Eternal Questions: Some Notes from Ancient Greece

Life is full of questions. Some are trivial and everyday (where did I put my keys'). Some concern important life decisions (shall I emigrate to Australia'). And again some are yet more profound (does life have a purpose'). Questions of this third type relate not so much to our individual lives, but to Life itself. They are, you might say, eternal questions. Different periods of history, different civilisations, all offer us a range of answers to these eternal questions. In this book, the author considers some of the answers given two-and-a-half thousand years ago by our distant cultural ancestors, the Ancient Greeks. Ancient they may be, but these Greeks asked the same eternal questions we ask ' and came up with some remarkable and interesting answers. They felt the passionate emotions we feel ' and dealt with them in creative ways. They felt the same spiritual longings as we do ' and found diverse ways of satisfying them. They still influence many aspects of our lives: language, art, architecture, literature, drama, philosophy, psychology, morals, medicine, history' They can still inspire us and inform us and sometimes exasperate us. They are always close to us. Aimed at the general reader, the book is also an excellent introduction to Ancient Greek thought for sixth formers and college starters.