Greek Science

Phèdre est un des nombreux dialogues socratiques transmis par Platon. Il y est question de la beauté et de l'amour, entendu comme désir, dans un premier temps, puis de la beauté d'un discours et de la rhétorique dans un second temps. L'amour comme la rhétorique peuvent éléver la beauté de l'âme mais ils peuvent tout aussi bien l'abaisser, en s'attachant seulement au plaisir et à la domination d'autrui.

La pensée stoïcienne est avant tout une médecine de l'âme. Toute entière tendue vers l'application pratique, c'est un véritable manuel de vie, qui nous donne les clefs pour nous détacher de la souffrance quotidienne et nous approcher de la sagesse d'une vie vertueuse. Les écrits stoïques sont parvenus jusqu'à nous sous forme de fragments, qui contiennent chacun l'essence des enseignements dont nous avons besoin aujourd'hui pour rentrer dans la pensée de ses grands auteurs.

Plato is perhaps the most significant philosopher who has ever lived, and The Republic, composed in Athens in about 375 BC, is widely regarded as his most famous dialogue. Its discussion of the perfect city and the perfect mind laid the foundations for Western culture and, for over 2,000 years, has been the cornerstone of Western philosophy.

Confucius knew all about life and told us how to behave, but we can't find out precisely what he was up to. His well-meaning platitudes, quaint maxims, and quasi-enigmatic anecdotes combined to produce an ideal philosophy for civil servants. It would appear that his aim was to turn his pupils into good government officials, but his teachings succeeded beyond his wildest expectations, providing rules of conduct and spiritual fodder for more than two thousand years.

Written in Greek by the only Roman emperor who was also a philosopher, without any intention of publication, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius offer a remarkable series of challenging spiritual reflections and exercises developed as the emperor struggled to understand himself and make sense of the universe. While the Meditations were composed to provide personal consolation and encouragement, Aurelius also created one of the greatest of all works of philosophy: a timeless collection that has been consulted and admired by statesmen, thinkers, and readers throughout the centuries.

The second-century Greek physician Galen—the most famous doctor in antiquity after Hippocrates—is a central figure in Western medicine. A talented doctor, surgeon, writer, philosopher, teacher, pharmacologist, and inventor, Galen attended the court of Marcus Aurelius, living through outbreaks of plague that devastated the Roman Empire. He also served as a physician for professional gladiators. In writings that provided the foundation of Western medicine up to the nineteenth century, Galen created a unified account of health and disease.

The Greek philosopher Socrates famously said that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Taking this as a starting point, Eric Metaxas founded a speaking series that encouraged busy and successful professionals to attend forums and think actively about the bigger questions in life; thus Socrates in the City: Conversations on “Life, God, and Other Small Topics” was born.

Socrates is an enigmatic figure, known chiefly through the accounts of others like Plato and Aristophanes. He was one of the most brilliant intellects ever, and devised what would later be called the Socratic method, which is a way of leading one's interlocutor to see his errors and contradictions through clever questioning before leading him to the truth. In ancient Athens, Socrates was widely known as a "gadfly", that is, an annoying insect buzzing at people's ears, because he kept questioning prejudices and contradictions; he was eventually tried and executed for "corrupting the minds of the youth".

In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle delves into the question of what is best for mankind and humans as individuals. His conclusion is that happiness is the best possible human condition, though he is not referencing the emotion of happiness. Instead, Aristotle concludes that true happiness comes as a way of life in which the individual contributes to the good of his community, as well as his mind.

Now released for the first time as a standalone audiobook, House of the Rising Sun, previously apart in the Dark Bites story collection from #1 New York Times bestselling author, Sherrilyn Kenyon. The eldest son in a family of three boys, Aricles had no desire to be a soldier, even though his...

In this accessible and beautiful book, Yen Ooi explains the various facets of Rén and explores how this philosophy applies to everything from our relationship with ourselves and the people in our lives, to how we relate to society and the wider world. She shows us how, using the basic principles of Rén and through simple changes to our lives, we can connect better with friends, family, and colleagues, become helpful members of society, and find fulfillment in ideas of community, justice, morality, and compassion.

In the divided world of Cādra, where the winged Volari rule over the earthbound Süra, Tanwen has never relished her life of secrecy, but hiding is her only means of survival. As the child of a forbidden union, her very existence is punishable by death. As the Crown Prince, Zolya is forced to fulfill his father’s every whim. Acting on orders, he captures Tanwen’s father and brother, whisking them away to his kingdom in the sky. Determined to save her family, Tanwen infiltrates the royal court disguised as a servant.

Im Gorgias, einer der umfangreichsten Dialoge Platons, trifft Sokrates auf eben jenen damals weithin bekannten Rhetor Gorgias. In seiner ihm ganz eigenen Art zieht Sokrates Gorgias sogleich in ein Gespräch über die Frage, was die Redekunst eigentlich sei und ob man sie tatsächlich eine Kunst nennen dürfe. Mit der dialektischen Gesprächsmethode der Erkenntnisfindung überfordert, reicht Gorgias schon bald das Wort an seinen Begleiter Polos weiter, der nach Kräften bemüht ist, die Rhetorik in ihrer staatstragenden Bedeutung gegenüber Sokrates zu verteidigen - jedoch ohne Erfolg.

When Nicole Cassidy moved to a new town, she discovered that she was a witch descended from gods. But that was nothing compared to learning that it was up to her and four others with mysterious elemental powers to help save the world from the Titans, who would soon return to Earth. Her relationship with Blake - the fire Elemental - is finally heating up. But she must remain focused, because Typhon, one of the deadliest creatures in history, has escaped from the weakening prison world. Only one object can destroy him - the head of Medusa herself.

When gods still walked the Earth, a king could pray for a sign and have a white bull rise from the sea to confirm his claim to the throne. But a god's price was high, and when Minos did not keep his promise to the god Poseidon, the god meddled with Minos' wife...and the Minotaur, a child with the head of a bull, was born. The question is, did Poseidon intend his son to be worshiped as a new god, or is he the god's curse on Knossos, a monster that will destroy it?

"The golden tractate" (Aureus) by Hermes Trismegistus is a classic text of Hermetic and ancient Philosophy about natural and divine magic; it will strongly influence the later Alchemic literature. The Golden Tractate of Hermes, first created in the Renaissance and rendered into English in 1850, is one of a number of texts from its era attempting to explain alchemy, along with the works of Pontanus and Artephius.

Along with Stoicism and Epicureanism, Skepticism is one of the three major schools of ancient Greek philosophy that claim to offer a way of living as well as thinking. How to Keep an Open Mind provides an unmatched introduction to skepticism by presenting a fresh, modern translation of key passages from the writings of Sextus Empiricus, the only Greek skeptic whose works have survived.

For Epicurus, the purpose of philosophy was to attain the happy, tranquil life, characterized by peace and freedom from fear, the absence of pain, and by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends. He taught that pleasure and pain are the measures of what is good and evil; death is the end of both body and soul and should therefore not be feared; the gods neither reward nor punish humans; the universe is infinite and eternal; and events in the world are ultimately based on the motions and interactions of atoms.

Hades messed up. It's his fault the Lady of the Underworld left...again. The guy just can't keep a good goddess down. But the Lord of the Dead can't mope about the Underworld while it tears apart. Breaches in the fabric of the afterlife have allowed souls to escape and return to their lives. Something is wrong, and Hades needs Autumn's help for her to become the death goddess to figure it out.

Ten mythological heroes and stories from Greek mythology, for a delightful overview of the fundamentals of our culture. This is a selection of the most touching and inspiring stories from Ancient Greece; they have all inspired countless works of art through the centuries, often come from even more ancient myths, and are here retold in a detailed and lively manner.