Thinking about thinking with the Loeb Classical Library

Every three months, we receive the latest volumes from Harvard University Press’ Loeb Classical Library — Greek and Latin classic texts with English translations and copious commentary — in print and online.

The latest Loeb Classics are volumes 553-555.

In Philosophical Orations, volumes I and II, Maximus of Tyre (circa 150 CE) orates away on many many topics. Dear to this librarian’s heart is Oration 6, What Knowledge Is:

Perception, then builds up experience, intelligence builds up reasoned argument, and intellect builds up stable certainty. I call knowledge the harmonious coordination of all three operations. But if an analogy is needed for our discussion, then let perception correspond to the physical operation of carpentry, intellect to geometry, and intelligence to the expertise possessed by architects, which exists in between geometry and carpentry, being a kind of knowledge when compared with the physical operation of carpentry, but inferior to geometry in terms of stable certainty. (p. 135)

Aëtius’ Placita (circa 100 CE) was “reconstructed” from quotations in works “from second to the fifth century” and covers topics in science and our place in the universe. Like Maximus, Aëtius offers a multi-faceted conceptualization of what we know, harking back to Pythagoras, who adds one more aspect.

For there are intellect, knowledge, opinion [emphasis added], and sense perception; from these every skill and every science originates, and through them we ourselves are rational…The Intellect, by which we intelligize these things, is the Monad, and the Indeterminate Dyad is knowledge, and this is quite likely, since every demonstration and every proof involving knowledge, and in addition every syllogism, deduces what is in dispute and effortlessly demonstrates something else from agreed premises. Knowledge is the understanding of these factors and so would be the Dyad. Opinion, taking its starting point from understanding, is the triad, and this is quite reasonable too, because opinion deals with multiplicity. (Book I: First Principles, p.31)

See all the volumes in the Loeb database or by searching Ignacio for the title Loeb Classical Library. Limit your search to the location Gleeson Stacks to find print books.

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