The Quest for the Good Life Ancient Philosophers on Happiness

by Rabbas, Oyvind; Emilsson, Eyjolfur K.; Fossheim, Hallvard; Tuominen, Miira

• ISBN13: 9780198746980
• ISBN10: 0198746989
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2015-12-01
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Author Biography

Oyvind Rabbas, University of Oslo,Eyjolfur K. Emilsson, University of Oslo,Hallvard Fossheim, University of Bergen,Miira Tuominen, University of Jyvaskyla

Oyvind Rabbas teaches philosophy at the University of Oslo. His area of specialization is ancient philosophy, particularly Plato and Aristotle, but he has a general interest in the history of philosophy, especially ethics, as well as in contemporary ethics. His publications include papers on Plato and Aristotle, as well as translations into Norwegian of Plato's Theaetetus and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. He is one of the main editors of the ongoing project of translating Aristotle's complete works into Norwegian.

Eyjolfur K. Emilsson is professor of philosophy at the University of Oslo. His area of specialization is ancient philosophy, particularly Plotinus and the Platonic-Aristotelian tradition, but he has a general interest in the history of philosophy. His publications include Plotinus on Sense-Perception (CUP, 1988) and Plotinus on Intellect (OUP, 2007), and Plotinus, Ennead VI. 4 & 5 (with Steven Strange, Parmenides Publishing 2014) as well as various articles on ancient philosophy. He has translated several Platonic dialogues: the Gorgias, the Meno and the Symposium and the Republic into Icelandic and the Sophist into Norwegian.

Hallvard Fossheim is Associate Professor in Ancient Philosophy at the University of Bergen tand Professor II in ethics and political philosophy at the University of Tromso. Fossheim's research is focused on Plato and Aristotle, with a main interest in their moral psychology. He has also published in the areas of virtue ethics, new media, and research ethics.


Miira Tuominen is University Lecturer at the University of Jyvaskyla (Finland) specialized in ancient philosophy. Having mainly worked on the theory of knowledge and philosophical psychology in antiquity as well as history of philosophy and intellectual history more generally, she has recently also published on suicide and its cultural implications. Her current research project as the Academy of Finland Research Fellow is concerned with ethics in late antiquity and titled 'Self-Interest and Other-Regard in Late Ancient Ethics' and she is working on a monograph on Porphyry's ethics of On Abstinence.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. On Happiness and Godlikeness before Socrates, Svavar Hrafn Svavarsson
2. Plato's Defence of Justice: the Wrong Kind of Reason?, Julia Annas
3. Wanting to do what is just in the Gorgias, Panos Dimas
4. Eudaimonia, human nature, and normativity: Reflections on Aristotle's project in Nicomachean Ethics Book I, Oyvind Rabbas
5. Aristotle on happiness and old age, Hallvard Fossheim
6. Aristotle on Happiness and Long Life, Gabriel Richardson Lear
7. Why is Aristotle's vicious person miserable?, Gosta Gronroos
8. Epicurus on Pleasure, Desire and Friendship, Panos Dimas
9. How feasible is the Stoic conception of eudaimonia?, Katerina Ierodiakonou
10. The Pyrrhonian Idea of a Good Life, Svavar Hrafn Svavarsson
11. Plotinus' way of defining 'eudaimonia' in Ennead I 4 [46] 1-3, Alexandrine Schniewind
12. On happiness and time, Eyjolfur Kjalar Emilsson
13. Why Do We Need Other People to Be Happy? Happiness and Concern for Others in Aspasius and Porphyry, Miira Tuominen
13. Happiness in this Life? Augustine on the principle that virtue is self-sufficient for happiness, Christian Tornau
Bibliography
Index