Timon of Phlius
Timon of Phlius | |
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Born | c. 325-320 BCE |
Died | c. 235-230 BCE (aged c. 90) |
Era | Hellenistic philosophy |
Region | Western philosophy |
School | Skepticism |
Main interests | Epistemology |
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Pyrrhonism |
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Timon of Phlius (
Life
The primary source for Timon's biography is the account in
Writings
According to Diogenes Laërtius, Timon composed "lyric and epic poems, and tragedies and satiric dramas, and thirty comedies, and sixty tragedies and the Silloi and amatory poems." The Silloi has not survived intact, but they are mentioned and quoted by several ancient authors. It has been suggested that Pyrrhonism ultimately originated with Timon rather than Pyrrho.[4]
Silloi
The most celebrated of his poems were the satiric compositions called Silloi, a word of somewhat uncertain etymology, but which undoubtedly describes metrical compositions, of a character at once ludicrous and sarcastic. The invention of this species of poetry is ascribed to Xenophanes of Colophon. The Silloi of Timon were in three books, in the first of which he spoke in his own person, and the other two are in the form of a dialogue between the author and Xenophanes, in which Timon proposed questions, to which Xenophanes replied at length. The subject was a sarcastic account of the tenets of all philosophers, living and dead; an unbounded field for scepticism and satire. They were in hexameter verse, and, from the way in which they are mentioned by the ancient writers, as well as from the few fragments of them which have survived, it is evident that they were admirable productions of their kind.[5] Commentaries were written on the Silloi by Apollonides of Nicaea, and also by Sotion of Alexandria.[6]
Poetry
The poem entitled Images (Greek: Ἰνδαλμοι) in elegiac verse, appears to have been similar in its subject to the Silloi.[7] Diogenes Laërtius also mentions Timon's iamboi,[8] but perhaps the word is here merely used in the sense of satirical poems in general, without reference to the metre. According to Timon, philosophers are "excessively cunning murderers of many wise saws" (v. 96); the only two whom he spares are Xenophanes, "the modest censor of Homer's lies" (v. 29), and Pyrrho, against whom "no other mortal dare contend" (v. 126).[9]
No remains of his dramas have survived. Of his epic poems little is known, but it may be presumed that they were chiefly ludicrous or satirical poems in the epic form. It appears probable that his Funeral Banquet of Arcesilaus was also a satirical poem in epic verse.[10] He also wrote parodies on Homer, and some lines from a scepticism-themed poem in elegiac verse have been preserved, as well as one or two fragments which cannot be with certainty assigned to any of his poems.[9]
Prose works
He also wrote in prose, to the quantity, according to Diogenes Laërtius, of twenty thousand lines. These works were no doubt on philosophical subjects, and Diogenes mentions On Sensations, On Inquiries, and Towards Wisdom. Also among his lost works is Against the Physicists, in which he questioned the legitimacy of making
'The things themselves are equally indifferent, and unstable, and indeterminate, and therefore neither our senses nor our opinions are either true or false. For this reason then we must not trust them, but be without opinions, and without bias, and without wavering, saying of every single thing that it no more is than is not, or both is and is not, or neither is nor is not.[13]
Notes
- ^ Laërtius 1925.
- ^ a b c d e Bett 2002.
- ^ Suda, Aratos.
- ^ Brunschwig, (1999), pp. 249–251.
- ^ Diogenes Laërtius, ix. 115; Suda, Sillainei, Timon; Athenaeus, passim; Aulus Gellius, iii. 17.
- ^ Athenaeus, viii. 336
- ^ Diogenes Laërtius, ix. 65
- ^ Diogenes Laërtius, ix. 110
- ^ a b Chisholm 1911.
- ^ Diogenes Laërtius, ix. 115; Athenaeus, ix. 406
- ISBN 0-674-99420-5
- Eusebius of CaesariaPraeparatio Evangelica Chapter 18
- ^ Eusebius. "Praeparatio Evangelica Book XIV". Tertullian Project. Retrieved 27 January 2023.
References
The surviving fragments of Timon's work are published in Diels, Hermann (1901). Poetarum philosophorum fragmenta (in Latin and Ancient Greek).
- Bett, Richard (2002). "Timon of Phlius". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Brunschwig, J., Introduction: The Beginnings of Hellenistic Epistemology, in Algra, Barnes, Mansfeld and Schofield (eds.), The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 1999) p. 229-259.
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Timon of Phlius". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 26 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 989. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
- Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. Vol. 2:9. Translated by Hicks, Robert Drew(Two volume ed.). Loeb Classical Library.
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). "Timon". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.
Further reading
- Bett, Richard (2003). Pyrrho, His Antecedents, and His Legacy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-925661-7. Retrieved 29 January 2023.
- Clayman, Dee L. (15 December 2009). Timon of Phlius: Pyrrhonism into Poetry. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-022081-0. Retrieved 29 January 2023.
- Long, A. A. (20 August 1986). Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-05808-8. Retrieved 29 January 2023.
- Long, A. A.; Sedley, D. N. (9 April 1987). The Hellenistic Philosophers: Volume 1, Translations of the Principal Sources with Philosophical Commentary. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-27556-9. Retrieved 29 January 2023.
- Long, A. A. (14 September 2006). "4.Timon of Phlius: Pyrrhonist and satirist". From Epicurus to Epictetus: Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy. Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0-19-927911-1. Retrieved 29 January 2023.