Hellenistic philosophy
From Epicurus Wiki
Hellenistic philosophy refers to various schools that originated during the Hellenistic period (4th - 1st century BCE), a period in the ancient Mediterranean world beginning with the death of Alexander the Great to the defeat of Cleopatra. It is often considered a period of transition between the brilliance of the Greek Classical Era and the strength of the Roman Empire. The Hellenistic era was defined by 19th century historians (the term "hellenistic" was defined by the German Historian Johann Gustav Droysen in Geschichte des Hellenismus in 1836 and 1843) as part of a linguistic and cultural criterion for the spectacular increase in the areas where Greek (ἑλληνίζειν / hellênízein) was spoken, and therefore a term for the phenomenal expansion of Hellenism.
[edit] Schools of the Hellenistic period and late antiquity
It is in the Hellenistic period that Epicureanism took its origin. Several other schools of philosophy also developed in this period, most notably:
- Neo-Platonism: Ammonius Saccas, Porphyry, Plotinus (Roman), Iamblichus, Proclus
- Academic Skepticism: Arcesilaus, Carneades, Cicero (Roman)
- Pyrrhonian Skepticism: Pyrrho, Sextus Empiricus
- Cynicism: Antisthenes, Diogenes of Sinope, Crates of Thebes
- Stoicism: Zeno of Citium, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Crates of Mallus, Panaetius, Posidonius, Seneca (Roman), Epictetus (Greek/Roman), Marcus Aurelius (Roman)
The spread of Christianity through the Roman world ushered in the end of the Hellenistic philosophy and the beginnings of Medievalism.
