We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
To save content items to your account,
please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies.
If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account.
Find out more about saving content to .
To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org
is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings
on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part
of your Kindle email address below.
Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations.
‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi.
‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Cicero says that almost no philosophers held atheism or agnosticism. For him the Central Question of philosophy of religion is not the existence of the gods, but whether the gods care for us by providence. He says we must answer this question to moderate religion. I argue that although traditional Roman pagan religion required orthopraxy, and not orthodoxy, Cicero thinks that the actions of a pagan practitioner could be "moderated" by what she believed about her religious behavior: if she believes that the gods care for us more than they do, that is superstition, but if she believes that they care for us less than they do, that is impiety. Yet Romans, Cicero says, were bewildered by their ancestral religion. He offers Hellenistic philosophy as a new route to responsible beliefs about it. Philosophy might help a Roman form true beliefs on the Central Question, or (like Cicero) to refrain from risky beliefs either way. On the nature of the gods and On divination are carefully designed to present this debate, among Stoics, with rich theories that the gods care and give us divinatory information, Epicureans, with rich theories to the contrary, and Academics, who withhold judgment.
Recommend this
Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this to your organisation's collection.