( This book brings together twenty-three distinctive and ...)
This book brings together twenty-three distinctive and influential essays on ancient moral philosophy--including several published here for the first time--by the distinguished philosopher and classical scholar John Cooper. The volume gives a systematic account of many of the most important issues and texts in ancient moral psychology and ethical theory, providing a unified and illuminating way of reflecting on the fields as they developed from Socrates and Plato through Aristotle to Epicurus and the Stoic philosophers Chrysippus and Posidonius, and beyond. For the ancient philosophers, Cooper shows here, morality was "good character" and what that entailed: good judgment, sensitivity, openness, reflectiveness, and a secure and correct sense of who one was and how one stood in relation to others and the surrounding world. Ethical theory was about the best way to be rather than any principles for what to do in particular circumstances or in relation to recurrent temptations. Moral psychology was the study of the psychological conditions required for good character--the sorts of desires, the attitudes to self and others, the states of mind and feeling, the kinds of knowledge and insight. Together these papers illustrate brilliantly how, by studying the arguments of the Greek philosophers in their diverse theories about the best human life and its psychological underpinnings, we can expand our own moral understanding and imagination and enrich our own moral thought. The collection will be crucial reading for anyone interested in classical philosophy and what it can contribute to reflection on contemporary questions about ethics and human life.
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( This is a major reinterpretation of ancient philosophy ...)
This is a major reinterpretation of ancient philosophy that recovers the long Greek and Roman tradition of philosophy as a complete way of life--and not simply an intellectual discipline. Distinguished philosopher John Cooper traces how, for many ancient thinkers, philosophy was not just to be studied or even used to solve particular practical problems. Rather, philosophy--not just ethics but even logic and physical theory--was literally to be lived. Yet there was great disagreement about how to live philosophically: philosophy was not one but many, mutually opposed, ways of life. Examining this tradition from its establishment by Socrates in the fifth century BCE through Plotinus in the third century CE and the eclipse of pagan philosophy by Christianity, Pursuits of Wisdom examines six central philosophies of living--Socratic, Aristotelian, Stoic, Epicurean, Skeptic, and the Platonist life of late antiquity. The book describes the shared assumptions that allowed these thinkers to conceive of their philosophies as ways of life, as well as the distinctive ideas that led them to widely different conclusions about the best human life. Clearing up many common misperceptions and simplifications, Cooper explains in detail the Socratic devotion to philosophical discussion about human nature, human life, and human good; the Aristotelian focus on the true place of humans within the total system of the natural world; the Stoic commitment to dutifully accepting Zeus's plans; the Epicurean pursuit of pleasure through tranquil activities that exercise perception, thought, and feeling; the Skeptical eschewal of all critical reasoning in forming their beliefs; and, finally, the late Platonist emphasis on spiritual concerns and the eternal realm of Being. Pursuits of Wisdom is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding what the great philosophers of antiquity thought was the true purpose of philosophy--and of life.
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( The third edition of The Trial and Death of Socrates pr...)
The third edition of The Trial and Death of Socrates presents G. M. A. Grube's distinguished translations, as revised by John Cooper for Plato, Complete Works. A number of new or expanded footnotes are also included along with a Select Bibliography.
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John Montgomery Cooper was born on October 28, 1881 in Rockville, Maryland, United States. He was the youngest of three sons of James Cooper and Lillie (Tolou) Cooper. His father, an employee of the Pennsylvania Railroad, was descended from James Cooper, an English Quaker who had immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1684.
Having early decided to become a priest, John prepared for seminary at Calvert Hall. In 1897, he entered St. Charles College, Ellicott City (later Catonsville), Maryland. In 1899 he went to North American College in Rome, where he received the Ph. D. from St. Thomas Academy (1902) and the S. T. D. from Propaganda College (1905).
After ordination in Rome on June 17, he was called to St. Matthew's Church, Washington, D. C. , as curate; he served until 1918. Cooper approached his parochial tasks with great dedication and with the zest he had earlier had for boxing and tennis.
Social services, such as hospital work and dealing with the problems of youth, were of major concern to him, but his broad intention was to arouse people to the importance of a point of view on social problems rather than to use these services as a laboratory for research in sociology.
In 1909 he added to his parish duties the teaching of religious education at the Catholic University of America. Here his approach was similar. His Religious Outlines for Colleges, published later, were based on this conviction and, while they met with some opposition at first, they soon were adopted as standard texts.
In the meantime, his interest in European archaeology and American social problems coalesced with his increasing attention to cultural anthropology, which arose from camping trips to Canada, where he became acquainted with the life of the Algonquian tribes. Ethnological study at the Smithsonian Institution absorbed him in his spare time, and he was encouraged in his work by John Reed Swanton, Frederick W. Hodge, and Ales Hrdlicka.
In 1918 Cooper was appointed secretary of the National Committee of Women's Activities of the National Catholic War Council (later the National Catholic Welfare Conference). In this position he managed an elaborate nationwide program of social group work. In 1920 he became a full-time instructor in religion at Catholic University. Three years later he was named associate professor of anthropology in the university's department of sociology; he became professor in 1928 and, in 1934, chairman of the newly organized department of anthropology, where he served until his death.
Although he contributed to several areas of anthropology, Cooper was primarily an ethnologist and ethnographer. His fieldwork was done mostly among the Algonquians of the woodlands and plains of North America and he wrote numerous papers on various aspects of their culture. His last full-length monograph, The Gros Ventres of Montana, Part 2, on religion and ritual, was published posthumously in 1957. His theoretical interests led him to grapple with questions of distribution and historical reconstruction. Although by the 1940's the trend in American anthropology was away from such problems, Cooper's paper "Areal and Temporal Aspects of Aboriginal South American Culture" (1942), inspired the overall arrangement of the Handbook of South American Indians, edited by Julian H. Steward, to which Cooper contributed ten articles. His historical approach is clearly presented in Temporal Sequence and Marginal Culture (1941), which argued that nonliterate peoples of the present are "tarriers, " relatively unchanged from their prehistoric cultural state. He presented several canons of historical reconstruction, which, however, he recognized could not "yield a total all-embracing reconstruction of prehistoric culture. " Considering both distribution and genetic factors, he worked out tentative sequences of cultural development in certain relatively limited geographical areas and proceeded only so far as he felt the evidence warranted. He rejected what he considered the inflated generalizations of the Vienna Kulturkreis theory, which tried to reconstruct original primeval human culture.
His religious beliefs and his priestly vocation completely penetrated his life. He never felt that they interfered in any way with his scientific attitude as an anthropologist. Both sides of Cooper's life were welded together in his lifelong dedication to social work, social hygiene, and racial justice. He wrote many papers on these subjects and presented his views before various organizations of which he was an active supporter, including the National Conference of Social Work, the National Probation Association, the National Conference of Catholic Charities, and the American Social Hygiene Association.
He died of a coronary thrombosis in Washington at sixty-seven and was buried in Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, D. C.
His contribution to applied sociology, influential in the field of social work, was Children's Institutions (1931). His first notable contribution to ethnology was his Analytical and Critical Bibliography of the Indians of Tierra del Fuego (1917). This study revealed the qualities common to all his work--mastery of scholarly techniques, lucidity of expression, and critical judgment. Cooper also founded and edited several periodicals, including Primitive Man (retitled Anthropological Quarterly in 1953). Cooper was the founder and head of Catholic University's graduate department of religion. He played an active role in many organizations, such as the American Anthropological Association, of which he was president. Cooper was made a monsignor in 1941.
( This book brings together twenty-three distinctive and ...)
( This is a major reinterpretation of ancient philosophy ...)
( The third edition of The Trial and Death of Socrates pr...)
Feeling that religious education should meet the needs of the laity, he stressed the importance of social action as an extension of Christian love.
Cooper himself, in the words of R. H. Lowie, "radiated mental health, tolerance, humanitarianism. He had a keen sense of the ludicrous and was an admirable raconteur . .. and his praise was singularly generous and whole souled for so critical an intelligence. "
