Written by an outstanding international team of scholars, this Companion explores the profound influence of Socrates on the history of Western philosophy. Discusses the life of Socrates and key philosophical doctrines associated with him Covers the whole range of Socratic studies from the ancient world to contemporary European philosophy Examines Socrates' place in the larger philosophical traditions of the Hellenistic world, the Roman Empire, the Arabic world, the Renaissance, and contemporary Europe Addresses interdisciplinary subjects such as Socrates and Nietzsche, Socrates and psychoanalysis, and representations of Socrates in art Helps readers to understand the meaning and significance of Socrates across the ages

The ancient Greeks were not only the founders of western philosophy, but the actual term "philosophy" is Greek in origin, most likely dating back to the late sixth century BC. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Euclid, and Thales are but a few of the better-known philosophers of ancient Greece. During the amazingly fertile period running from roughly the middle of the first millennium BC to the middle of the first millennium AD, the world saw the rise of science, numerous schools of thought, and-many believe-the birth of modern civilization. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Ancient Greek Philosophy covers the history of Greek philosophy through a chronology, an introductory essay, a glossary, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 1500 cross-referenced entries on important philosophers, concepts, issues, and events. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Greek philosophy.

First published in 1981 this unique study discusses the evolution of Plato's thought through the actual developments in Athenian democracy, the book also demonstrates Plato's continuing responses to changes in political theory and argues for a new understanding of Plato's goals for the state and his ultimate concern for the moral well-being of the citizens.

Spanning the twentieth century, this 4-volume set contains titles originally published between 1935 and 1990. The volumes explore the concept of Idealism from its roots in the theories of Plato, discussing many other philosophers and their perspectives, as views have developed through the centuries, to more modern interpretations.

This book elaborates a moral realism of phenomenological inspiration by introducing the idea that moral experience, primordially, constitutes a perceptual grasp of actions and of their solid traces in the world. The main thesis is that, before any reference to values or to criteria about good and evil?that is, before any reference to specific ethical outlooks?one should explain the very materiality of what necessarily constitutes the ?moral world?. These claims are substantiated by means of a text- centered interpretation of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics in dialogue with contemporary moral realism. The book concludes with a critique of Heidegger?s, Gadamer's and Arendt's approaches to Aristotle's ethics.

This book examines the relationship between athletics and philosophy in ancient Greece and Rome focused on the connection between athleticism and virtue. It begins by observing that the link between athleticism and virtue is older than sport, reaching back to the athletic feats of kings and pharaohs in early Egypt and Mesopotamia. It then traces the role of athletics and the Olympic Games in transforming the idea of aristocracy as something acquired by birth to something that can be trained. This idea of training virtue through the techniques and practice of athletics is examined in relation to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Then Roman spectacles such as chariot racing and gladiator games are studied in light of the philosophy of Lucretius, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius. The concluding chapter connects the book's ancient observations with contemporary issues such as the use of athletes as role models, the relationship between money and corruption, the relative worth of participation and spectatorship, and the role of females in sport. The author argues that there is a strong link between sport and philosophy in the ancient world, calling them offspring of common parents: concern about virtue and the spirit of free enquiry. This book was previously published as a special issue of the Ethics and Sport.

This book offers an original interpretation and close reading of Plato's Phaedo, focusing on the relation between logos and the soul in order to illuminate the ethical and political dimensions of philosophy as "care of the soul." Jesse I. Bailey argues that the central issue of the dialogue is the relation between logos and the defining activity of the soul. The soul, in accord with logos, gathers the multiplicity of phenomena into the intelligible wholes of experience. This definitive activity also applies to the soul itself, as the soul gathers itself to itself in logos. Ethical living demands the development of a harmonious unity in the self through this activity. Thus, the book argues that the traditional "pillars" of Platonism-the immortality of the soul and the Forms-are presented not as fully-developed theories to be accepted by the reader whole cloth, but rather as provocations for thought.

Madness Transformed: A Reading of Ovid's Metamorphoses is a detailed critical examination of a masterpiece of Augustan Latin epic poetry. In the manner of Lee Fratantuono's previous volume, Madness Unchained: A Reading of Virgil's Aeneid, this sequel seeks to explicate Ovid's magnum opus by moving scene by scene through the entire work. Through a close study of Ovid's limpid dactylic hexameters, Fratantuono demonstrates the way in which the Metamorphoses stands forth as a bold answer to the Aeneid as another epic consideration of the enigma that was the Augustan principate, with a vision of Roman history (and literature) that both responds to and challenges Virgil. Much of what Virgil left enigmatic and ambiguous is addressed more directly by Ovid, who, unlike his epic predecessor, suffered rather than prospered under the Augustan regime. Madness Transformed considers each tale of wondrous metamorphosis and ironic commentary as it seeks to provide a coherent reading of what might appear a most incoherent poem. Fratantuono carefully examines and critiques secondary scholarship on the Metamorphoses, but the primary method for this journey through Ovid is a close reading of what Ovid the epic poet (and Roman historian) actually says. Fratantuono pays special attention to the sources for Ovid's myths and the Nachleben of Ovid's great achievement, especially in medieval and Renaissance France. These considerations will prove valuable to any reader of classical literature and Roman history from novice to expert. An annotated bibliography provides a guide to further reading on the poem, while the introduction offers a foundation for this study: Ovid as reader of Virgil, in the aftermath of some of the more momentous turning points of Augustus' reign. The madness that was unchained in Virgil, destined to haunt Rome forever, is now revealed by Ovid to have been transformed, as Rome moves definitively from Republic to Empire.

The overall aim of the volume is to explore the relation of Socratic philosophizing, as Plato represents it, to those activities to which it is typically opposed. The essays address a range of figures who appear in the dialogues as distinct "others" against whom Socrates is contrasted-most obviously, the figure of the sophist, but also the tragic hero, the rhetorician, the tyrant, and the poet. Each of the individual essays shows, in a different way, that the harder one tries to disentangle Socrates' own activity from that of its apparent opposite, the more entangled they become. Yet, it is only by taking this entanglement seriously, and exploring it fully, that the distinctive character of Socratic philosophy emerges. As a whole, the collection sheds new light on the artful ways in which Plato not only represents philosophy in relation to what it is not, but also makes it "strange" to itself. It shows how concerns that seem to be raised about the activity of philosophical questioning (from the point of view of the political community, for example) can be seen, upon closer examination, to emerge from within that very enterprise. Each of the essays then goes on to consider how Socratic philosophizing can be defined, and its virtues defended, against an attack that comes as much from within as from without. The volume includes chapters by distinguished contributors such as Catherine Zuckert, Ronna Burger, Michael Davis, Jacob Howland, and others, the majority of which were written especially for this volume. Together, they address an important theme in Plato's dialogues that is touched upon in the literature but has never been the subject of a book-length study that traces its development across a wide range of dialogues. One virtue of the collection is that it brings together a number of prominent scholars from both political science and philosophy whose work intersects in important and revealing ways. A related virtue is that it treats more familiar dialogues (Republic, Sophist, Apology, Phaedrus) alongside some works that are less well known (Theages, Major Hippias, Minor Hippias, Charmides, and Lovers). While the volume is specialized in its topic and approach, the overarching question-about the potentially troubling implications of Socratic philosophy, and the Platonic response-should be of interest to a broad range of scholars in philosophy, political science, and classics.

First published in 2000. This is Volume VIII of ten in the International Library of Philosophy in a series on Ancient Philosophy. Written in 1947, it focuses on Plato's theory of education and initially written for students of educational theory, but also for teachers and for those who are interested in Plato as a thinker who find in his writings a challenge to their powers of thought which assists them to develop a philosophy of their own.

What are the objects of science? Are they just the things in our scientific experiments that are located in space and time? Or does science also require that there be additional things that are not located in space and time? Using clear examples, these are just some of the questions that Scott Berman explores as he shows why alternative theories such as Nominalism, Contemporary Aristotelianism, Constructivism, and Classical Aristotelianism, fall short. He demonstrates why the objects of scientific knowledge need to be not located in space or time if they are to do the explanatory work scientists need them to do. The result is a contemporary version of Platonism that provides us with the best way to explain what the objects of scientific understanding are, and how those non-spatiotemporal things relate to the spatiotemporal things of scientific experiments, as well as everything around us, including even ourselves.

A distinguished group of Aristotelian scholars and contemporary metaphysicians discusses Aristotle's theory of the unity and identity of substances. The questions of ontology, explanation, and methodology with which they deal remain central to metaphysics today. This book sets a new agenda for Aristotelian metaphysics.

How can citizens be persuaded to voluntarily obey good laws? Randall Baldwin Clark addresses this question by looking at one of the oldest works ever to pose it: Plato's Laws. The Law Most Beautiful and Best explores one of the most striking metaphors in the Laws: the suggestion that the gentle and persuasive bedside manner that characterizes rational medicine should serve as the model for political persuasion. Clark's careful reading of the Laws challenges traditional interpretations of this metaphor, emphasizing instead the way the dialogue subtly reasserts the efficacy of the magical arts. Just as the Athenian stranger treats his patients with a combination of rational and irrational therapies, so too must the philosophical reader-should he wish to preserve his city's health-be willing to avail himself of both the gentle persuasion of reasoned discourse and the enchanting coercion of irrational rhetoric. Both a close examination of the Laws and a thoughtful approach to an ageless political dilemma, The Law Most Beautiful and Best is essential reading for scholars interested in jurisprudence, classics, rhetoric, and political science.

Although reasoned discourse on human-animal relations is often considered a late twentieth-century phenomenon, ethical debate over animals and how humans should treat them can be traced back to the philosophers and literati of the classical world. From Stoic assertions that humans owe nothing to animals that are intellectually foreign to them, to Plutarch's impassioned arguments for animals as sentient and rational beings, it is clear that modern debate owes much to Greco-Roman thought.

Animals in Greek and Roman Thought brings together new translations of classical passages which contributed to ancient debate on the nature of animals and their relationship to human beings. The selections chosen come primarily from philosophical and natural historical works, as well as religious, poetic and biographical works. The questions discussed include: Do animals differ from humans intellectually? Were animals created for the use of humankind? Should animals be used for food, sport, or sacrifice? Can animals be our friends?

The selections are arranged thematically and, within themes, chronologically. A commentary precedes each excerpt, transliterations of Greek and Latin technical terms are provided, and each entry includes bibliographic suggestions for further reading.

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Socrates' greatest philosophical contribution was to have initiated the search for definitions. In Definition in Greek Philosophy his views on definition are examined, together with those of his successors, including Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Galen, the Sceptics and Plotinus. Although definition was a major pre-occupation for many Greek philosophers, it has rarely been treated as a separate topic in its own right in recent years. This volume, which contains fourteen new essays by leading scholars, aims to reawaken interest in a number of central and relatively unexplored issues concerning definition. These issues are briefly set out in the Introduction, which also seeks to point out scholarly and philosophical questions which merit further study.

Metaphysics is the study of existence at the highest level of generality. It is traditionally characterised as the study of "being qua being" - of being in general rather than specifically of this or that sort. Accordingly, the salient task of the field is to achieve a clearer understanding of the concepts and principles of being, existence, and reality. As such, metaphysics has been an established sector of philosophy since the time of Aristotle's initial systematisation of the subject in the fourth century B.C.E.In line with tradition, distinguished philosopher Nicholas Rescher presents key topics that have always figured on the agenda of metaphysics: the nature and rationale of existence, the differentiation of what is actual from the unreal and mere possibility, and the prospects and limits of our knowledge of the real. Though a work of philosophical sophistication and logical rigour, "Metaphysics" displays a clarity of exposition that makes it suitable for use as a text or supplementary reader in upper-class undergraduate and graduate philosophy courses.

The classical conception of reason (or logos) has been repeatedly attacked in the modern era. Its enemies range from Descartes, who complains that logos is not sufficiently useful or precise, to Derrida who hopes to liberate Western thought from its bondage to "logocentrism." At least since the time of Nietzsche, Plato has been damned as the chief architect of the classical conception of logos. He is accused of overvaluing reason and thereby devaluing the other, more human aspects of life. As it was originally formulated in Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy, Plato has been taken to be the arch-enemy of tragedy, which for Nietzsche was the most life-affirming of all the art forms of Greek culture. Originally published in 1990, The Tragedy of Reason defends Plato against his accusers. Employing a mode of exposition which exhibits Plato's position, Roochnik presents the Platonic conception of logos in confrontation with texts by Homer, Hesiod, Heraclitus, Aristotle, Descartes, Porty, and Derrida. In clear language, unencumbered by technical terminology, Roochnik shows that Platonic conception of logos is keenly aware of the strength of its opponents. The result is a presentation of Plato as a "tragic philosopher" whose conception of logos is characterized by an affirmation of its own limits as well as its goodness.

This work synthesizes work previously published in leading journals in the field into a coherent narrative that has a distinctive focus on Germany while also being aware of a broader European dimension. It argues that the German Lutheran Christoph August Heumann (1681-1764) marginalized the biographical approach to past philosophy and paved the way for the German Lutheran Johann Jacob Brucker's (1696-1770) influential method for the writing of past philosophy, centred on depersonalised and abstract systems of philosophy. The work offers an authoritative and engaging account of how late ancient Platonism, Plotinus in particular, was interpreted in eighteenth-century Germany according to these new precepts. Moreover, it reveals the Lutheran religious assumptions of this new approach to past philosophy, which underpinned the works of Heumann and Brucker, but also influential reviews that rejected the English Plato translator Thomas Taylor (1758-1835) and his understanding and evaluation of late ancient Platonism.

Age-old debates over self-love and self-denial continue to preoccupy the Christian community. Many see self-love as incompatible with the self-sacrifice of Christ, while feminists and liberation theologians contest the notion that self-sacrifice is the test of authentic Christian love. The resolution to this dilemma, argues Gerald W. Schlabach, lies with St. Augustine.

In this engaging book, Schlabach examines how Augustine reconciled self-love and self-denial in a unified Christian love. He demonstrates the crucial role that continence played in Augustine's teaching, showing it to be more than an attitude toward sexuality; rather it is the operative mode of Augustinian caritas.

Addressing historical theology, contemporary Christian ethics, feminism, and pastoral considerations, Schlabach traces the role that self-denial played in Augustine's teaching. He argues that Augustine's integration of self-love and self-denial suggests that one can distinguish true Christian self-denial from mere victimization, and that the good we seek when we love -- whether directed toward neighbor, enemy, or self -- is not self-serving but rather a participation in a mutual relationship with God and his creation.

Through this critical retrieval of Augustine's thought, Schlabach shows that self-denial is meaningful only when ordered to a higher good, as when Christ endured the suffering of the cross "for the joy set before him". He demonstrates practical applications of how charity working through continence can maintain right self-love and proper self-denial in our daily lives, and proposes that Christian self-sacrifice is a willing acceptance of a good derived from working on behalf ofothers.

Schlabach rediscovers a unity of Christian love and opens up new resources even for skeptical readers who may not consider themselves Augustinians. His work offers provocative reading for all who are concerned with keeping their lives and work rooted in the Christian tradition.

This book offers readers a uniquely detailed engagement with the ideas of legendary French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. The Freudian Thing is one of Lacan's most important texts, wherein he explains the significance and stakes of his "return to Freud" as a passionate defence of Freud's disturbing, epoch-making discovery of the unconscious, against misrepresentations and criticisms of it. However, Lacan is characteristically cryptic in The Freudian Thing. The combination of his writing style and vast range of references renders much of his thinking inaccessible to all but a narrow circle of scholarly specialists. Johnston's Irrepressible Truth opens up the universe of Lacanian psychoanalysis to much wider audiences by furnishing a sentence-by-sentence interpretive unpacking of this pivotal 1955 essay. In so doing, Johnston reveals the precision, rigor, and soundness of Lacan's teachings.

Xenophon's philosophical works have long lived under the shadow of those of his brilliant and contemporary fellow student of Socrates, Plato. They both wrote an Apology and a Symposium, and though few would deny that Plato was the more profound and original philosopher, Xenophon's contribution has been unjustly ignored. His writings, which are of wider scope than Plato's, encompassing history and technical treatises as well as philosophy, are particularly distinguished by their simplicity of style and approachability. The two works included here both concern the last days of Socrates and are a vivid portrait of the life and thought of the great man.

Martin Heidegger s sustained reflection on Greek thought has been increasingly recognized as a decisive feature of his own philosophical development. At the same time, this important philosophical meeting has generated considerable controversy and disagreement concerning the radical originality of Heidegger s view of the Greeks and their place in his groundbreaking thinking. In Heidegger and the Greeks, an international group of distinguished philosophers sheds light on the issues raised by Heidegger s encounter and engagement with the Greeks. The careful and nuanced essays brought together here shed light on how core philosophical concepts such as phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics, and ethics are understood today. For readers at all levels, this volume is an invitation to continue the important dialogue with Greek thinking that was started and stimulated by Heidegger.

Contributors are Claudia Baracchi, Walter A. Brogan, Gunter Figal, Gregory Fried, Francisco J. Gonzalez, Drew A. Hyland, John Panteleimon Manoussakis, William J. Richardson, John Sallis, Dennis J. Schmidt, and Peter Warnek."

Originally published in 1935, the aim of this title is first to give a clear outline of Florentine Neoplatonism, and then to consider its influence on art and literature during a period that extends roughly from the age of Lorenzo de' Medici to the middle of the sixteenth century and the beginnings of the Counter-Reformation. No rigid divisions of time have been fixed, but with few exceptions the works discussed may be placed between these bounds. Even within these limits it would require a work of greater dimensions that the present to exhaust so large a subject in all its bearings. The leaven of Neoplatonism had penetrated the thought of the age in many directions; this study is confined to such of its manifestations as were, in a somewhat narrow sense, artistic and literary and to the use and abuse of philosophical ideas for aesthetic purposes.

Aristophanes' comedies have stood the test of time as some of the greatest comic literature ever produced. While there have been numerous commentaries on Aristophanes and his world, until now there has been no systematic philosophical treatment of his comedies. In Philosophy and Comedy, Bernard Freydberg illuminates the philosophical insights in Aristophanes' texts by presenting close readings of Clouds, Wasps, Assemblywomen, and Lysistrata, addressing their comic genius at the same time. Freydberg challenges notions that philosophy is best served by a tragic disposition and arrives at a new assessment of the philosophical importance of comedy.