Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-8zxtt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-11T11:26:27.176Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The sufficiency of virtue for happiness: not so easily overturned?1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

R.W. Sharples
Affiliation:
University College London
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The sufficiency of virtue for happiness is a central Stoic doctrine. Indeed it can be argued that it is one of the doctrines that define the Stoic position; and it was the subject of extensive controversy in antiquity, coming under attack both from Academics and from Peripatetics. And Peripatetics had a particular interest in the topic, for Aristotle had already discussed it in Nicomachean Ethics 1.8–10, in a way which, to say the least, left room for a range of divergent interpretations.

The objections that were raised against the Stoic position in antiquity differ in their degree of persuasiveness. Some indeed point to fundamental differences of opinion of the sort that are not easily, if at all, reconcilable by argument. But others simply misinterpret or misrepresent the Stoic position. It is with some of the latter that the present paper will chiefly be concerned. Its aims are therefore limited even though the issue is important.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 2001

References

WORKS CITED IN NOTES

Ackrill, J.L., ‘Aristotle on Eudaimonia’, Proc. Brit. Acad. 60 (1974) 339–59 =Google Scholar
Rorty, A.O., ed., Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980, ch. 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Annas, J.E., The morality of happiness. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Annas, J.E., Platonic ethics old and new, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Arrighetti, G., Epicurus: Opere, Turin: G. Einaudi, 1973.Google Scholar
Becker, L.C., A new Stoicism, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Bruns, I., ed., Supplementum Aristotelicum II. 1, Berlin: Reimer, 1887.Google Scholar
Bobzien, S., Determinism and freedom in Stoic philosophy, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998, 341.Google Scholar
Edelstein, L. and Kidd, I.G., eds., Posidonius, Vol.2 Commentary, ii. Fragments 150–293, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Giusta, M., ‘Sul significato filosofico del termine πϱοηγούμενος’, Atti dell'Accademia delle Scienze di Torino 96 (19611962) 229–71.Google Scholar
Göransson, T., Albinus, Alcinous, Arius Didymus, Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia, 61, Göteborg 1995.Google Scholar
Grilli, A., ‘Contributo alia storia di πϱοηγούμενος’ in Studi linguistici in onore di V. Pisani, Brescia, 1969, 409500.Google Scholar
Huby, P.M., ‘Peripatetic definitions of happiness’, in Fortenbaugh, W.W., [ed.], On Stoic and Peripatetic ethics: the work of Arius Didymus. New Brunswick: Transaction, 1983, (Rutgers Studies in Classical Humanities 1), 121–34.Google Scholar
Irwin, T.H., ‘Socratic paradox and Stoic theory’, = ch. 7 in Everson, Stephen, ed., Ethics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998 (Companions to ancient thought, 4), 151192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kidd, I.G., ‘Stoic intermediates and the end for man’, CQ 5 (1955) 181–94 = Long, A.A., ed., Problems in Stoicism, London: Athlone Press, 1971, 150–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Long, A.A., ‘Aristotle's legacy to Stoic ethics’, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 15 (1968) 72–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mansfeld, J., ‘Diaphonia in the argument of Alexander, De fato chs. 1–2’, Phronesis 33 (1988) 181207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Opsomer, J. and Sharples, R.W., ‘Alexander of Aphrodisias, De intellectu 110.4: “I heard it from Aristotle”. A modest proposal’, Classical Quarterly 50 (2000) 252–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pohlenz, M., Die Stoa, Göttingen 19481949, II 174.Google Scholar
Rashed, M., ‘A “new” text of Alexander on the soul's motion’, in Sorabji, R., ed., Aristotle and after, University of London: School of Advanced Studies, 1997 (Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, suppl. vol. 68) 181–95.Google Scholar
Rist, J.M., Stoic philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969.Google Scholar
Sharples, R.W., Alexander of Aphrodisias On fate, London: Duckworth, 1983.Google Scholar
Sharples, R.W., ‘The Peripatetic classification of goods’, in Fortenbaugh, W.W., ed., On Stoic and Peripatetic ethics: the work of Arius Didymus. New Brunswick: Transaction, 1983 (Rutgers University Studies in Classical Humanities, 1) 139159.Google Scholar
Sharples, R.W., ‘Alexander of Aphrodisias: scholasticism and innovation’, in Temporini, H. and Haase, W., eds., Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, II.36.1. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1987, 11761243.Google Scholar
Sharples, R.W., Alexander of Aphrodisias: ethical problems, London: Duckworth, 1990.Google Scholar
Sharples, R.W., Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics, London: Routledge, 1996.Google Scholar
Sharples, R.W., ‘Aspasius on eudaimonia’, in Alberti, A. and Sharples, R.W., eds., Aspasius: the earliest extant commentary on Aristotle's Ethics, Berlin: de Gruyter, 1999 (Peripatoi, 17) 85–9.Google Scholar
Striker, G., Essays on Hellenistic epistemology and ethics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Usener, H., Glossarium Epicureum, eds. Gigante, M. and Schmid, W., Rome: Edizioni dell'Ateneo and Bizzarri, 1977.Google Scholar