Charles Brittain
Biographic Data
| ID | 953737 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Charles Brittain |
| GIVEN NAMES | Charles |
| FAMILY NAME | Brittain |
| SIGNATURE | BRITTAIN C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Cornell University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1104-2946 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 3 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Cicero's Tusculan Disputations
Cicero composed the Tusculan Disputations in the summer of 45 BC at a time of great personal and political turmoil. He was grieving for the death of his daughter Tullia earlier that year, while Caesar's defeat of Pompey's forces at Munda and return to Rome as dictator was causing him great fears and concerns for himself, his friends and the Republic itself. This collection of new essays offers a holistic critical commentary on this important work…
Deinos (Wicked Good) at Interpretation ( Protagoras 334–48)
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Platonist Philosophy 80 BC to AD 250: An Introduction and Collection of Sources in Translation
'Middle' Platonism has some claim to be the single most influential philosophical movement of the last two thousand years, as the common background to 'Neoplatonism' and the early development of Christian theology. This book breaks with the tradition of considering it primarily in terms of its sources, instead putting its contemporary philosophical engagements front and centre to reconstruct its philosophical motivations and activity across the f…
No Place for a Platonist Soul in Fifth-Century Gaul? The Case of Mamertus Claudianus
An anonymous pamphlet, the letter Quaeris a me, from ca. 469, argued that the soul, like all other created things, was corporeal: this was the doctrine of the Fathers, as expressed most recently by Cassian, and the contrary view was not merely false but blasphemous. The testimonia about Claudianus' life present a plausible picture of his education and philosophical formation. To judge by his correspondence, if Sidonius studied philosophy, it made…
Cicero’s sceptical methods: The example of the De Finibus
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
The Compulsions of Stoic Assent
This chapter offers a new interpretation of the role of assent in the Stoic theory of reason. Their theory holds that a judgment is the result of a conceptually distinct act of assent to an impression, i.e., to the perceptual and non-perceptual contents (of varying quality and reliability) we entertain. The chapter argues that even though it is tempting to think that rational creatures are virtually compelled to assent to so-called ‘kataleptic’ (…
The Philosophy of Antiochus
Antiochus of Ascalon was one of the seminal philosophers of the first century BC, an era of radical philosophical change. Some called him a virtual Stoic, but in reality his programme was an updated revival of the philosophy of the 'ancients', meaning above all Plato and Aristotle. His significance lies partly in his enormous influence on Roman intellectuals of the age, including Cicero, Brutus and Varro, partly in his role as the harbinger of a …
Plato and the Divided Self
Plato's account of the tripartite soul is a memorable feature of dialogues like the Republic, Phaedrus and Timaeus: it is one of his most famous and influential yet least understood theories. It presents human nature as both essentially multiple and diverse - and yet somehow also one - divided into a fully human 'rational' part, a lion-like 'spirited part' and an 'appetitive' part likened to a many-headed beast. How these parts interact, how exac…
Plato and Platonism
As the title suggests, the article focuses on the development of Plato and his philosophy, which is better known as Platonism. The advent of the Hellenestic schools advocated a more empirical approach to the study of philosophy as well as Platonism. And it was probably not until toward the beginning of the second century ad that a disparate set of philosophers who identified themselves as “Platonists” conceived the project of advocating and defen…
From Protagoras to Aristotle: Essays in Ancient Moral Philosophy
Xiii - Middle Platonists on Academic Scepticism
Journal Article XIII - MIDDLE PLATONISTS ON ACADEMIC SCEPTICISM Get access CHARLES BRITTAIN CHARLES BRITTAIN Cornell University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, Volume 50, Issue Supplement_94_Part_2, June 2007, Pages 297–315, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-5370.2007.tb02431.x Published: 20 January 2014
Language and Learning: Philosophy of Language in the Hellenistic Age
The philosophers and scholars of the Hellenistic world laid the foundations upon which the Western tradition based analytical grammar, linguistics, philosophy of language, and other disciplines probing the nature and origin of human communication. Building on the pioneering work of Plato and Aristotle, these thinkers developed a wide range of theories about the nature and origin of language which reflected broader philosophical commitments. In th…
Common sense: Concepts, definition and meaning in and out of the Stoa
The prevalence of philosophical appeals to universal agreement in ancient thought indicates that a limited notion of 'common sense' was around, at least implicitly, from the fourth century bc. But, despite the partial justification Aristotle gave for such appeals, a developed theory of common sense was not possible until the Socratic insight that rationality is in some sense constitutive of all adult human beings was adapted and elaborated by the…
Philo of Larissa: The Last of the Academic Sceptics
The New Academy's Appeals to the Presocratics
Members of the New Academy presented their sceptical position as the culmination of a progressive development in the history of philosophy, which began when certain Presocratics started to reflect on the epistemic status of their theoretical claims concerning the natures of things. The Academics' dogmatic opponents accused them of misrepresenting the early philosophers in an illegitimate attempt to claim respectable precedents for their dangerous…
Philo of Larissa: The Last of the Acadeniic Sceptics
This is the first book-length study of Philo of Larissa. Philo (159-84 BC) was the leader of the Platonic Academy in its final period as an Athenian institution, and also the principal philosophical teacher of Cicero. Dr Brittain charts Philo's gradual rejection of the radical scepticism of Carneades (concluding with his notorious 'Roman Books' of 89 BC), and offers philosophical justifications for his initial position of modified scepticism and …
Stoic Studies
Stoic Studies; Essays on Hellenistic Epistemology and Ethics
Book Review| July 01 2000 STOIC STUDIES; ESSAYS ON HELLENISTIC EPISTEMOLOGY AND ETHICS STOIC STUDIES. By A. A. LONG. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. xvi, 309.ESSAYS ON HELLENISTIC EPISTEMOLOGY AND ETHICS. By Gisela Striker. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. xviii, 335. Charles Brittain Charles Brittain Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Philosophical Review (2000) 109 (3): 434–438. https…
Paradosis and Survival: Three Chapters in the History of Epicurean Philosophy
Paradosis and Survival presents Diskin Clay's fifteen essays devoted to recovering the three main phases of Epicureanism in antiquity: the origin in the first generation of the school in Athens; its spread to Italy in the first century b.c.e.; and its movement to Lycia in the second century c.e. Clay recognizes the subtle intertwining of philosophy and lifestyle, and he makes use of papyri and inscriptions as well as familiar philosophical texts …
The Sceptics
The New Academy's Appeals to the Presocratics
Members of the New Academy presented their sceptical position as the culmination of a progressive development in the history of philosophy, which began when certain Presocratics started to reflect on the epistemic status of their theoretical claims concerning the natures of things. The Academics' dogmatic opponents accused them of misrepresenting the early philosophers in an illegitimate attempt to claim respectable precedents for their dangerous…
The Sceptics
Paradosis and Survival: Three Chapters in the History of Epicurean Philosophy
Paradosis and Survival presents Diskin Clay's fifteen essays devoted to recovering the three main phases of Epicureanism in antiquity: the origin in the first generation of the school in Athens; its spread to Italy in the first century b.c.e.; and its movement to Lycia in the second century c.e. Clay recognizes the subtle intertwining of philosophy and lifestyle, and he makes use of papyri and inscriptions as well as familiar philosophical texts …
Philo of Larissa: The Last of the Acadeniic Sceptics
This is the first book-length study of Philo of Larissa. Philo (159-84 BC) was the leader of the Platonic Academy in its final period as an Athenian institution, and also the principal philosophical teacher of Cicero. Dr Brittain charts Philo's gradual rejection of the radical scepticism of Carneades (concluding with his notorious 'Roman Books' of 89 BC), and offers philosophical justifications for his initial position of modified scepticism and …
Stoic Studies
Stoic Studies; Essays on Hellenistic Epistemology and Ethics
Book Review| July 01 2000 STOIC STUDIES; ESSAYS ON HELLENISTIC EPISTEMOLOGY AND ETHICS STOIC STUDIES. By A. A. LONG. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. xvi, 309.ESSAYS ON HELLENISTIC EPISTEMOLOGY AND ETHICS. By Gisela Striker. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. xviii, 335. Charles Brittain Charles Brittain Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Philosophical Review (2000) 109 (3): 434–438. https…
The New Academy's Appeals to the Presocratics
Members of the New Academy presented their sceptical position as the culmination of a progressive development in the history of philosophy, which began when certain Presocratics started to reflect on the epistemic status of their theoretical claims concerning the natures of things. The Academics' dogmatic opponents accused them of misrepresenting the early philosophers in an illegitimate attempt to claim respectable precedents for their dangerous…
Philo of Larissa: The Last of the Academic Sceptics
Language and Learning: Philosophy of Language in the Hellenistic Age
The philosophers and scholars of the Hellenistic world laid the foundations upon which the Western tradition based analytical grammar, linguistics, philosophy of language, and other disciplines probing the nature and origin of human communication. Building on the pioneering work of Plato and Aristotle, these thinkers developed a wide range of theories about the nature and origin of language which reflected broader philosophical commitments. In th…
Common sense: Concepts, definition and meaning in and out of the Stoa
The prevalence of philosophical appeals to universal agreement in ancient thought indicates that a limited notion of 'common sense' was around, at least implicitly, from the fourth century bc. But, despite the partial justification Aristotle gave for such appeals, a developed theory of common sense was not possible until the Socratic insight that rationality is in some sense constitutive of all adult human beings was adapted and elaborated by the…
Xiii - Middle Platonists on Academic Scepticism
Journal Article XIII - MIDDLE PLATONISTS ON ACADEMIC SCEPTICISM Get access CHARLES BRITTAIN CHARLES BRITTAIN Cornell University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, Volume 50, Issue Supplement_94_Part_2, June 2007, Pages 297–315, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-5370.2007.tb02431.x Published: 20 January 2014
Plato and Platonism
As the title suggests, the article focuses on the development of Plato and his philosophy, which is better known as Platonism. The advent of the Hellenestic schools advocated a more empirical approach to the study of philosophy as well as Platonism. And it was probably not until toward the beginning of the second century ad that a disparate set of philosophers who identified themselves as “Platonists” conceived the project of advocating and defen…
From Protagoras to Aristotle: Essays in Ancient Moral Philosophy
The Philosophy of Antiochus
Antiochus of Ascalon was one of the seminal philosophers of the first century BC, an era of radical philosophical change. Some called him a virtual Stoic, but in reality his programme was an updated revival of the philosophy of the 'ancients', meaning above all Plato and Aristotle. His significance lies partly in his enormous influence on Roman intellectuals of the age, including Cicero, Brutus and Varro, partly in his role as the harbinger of a …
Plato and the Divided Self
Plato's account of the tripartite soul is a memorable feature of dialogues like the Republic, Phaedrus and Timaeus: it is one of his most famous and influential yet least understood theories. It presents human nature as both essentially multiple and diverse - and yet somehow also one - divided into a fully human 'rational' part, a lion-like 'spirited part' and an 'appetitive' part likened to a many-headed beast. How these parts interact, how exac…
The Compulsions of Stoic Assent
This chapter offers a new interpretation of the role of assent in the Stoic theory of reason. Their theory holds that a judgment is the result of a conceptually distinct act of assent to an impression, i.e., to the perceptual and non-perceptual contents (of varying quality and reliability) we entertain. The chapter argues that even though it is tempting to think that rational creatures are virtually compelled to assent to so-called ‘kataleptic’ (…
Cicero’s sceptical methods: The example of the De Finibus
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Deinos (Wicked Good) at Interpretation ( Protagoras 334–48)
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Platonist Philosophy 80 BC to AD 250: An Introduction and Collection of Sources in Translation
'Middle' Platonism has some claim to be the single most influential philosophical movement of the last two thousand years, as the common background to 'Neoplatonism' and the early development of Christian theology. This book breaks with the tradition of considering it primarily in terms of its sources, instead putting its contemporary philosophical engagements front and centre to reconstruct its philosophical motivations and activity across the f…
No Place for a Platonist Soul in Fifth-Century Gaul? The Case of Mamertus Claudianus
An anonymous pamphlet, the letter Quaeris a me, from ca. 469, argued that the soul, like all other created things, was corporeal: this was the doctrine of the Fathers, as expressed most recently by Cassian, and the contrary view was not merely false but blasphemous. The testimonia about Claudianus' life present a plausible picture of his education and philosophical formation. To judge by his correspondence, if Sidonius studied philosophy, it made…
Cicero's Tusculan Disputations
Cicero composed the Tusculan Disputations in the summer of 45 BC at a time of great personal and political turmoil. He was grieving for the death of his daughter Tullia earlier that year, while Caesar's defeat of Pompey's forces at Munda and return to Rome as dictator was causing him great fears and concerns for himself, his friends and the Republic itself. This collection of new essays offers a holistic critical commentary on this important work…
Philosophy (17 works) · Classical Philosophy and Thought (14 works) · Epistemology (14 works) · Art (10 works) · Classical Antiquity Studies (10 works) · Literature (9 works) · History (7 works) · Skepticism (7 works) · Cicero (6 works) · Theology (6 works)