Living a Good Life: Advice on Virtue, Love, and Action from the Ancient Greek Masters

Hooray! There is justice in the fact that a translator who has given us many fine translations of Far-eastern wisdom, has turned his attention to the wisdom of the ancient west! This delightful book, full of wise and frequently ironic sayings drawn from classical sources, repays careful reading. Happily, if you were put off Greek classics by the rather boring approach adopted in modern-day college studies, this book will blow all such aridity away! It bridges the gap between between east and west and makes us conscious of the fact that - in antiquity, at least, there was much common ground between the wise men of the orient and occident. Though this text gives you the sayings of Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Diogenes etc. it was an inspired choice to select Greek material which had been preserved in Arabic sources. We often forget that the Arab universities in Spain provided Western Europe with its first complete sources of Plato, Aristotle etc. It also shows that - historically, the Islamic world has had open, intercultural dimensions, something not that easy to grasp in view of the contemporary focus on 'fundamentalism' and a perceived 'otherness' dividing cultures. An appendix contains Greek aphorisms showing a close over-lap between eastern and western culture, if not direct borrowings. All in all, this is an excellent source for our day and age. Too many terms identified with Western philosophy have been corrupted by inadequate translation. The cover of this book, for instance, refers to the 'good life,' 'virtue,' and 'action' etc. But the 'good life' - 'eudaemonia' in Greek, means being guided by a 'wise guardian spirit' in regard to life as a whole. It also means 'blessedness.' Not quite the same thing as utilitarian economics, the illusion that wealth or the love of money is a good in itself - as many sayings in this book will confirm. 'Virtue' suggests something rather subjective, but in Greek, 'arete' means the pursuit of excellence, actualising the full range of human (and spiritual)powers. Cleary doesn't get that academic with these terms, so forgive the reviewer for taking that liberty! The point is, we think we know what those terms mean - seeing them through the lense of indequate translation and long engrained misinterpretation.It might even be that Heidegger fell foul of this himself, given the fact that he shared Nietzsche's disdain for Platonism. Don't swallow, uncritically, the jaundiced view of the Greeks and their legacy, being touted today. Read Cleary's contribution, and you will appreciate the wisdom of your ancestors. East or west, the philosophy of antiquity has something valuable to teach us.

fairly good piece of work... it manages to show a lot of the wisdom of the ages without having to spend hours sifting though plato or socrates translations. I prefered Phanes publishisher's _Pythagorean Sourcebook_ though...