Research Catalog

The therapy of desire : theory and practice in Hellenistic ethics

Title
The therapy of desire : theory and practice in Hellenistic ethics / Martha C. Nussbaum.
Author
Nussbaum, Martha C. (Martha Craven), 1947-
Publication
Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, ©1994.
Supplementary Content
Publisher description

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StatusFormatAccessCall NumberItem Location
TextNo restrictions *R-RMRR B505 .N87 1994Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315 - Reference
TextUse in library JFE 94-9144Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315

Details

Description
xiv, 558 pages; 25 cm.
Summary
The Epicureans, Skeptics, and Stoics practiced philosophy not as a detached intellectual discipline, but as a worldly art of grappling with issues of daily and urgent human significance: the fear of death, love and sexuality, anger and aggression. Like medicine, philosophy to them was a rigorous science aimed both at understanding and at producing the flourishing of human life. In this engagingly written book, Martha Nussbaum maintains that these Hellenistic schools have been unjustly neglected in recent philosophic accounts of what the classical "tradition" has to offer. By examining texts of philosophers committed to a therapeutic paradigm - including Epicurus, Lucretius, Sextus Empiricus, Chrysippus, and Seneca - she recovers a valuable source for current moral and political thought and encourages us to reconsider philosophical argument as a technique through which to improve lives. In describing the contributions of Hellenistic ethics, Nussbaum focuses on each thinker's treatment of the question of emotion. All argued that many harmful emotions are based on false beliefs that are socially taught, and that good philosophical argument can transform emotions, and, with them, both private and public life. Written for general readers and specialists, this book addresses compelling issues ranging from the psychology of human passion through rhetoric to the role of philosophy in public and private life.
Series Statement
Martin classical lectures ; new series, volume 2
Uniform Title
Martin classical lectures ; new ser., v. 2.
Subjects
Genre/Form
History.
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (pages 517-530) and indexes.
Contents
Therapeutic Arguments -- Medical Dialectic : Aristotle on Theory and Practice -- Aristotle on Emotions and Ethical Health -- Epicurean Surgery : Argument and Empty Desire -- Beyond Obsession and Disgust : Lucretius on the Therapy of Love -- Mortal Immortals : Lucretius on Death and the Voice of Nature -- "By Words, Not Arms": Lucretius on Anger and Aggression -- Stoic Tonics : Philosophy and the Self-Government of the Soul -- Skeptic Purgatives : Disturbance and the Life without Belief -- The Stoics on the Extirpation of the Passions -- Seneca on Anger in Public Life -- Serpents in the Soul : A Reading of Seneca's Medea -- The Therapy of Desire.
Call Number
JFE 94-9144
ISBN
  • 0691033420
  • 9780691033426
  • 0693033420 (canceled/invalid)
LCCN
93006417
OCLC
28724422
Author
Nussbaum, Martha C. (Martha Craven), 1947-
Title
The therapy of desire : theory and practice in Hellenistic ethics / Martha C. Nussbaum.
Imprint
Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, ©1994.
Type of Content
text
Type of Medium
unmediated
Type of Carrier
volume
Series
Martin classical lectures ; new series, volume 2
Martin classical lectures ; new ser., v. 2.
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 517-530) and indexes.
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Table of contents
Table of contents
Publisher description
Indexed Term
Ethics History
Greece
Research Call Number
JFE 94-9144
*R-RMRR B505 .N87 1994
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