Antiochus of Ascalon's "Platonic" ethics

This book offers a fresh analysis of the account of Peripatetic ethics in Cicero's On Ends 5, which goes back to the first-century BCE philosopher Antiochus of Ascalon. Georgia Tsouni challenges previous characterisations of Antiochus' philosophical project as 'eclectic' and shows how his reconstruction of the ethics of the 'Old Academy' demonstrates a careful attempt to update the ancient heritage, and predominantly the views of Aristotle and the Peripatos, in the light of contemporary Stoic-led debates. This results in both a hermeneutically complex and a philosophically exciting reading of the old tradition. A case in point is the way Antiochus grounds the 'Old Academic' conception of the happy life in natural appropriation (oikeiosis), thus offering a naturalistic version of Aristotelian ethics.

The central problem for modern scholarship on Antiochus' mature epistemology is fairly simple: almost all of the evidence tells us that he adopted Stoic epistemology whole-heartedly, but many scholars have proven unwilling to believe this owing to certain presuppositions about his role in the development of Platonism. 1

Socrates and the Socratic Philosophies: Selected Papers from SOCRATICA IV, 2022

The two reports of Antiochus' interpretation of Socrates in Cicero (Luc. 15, Acad. 1.15-17) can be reconciled. Antiochus held Socrates to have been an elenctic philosopher interested in ethics, rather than a proto-skeptic or Platonic dogmatist. Antiochus defended this claim through a reading of the Socratic dialogues of Plato and others to combat the skeptical (mis)interpretation of Socrates.

2012

This book is not The Cambridge Companion to Antiochus. Although the distribution of chapter topics attempts to cover all the major aspects of Antiochus' work and significance, their content does not represent an attempt to set out in orderly fashion what we know or reasonably believe about these questions and to present even-handedly whatever issues remain controversial. Authors have been given free rein to defend their own preferred viewpoint on controversial issues, and they will certainly not all be found singing from the same hymn sheet. This, the first book in English ever devoted entirely to the study of Antiochus, is above all an attempt to take debate forward. Nevertheless, anyone seeking to know the state of the art on Antiochean issues, and to find guidance on navigating the ancient testimonia and modern scholarly literature, will find the book an appropriate place to start.  The book is born of a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, entitled 'Greco-Roman Philosophy in the First Century bc' (see Acknowledgements, p. viii). Constructed around a weekly research seminar and two major international workshops, the project sought to advance our understanding of a significant watershed in the history of philosophy. The first century bce is the period in which philosophy loosened its historic moorings in the great philosophical schools of Athens and entered the Roman world, often attaching itself to such cultural centres as Alexandria and Rome.  It is no exaggeration to say that the character of philosophy as an intellectual activity was permanently changed by this transition. Cut adrift from the historic institutions which had linked them to their revered founders, the major philosophies shifted their efforts increasingly onto the study of their foundational texts. The Roman imperial age was thus an age in which philosophy centred on the newly burgeoning  For a more succinct and very helpful overview, see Barnes .  On the nature of this transformation, see Glucker , Hadot ,Frede, Sedley a. 

Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, 1968

In his life of Zen0 Diogenes Laertius (vii, 2; 25) makes the founder of Stoicism a pupil of Crates the Cynic, Stilpo the Megarian, Xenocrates and Polemo of the Academy, and Diodorus Cronus. The same teachers, except Diodorus, are mentioned by Numenius (Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta = SVF i, 11) and Strabo and Cicero also cite Polemo (ibid. 10 and 13). Chrysippus with such a varied formal education, but he did apparently go beyond the Stoa to hear Arcesilaus at the Academy (Diog. Laert. vii, 183-4). Peripatetics, Theophrastus, Strato and Lyco, as having any direct influence on the early Stoics. Plutarch (Comm. not. 1069e) asserts that Zen0 agreed with Aristotle and Theophrastus, a s well a s Polemo and Xenocrates, in taking q6uis and ~b K~T & p6uiv as the 'elements of happiness'. This enigmatic remark, which I will attempt to explain later, is the nearest Plutarch comes to suggesting a Peripatetic influenceand a shared one at thaton the Stoics, though Aristotle is mentioned several times in his antistoic treatises. (De fin. iii, 41) for the view that only terminology distinguished Stoic ethics from that taught in the Lyceum, and Piso, the spokesman for Antiochus (ibid. v, 74), claims essential agreement between the 'Old Academy' and the Stoics, after expounding a system allegedly based on Aristotle and Theophrastus (ibid. 9-13). But the polemic of the sceptic and the oversimplification of the eclectic have been sufficient grounds for discrediting these statements, though it remains to ask why they could have been made at all. Tradition does not credit No ancient authority mentions the Cicero, on the other hand, cites Carneades What then do we say about the antecedents of Stoicism? For Zeller, Socrates and the Cynics had the primary claim to influence Stoic ethical theory. Aristotle inspired much in logic and physics, but his influence on ethics is "restricted to the formal treatment of the material.. . and the psychological analysis of individual moral faculties" .2 and Xenocrates. Unfortunately, the ethical theories of these Academics are desperately elusive. are cited by eclectic sources not for independent moral positions but for positions which they shared with the Peripatetics. to Aristotle and give Polemo the credit are not c~n v i n c i n g .~ De fin. iv, 45, Polemone.. .a quo quae essent principia naturae acceperat (sc. Zeno). On the basis of this evidence Philippson and Brink reasonably concluded that Polemo influenced the Stoic concept of-rrpGjTa K~T & q 6 0 1 v .~ Not even so much can be said safely about Xenocrates. We should look rather to Polemo Professor Brink has recently given somewhat similar instruction^.^ In most cases they Von Fritz's attempts to explain away the references in such passages Strangely enough, he omits Cicero

Bonazzi, Mauro and Christoph Helmig. Platonic Stoicism - Stoic Platonism: The Dialogue between Platonism and Stoicism in Antiquity. Leuven University Press, 2008, 2008

This book examines the important but largely neglected issue of the interrelation between Platonism and Stoicism in Ancient Philosophy. Several renowned specialists in the fields of Stoic and Platonic analyse the intricate mutual influences between Stoic and Platonic philosophers in the Hellenistic period, the Imperial Age, and after. Although it has been repeatedly claimed that the phenomenon addressed in this book could best be labelled eclecticism, it emerges from the various articles collected here that the situation is much more complicated. Far from being eclectics, most Stoics and Platonists consciously appropriated their material in order to integrate it into their own philosophical system. The dialogue between Platonists and Stoics testifies to active debate and controversy on central topics such as psychology, epistemology, physics, and ethics. This book will deepen our understanding of the dialogue between different philosophical schools in Antiquity. The results presented here teach one clear lesson: Platonism and Stoicism were by no means monolithic blocks, but were continuously moulded by mutual influence and interaction.

Aristotelian Society suppl. vol., 1993