Stoic Eros
Stoic Eros
The Stoics distinguish two forms of eros. In vicious agents eros is indeed a passion and thus born out of a defective rational judgment about what is needed for happiness. But there is also a positive form of erotic love, practiced by the Sage on the basis of knowledge, which aims to reproduce his virtuous condition in others. In this Element, the author shows how the Stoics' wider theoretical commitments in ethics, epistemology, aesthetics, and psychology support their duplex account of eros. They also consider the influence of Plato's Symposium on the Stoic account, arguing for hitherto unrecognized links with Socratic moral psychology. The Element concludes with an assessment of how the Stoic erotic ideal fares in relation to our intuitions about the non-egoistic and particularized nature of love.
Reviews & endorsements
'[T]his volume is a brightly written and well-argued tour of Stoic views on eros. It is a compelling case for the overall theory of love to be considered against the backdrop of Stoic intellectualism and Socratic exemplarism.' Scott Aikin, Metascience
Product details
February 2024Adobe eBook Reader
9781009037648
0 pages
This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
Table of Contents
- 1. Introduction
- 2. The two basic forms of erôs
- 3. The perception of beauty
- 4. Socratic antecedents for the stoic theory of erôs
- 5. Conclusion
- References.
