Showing papers by "Richard Sorabji published in 2014"

Moral Conscience through the Ages: Fifth Century BCE to the Present

Abstract: Introduction 1. Sharing knowledge with oneself of a defect: five centuries from the Greek playwrights and Plato to St. Paul and first century pagans 2. Christian appropriation and Platonist developments, 3rd to 6th centuries CE 3. Early Christianity and freedom of religion, 200-400 CE 4. Doubled conscience and double-bind: a medieval insight and a 12th century misconstrual? 5. Penitence for bad conscience in pagans and Christians, 1st to 13th centuries 6. Protesters and Protestants: 'terrorisation' of conscience and two senses of freedom of conscience, 14th-16th centuries 7. Advice on particular moral dilemmas: casuistry, mid-16th to mid-17th centuries 8. Freedom of conscience and the individual in 17th century England 9. Four rehabilitations of conscience and connexion with sentiment: 18th century 10. Critics and champions of conscience and its continuing re-secularisation: 19th to 20th centuries 11. Freedom of conscience, religion and speech: different balances in different legislations 12. Retrospect: Nature and value of conscience Index

Philosophy and Life in Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy: Three Aspects

Abstract: Philosophy, in the ancient Graeco-Roman world, and in various other cultures too, was typically thought of as, among other things, bearing on how to live. Questions of how to live may now be considered by some as merely one optional specialism among others, but Derek Parfit for one, we shall see, rightly treats implications for how to live as flowing naturally from metaphysical theories. In the hope of showing something about the ancient Graeco-Roman tradition as a whole, I shall speak of things that I and others have said before,1 but I will highlight certain aspects of how the various groups or individuals related their philosophy to their lives. I shall start with the ancient Stoics as providing a clear case, then move on more briefly to their rivals, the Epicureans, and finally, more briefly again, to consider their predecessors and successors in other ancient schools and periods. This will not be a survey of the main central doctrines, although that is also something useful to attempt. But it will involve a selection of important ideas to illustrate their application to how to live.