Lives of the Eminent Philosophers: by Diogenes Laertius

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Description

Everyone wants to live a meaningful life. Long before our own day of self-lend a hand books offering twelve-step programs and other guides to attain happiness, the philosophers of ancient Greece explored the riddle of what makes a life worth living, producing all kinds of ideas and examples to follow. This rich tradition used to be recast by Diogenes Laertius into an anthology, a miscellany of maxims and anecdotes, that generations of Western readers have consulted for edification in addition to entertainment ever since the Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, first compiled in the third century AD, came to prominence in Renaissance Italy. To at the present time, it remains a an important source for much of what we know about the origins and practice of philosophy in ancient Greece, covering a longer time period and a larger number of figures-from Pythagoras and Socrates to Aristotle and Epicurus-than any other ancient source.

This new edition of the Lives, in a faithful and eminently readable translation by Pamela Mensch, is the first rendering of the complete text into English in nearly a century. Lavishly illustrated with a vast array of artwork that attests to the profound affect of Diogenes on the Western imagination, this edition also includes detailed notes and quite a lot of newly commissioned essays by leading scholars that make clear the work’s historical and intellectual contexts in addition to its rich legacy. The result is a capacious, fascinating, and charming compendium of ancient inspiration
and instruction.

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