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Books

Ancient Philosophy and Everyday Life by Trevor Curnow

Ralph Blumenau goes to ancient Greece with Trevor Curnow.

This slim volume is an excellent and clearly written account of the four great Hellenistic schools beginning in the fifth century BC: the Cynics, the Stoics, the Epicureans and the Sceptics. Dr Curnow devotes a chapter to each, subdividing each one into the history of the school, its teaching, and its effect on the way people lived, and on their attitudes to diet and health, work, recreation, personal relationships and death. He also relates the teachings to our own world, pointing out where they are still relevant and also where we might regard them as rather chilly.

I am not sure why Dr Curnow treats the schools in the particular order he does. Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism, was born in 335 BC, after the founders of Cynicism (Antisthenes, 444 BC), Epicureanism (Aristippus, 435 BC) and Scepticism (Pyrrho, 365 BC); so perhaps Stoicism should have come last.

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