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.

Arthur O. Lovejoy was born in Berlin, Germany in 1873, and taught at the Johns Hopkins University from 1910 to 1938. His many publications include The Revolt against Dualism: An Inquiry Concerning the Existence of Ideas, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea, Essays on the History of Ideas, and Reflections on Human Nature. Lovejoy died in 1962. Born in 1891 in Providence, Rhode Island, George Boas also taught for many years at Johns Hopkins, and was editor of the Journal of the History of Ideas from 1945 until his death in 1980. He wrote 24 books, including The Major Traditions of English Philosophy, The Greek Tradition: A Symposium, Rationalism in Greek Philosophy, The Limits of Reason, and The History of Ideas: An Introduction.