The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

Diogenes LaertiusProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.0
Word count
1.1M words
Chapters
110

Tags

English Originals Western Philosophy Portrait GalleryLife PhilosophyIntellectual EnlightenmentWestern ThoughtMoral CultivationAcademic Study

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes LaertiusAuthor: Diogenes Laertius,Language: English, Class: B: Philosophy, Psychology, Religion, Release Date: Jun 16, 2018

Editor's review

Diogenes Laertius' Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is an important classical source for understanding Greek philosophers and the transmission of philosophical schools. It excels not in rigorous philosophical argument but in compiling biographies, lines of succession, anecdotes, sayings, and catalogues of works, preserving much material outside official accounts. Readers encounter the legends and words of familiar names such as Thales, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, as well as fuller lineages of the Epicurean and Stoic schools. Its value lies in being a panoramic portrait gallery and a storehouse of material: many later impressions of Greek philosophers derive from this book. It is best read as a collection shaped by its compiler's interests rather than as a modern textbook of philosophy; one should keep a critical eye on anecdotes and sayings while noting how the author organizes the schools' genealogies. For readers of the history of philosophy, classics, and intellectual history, it is a classic to consult repeatedly or read in fragments.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. There is no need to read straight through; skip by school or figure, starting with familiar names.
  2. Keep a chronology of philosophy at hand to clarify successions and chronological order.
  3. Treat anecdotes and sayings as leads rather than settled fact, and consult modern annotated editions for key passages.
  4. After reading, try drawing a genealogy of the schools to test your grasp of the relationships.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

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FAQ

Is this book suitable for readers with no background in philosophy? It can serve as a supplementary introduction but not as the only primer. It offers leads on figures and schools but lacks systematic exposition of theory; it is best read alongside a concise history of philosophy.
Are all the accounts in the book reliable? Not uniformly. The book compiles many biographies, anecdotes, sayings, and catalogues of works, preserving much valuable material but also mixing in legend and the compiler's own interests; it should be examined with modern research and other sources.
In what order should one read it? One may skip by school or figure without adhering to the original order. Start with familiar figures to build interest, then extend along lines of succession; for research, survey the contents first and then consult specific passages.
How does it differ from modern textbooks on the history of philosophy? It is closer to a classical biographical dictionary and compilation, emphasizing lives, words, successions, and catalogues of works rather than systematic analysis of arguments. What one gains is leads to primary material, not a ready-made theoretical framework.

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About the author

Diogenes Laertius Author

Diogenes Laertius is a Greek author known for his compilations of philosophers' biographies and doctrines; reliable details of his life, including his dates, nationality, and education, are extremely limited in publicly available sources. He is known today chiefly through his only surviving work, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. The book records, in a compilation style, the lives, anecdotes, intellectual lineages, and main doctrines of numerous Greek philosophers, and also includes letters, maxims, and anecdotes. Its structure is loose, yet it is rich in material, and its style favors anecdote and quotation rather than systematic argument. Because the original works of many early philosophers are lost, this work has become an important secondary source for the study of the history of ancient Greek philosophy; though its accounts are sometimes a mixture of fact and fiction, it has long been cited and has had a lasting influence.