6 thinkers, books, and ideas connected to this field.
Ancient Greek sophist and rhetorician from Leontini, Sicily — who argued that nothing exists, that even if it did it could not be known, and that even if it could be known it could not be communicated — and who developed rhetoric as the supreme art of persuasion.
Aristotle's foundational treatise on ethics — arguing that the good life (eudaimonia, flourishing) consists of virtuous activity in accordance with reason — that virtues are habits cultivated through practice rather than rules to follow — and that the good life requires external goods and social context.
Greek biographer and essayist — author of Parallel Lives and Moralia — who wrote parallel biographies of paired Greek and Roman statesmen as moral exemplars — the most influential biographer in Western history.
Greek philosopher and mathematician — founder of the Pythagorean school — who identified the mathematical relationships in musical harmonics and whose theorem relating triangle sides is the most famous result in mathematics — whose beliefs about the soul's immortality influenced Plato.
Plato's dialogue on the nature of love — in which Socrates, Aristophanes, Alcibiades, and others give competing speeches on Eros at a drinking party — culminating in Socrates's account of Diotima's teaching on love as ascent from particular beauty to the Form of Beauty itself.
Ancient Greek philosopher — student of Parmenides — who created the paradoxes of motion (Achilles and the tortoise, the arrow, the dichotomy) that challenged intuitive understanding of space, time, and infinity — whose paradoxes remain unresolved in some formulations.