The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter
Title
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1968
Abstract
There is considerable evidence that the later Greeks and even more the Romans bypassed Aristotle and Plato in their treatment of teleology. Theirs was to be the age of immanent deity, of epiphany, of astrology, of credo quia absurdum. The Stoic Pronoia, which we have in fullest form in Cicero's De Natura Deorum 2, closely reflects the version we have in Xenophon, even transferring elements from his proof of the existence of deity to the proof of pronoia. Also, Xenophon's double treatment of his theme, stressing the cosmic in one chapter and the human in the other, initiated the tendency which later became even more widespread, of separating the evidences of design into two packages, one of human form, the other of ta meteora. It was from this development that arose the two great gnomic symbols, the microcosm and the macrocosm.
Recommended Citation
Bliss, Francis R., "Xenophon's Teleology" (1968). The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter. 6.
https://orb.binghamton.edu/sagp/6
Included in
Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons, Ancient Philosophy Commons, History of Philosophy Commons
Notes
Presented to the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy at its meeting with the American Philological Association in Toronto in 1968. It has not been otherwise published.
The Department of Classics at the University of Vermont has a page for him: http://www.uvm.edu/~classics/?Page=bliss.php. Professor Bliss passed away on March 16, 2016.