The Life of Wisdom An Introduction to Classical Philosophy and Early Christianity

by Brown, Alan

• ISBN13: 9781845110086
• ISBN10: 1845110080
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2015-03-15
• Publisher: I. B. Tauris
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Summary

How does ancient philosophy help us to understand the meaning and significance of Christianity? The Life of Wisdom shows that in antiquity philosophy was never an abstracted activity but was actually concerned with determining the good and valuable in life. Christianity is also preoccupied with value and the good life, and did not graft its philosophy on to its religious beliefs as some sort of adjunct, from elsewhere, but is intrinsically philosophical in a unique sense. In challenging secular notions of Christianity's philosophical naivete, the author provides a clear survey of the main schools of classical philosophy and their influence on the early church. This will be of great value to students of the philosophy of antiquity who want to gain a sense of the main strands of philosophical thinking in the classical and Hellenistic worlds.

Author Biography

Alan Brown is Gifford Research Fellow in the University of Glasgow.

Table of Contents

Philosophy and the Spectre of Nihilism * What Does it Mean to be a Person? * Classical Philosophy and the Value of Life * Philosophy and Christianity * Bibliography