Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius
Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius
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Lives of the Eminent Philosophers
by Diogenes Laertius

Author: Diogenes Laertius, James Miller, Pamela Mensch

Narrator: Jennifer M. Dixon

Unabridged: 28 hr 33 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 12/04/2018


Synopsis

Everyone wants to live a meaningful life. Long before our own day of self-help books offering twelve-step programs and other guides to attain happiness, the philosophers of ancient Greece explored the riddle of what makes a life worth living, producing a wide variety of ideas and examples to follow. This rich tradition was recast by Diogenes Laertius into an anthology, a miscellany of maxims and anecdotes, that generations of Western readers have consulted for edification as well as entertainment ever since the Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, first compiled in the third century AD, came to prominence in Renaissance Italy. To this day, it remains a crucial source for much of what we know about the origins and practice of philosophy in ancient Greece, covering a longer period of time and a larger number of figures—from Pythagoras and Socrates to Aristotle and Epicurus—than any other ancient source.

About Diogenes Laertius

Diogenes Laertius was a Greek writer who probably lived in the first half of the third century AD. Nothing is known about his life, apart from his authorship of the Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. He also wrote poems, most of them now lost.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Irena on March 19, 2024

It's all very well to listen to Diogenes Laertius being quoted in modern lectures on ancient Greek philosophy, but nothing is like getting a taste of the original (although in translation): this giant hodgepodge concocted in the 3rd century AD is a cornucopia of curious, bewildering, intriguing, sca......more

Goodreads review by ❧TheTrueScholar on September 09, 2018

I am very sorry that we have not a dozen Laertiuses, and also that he was not more expansive or more thoroughly informed. For I am equally eager to know the fortunes and lives of these great teachers of the world, no less carefully than their doctrines and ideas.—Montaigne, Book II, Essay X: Of Book......more

Goodreads review by sologdin on January 06, 2021

Just lovely. Even though it is not obvious that Diogenes understood or even read the persons under discussion, a recitation of their ideas is less important to his project than the biographical examinations, which are full of fascinating detail (which, of course, we are cautioned might be fictional)......more

Goodreads review by Islomjon on February 14, 2020

If you are not totally familiar with philosophy or it is hard for you to understand it, then you should read the "Lives of the Eminent Philosophers" for its simplicity and ancient humor. I will never regret reading this book. Although I am not a specialist philosopher, I regard "Lives of Eminent Phi......more

Goodreads review by Noah on November 12, 2020

What I love about Lives of the Eminent Philosophers is the sense it gives of the intense intellectual ferment that was such an important part of ancient Greek culture. These were people who had escaped (at least partially) from superstition and dared to think for themselves, to use reason instead of......more