This is a major reinterpretation of ancient philosophy that
recovers the long Greek and Roman tradition of philosophy as a
complete way of life--and not simply an intellectual discipline.
Distinguished philosopher John Cooper traces how, for many
ancient thinkers, philosophy was not just to be studied or even
used to solve particular practical problems. Rather, philosophy
--not just ethics but even logic and physical theory--was
literally to be lived. Yet there was great disagreement about
how to live philosophically: philosophy was not one but many,
mutually opposed, ways of life. Examining this tradition from
its establishment by Socrates in the fifth century BCE through
Plotinus in the third century CE and the eclipse of pagan
philosophy by Christianity, Pursuits of Wisdom examines six
central philosophies of living--Socratic, Aristotelian, Stoic,
Epicurean, Skeptic, and the Platonist life of late antiquity.
The book describes the shared assumptions that allowed these
thinkers to conceive of their philosoph