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Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity
Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity was intended to be the first volume of a four-part series of books covering the history of primitivism and related ideas, but the outbreak of World War II, and, later, Lovejoy's death, prevented the other books from being published as originally conceived by the two authors.
A documentary and analytical record, the book presents the classical background of primitivism and anti-primitivism in modern literature, historiography, and social and moral philosophy, and comprises chapters that center around particular ancient concepts and authors, including cynicism, stoicism, epicureanism, Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, and Cicero.
According to the authors in their preface, "there is some reason to think that this background is not universally familiar to those whose special field of study lie within the period of the Renaissance to our own time"; this book, in which the original Greek and Latin sources stand side by side with their English translations, will prove useful to scholars from a variety of disciplines who study this period.
A documentary and analytical record, the book presents the classical background of primitivism and anti-primitivism in modern literature, historiography, and social and moral philosophy, and comprises chapters that center around particular ancient concepts and authors, including cynicism, stoicism, epicureanism, Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, and Cicero.
According to the authors in their preface, "there is some reason to think that this background is not universally familiar to those whose special field of study lie within the period of the Renaissance to our own time"; this book, in which the original Greek and Latin sources stand side by side with their English translations, will prove useful to scholars from a variety of disciplines who study this period.
- GenresPhilosophyHistory
496 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1935
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About the author
Arthur O. Lovejoy
42 books30 followersArthur Oncken Lovejoy was an influential American philosopher and intellectual historian, who founded the field known as the history of ideas.
Lovejoy was born in Berlin, Germany while his father was doing medical research there. Eighteen months later, his mother committed suicide, whereupon his father gave up medicine and became a clergyman. Lovejoy studied philosophy, first at the University of California, then at Harvard under William James and Josiah Royce. In 1901, he resigned from his first job, at Stanford University, to protest the dismissal of a colleague who had offended a trustee. The President of Harvard then vetoed hiring Lovejoy on the grounds that he was a known troublemaker. Over the subsequent decade, he taught at Washington University, Columbia University, and the University of Missouri. He never married.
As a professor of philosophy at Johns Hopkins University from 1910 to 1938, Lovejoy founded and long presided over that university's History of Ideas Club, where many prominent and budding intellectual and social historians, as well as literary critics, gathered. In 1940, he founded the Journal of the History of Ideas. Lovejoy insisted that the history of ideas should focus on "unit ideas," single concepts (often with a one-word name), and study how unit ideas combine and recombine with each other over time.
In the domain of epistemology, Lovejoy is remembered for an influential critique of the pragmatic movement, especially in the essay The Thirteen Pragmatisms, written in 1908.
Lovejoy was active in the public arena. He helped found the American Association of University Professors and the Maryland chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. However, he qualified his belief in civil liberties to exclude overriding threats to a free system. At the height of the McCarthy Era (in the February 14, 1952 edition of the Journal of Philosophy) Lovejoy stated that, since it was a "matter of empirical fact" that membership in the Communist Party contributed "to the triumph of a world-wide organization" which was opposed to "freedom of inquiry, of opinion and of teaching," membership in the party constituted grounds for dismissal from academic positions. He also published numerous opinion pieces in the Baltimore press. He died in Baltimore on December 30, 1962.
Lovejoy was born in Berlin, Germany while his father was doing medical research there. Eighteen months later, his mother committed suicide, whereupon his father gave up medicine and became a clergyman. Lovejoy studied philosophy, first at the University of California, then at Harvard under William James and Josiah Royce. In 1901, he resigned from his first job, at Stanford University, to protest the dismissal of a colleague who had offended a trustee. The President of Harvard then vetoed hiring Lovejoy on the grounds that he was a known troublemaker. Over the subsequent decade, he taught at Washington University, Columbia University, and the University of Missouri. He never married.
As a professor of philosophy at Johns Hopkins University from 1910 to 1938, Lovejoy founded and long presided over that university's History of Ideas Club, where many prominent and budding intellectual and social historians, as well as literary critics, gathered. In 1940, he founded the Journal of the History of Ideas. Lovejoy insisted that the history of ideas should focus on "unit ideas," single concepts (often with a one-word name), and study how unit ideas combine and recombine with each other over time.
In the domain of epistemology, Lovejoy is remembered for an influential critique of the pragmatic movement, especially in the essay The Thirteen Pragmatisms, written in 1908.
Lovejoy was active in the public arena. He helped found the American Association of University Professors and the Maryland chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. However, he qualified his belief in civil liberties to exclude overriding threats to a free system. At the height of the McCarthy Era (in the February 14, 1952 edition of the Journal of Philosophy) Lovejoy stated that, since it was a "matter of empirical fact" that membership in the Communist Party contributed "to the triumph of a world-wide organization" which was opposed to "freedom of inquiry, of opinion and of teaching," membership in the party constituted grounds for dismissal from academic positions. He also published numerous opinion pieces in the Baltimore press. He died in Baltimore on December 30, 1962.
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April 28, 2012
This was another life-changing book for me. Until I read this — I think I was about 24 at the time — I had no idea that one could critically analyze the historical identity of discrete ideas with such fastidious precision.
I turned to it after having read Wolfgang Herrmann's Laugier and Eighteenth Century French Theory (Zwemmer 1962), where it was used to describe a particular manifestation of primitivism.
This was a central thread in leading me to my ultimate topic for a dissertation by taking me through Seneca's primitivism of the Epistulae Morales to Gottfried Semper's thinking in the 1850s and 1860s about architectural style, evolution, politics and modernity.
At any rate, it is an exhilarating intellectual effort, one worth taking sooner rather than later. It will enable you to see more clearly the hidden biases and desires in people's often irrational valuations of past, present and future. Again, a real life-changer hidden between the covers of a nearly 80 year old academic volume.
You can see my review of Herrmann's Laugier: And Eighteenth-Century French Theory, as well.
I turned to it after having read Wolfgang Herrmann's Laugier and Eighteenth Century French Theory (Zwemmer 1962), where it was used to describe a particular manifestation of primitivism.
This was a central thread in leading me to my ultimate topic for a dissertation by taking me through Seneca's primitivism of the Epistulae Morales to Gottfried Semper's thinking in the 1850s and 1860s about architectural style, evolution, politics and modernity.
At any rate, it is an exhilarating intellectual effort, one worth taking sooner rather than later. It will enable you to see more clearly the hidden biases and desires in people's often irrational valuations of past, present and future. Again, a real life-changer hidden between the covers of a nearly 80 year old academic volume.
You can see my review of Herrmann's Laugier: And Eighteenth-Century French Theory, as well.
Displaying 1 of 1 review