![]() ![]() For ancient ethics is about how best to live your life, about what your aims should be and how you can be happy. And it is this point, of conscious self-concern, which forms the entry point for ethical reflection. But it is a mark of the reflective person that he brings to consciousness this fact about himself, that his projects and commitments All of us have this view in an inexplicit way, and the complacent and stupid among us may never do more. It is a commonsense assumption in the ancient world that you and I and everyone have a "final end"-that is, I do not just have some projects and plans and commitments in an unrelated jumble but have, at some level, a unified view of how they fit together, of how they form my life as a whole, of where my life is going. ![]() Gill has made some remarks on this in his paper, but perhaps a little more can usefully be said on this point. But before doing this I think that it is worthwhile briefly to discuss the way that both papers highlight, in different ways, an important point about Hellenistic philosophy which is immediately relevant to the overall theme of this conference: self-definition in the Hellenistic world. These two papers are distinct in their subjects and hence in their treatments, and in these remarks I shall deal with each paper separately. Christopher Gill has focused in a highly original way on one ethical philosopher, Panaetius, and the way in which he tries to unite seemingly rather distinct ethical strategies as to how one should achieve one's ethical goal. Fernanda Decleva Caizzi has focused, in her fascinating and learned paper, on images of the philosophical life in two ways: the way the philosopher presents himself to other people, and the way other people tend to see the philosopher.
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