Behind the 'Lives of Philosophers:' Reading Diogenes Laertius in the Western Middle Ages (original) (raw)
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Diogenes Laertius and Philosophical Lives
Oxford Handbook of Ancient Biography, 2020
This chapter addresses Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of Eminent Philosophers, which recounts the doings, sayings, and writings of the leading figures of ancient Greek philosophy from its origins down to its rapid efflorescence and institutionalization in the fourth and third centuries BC, with occasional glimpses of its continuing vitality in the centuries beyond. Diogenes’ Lives is an exceptional work on many counts.
Conversion to Philosophy in Diogenes Laertius: Forms and Functions
ATHANASIOS DESPOTIS & HERMUT LÖHR (eds.), Religious and Philosophical Conversion in the Ancient Mediterranean Traditions, Ancient Philosophy & Religion, Volume 5, Brill, Leiden-Boston 2022, pp. 219-237, 2022
I present a typological classification of the various forms of conversion to philosophy as they appear in Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of Eminent Philosophers, demonstrating that this was a recurrent and well-developed theme in the biographies, with little variation between schools. These conversions also functioned as a means of conferring social legitimacy on the philosophers. This analysis allows us to shed light on the how ancient Greeks perceived their philosophers, who differed from other ‘cultural agents’ such as poets, and from other characters traditionally established in the collective imagination such as heroes. This analysis also highlights the similarities and differences between the conversions of ancient Greek philosophers and the Christian saints.
Diogenes Laertius: Lives of Eminent Philosophers
2009
This edition presents a radically improved text of Diogenes Laertius' Lives of Eminent Philosophers. The text is accompanied by a full critical apparatus on three levels. A lengthy introduction lists all the manuscripts of the Lives and discusses its transmission in late antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. There is also an index of personal names, a bibliography and notes covering several features of the text and its interpretation. Professor Dorandi has used the Nachlaß of Peter Von der Mühll, for the first time in its entirety, to verify and consolidate material that he had previously gathered. This is by far the most detailed and elaborate edition which Diogenes' Lives – a unique work which has had a profound influence on European literature and philosophy – has ever received.
Philosophical Lives in the Renaissance
One striking feature of the Renaissance recovery of ancient philosophy was the attention paid to biographies of ancient philosophers. One of the first to receive attention was Seneca: Gasparino Barzizza wrote, in the words of Letizia Panizza, “the first Humanist Latin biography of Seneca”. Gianozzo Manetti later wrote parallel lives of Socrates and Seneca, inspired by Plutarch. There was great excitement when the Vitae philosophorum of Diogenes Laertius was rediscovered and translated into Latin. Its appearance prompted Leonardo Bruni to write a new Humanist biography of Aristotle. Biographies of Plato followed, including one by Marsilio Ficino. Early printed editions of the works of philosophers – such as the Aldine Aristotle – opened with a biography, to be read before the works, following the ancient Neoplatonic tradition of studying the life of a philosopher before their ideas. While some historians of philosophy might be tempted to ignore this Renaissance fascination with biographies, dismissing it as a historical and philological distraction, I argue that it might tell us something important about how philosophy was conceived during the Renaissance. In particular I argue that it adds support to the claim made by a number of recent scholars that during the Renaissance philosophy was often conceived as a way of life.
The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity
2011
The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity comprises over forty specially commissioned essays by experts on the philosophy of the period 200-800 ce. Designed as a successor to The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy (ed. A. H. Armstrong), it takes into account some forty years of scholarship since the publication of that volume. The contributors examine philosophy as it entered literature, science and religion, and offer new and extensive assessments of philosophers who until recently have been mostly ignored. The volume also includes a complete digest of all philosophical works known to have been written during this period. It will be an invaluable resource for all those interested in this rich and still emerging field.
The Philosophical Life: Biography and the Crafting of Intellectual Identity in Late Antiquity
2013
From the CUA catalog: Ancient biographies were more than accounts of the deeds of past heroes and guides for moral living. They were also arenas for debating pressing philosophical questions and establishing intellectual credentials, as Arthur P. Urbano argues in this study of biographies composed in Late Antiquity. With its origins in the competing philosophical schools of Hellenistic Greece, the genre of the "philosophical life" provided verbal portraits of paradigmatic figures - usually rulers and philosophers - that epitomized diverse approaches to knowledge, piety, and the virtuous life. An eruption of biographical literature in Late Antiquity attests to a similar, but more intense, struggle to influence the future directions of religion, education, politics, and morality in the Roman Empire as leaders of Neoplatonism and Christianity engaged one another through historical figures. In a close analysis of the texts and the circumstances surrounding their composition, he argues that the production of biographies was a standard competitive practice among Greek educated intellectuals. Christian thinkers who wrote biographies, for the most part bishops, simultaneously drew upon the literary and philosophical education they shared with their rivals and challenged it. Proposing alternate histories and new paradigms of philosophy, including ascetics and women, they came to terms with the past and aimed to shape a new Christian future. Urbano traces the transformation of the late Roman empire through the lens of biographies which debated such issues as proper worship, access to God, politics, ethnicity, gender, and philosophic pedigree. He covers the writings of several Christian and Neoplatonist authors between the 3rd and 5th centuries to demonstrate how biographical literature played a significant role in the transformation of Rome into a Christian empire. "A significant contribution to the history of Late Antiquity, specifically, the history of philosophy and the history of religion... unique for using biography as the lens through which to view an age of religious and cultural transformation."—Elizabeth DePalma Digeser, professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara"
Classica - Revista Brasileira de Estudos Clássicos
Bios Philosophos. Philosophy in Ancient Greek Biography (Brepols, 2016), organized by Mauro Bonazzi and Stefan Schorn, delivers a both deep and wide tour through the philosophical aspects of Greek biographical production. On one hand, it does not concentrate only in the later periods of Greek philosophy, when biographical production abounded, but goes all the way back to the fourth century BCE, when biographical texts were fragmentary and mingled with other styles. On the other, it tries to unveil the philosophical motives in the works of authors who tend to be disregarded as historians, biographers, hagiographers or even as mere fans of the most prominent figures of their own schools. In our review, we will attempt to give a brief account of the ten articles that make up this volume, which, in turn, will hopefully provide an overview of the different connections between the biographies and biographers and their philosophical motives. Thomas Bénatouïl's Pythagore chez Dicéarque: anectodes biographiques et critique de la philosophie contemplative (p. 11-36) proposes an inversion of the traditional interpretation regarding the testimony of Dicaearchus of Messana about the life of Pythagoras. Since antiquity, Dicaearchus' reports tend to be seen as positive, because they present a Pythagoras devoid of mysticism and apparently more interested in practical matters. Bénatouïl shows, instead, that there are several evidences pointing in the opposite direction: the way Pythagoras uses of charm and persuasion in his dealings with the citizens of Croton, obtaining their admiration by means of elaborate discourses meticulously prepared to reach each type of audience (elders, women, young people, and even children and barbarians), and the fact that Pythagoras introduced a theory of soul contrary to that of Dicaearchus'. These tenets would actually be very different from Dicaearchus own idea of a practical life, making Pythagoras a perfect counterexample. Bénatouïl explores the motivations that underlie Dicaearchus' testimony, who was a close follower of Aristotle and heir