Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit the Shop.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

The Other Greek Philosophers

Epicurus & Job

Benjamin Kerstein explores an ancient faultline in Western thinking and modern culture by comparing the philosophies of Epicurus and Job.

A major strand of philosophy has held that an essential defining aspect of Western thought is the rivalry between Greek rationalism and Jewish (or other monotheistic) revelation. On one side are Socrates, Aristotle, and their predecessors and disciples, who sought to understand the world through observation, theory, and rational discussion. On the other side are Moses and his fellow prophets, seeking truth through an immediate experience of the divine. To describe this rivalry, philosophers have often employed the metaphor of ‘Athens vs. Jerusalem’.

…