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Greco-roman Philosophy

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Does anyone take any inspiration from any of the classical philosophers?

 

I find Aristotle's ethics a rational guide to life and have taken some inspiration from them.

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I must admit that I've never been much of a philosophy guy. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Marcus Aurelius' meditations, but took little from it other than other than its historical perspective.

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Stoic philosophy doesn't appeal to me anyway. Taken to an extreme, it's an extremely lifeless and repressive system. Marcus Aurelius nearly put me to sleep, honestly.

 

Aristotle is much more my speed. ;)

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I've never said Aurelius wasn't full hypocrisy, and agree that his style wasn't all that exciting. I only enjoyed it for the nature of historical perspective that it provided. The hypocrisy also appealed to me in a way. Reading this man's thoughts, while being fully aware of some contradictory actions was entertaining to me.

 

Perhaps you can enlighten me about philosophy, as I've never been fascinated by it. The little bit of philosophy I've read, generally seems like obvious observations. I've never understood the profound effect of reading something like, "It is the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it."

 

Certainly there is truth in it, but perhaps as I live by my own, and completely unwritten philosophy, I pay no heed to the 'natural' rules recorded by others. I suppose I may someday try to read more, but as there are a million more historically related books I'd like to get to, I probably never will.

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I'm not an expert in the matter, either. Some of the stuff is too heady for my tastes.

 

What I appreciate about the Romans is the way they approached philosophy. They were less interested in the abstract, metaphysical aspects of philosophy and were more concerned with the ethical side of it. Stoic and Epicurean ethics seemed to be the most popular, but some people followed Aristotle. My interest in Aristotle stems primarily from his musings on ethics.

 

Maybe a better question is: what set of ethics does everyone here follow? Christian? Humanist? etc.

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I dusted off this thread because roman philosophy is something I really enjoy.

Two philosophers that I feel like suggesting are Lucrezio and Seneca. From Lucrezio I have read and loved "De rerum natura", I like his way of rationalising every single shade of life and even life itself. As far as Seneca goes (I think you probably read his works, I was forced to do so in latin literature but I did it with much pleasure) you should check De providentia,De ira,De brevitate vitae and expecially De tranquillitate animi. These are probably more influenced by ethics but despite that Seneca never falls into triviality and artificial and rethorical thoughts, unlike some other philosophers of this type.

I have to admit that I took inspiration especially from Lucrezio, I find his works brilliant.

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Marcus Aurelius's Meditation was very enjoyble....but it seems like the guy had no soul and expect everyone to lifeless robots with extreme virtues. He is pratically diffing the gods for all humans and gods alike have vice and virtue. Vice and Viture is like yin and yang keeping each other in balance.

Never read Aristotle but I think I should :D

 

Zeke

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Emperor Julian is my philoshper lol. I think him and Fidel Castro are my heros.

 

Zeke

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Che Guevara is one of my Heros :P .Has any one read Sophies Choice??its about philosophy.i kinda enjoyed it but it allso messed my head up for a while :D:D made me think too much (not good)lol :D:P

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Thales of Miletus, not really from the classibal period, but he was the first in many ways, larger than life and ahead of its time by about 1000 years... Everything in (western) philosophy starts with Thales

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