The Greek Philosophers

Originally published as a multivolume work in 1882, Alfred Benn’s The Greek Philosophers begins by asking how Greek society, on the heels of the Peloponnesian War and in social and political disarray, “developed all the highest human faculties to an extent possibly rivalled but certainly not surpassed by the collective efforts of that vastly greater population which now wields the accumulated resources of modern Europe.” Benn documents Greece’s rise in the post war years, the development of Athenian intellectual life, and the significance of Socrates’ life, and then spends several chapters examining the life and thought of Plato and Aristotle. Benn teases out the differences between Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, an analysis that includes a fascinating chapter on the systematization of Aristotle’s thought. Benn also examines groups such as the Stoics, and Sceptics, and individual philosophers including Plotinus, Epicurus, and Lucretius.