Autonomy or Theonomy

Peter Adamson finds some general trends in his forthcoming study of Philosophy in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds. Hellenistic philosophy was broadly anti-Platonic, denying the existing of “immaterial entities” and devoted to physicalism. In one of his many moments of whimsy, Adamson suggests that the change is so sudden and dramatic that it is “as if Alexander the Great sent out a memo to all philosophers telling them that incorporeal substances were no longer welcome.”

Hellenistic philosophy was generally about ethics. In this emphasis, they were following their classical models, for Socrates too believed that “philosophy is about learning how to live.” But their notion of ethical living was radically different from that of Socrates and especially from Aristotle: “Many of the thinkers we’ll examine thought that the right kind of life should be one that is wholly within our own power, invulnerable to misfortune. This applies even to hedonists like the Epicureans and Cyrenaics. In later antiquity so rigorous a moral thinker as Aristotle was frequently seen as weakminded for admitting that happiness might involve having a happy family, good friends, and some money, in addition to the possession of virtue.” Autonomy and autarchy was the rule of the day, and produced lives of stern abstinence that aspired toward an inhuman apatheia.

Autarchy was ultimately overthrown, but not because of any “softening” among the philosophers. Theology dethroned autarchy: “Augustine judged the Hellenic philosophers as prideful for daring to think that they could attain perfect virtue without outside assistance. The helping hand needed to come not from family, friends, or fortune, but from God.”