Hellenistic philosophies

by Paul Elmer More

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385 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1969

About the author

Paul Elmer More was an American journalist, critic, essayist and Christian apologist.

Reviews

[Coyle]

Surprisingly, for a work of philosophy this was very good. In fact, I'll have to look up some of the other stuff he's written on Classical Philosophy. More is an excellent writer, who explains clearly (without over-simplification) complicated and obscure points, which is particularly difficult given how poor the Hellenistic writers were as writers (maybe even as philosophers, though More doesn't make that judgment).
About Hellenistic philosophy itself, it's particularly important and relevant to read about today. The issues facing the Western world between the 300sBC and the 200sAD are almost exactly the same we face today: how can we be free and secure at the same time? How can we be happy in a world that doesn't care about us? (their concern was nature, I suspect our "uncaring world" is technology) How can we live as good citizens in a vast, bureaucratic state where the individual is irrelevant and powerless before mighty and uncontrollable political forces?
On and on the questions they face and the answers they give are so surprisingly modern that if the names were changed and the Greek words removed, one could easily imagine this was written in the late 20th century, even those Paul Elmer More over 100 years ago, and the Hellenistic philosophers have been gone for 2 millenia...