Antiochus of Ascalon

Antiochus of Ascalon

Antiochus of Ascalon (; Greek: Άντίοχος ὁ Ἀσκαλώνιος; c. 135/130 – c. 68 BC) was an 1st-century BC Platonism philosopher who rejected skepticism and blended Stoic doctrines with Platonism as the first philosopher in the tradition of Middle Platonism. Antiochus moved to Athens early in his life and became a pupil of Philo of Larissa at the Platonic Academy, but he went on to reject the prevailing Academic skepticism of Philo and his predecessors. This led to his resignation from the academy and the establishment of his own school, which he named the "Old Academy" as he claimed it was closer to original doctrines of Platonism that he believed had been betrayed by the skeptics of the New Academy under Philo. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Antiochus of Ascalon has received more than 113,541 page views. His biography is available in 32 different languages on Wikipedia. Antiochus of Ascalon is the 488th most popular philosopher (down from 462nd in 2019), the 129th most popular biography from Israel (down from 121st in 2019) and the most popular Israeli Philosopher.

Antiochus of Ascalon is most famous for his contributions to the field of mathematics. He is credited with being the first person to use the letter sigma to denote the sum of an infinite series.