Reddit reviews The Hellenistic Philosophers, Vol. 1: Translations of the Principal Sources, with Philosophical Commentary

Pyrrho never wrote anything that, as far as classicists or historians of philosophy are aware, survived. Reading Pyrrho may therefore be difficult.

When talking about Pyrrhonism, or, more broadly, ancient skepticism, a lot of it is in reaction to Stoic epistemology and metaphysics (this is particularly evident in Cicero's On Academic Scepticism). Thus, in order to understand (what is really Hellenistic) skepticism, it's helpful to have a good grasp of Stoic epistemology.

More speculatively on my part, as I've never studied the Cynics is any detail, Cynics were influential on Stoic ethics, but I'm not sure you need to read the Cynics to properly understand the Stoics.

The best thing to do is probably not to read everything in chronological order, but pick up one of these collections:

- Hellenistic Philosophy

- The Hellenistic Philosophers, vol 1

Peter Adamson's podcast or books may also be helpful in directing you to primary sources (A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps)

Well, there are a lot of different ways to tackle philosophy. Here are two: you can approach it by topic or you can approach it historically. I prefer the topical approach, but it seems like you want a historical understanding, so I'll base my recommendation on that.

Also, the readings you choose can either be primary or secondary. Purists will tell you to stick with primary readings. I strongly disagree; especially for ancient philosophy. Secondary texts help in a number of ways: they provide social, cultural, and historical context; they can summarize vast quantities of scholarship; they can point out translation difficulties; they can indicate where a fragmentary record might be misleading; they can provide valuable comparisons and contrasts to contemporary background knowledge; and so on. Yes, they're biased, but most of my students get more out of a secondary text that has some bias than out of a primary text they can't understand. The value of secondary is especially great if you're studying on your own. I'll provide both primary and secondary recommendations and leave it up to you how to proceed.

As it's usually taught, the Presocratics are at the beginning of Western philosophy -- people like Thales, Xenophanes, Heraclitus, and Parmenides.

I like the presocratics, but I wouldn't blame you for skipping them and starting with Plato. There are a lot of dialogues, so you might want to be selective. Choose something from his early period: The Apology. Some dialogues from his middle period: The Meno and Phaedo. And something from his later period: The Republic. There are a lot of decent translations out there; however, avoid Jowett at all costs.

Now for Aristotle. There are a number of worthwhile works, but whatever else you do, you should read Nicomachean Ethics. Also, if you have time, read Topics, Physics, Metaphysics, and De Anima; however, I warn you that I don't think these works are as accessible as the Nicomachean Ethics. And since you're studying biology, so you might get a kick out or reading Parts of Animals.

For all of the above you could get one primary text, Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy, (Fourth Edition): from Thales to Aristotle. This is a great reader; it has selections from the presocratics and sophists, it has the Plato dialogues I recommended, it has several works from Aristotle too.

Let me also suggest some secondary texts. For the Presocratics I suggest something like Philosophy Before Socrates (Second Edition): An Introduction with Texts and Commentary. For Socrates I recommend Vlastos' Socratic Studies. For Aristotle I recommend two books: first, Ackrill's Aristotle the Philosopher; second, Urmson's Aristotle's Ethics.

Next up: the Hellenistic philosophers, which includes the Epicureans, Stoics, Academics, and Pyrrhonists. Long and Sedley's collection The Hellenistic Philosopher's, Volume 1 is very good. It has a well organized selection of primary readings with some commentary. But don't get volume 2 unless you speak Greek and Latin. For a secondary text, the Sedley and Long could be paired with Long's Hellenistic Philosophy.

For comprehensive collection of helpful secondary sources, you might want to try the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

The works of earlier stoics like Chrysippus, the only stoics to produce such systematic stoicism (unlike "imperial stoics", e.g. Epictetus, Seneca or Marcus Aurelius), are no longer extant. Long and Sedley's "The Hellenistic Philosophers", which is a thematic and quite complete selection of fragments, is the standard source material for students and scholars working on stoicism. The part on Stoicism makes up for about 1/2 or 2/3 of the book, the rest is split between Epicureanism and ancient skepticism; also, no need to buy Volume Two, unless you want the original latin and greek text of the fragments. http://www.amazon.com/Hellenistic-Philosophers-Translations-Philosophical-Commentary/dp/0521275563/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1348411925&sr=8-3

> Can you point me towards any supporting texts in Stoicism?

My go-to guide to start on any topic is the SEP, so here's the entry on Stoicism. The SEP also has entries on Seneca, Marcus Aurelis, and Epictetus.

For other sources, I bought a used copy of Long and Sedley many years ago and it has been quite helpful.

Edited for grammar.

The Presocratics, Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic philosophers. Reading everything would be good - if you want to read less than everything we'll probably have to know what sorts of stuff you're looking for. Just saying "I want to go back to the basics" doesn't tell us whether we should recommend metaphysics or ethics or what.

I haven't studied enough history of philosophy to have an answer to the following, but I'd be interested to know how much they studied each other. I also don't know how much of this era of Roman stoicism was tied to Stoic physics. Stoic ethics (what is called Stoicism today is properly a branch of ethics; that is, it is concerned with how one can live a good life (being moral is a large part of living a good life, that is why there is less distinction in non-philosophical discourse between ethics and morals)) was highly, highly based off their physics. Stoic physics was the 'foundation' of their philosophy, so to speak, and literally everything else followed from it. I do not know how true this was for these later Stoics, though.

I do know, though, for example, that when you see them say things like "act/live in accordance with nature", this is a conclusion from their physical conception of the world. Explaining this is far outside the scope of a reddit comment reply like this, though. If you are interested in something more academic on the topic, I can highly recommend A. A. Long's The Hellenistic Philosophers. I also recommend the parts on Epicureanism as well if you like Stoicism. Don't feel intimidated by it, either; this shit is old and all of their physics is wrong. If you don't understand something, take the time to understand it just out of interest if you want to, but feel no guilt in skipping stuff.