Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Cicero’s Philosophy
- Series page
- The Cambridge Companion to Cicero’s Philosophy
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- Cicero’s Philosophical Works
- A Note on Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Cicero’s Philosophical Writing in Its Intellectual Context
- Chapter 2 The Ciceronian Dialogue
- Chapter 3 Philosophy in Cicero’s Letters
- Chapter 4 Philosophy in Cicero’s Speeches
- Chapter 5 Cicero and the Creation of a Latin Philosophical Vocabulary
- Chapter 6 Cicero and Plato
- Chapter 7 Cicero’s Academic Skepticism
- Chapter 8 Cosmology, Theology, and Religion
- Chapter 9 Determinism, Fate, and Responsibility
- Chapter 10 Cicero on the Emotions and the Soul
- Chapter 11 Ethical Theory and the Good Life
- Chapter 12 Nature and Social Ethics
- Chapter 13 Philosophy, Rhetoric, and Politics
- Chapter 14 Cicero’s Republicanism
- Chapter 15 Empire, Just Wars, and Cosmopolitanism
- Chapter 16 Cicero and Augustine
- Chapter 17 Cicero and Eighteenth-Century Political Thought
- Chapter 18 Cicero and Twenty-First-Century Political Philosophy
- Bibliography
- Index of Cicero’s Texts
- General Index
- Series page
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 December 2021
- The Cambridge Companion to Cicero’s Philosophy
- Series page
- The Cambridge Companion to Cicero’s Philosophy
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- Cicero’s Philosophical Works
- A Note on Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Cicero’s Philosophical Writing in Its Intellectual Context
- Chapter 2 The Ciceronian Dialogue
- Chapter 3 Philosophy in Cicero’s Letters
- Chapter 4 Philosophy in Cicero’s Speeches
- Chapter 5 Cicero and the Creation of a Latin Philosophical Vocabulary
- Chapter 6 Cicero and Plato
- Chapter 7 Cicero’s Academic Skepticism
- Chapter 8 Cosmology, Theology, and Religion
- Chapter 9 Determinism, Fate, and Responsibility
- Chapter 10 Cicero on the Emotions and the Soul
- Chapter 11 Ethical Theory and the Good Life
- Chapter 12 Nature and Social Ethics
- Chapter 13 Philosophy, Rhetoric, and Politics
- Chapter 14 Cicero’s Republicanism
- Chapter 15 Empire, Just Wars, and Cosmopolitanism
- Chapter 16 Cicero and Augustine
- Chapter 17 Cicero and Eighteenth-Century Political Thought
- Chapter 18 Cicero and Twenty-First-Century Political Philosophy
- Bibliography
- Index of Cicero’s Texts
- General Index
- Series page
Summary
For approximately the last thirty years, Cicero’s reputation as a philosopher has been rising after close to a century of very low esteem. The alleged reasons for this disrepute are numerous and varied. Cicero was Roman, and Romans were thought to be neither scientific nor philosophical. He wrote in Latin, when the genuine language of philosophy was and is Greek. No original thinker, he was not so much a philosopher as translator and compiler, pasting together various philosophical works from the second and first century bce. This he did in his spare time, for Cicero was an amateur philosopher. His main pursuits were politics and judicial advocacy. When he turned to philosophy, he was content to adopt a form of eclecticism amenable to his own changing status in the troubled last decades of the Roman Republic. This short introduction won’t be covering Cicero’s philosophical works and their context (for which the reader should consult Chapter 1); it aims only to present the various and complementary ways in which this Companion, building on earlier studies, may answer these charges and allow us to gain a more accurate and richer picture of Cicero as a philosopher.
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- The Cambridge Companion to Cicero's Philosophy , pp. 1 - 6Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021