Philosophy in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds (A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps #2)

by Peter S. Adamson

ataraxia

eudaimonia.

English, the notion that happiness requires freedom ...

The Cynics too taught that one should make do with bare necessities, and live in accordance with nature.

The Cynics should be seen not as a post-Aristotelian phenomenon, but as a post-Socratic movement.

Standing over him, Alexander said, “What favor can I offer you?” Diogenes replied, “Get out of my sun”

Cyrenaics.

The Cyrenaics were committed hedonists, whereas the Cynics chose a life of deliberate hardship. But they shared the same goal, namely total freedom, and the same road to that goal, namely following nature.

eudaimonia.

Aristippus, though, wants to stick to the idea that the good is whatever feels good.

the systematic understanding that the Stoics honor with the name of episteme, “knowledge” or “understanding.” A quick reminder: for the Stoics, the criterion of truth is what they call a cognitive impression, that is, an impression about how things are that corresponds to how things are, and that cannot be misleading. The Stoics add that a truly wise man will never assent to non-cognitive impressions, though he may accept that some such impressions are more reasonable than others and act accordingly.

Stoics are emphatic that certainty is possible and insist that wisdom requires certainty.

idea of suspending judgment, which happens to be the centerpiece of the skeptical strategy.

Arcesilaus

He argued, as we saw when discussing the Stoics, that in principle any impression, no matter how vivid and apparently unproblematic, could be indistinguishable from another impression that leads us into error (LS 40D). The

Sextus Empiricus,