Popular Philosophy and the Placita of Aëtius

Author

David Runia, Author

Gideon Kotzé, Editor

Philip Bosman, Editor

Book Title: Ancient Philosophy and Early Christianity: Studies in Honor of Johan C. Thom

Series Title: Supplements to Novum Testamentum

Volume: 188

City: Leiden

Publisher: Brill

Year: 2023

Pages: 64–83

Abstract

Taking as its point of departure Johan Thom’s expanded view of what constitutes popular philosophy in the ancient world, the article investigates whether there are connections between it and the first century CE doxographical manual, the Placita of Aëtius, which has recently been newly reconstructed and edited. Three works that Thom considers representative of popular philosophy do not reveal any common features with this manual. However, if we regard the satires of Lucian and the early Christian author Hermias as sharing in certain characteristics of popular philosophy, then we can observe some very interesting connections, particularly when they examine the subject of the status of knowledge and use examples from the domain of natural philosophy for purposes of illustration, with special emphasis on the many contradictions of the philosophers.

Categories

II. 2. Literary genres

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