Ludwig Edelstein (1902-1965) is well-known for his work on the history of anceint medicine and ancient philosophy, and to both of these areas he made contributions of primary importance. This collection, originally published in 1987, makes avaialable Edelstein's main papers to scholars and students, and includes papers from 1931-1965.

Originally published in 1991, this book focuses on the concept of virtue, and in particular on the virtue of wisdom or knowledge, as it is found in the epic poems of Homer, some tragedies of Sophocles, selected writings of Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers. The key questions discussed are the nature of the virtues, their relation to each other, and the relation between the virtues and happiness or well-being. This book provides the background and interpretative framework to make classical works on Ethics, such as Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, accessible to readers with no training in the classics.

First published in 1948, Philosophical Studies presents a collection of essays written by friends and colleagues of Professor L. Susan Stebbing in the Aristotelian Society. Most of these essays do not bear directly on Professor Stebbings' work, but they deal with problems which she discussed time and again at the Society's meetings. It explores themes like moral ends and means; reflections occasioned by ideals and illusions; reason in history; the logic of elucidation; logic and semantics; philosophy of nature; and epistemology and the ego-centric predicament. This book is a must read for students and scholars of Philosophy.

Modern literary theory is increasingly looking to philosophy for its inspiration. After a wave of structural analysis, the growing influence of deconstruction and hermeneutic readings continues to bear witness to this. This exciting and important collection, first published in 1988, reveals the diversity of approaches that mark the post-structuralist endeavour, and provides a challenge to the conventional practice of classical studies and ancient philosophy. This book will be of interest to students of ancient philosophy, classical studies and literary theory.

Concerning embryos, Porphyry takes an original view on issues that had been left undecided by his teacher Plotinus and earlier by the doctor Galen. What role is played in the development of the embryo by the souls or the natures of the father, of the mother, of the embryo, or of the whole world? Porphyry's detailed answer, in contrast to Aristotle's, gives a significant role to the soul and to the nature of the mother, without, however, abandoning Aristotle's view that the mother supplies no seed. In the fragments of On What is in Our Power, "Porphyry" discusses Plato's idea that we choose each of our incarnations, and so are responsible for what happens in our lives. This volume contains an English translation of the two commentaries, as well as extensive notes, an introduction and a bibliography.

Phanes (fa-nays) means "manifester" or "revealer", and is related to the Greek words "light" and "to shine forth".

Phanes Press was founded in 1985 to publish quality books on the spiritual, philosophical, and cosmological traditions of the Western world. Since that time, we have published 45 books, including five volumes of Alexandria, a book-length journal of cosmology, philosophy, myth, and culture.

The year 2000 marks our fifteen-year anniversary, and we are working to bring out more interdisciplinary works, including books on creativity, psychology, literature, and the intersections between science, spirituality, and culture.

The longest work on number symbolism to survive from the ancient world. Contains helpful footnotes, an extensive glossary, bibliography, & foreword by Keith Critchlow.

This book explores the nature and significance of Pyrrhonism, the most prominent and influential form of skepticism in Western philosophy. Not only did Pyrrhonism play an important part in the philosophical scene of the Hellenistic and Imperial age, but it also had a tremendous impact on Renaissance and modern philosophy and continues to be a topic of lively discussion among both scholars of ancient philosophy and epistemologists. The focus and inspiration of the book is the brand of Pyrrhonism expounded in the extant works of Sextus Empiricus. Its aim is twofold: to offer a critical interpretation of some of the central aspects of Sextus's skeptical outlook and to examine certain debates in contemporary philosophy from a neo-Pyrrhonian perspective. The first part explores the aim of skeptical inquiry, the defining features of Pyrrhonian argumentation, the epistemic challenge posed by the Modes of Agrippa, and the Pyrrhonist's stance on the requirements of rationality. The second part focuses on present-day discussions of the epistemic significance of disagreement, the limits of self-knowledge, and the nature of rationality. The book will appeal to researchers and graduate students interested in skepticism.

"A history of philosophy in twelve thinkers...The whole performance combines polyglot philological rigor with supple intellectual sympathy, and it is all presented...in a spirit of fun...This bracing and approachable book [shows] that there is life in philosophy yet." -Times Literary Supplement "Exceptionally engaging...Geuss has a remarkable knack for putting even familiar thinkers in a new light." -Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews "Geuss is something like the consummate teacher, his analyses navigable and crystal, his guidance on point." -Doug Phillips, Key Reporter Raymond Geuss explores the ideas of twelve philosophers who broke dramatically with prevailing wisdom, from Socrates and Plato in the ancient world to Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, and Adorno. The result is a striking account of some of the most innovative thinkers in Western history and an indirect manifesto for how to pursue philosophy today. Geuss cautions that philosophers' attempts to break from convention do not necessarily make the world a better place. Montaigne's ideas may have been benign, but the fate of those of Hobbes, Hegel, and Nietzsche has been more varied. Yet in the act of provoking people to think differently, philosophers remind us that we are not fated to live within the systems of thought we inherit.

In this bold new study, Andrew J. Mason seeks both to shed light on the key issue of flux in Plato's work, and to show that there is also in Plato a notion of flow that needs to be distinguished from flux. Mason brings out the importance of this hitherto neglected distinction, and proposes on its basis a new way of understanding the development of Plato's thought. The opposition between the 'being' of Forms and the 'becoming' or 'flux' of sensibles has been fundamental to the understanding of Plato from Aristotle to the present day. One key concern of this volume is to clarify which kinds or levels of flux Plato accepts in sensibles. In addition, Mason argues that this traditional approach is unsatisfactory, as it leaves out the important notion of flow. Unlike flux, flow is a kind of motion that does not entail intrinsic change. It is also not restricted to the sensible, but covers motions of soul as well, including the circular motion of nous (intelligence) that is crucial in Plato's later thought, particularly his cosmology. In short, flow is not incompatible with 'being', and in this study Plato's development is presented, largely, as his arrival at this view, in correction of his earlier conflation of flux and flow in establishing the dichotomy between being and becoming. Mason's study offers fresh insights into many dialogues and difficult passages in Plato's oeuvre, and situates Plato's conception and usage of 'flow' and 'flux' in relation to earlier usage in the Greek poetic tradition and the Presocratic thinkers, particularly Heraclitus. The first study of its kind, Flow and Flux uncovers dimensions of Plato's thinking that may reshape the way his philosophy is understood.

This book takes a new approach to the question, "Is the philosopher to be seen as universal human being or as eccentric?". Through a reading of the Theaetetus, Pappas first considers how we identify philosophers - how do they appear, in particular how do they dress? The book moves to modern philosophical treatments of fashion, and of "anti-fashion". He argues that aspects of the fashion/anti-fashion debate apply to antiquity, indeed that nudity at the gymnasia was an anti-fashion. Thus anti-fashion provides a way of viewing ancient philosophy's orientation toward a social world in which, for all its true existence elsewhere, philosophy also has to live.

There are thirty-six appearances of the Greek word exaiphnes in Plato's dialogues. Usually translated as "all of a sudden" or "suddenly," exaiphnes emerges in several significant passages. For example, exaiphnes appears three times in the "allegory of the cave" from Republic vii and heralds the vision of the Beautiful in Symposium. Commonly translated in the Parmenides as "the instant," exaiphnes also surfaces in a crucial section of the dialogue's training exercise. The Role of Exaiphnes in Early Greek Literature: Philosophical Transformation in Plato's Dialogues and Beyond connects the thirty-six scattered appearances of exaiphnes and reveals the role it plays in linking Plato's theory of Ideas with education. Joe Cimakasky discloses how Plato's step-by-step, methodical approach to philosophical education climaxes with a dynamic conversion experience signified by the appearance of exaiphnes. Cimakasky shows how Plato's conception of exaiphnes was transformative with respect to how the term was used in Greek literature by his predecessors and influential for ensuing philosophers. Following Plato, exaiphnes and its cognates came to represent the peak of philosophical or theological enlightenment. The Role of Exaiphnes in Early Greek Literature traces the meaning of the term in Greek literature prior to and contemporaneous with Plato, Plato's innovative use of exaiphnes, and the impact of Plato's notion of "the sudden" upon subsequent thinkers. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of philosophy, ancient philosophy, pedagogy, ethics, and hermeneutics. In addition, those working in religious studies will appreciate the focus on conversion narratives and their emergence in ancient philosophical and Biblical texts.

This first volume in the series traces the development of philosophy over two-and-a-half centuries, from Thales at the beginning of the sixth century BC to the death of Plato in 347 BC.

In one of the most original books of late antiquity, "Philoponus" argues for the Christian view that matter can be created by God out of nothing. It needs no prior matter for its creation. At the same time, "Philoponus" transforms Aristotle's conception of prime matter as an incorporeal 'something - I know not what' that serves as the ultimate subject for receiving extension and qualities. On the contrary, says "Philoponus", the ultimate subject is extension. It is three-dimensional extension with its exact dimensions and any qualities unspecified. Moreover, such extension is the defining characteristic of body. Hence, so far from being incorporeal, it is body, and as well as being prime matter, it is form - the form that constitutes body. This uses, but entirely disrupts, Aristotle's conceptual apparatus. Finally, in Aristotle's scheme of categories, this extension is not to be classified under the second category of quantity, but under the first category of substance as a substantial quantity.

This is the first separate edition and commentary on Philodemos of Gadara (110-40 BC) since 1885, containing an introduction on Philodemos' life, poetic theory, metrical practice, and the place of the epigrams within the Greek Anthology. Thirty-six genuine and two spurious epigrams are printed with full critical apparatus, translation, and commentary. Also included is the text of a recently published papyrus containing traces of many known and previously unknown epigrams by Philodemos.

Western civilization is founded upon the assumption that there exists a "natural order" to the world, an embedded principle of justice with which human reason is aligned. The imagery is seductive. However, Emil Fackenheim raises a troubling fact in his To Mend the World when he names the Holocaust the "rupture that ruptures philosophy." The Holocaust and countless other horrors over thousands of years of eager philosophical pursuit could not order the troublesome human soul to that state of justice that the Plato claims to be the most natural and happy state of human beings, if they can simply know their best interests. The philosopher, physician to the human soul, has proven impotent in healing the open ethical wound of human inhumanity; worse, the grand ontological and epistemological structures that philosophers have constructed may be linked to the ethical failures of the planet, to colonial and imperial worldviews. The work of post-Holocaust phenomenologist, Emmanuel Levinas, is written under the somber backdrop of the Holocaust. Levinas, by his own admission, stages a return to Plato. He shares Plato's sense of ethical urgency in the philosophical task, but he sets course for a new Platonism that thinks the difference separating (rather than the unity gathering) being. Levinas, more than Plato, appreciates that the exigencies and labor of everyday life can eclipse the needs of others and waylay the ethical life. Levinas too holds out more hope than Plato that the worst human beings can simply forget themselves and their self-interested projects, and become their brothers' keepers. Levinas quests for the good beyond being as he challenges the tradition of Western thought and the post-Holocaust world to a new ethos: we must decide between the starry skies above (the ordered ontologies of the Western tradition) and the moral law within. The Lesser Good represents a timely consideration of the ethical exigencies of human life, politics, and justice, demonstrating that philosophy's fa

An innovative and insightful exploration of the passionate early life of Socrates and the influences that led him to become the first and greatest of philosophers

Socrates: the philosopher whose questioning gave birth to the ideas of Western thought, and whose execution marked the end of the Athenian Golden Age. Yet despite his pre-eminence among the great thinkers of history, little of his life story is known. What we know tends to begin in his middle age and end with his trial and death. Our conception of Socrates has relied upon Plato and Xenophon – men who met him when he was in his fifties and a well-known figure in war-torn Athens.

There is mystery at the heart of Socrates' story: what turned the young Socrates into a philosopher? What drove him to pursue with such persistence, at the cost of social acceptance and ultimately of his life, a whole new way of thinking about the meaning of existence?

In this revisionist biography, Armand D'Angour draws on neglected sources to explore the passions and motivations of young Socrates, showing how love transformed him into the philosopher he was to become. What emerges is the figure of Socrates as never previously portrayed: a heroic warrior, an athletic wrestler and dancer – and a passionate lover. Socrates in Love sheds new light on the formative journey of the philosopher, finally revealing the identity of the woman who Socrates claimed inspired him to develop ideas that have captivated thinkers for 2,500 years.

This study of Philostratus , first published in 1986, presents the Greek biographer's treatment of both sophists and holy men in the social and intellectual life of the early Roman Empire, which also displays his own distinctive literary personality as a superficial dilettante and an engrossing snob. Through him we gain a glimpse of the rhetorical schools and their rivalries, as well as a bizarre portrayal of the celebrated first-century holy man Apollonius of Tyana, long loathed by his later Christian press as a Pagan Christ. Rarely does a biographer's reputation revolve round the charge that he forged his principal source. Graham Anderson's account produces new evidence which supports Philostratus' credibility, but it also extends the charges of ignorance and bias in his handling of fellow-sophists. Philostratus is intended for any reader interested in the social, cultural and literary history of the Roman Empire as well as the professional classicist.

This book investigates some of the central topics of metaphysics in the philosophical thought of the Maya people of Mesoamerica, particularly from the Preclassic through Postclassic periods. This book covers the topics of time, change, identity, and truth, through comparative investigation integrating Maya texts and practices-such as Classic Period stelae, Postclassic Codices, and Colonial-era texts such as the Popol Vuh and the books of Chilam Balam-and early Chinese philosophy.

Aristotle's Poetics is the first philosophical account of an art form and the foundational text in aesthetics. The Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Aristotle and the Poetics is an accessible guide to this often dense and cryptic work. Angela Curran introduces and assesses: Aristotle's life and the background to the Poetics the ideas and text of the Poetics the continuing importance of Aristotle's work to philosophy today.

When philosophy rescued him from an emotional crisis, Jules Evans became fascinated by how ideas invented over two thousand years ago can help us today. He interviewed soldiers, psychologists, gangsters, astronauts, and anarchists and discovered the ways that people are using philosophy now to build better lives. Ancient philosophy has inspired modern communities -- Socratic cafes, Stoic armies, Epicurean communes -- and even whole nations in the quest for the good life.
This book is an invitation to a dream school with a rowdy faculty that includes twelve of the greatest philosophers from the ancient world, sharing their lessons on happiness, resilience, and much more. Lively and inspiring, this is philosophy for the street, for the workplace, for the battlefield, for love, for life.

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization, and helped make us who we are. The Stoic writings of the philosopher Seneca offer powerful insights into the art of living, the importance of reason and morality, and continue to provide profound guidance to many through their eloquence, lucidity and timeless wisdom.

This book examines Aristotle's metaphysics and his account of nature, stressing the ways in which his desire to explain observed natural processes shaped his philosophical thought. It departs radically from a tradition of interpretation, in which Aristotle is understood to have approached problems with a set of abstract principles in hand, principles derived from critical reflection on the views of his predecessors. A central example of the book interprets Aristotle's essentialism as deriving from an examination of the kinds of unity that various sorts of things have: elemental motion, alteration, transformation and the growth of organisms. An important conclusion of this argument is that an essence may, under certain circumstances, lack some of its essential attributes. This is a major re-evaluation of Aristotle's metaphysics that will interest philosophers, classicists and historians of science.

Forms and Concepts is the first comprehensive study of the central role of concepts and concept acquisition in the Platonic tradition. It sets up a stimulating dialogue between Plato s innatist approach and Aristotle s much more empirical response. The primary aim is to analyze and assess the strategies with which Platonists responded to Aristotle s (and Alexander of Aphrodisias ) rival theory. The monograph culminates in a careful reconstruction of the elaborate attempt undertaken by the Neoplatonist Proclus (6th century AD) to devise a systematic Platonic theory of concept acquisition."

Readers of Plato have often neglected the Laws because of its length and density. In this set of interpretive essays, notable scholars of the Laws from the fields of classics, history, philosophy, and political science offer a collective close reading of the dialogue "book by book" and reflect on the work as a whole. In their introduction, editors Gregory Recco and Eric Sanday explore the connections among the essays and the dramatic and productive exchanges between the contributors. This volume fills a major gap in studies on Plato's dialogues by addressing the cultural and historical context of the Laws and highlighting their importance to contemporary scholarship. -- Indiana University Press

In this book, Jeremy Kirby analyzes Book Gamma of Aristotle's Metaphysics and introduces the debates (or paradoxes as he refers to them) such as relativism versus the idea of a ready-made world, the possibility of true contradictions, the nature and possibility of metaphysics, the limits of thought, and logic.