Beyond Hellenistic Epistemology: Arcesilaus and the Destruction of Stoic Metaphysics
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Overview
Charles E. Snyder considers the New Academy’s attacks on Stoic epistemology through a critical re-assessment of the 3rd century philosopher, Arcesilaus of Pitane. Arguing that the standard epistemological framework used to study the ancient Academy ignores the metaphysical dimensions at stake in Arcesilaus’s critique, Snyder explores new territory for the historiography of Stoic-Academic debates in the early Hellenistic period.
Focusing on the dispute between the Old and New Academy, Snyder reveals the metaphysical dimensions of Arcesilaus’ arguments as essential to grasping what is innovative about the so-called New Academy. Resisting the partiality for epistemology in the historical reconstructions of ancient philosophy, this book defends a new philosophical framework that re-positions Arcesilaus’ attack on the early Stoa as key to his deviation from the metaphysical foundations of both Stoic and Academic virtue ethics.
Drawing on a wide range of scholarship on Hellenistic philosophy in French, Italian, and German, Beyond Hellenistic Epistemology builds bridges between analytical and continental approaches to the historiography of ancient philosophy, and makes an important and disruptive contribution to the literature.
Proposes a re-assessment of the epistemological base on which debates between Stoicism and Plato’s Academy are studied.
Builds bridges between so-called analytical and continental approaches to the historiography of ancient philosophy
Takes into account a wide array of recent scholarship (French, Italian, German) on Hellenistic philosophy
Creates a new metaphysical framework for the study of Hellenistic philosophy
Refutes the standard application of the epistemological framework in the history of philosophy
Introduction
Chapter 1. The Structure of Early Stoic Metaphysics
Chapter 2. The Ontology of Stoic Apprehension: Rethinking akatalepsia and epoche peri panton
Chapter 3. Apraxia and the Destruction of Stoic Metaphysics
Chapter 4. From Polemo to Arcesilaus: Genealogy of the Early Hellenistic Academy
Conclusion
Index
Charles Snyder mounts a strong case against the mainstream interpretation that sees the debate between Academics and Stoics in the early Hellenistic period as wholly epistemological by persuasively arguing that such a debate cannot be fully appreciated without paying close attention to its metaphysical background.
Snyder’s book is stimulating and fascinating, it goes against the current doxa held by many scholars that the New Academy detached itself from Plato and his immediate successors by favoring epistemology over ontology. This argument offers a more satisfactory vision of the history of the whole Academy and it allows a more subtle and deeper interpretation of the testimonies.
- Title: Beyond Hellenistic Epistemology: Arcesilaus and the Destruction of Stoic Metaphysics
- Author: Charles E. Snyder
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
- Print Publication Date: 2021
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 224
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781350202399, 9781350202405, 1350202401, 1350202398
- Resource ID: LLS:9781350202399
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T10:42:26Z
Charles E. Snyder teaches the history of philosophy and contemporary political thought at the Bard Prison Initiative and the City University of New York, York College, USA.