Practical Philosophy: The Greco-Roman Moralists

It's easy to forget that philosophy means "love of wisdom," not "love of thinking." In addition to the philosophy that tells you how to think well, the field also provides guidance on how to live well, solid advice on how to be a good father or friend, or how to grow old gracefully or to know what true happiness is.

Greek and Roman thinkers such as Marcus Tullius Cicero, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Dio Chrysostom, and Plutarch of Chaeronea devoted their lives, not to metaphysics and epistemology but to the appreciation and practice of morality and virtue, values, and character.

These 24 inspiring lectures introduce you to the sages who, as a group, represent the "missing page" of the history of philosophy. Although their names are sometimes familiar to us, as in the case of Cicero and Plutarch, their philosophy is not. Studying these thinkers offers some surprising ways to think about philosophy.

For example, they believed the heart of philosophy is the question of how to live well as a human being. It is how you act, not what you think, that is most important. Virtue and morality are the keys to living a good life. And philosophers should practice what they preach, although, as you'll discover, the Greco-Roman moral philosophers certainly had flaws.