|
De Providentia
''De Providentia'' (''On Providence'') is a short essay in the form of a dialogue in six brief sections, written by the Latin philosopher Seneca (died AD 65) in the last years of his life. He chose the dialogue form (as in the well-known Plato's works) to deal with the problem of the co-existence of the Stoic design of providence with the evil in the world—the so-called "problem of evil." Dating and title The work cannot be precisely dated, but since it is addressed to Lucilius, who is the addressee of some of Seneca's final works including his '' Letters'', and since the essay has similarities to letters 106, 108, and 109 then the work is usually considered a late one dating to around 64 AD. The full title of the work is ''Quare bonis viris multa mala accidant, cum sit providentia'' ("Why do misfortunes happen to good men, if providence exists"). This longer title reflects the true theme of the essay which is not so much concerned with providence but with theodicy and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seneca The Younger
Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger ( ; AD 65), usually known mononymously as Seneca, was a Stoicism, Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, a statesman, a dramatist, and in one work, a satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature. Seneca was born in Córdoba, Spain, Colonia Patricia Corduba in Hispania, and was trained in rhetoric and philosophy in Rome. His father was Seneca the Elder, his elder brother was Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus, and his nephew was the poet Lucan. In AD 41, Seneca was exiled to the island of Corsica under emperor Claudius, but was allowed to return in 49 to become a tutor to Nero. When Nero became emperor in 54, Seneca became his advisor and, together with the praetorian prefect Sextus Afranius Burrus, provided competent government for the first five years of Nero's reign. Seneca's influence over Nero declined with time, and in 65 Seneca was executed by forced suicide for alleged complicity in the Pisonian conspiracy to Assassination, assassinate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plato
Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms. He influenced all the major areas of theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy, and was the founder of the Platonic Academy, a philosophical school in History of Athens, Athens where Plato taught the doctrines that would later become known as Platonism. Plato's most famous contribution is the theory of forms, theory of forms (or ideas), which aims to solve what is now known as the problem of universals. He was influenced by the pre-Socratic thinkers Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and Parmenides, although much of what is known about them is derived from Plato himself. Along with his teacher Socrates, and his student Aristotle, Plato is a central figure in the history of Western philosophy. Plato's complete ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elaine Fantham
Elaine Fantham (born Elaine Crosthwaite, 25 May 1933 – 11 July 2016) was a British-Canadian classicist whose expertise lay particularly in Latin literature, especially comedy, epic poetry and rhetoric, and in the social history of Roman women. Much of her work was concerned with the intersection of literature and Greek and Roman history. She spoke fluent Italian, German and French and presented lectures and conference papers around the world—including in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Argentina, and Australia. Her commentaries on Senecan tragedy, Lucan, and Ovid's ''Fasti'' in particular led to renewed interest in these subjects. Likewise her articles on aspects of the representation and realities of women at Rome remain a foundation for academic work in these areas. She was also classics commentator on NPR's '' Weekend Edition''. Fantham was Giger Professor of Latin at Princeton University from 1986 to 1999. Education Elaine Fantham was born in Liverpool, Uni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Destiny
Destiny, sometimes also called fate (), is a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual. Fate Although often used interchangeably, the words ''fate'' and ''destiny'' have distinct connotations. The earliest known mention of the term or its meaning is found on a document written in cuneiform script that reports on the mythical Tablet of Destinies. It probably refers to a political treaty between three groups of Sumerian gods (cf. the Epic Athra Hasis), whereby only the leader has the power to restore the things he once determined to their original state. Todays traditional usage defines fate similar: as a power or agency that predetermines (rules) the attributes of a thing or set of events positively or negatively affecting someone or a group. Other possibilities are that of an idiom, to tell someone's fortune, or simply the result of chance and events. In Hellenistic civilization, the chaotic and u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theodicy
In the philosophy of religion, a theodicy (; meaning 'vindication of God', from Ancient Greek θεός ''theos'', "god" and δίκη ''dikē'', "justice") is an argument that attempts to resolve the problem of evil that arises when all power and all goodness are simultaneously ascribed to God. Unlike a ''defence'', which merely tries to demonstrate that the coexistence of God and evil is logically possible, a theodicy additionally provides a framework wherein God and evil's existence is considered plausible. The German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Leibniz coined the term "theodicy" in 1710 in his work , though numerous responses to the problem of evil had previously been proposed. Similar to a theodicy, a cosmodicy attempts to justify the fundamental goodness of the universe, and an anthropodicy attempts to justify the goodness of humanity. Definition and etymology As defined by Alvin Plantinga, a theodicy is "an answer to the question of why God permits evi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epistulae Morales Ad Lucilium
' (Latin for "Moral Letters to Lucilius"), also known as the ''Moral Epistles'' and ''Letters from a Stoic'', is a letter collection of 124 letters that Seneca the Younger wrote at the end of his life, during his retirement, after he had worked for the Emperor Nero for more than ten years. They are addressed to Lucilius Junior, the then procurator of Sicily, who is known only through Seneca's writings. The letters often begin with an observation on daily life, and then proceed to an issue or principle abstracted from that observation. The result is like a diary, or handbook of philosophical meditations. The letters focus on many traditional themes of Stoic philosophy such as the contempt of death, the stout-heartedness of the sage, and virtue as the supreme good. Writing Scholars generally agree that the letters are arranged in the order in which Seneca wrote them. The 124 letters are arranged in twenty manuscript volumes, but the collection is not complete. Aulus Gellius (mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucilius Junior
Lucilius Junior (fl. 1st century), was the procurator of Sicily during the reign of Nero, a friend and correspondent of Seneca, and the possible author of ''Aetna'', a poem that survives in a corrupt state. Life The information about Lucilius comes exclusively from Seneca's writings, especially his '' Moral Letters'', which are addressed to Lucilius. Seneca also dedicated his '' Naturales Quaestiones'' and his essay ''De Providentia'' to Lucilius. Lucilius seems to have been a native of Campania, and Seneca refers repeatedly to "your beloved Pompeii." At the time Seneca wrote his ''Letters'' (c. 65 AD), Lucilius was the procurator (and possibly governor) of Sicily. He was a Roman Knight, a status he had achieved through "persistent work," and he owned a country villa in Ardea, south of Rome. Seneca devotes one of his shorter letters to praising a book Lucilius had written, and elsewhere quotes a few lines of Lucilius' poetry. ''Aetna'' ''Aetna'' is a 644-line poem on the origin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Divine Providence
In theology, divine providence, or simply providence, is God's intervention in the universe. The term ''Divine Providence'' (usually capitalized) is also used as a names of God, title of God. A distinction is usually made between "general providence", which refers to God's God the Sustainer, continuous upholding of the existence and natural law, natural order of the universe, and "special providence", which refers to God's extraordinary intervention in the life of people. Miracles and even divine retribution, retribution generally fall in the latter category. Etymology "Divine" evolved in the late 14th century to mean "pertaining to, in the nature of or proceeding from God or a god". This came from the Old French , with a similar meaning, and that from the Latin , meaning "of a god", in turn from , with similar meaning, which was related the Latin , meaning god or deity. The word "providence" comes from Latin meaning foresight or prudence, and that in turn from "ahead" and " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stoicism
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy that flourished in ancient Greece and Rome. The Stoics believed that the universe operated according to reason, ''i.e.'' by a God which is immersed in nature itself. Of all the schools of ancient philosophy, Stoicism made the greatest claim to being utterly systematic. The Stoics provided a unified account of the world, constructed from ideals of logic, monistic physics, and naturalistic ethics. These three ideals constitute virtue which is necessary for 'living a well reasoned life', seeing as they are all parts of a logos, or philosophical discourse, which includes the mind's rational dialogue with itself. Stoicism was founded in the ancient Agora of Athens by Zeno of Citium around 300 BC, and flourished throughout the Greco-Roman world until the 3rd century AD, and among its adherents was Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Along with Aristotelian term logic, the system of propositional logic developed by the Stoics was one of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosopher
Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational and critical inquiry that reflects on its methods and assumptions. Historically, many of the individual sciences, such as physics and psychology, formed part of philosophy. However, they are considered separate academic disciplines in the modern sense of the term. Influential traditions in the history of philosophy include Western philosophy, Western, Islamic philosophy, Arabic–Persian, Indian philosophy, Indian, and Chinese philosophy. Western philosophy originated in Ancient Greece and covers a wide area of philosophical subfields. A central topic in Arabic–Persian philosophy is the relation between reason and revelation. Indian philosophy combines the Spirituality, spiritual problem of how to reach Enlightenment in Buddhism, enlighten ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Rome
In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC), the Roman Republic (50927 BC), and the Roman Empire (27 BC476 AD) until the fall of the western empire. Ancient Rome began as an Italic peoples, Italic settlement, traditionally dated to 753 BC, beside the River Tiber in the Italian peninsula. The settlement grew into the city and polity of Rome, and came to control its neighbours through a combination of treaties and military strength. It eventually controlled the Italian Peninsula, assimilating the Greece, Greek culture of southern Italy (Magna Graecia) and the Etruscans, Etruscan culture, and then became the dominant power in the Mediterranean region and parts of Europe. At its hei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dialogue
Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in American and British English spelling differences, American English) is a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literature, literary and theatrical form that depicts such an exchange. As a philosophy, philosophical or didactic device, it is chiefly associated in the West with the Socratic dialogue as developed by Plato, but antecedents are also found in other traditions including Indian literature. Etymology The term ''dialogue'' stems from the Greek language, Greek (, ); its roots are (, ) and (, ). The first extant author who uses the term is Plato, in whose works it is closely associated with the art of dialectic. Latin took over the word as . As genre Antiquity Dialogue as a genre in the Middle East and Asia dates back to ancient works, such as Sumerian disputations preserved in copies from the late third millennium BC, Rigvedic dialogue hymns, and the ''Mahabharata''. In the West, Plato ( BC ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
