Calling Philosophers Names: On the Origin of a Discipline

by Christopher Moore

Overview

An original and provocative book that illuminates the origins of philosophy in ancient Greece by revealing the surprising early meanings of the word "philosopher"

Calling Philosophers Names provides a groundbreaking account of the origins of the term philosophos or "philosopher" in ancient Greece. Tracing the evolution of the word's meaning over its first two centuries, Christopher Moore shows how it first referred to aspiring political sages and advice-givers, then to avid conversationalists about virtue, and finally to investigators who focused on the scope and conditions of those conversations. Questioning the familiar view that philosophers from the beginning "loved wisdom" or merely "cultivated their intellect," Moore shows that they were instead mocked as laughably unrealistic for thinking that their incessant talking and study would earn them social status or political and moral authority.

Taking a new approach to the history of early Greek philosophy, Calling Philosophers Names seeks to understand who were called philosophoi or "philosophers" and why, and how the use of and reflections on the word contributed to the rise of a discipline. Drawing on a wide range of evidence, the book demonstrates that a word that began in part as a wry reference to a far-flung political bloc came, hardly a century later, to mean a life of determined self-improvement based on research, reflection, and deliberation. Early philosophy dedicated itself to justifying its own dubious-seeming enterprise. And this original impulse to seek legitimacy holds novel implications for understanding the history of the discipline and its influence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691230221
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	11/23/2021
Pages:	440
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Christopher Moore is associate professor of philosophy and classics at Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of Socrates and Self-Knowledge.

Hometown:

Hawaii and San Francisco, California

Date of Birth:

August 5, 1958

Place of Birth:

Toledo, Ohio

Website:

http://www.chrismoore.com

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Selected Abbreviations and Editions xiii

Map of Places Mentioned xx-xxi

Chapter 1 Introduction: The Origins of Philosophia 1

Origins

Chapter 2 Heraclitus against the Philosophoi 37

Chapter 3 What Philosophos Could Have Meant: A Lexical Account 66

Chapter 4 Pythagoreans as Philosophoi 107

Development

Chapter 5 Fifth-Century Philosophoi 127

Chapter 6 Socrates's Prosecution as Philosophos 157

Chapter 7 Non-Academic Philosophia 194

Academy

Chapter 8 Plato's Saving of the Appearances 221

Chapter 9 Aristotle's Historiography of Philosophia 260

Chapter 10 Ambivalence about Philosophia beyond the Discipline 288

Epilogue Contemporary Philosophy and the History of the Discipline 317

Appendix: Versions of the Pythagoras Story 321

Classical Uses o/Philosoph- Discussed in This Book 331

Phil- Prefixed Words Appearing in This Book 335

Bibliography 337

Index 371

Index Locorum 393

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Extraordinarily rigorous and detailed in its research, this book provides an exciting new perspective on the origins of philosophy in ancient Greece."—Richard Bett, Johns Hopkins University

"Providing a novel account of the emergence of philosophy as a practice from the early fifth century through Aristotle, this book is set to become a central reference on early Greek thought."—Joshua Billings, Princeton University

Editorial Reviews

"What does a philosophos do and what is a philosophos anyway? Christopher Moore explores these questions in his intriguing book, examining the history of the word philosophos and considering the development of the discipline that came to be known as philosophia. . . . Moore’s is a rich and stimulating study of an overlooked subject, and very welcome."—-Patricia Curd, Journal of the History of Philosophy

"

Moore operates at the highest levels of honest philological precision: nothing is swept under the rug of abstraction, every case – indeed every single occurrence of the word group – is picked apart. Meticulous attention to textual evidence, one eye on the apparatus criticus, brightens each page.

"—-Richard P. Martin, Polis

From the Publisher

"This fascinating scholarly book is a breakthrough study about the origins of the term philosopher in Ancient Greece."

Paradigm Explorer