Tusculan disputations II & V

Download or read book Tusculan disputations II & V written by Marcus Tullius Cicero and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Fifth Tusculan Disputation is the finest of the five books, its nearest rival being the First (already edited in this series). The middle three books, represented in this edition by the Second, are, as the author clearly intended, less elevated, though still showing Cicero's flair for elegant and lively exposition, and providing much valuable information about the teaching of the main Hellenistic philosophical schools, especially the Stoics. They argue that the perfect human life, or complete human well-being, that of the 'wise man', is unaffected by physical and mental distress or extremes of emotion. Against this background the Fifth puts the positive, mainly Stoic, case that virtue, moral goodness, is alone and of itself sufficient for complete well-being, providing an impressive climax to the whole work. Text with translation and comentary. (Aris and Phillips 1989)