Sunday 28 October 2012

A world before therapy




Face it, people have being displaying all the anti-social behaviours we've managed to put labels on during the last century since our first paleolithic ancestors decided little 'Runs-with-knifes' was a tad 'off'. Today we live in an age of having aberrant behaviour medicated...in the past we might presume people of a particular disposition rushed off to have a war with someone else. However if Pliny is to be believed, he seems to have identified a group of men showing a lack of human empathy - and as a result potential psychopathy -  who didn't decide to pursue world domination or become the head of an ancient corporation. Nope...these guys founded Greek Schools of Philosophy. He describes Diogenes the Cynic, Pyrroh, Heraclitus and Timo as being 'apatheis'...which is Greek for 'unfeeling'. Timo apparently went as far as to declare he hated the entire human race. I guess this means you should take your Philosophy lecturer a whole lot more seriously now.

Find out if Calvus had a predilection for philosophy 

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