The Self in Ancient and Early Modern Philosophy

(Hardback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

This open access collection of studies by internationally distinguished scholars focuses on the philosophical concepts of the Self in Graeco-Roman antiquity and the early modern period. The contributors bring together a range of historical and comparative case-studies that highlight tensions as well as connections between ancient and early modern conceptions of the self. Ancient philosophers discussed include Plato, Lucretius, the Stoics, the Cynics, Augustine and the Neoplatonists; early modern philosophers include Descartes, Gassendi, Pascal, Fnelon, Abbadie, Diderot and Kant. The two periods are bridged by a series of chapters assessing the influence of ancient thought on emerging 17th-18th century philosophical and scientific theories of the Self, aiming to answer questions like these: Should we see references to ancient pagan or Christian authors merely as documents of a cultural code or a taste for antiquity Or do they represent a genuine return to a real source of inspiration Do these points of contact mark opposition, tension, or complementarity The volume, which both contains new insights on particular periods of intellectual history and reassesses the possible connections between them, will be of interest to philosophers, classicists, psychologists, and historians of science and ideas. The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the National Research, Development and Innovation Office, Hungary.

Author Bio

Attila Nmeth is Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Philosophy, Research Centre for the Humanities, Budapest, Hungary. He is the author of Epicurus on the Self (2017) and co-founder of the Forum of Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy. Dniel Schmal is Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Institute of Philosophy, Research Centre for the Humanities, Budapest, Hungary, and Reader in Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, Pter Pzmny Catholic University, Hungary. He is the author and co-editor of many books in Hungarian including most recently Philosophy of Mind in the Early Modern (2016; in Hungarian).