is known of Heraclitus the Stoic other than that he was a grammarian who wrote a treatise in defense of Homer around 100 AD.The Homeric Problems, then, aim at exonerating the great poet from the charge of impiety against the gods.Plato had banished poetry from his Republic (Resp., 398A.) and Epicurus had also ridiculed Homer: Plato, because he found little of moral and philosophical value in poetry; and Epicurus, because it was his style to make a mockery of mythology.Heraclitus could not comprehend how this was so, seeing that Homer's impact upon Greek literary and religious culture was so monumental and enduring.Heraclitus' solution to clear Homer of any accusation of sacrilege was to unveil the hidden truths and lift the screen of obscurity from portions of the two epics where there are found tales of inordinate desires, wars and passions amongst the gods.He attempted, therefore, to find a philosophical meaning in Homer and reveal what the bard really intended to portray.Consequently, Heraclitus' methodological scheme was centered on interpreting the questionable tales from the Iliad and Odyssey, allegorically.In his own words Heraclitus states, "It is a weighty and damaging charge that heaven brings against Homer for his disrespect for the divine.If he meant nothing allegorically, he was impious through and through, and sacrilegious fables, loaded with blasphemous folly, run riot through both epics.And so, if one were to believe that is was all said in obedience to poetical tradition without any philosophical theory...Homer would be a...Tantalus," a mythical figure who was proverbial for impiety (Homeric Problems, 1.1).Heraclitus then reminds his critics that he is amazed to see that inside the "temples and precincts...should have embraced Homer's impiety...and learned to chant his abominable stories from memory (H.P., 1.1)."And further, he remarks that man's fascination with Homer does not end in childhood; it only grows stronger, for the "only end for Homer is the end of life (H.P., 1.1)."Now Heraclitus finds the Iliad and Odyssey to be full of natural philosophy, science, wisdom, ethics and mystery.He gives Homer the epithets, "divine," "hierophant of heaven and of the gods" and claims that Plato himself and Empedocles learned a great deal from Homer in their philosophical endeavors.For example, Heraclitus demonstrates that Empedocles borrowed his four elements theory from Homer: compare (Il., 2.412+3.277-299) with Empedocles, (frg. 6) which says, "Bright Zeus, life-bringing Hera, Aidoneus/, Nestis, who wets with tears a mortal spring."Heraclitus claims that Empedocles adapted the Homeric verse and rendered it allegorically to nominate Zeus= "fire," Hera= "earth," Aidoneus= "air," and Nestis= "water."Another subtle discovery Heraclitus makes in this treatise is the War of the Gods in chapter 20 (Iliad).The author insinuates, for instance, that when Athena= "wisdom," defeated Ares= "madness and folly," this was really a victory of Wisdom over Folly.Yet these are just a few examples out of the dozens which will captivate and ignite reader's minds with new insights while voyaging through these two timeless epics.The Homeric Problems will be welcomed by literary critics, philologists, philosophers and classicists; and this edition is bi-lingual, making accessible to students and scholars alike.Before concluding, it must be said that the labors of Heraclitus were not in vain; his efforts helped shape the image of Homer as a theologian and high-priest--an image that endured in many philosophical traditions well into the M. Ages [see R. Lamberton, Homer the Theologian].Platonists such as Porphyry would follow up on Heraclitus' investigations, for he wrote his own study entitled Homeric Questions, which is extant.All in all, Heraclitus' presence will always be felt in the dimension of allegory.


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Publisher: Oxford, University PressPublication date: 1853Subjects: Istanbul (Turkey)Rome -- History ChronologyNotes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be numerous typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

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Chapters: 470 Bc Deaths, 473 Bc Deaths, 474 Bc Deaths, 475 Bc Deaths, 476 Bc Deaths, 478 Bc Deaths, 479 Bc Deaths, Confucius, Heraclitus, Gelo, Ephialtes of Trachis, Xenophanes, Hecataeus of Miletus, Mardonius, Aristodemus of Sparta, Pausanias, Ahala, Anaxilas, Panduvasdeva of Sri Lanka, Theron of Acragas, King Fuchai of Wu, King Jing of Zhou, Bo Pi. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 80. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Confucius (Chinese: ; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: K'ung-tzu, or Chinese: ; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: K'ung-fu-tzu), literally "Master Kong," (traditionally September 28, 551 BCE 479 BCE) was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher, whose teachings and philosophy have deeply influenced Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese thought and life. His philosophy emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice and sincerity. These values gained prominence in China over other doctrines, such as Legalism () or Taoism () during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE 220 CE). Confucius' thoughts have been developed into a system of philosophy known as Confucianism (). It was introduced to Europe by the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci, who was the first to Latinise the name as "Confucius." His teachings may be found in the Analects of Confucius (), a collection of "brief aphoristic fragments", which was compiled many years after his death. For nearly 2,000 years he was thought to be the editor or author of all the Five Classics () such as the Classic of Rites () (editor), and the Spring and Autumn Annals () (author). Kong Qiu (), as Confucius is commonly known, is a combination of his surname () and his given name (), and he was also known as Zhong Ni (), which is his courtesy name. He was born in 551 BCE in the Lu state (This state was in the south of modern-da...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=5823 ... Read more

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Interesting Read
"Though wisdom is common, yet the many live as if they had a wisdom of their own" "God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, satiety and hunger; but he takes various shapes, just as fire, whenit is mingled with ..."

Heraclitus is amazing.This book shows hisawesome mind and imagination, and is concise and to the point.I recommendthis book for anyone.Many don't recognize Heraclitus's wisdom, or havenever heard of him, when he is one of the greastest philosophers of alltime.This book says it all. ... Read more

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This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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Patricia Beer's "Friend of Heraclitus" is made up of 50 poems written since the publication of her "Collected Poems" in 1988. The book is in three parts. "Wessex Calendar" is a sequence of 12 sonnets, following the months of the year, each focusing on a building or landscape in her native South West, including Stourhead, Clouds Hill and the woods at Wordsworth's Alfoxden. "Observations" is a set of modern imagist verses. The third and largest part of the book consists of poems on diverse themes: reflections on childhood and middle age, reading, travel, and reactions to happenings in the world around us, past and present. Patricia Beer works in many forms, from blank verse to syllabics and the freer metres of today. ... Read more

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Webster's bibliographic and event-based timelines are comprehensive in scope, covering virtually all topics, geographic locations and people. They do so from a linguistic point of view, and in the case of this book, the focus is on "Heraclitus," including when used in literature (e.g. all authors that might have Heraclitus in their name). As such, this book represents the largest compilation of timeline events associated with Heraclitus when it is used in proper noun form. Webster's timelines cover bibliographic citations, patented inventions, as well as non-conventional and alternative meanings which capture ambiguities in usage. These furthermore cover all parts of speech (possessive, institutional usage, geographic usage) and contexts, including pop culture, the arts, social sciences (linguistics, history, geography, economics, sociology, political science), business, computer science, literature, law, medicine, psychology, mathematics, chemistry, physics, biology and other physical sciences. This "data dump" results in a comprehensive set of entries for a bibliographic and/or event-based timeline on the proper name Heraclitus, since editorial decisions to include or exclude events is purely a linguistic process. The resulting entries are used under license or with permission, used under "fair use" conditions, used in agreement with the original authors, or are in the public domain. ... Read more

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This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature. ... Read more

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The revival of Scepticism in the first century B.C. is due to Aenesidemus of Cnossus. Nonetheless, very little is known of him, and much of it seems to suggest that his thought tended more towards Dogmatism, and Heraclitean philosophy in particular. The puzzle has set the scene for a long-term debate, but, as yet, no agreed solution has been propounded. The present book provides a close examination of ancient evidence as well as of critical literature, and arrives at the conclusion that Aenesidemus merely intended to offer a Sceptical interpretation of Heraclitus, and that the ideas which are incorporated in it voice distinctive features of his Scepticism. ... Read more

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The year is 1987 and the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus is living with his mother in a small house in Sacramento when suddenly there is a knock on the door….

How far does reading go? At what point does the act of reading catapult the reader into the seemingly inevitable desire that leads to writing? What is the line that divides reading from writing, and what happens in the process of trying to import the perspective one enjoys on one side of that line onto the other side? The four pieces collected here are meditations on possible approaches to these and other questions related to the relationship shared by the two-fold acts of reading and writing. ... Read more

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This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the worlds literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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An incredible voyage through the teachings ofHeraclit
A collection of eleven discourses made in 1974 by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (OSHO) about Heraclit Fragments. Each chapter is a thorough explanation from OSHO about the ideas of Heraclit and why he was misunderstood in the ancient Greek. OSHO establishes parallels among Heraclit and otherilluminated masters like Buda, Jesus and Lao Tsé, with the usual sense ofhumor and detailed vision from a man who was considered one of the mostbrilliant ones from our century. This book is about religion, life,spirituality, illumination and specially about how a person which reachesthis non describable state of conscience (the illumination) facesdifficulties when he tries to share his feelings with other people. ... Read more