The Philosophical Books of Cicero

Download or read book The Philosophical Books of Cicero written by Paul Lachlan MacKendrick and published by Bloomsbury Academic. This book was released on 1989 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cicero was keenly interested in Greek philosophy and his philosophical books were an important popular vehicle of Greek philosophy in later ages. Professor MacKendrick presents a useful conspectus of all Cicero's philosophical books with an analysis of their structure, background and intention. His thesis is that most if not all of them are cast in a rhetorical form; that for Cicero rhetoric and philosophy have the same goals: proving his point, winning adherents to it and stimulating his auditory, for most of these books are conceived as dialogues. Unity of form suggests that Cicero planned them as a unified whole. Ironically, their very charm of style has caused them to be dubbed superficial and unoriginal, but Cicero lived with philosophers all his life, and many an alleged source may in fact be a set of ideas assimilated by a well-read mind. Open-minded readers will respond warmly to his high morality, his respect for the rule of law, his humanism, scepticism and flair. A final chapter and appendix outline the immense influenc that Cicero's philosophical books exerted on the history of European thought.