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Full Idea
For early Greeks their techné for life was to take care of the city, of companions (see Plato's 'Alcibiades'). Taking care of yourself for its own sake starts with the Epicureans, and becomes very general in Seneca and Pliny.
Gist of Idea
Early Greeks cared about city and companions; later Greeks concentrated on the self
Source
Michel Foucault (On the Genealogy of Ethics [1983], p.260)
Book Ref
Foucault,Michel: 'Essential Works 1954-1984 I: Ethics', ed/tr. Rabinow,Paul [Penguin 1994], p.260
A Reaction
In Aristotle the two strike me as ideally balanced - to become a wonderful citizen by looking after yourself. Presumably the destruction of the city-states by Alexander took away the motive, and the aim became more private.
| 1597 | Thales was the first western thinker to believe the arché was intelligible [Roochnik on Thales] |
| 3051 | Pythagoras discovered the numerical relation of sounds on a string [Pythagoras, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 1542 | Diogenes of Apollonia was the last natural scientist [Diogenes of Apollonia, by Simplicius] |
| 22733 | Epicurus accepted God in his popular works, but not in his writings on nature [Epicurus, by Sext.Empiricus] |
| 2922 | All intelligent Romans were Epicureans [Nietzsche] |
| 7500 | Early Greeks cared about city and companions; later Greeks concentrated on the self [Foucault] |
| 23392 | The Dao (Way) first means the road, and comes to mean the right way to live [Norden] |