The Role of Philosophy and Philosophers in the Imperial Period

Abstract

Philosophy was an activity of extreme importance, for humanity collectively and for every thinking human individually, and its practitioners past and present deserved a respect bordering on reverence. To call someone, whether a contemporary or a figure from the past, “philosophos” was therefore to identify him either as a professional or as someone who also subscribed on some level to the pursuit of the good life through philosophic truth, and the application of that truth to his day-to-day behavior and outlook. As is demonstrated by Plutarch's Table Talk, in which some fifteen out of the ninety-five issues debated are philosophical, some knowledge of and capacity to talk intelligently about philosophers and philosophical doctrines, and to engage in some level of philosophical argument, was widely reckoned to be among the defining characteristics of the cultivated and socially superior.

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