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.

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 shows how and why debates in the philosophy of film can be advanced through the study of the role of images in Plato's dialogues, and, conversely, why Plato studies stands to benefit from a consideration of recent debates in the philosophy of film. Contributions range from a reading of Phaedo as a ghost story to thinking about climate change documentaries through Plato's account of pleonexia. They suggest how philosophical aesthetics can be reoriented by attending anew to Plato's deployment of images, particularly images that move. They also show how Plato's deployment of images is integral to his practice as a literary artist. Contributors are Shai Biderman, David Calhoun, Michael Forest, Jorge Tomas Garcia, Abraham Jacob Greenstine, Paul A. Kottman, Danielle A. Layne, David McNeill, Erik W. Schmidt, Timothy Secret, Adrian Switzer, and Michael Weinman.

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."

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.

Cicero is best known for his political speeches. His Catilinarian orations are regularly studied in third or fourth year Latin; his self-proclaimed role as savior of the Republic is much discussed in courses on Roman history. But, however fascinating such material may be, there is another side to Cicero which is equally important and only now receiving the attention it deserves. This is Cicero's interest in Hellenistic thought. As a young man he studied philosophy in Greece; throughout his life he maintained a keen interest in intellectual history; and during periods of political inactivity - especially in his last years as the Republic collapsed - he wrote treatises that today are invaluable sources for our knowledge of Hellenistic philosophy, including the School of Aristotle. The essays collected in this volume deal with these treatises and in particular with Cicero's knowledge of Peripatetic philosophy. They ask such questions as: Did Cicero-know Aristotle first hand, or was the corpus Aristotelicum unavailable to him and his contemporaries? Did Cicero have access to the writings of Theophrastus, and in general did he know the post-Aristotelians whose works are all but lost to us? When Cicero reports the views of early philosophers, is he a reliable witness, and is he conveying important information? These and other fundamental questions are asked with special reference to traditional areas of Greek thought: logic and rhetoric, politics and ethics, physics, psychology, and theology. The answers are various, but the overall impression is clear: Cicero himself was a highly intelligent, well educated Roman, whose treatises contain significant material. Scholars working on Peripatetic thought and on the Hellenistic period as a whole cannot afford to ignore them. This fourth volume in the Rutgers University Studies in Classic Humanities series deals with Cicero, orator and writer of the late Roman Republic. Interest in Cicero arose out of Project Theophrastus, an international undertaking based at Rutgers dedicated to collecting, editing, and translating the fragments of Theophrastus. This collection will be of value to philologists, classicists, philosophers, as well as those interested in the history of science.

The Symposium is Plato's dramatic masterpiece, his most perfect work and arguably his most seminal dialogue. Its influence on the minds of Europe, from Plotinus to Proust, is everywhere in evidence. Yet today when we talk of Platonic love we are not near Plato's conception. This translation aims to recover the sense of Plato's original idea.

This book is a rereading of the early dialogues of Plato from the point of view of the people with whom Socrates engages in debate. Existing studies are thoroughly dismissive of the interlocutors and reduce them to the status of mere mouthpieces for views that are hopelessly confused or demonstrably false. This book takes interlocutors seriously and treats them as genuine intellectual opponents whose views are often more defensible than commentators have generally thought.

The original essays in this volume discuss ideas relating to democracy, political justice, equality and inequalities in the distribution of resources and public goods. These issues were as vigorously debated at the height of ancient Greek democracy as they are in many democratic societies today. Contributing authors address these issues and debates about them from both philosophical and historical perspectives. Readers will discover research on the role of Athenian democracy in moderating economic inequality and reducing poverty, on ancient debates about how to respond to inborn and social inequalities, and on Plato's and Aristotle's critiques of Greek participatory democracies. Early chapters examine Plato's views on equality, justice, and the distribution of political and non-political goods, including his defense of the abolition of private property for the ruling classes and of the equality of women in his ideal constitution and polis. Other papers discuss views of Socrates or Aristotle that are particularly relevant to contemporary political and economic disputes about punishment, freedom, slavery, the status of women, and public education, to name a few. This thorough consideration of the ancient Greeks' work on democracy, justice, and equality will appeal to scholars and researchers of the history of philosophy, Greek history, classics, as well as those with an interest in political philosophy.

The Blackwell Companion to Aristotle provides in-depth studies of the main themes of Aristotle's thought, from art to zoology.* The most comprehensive single volume survey of the life and work of Aristotle* Comprised of 40 newly commissioned essays from leading experts* Coves the full range of Aristotle's work, from his 'theoretical' inquiries into metaphysics, physics, psychology, and biology, to the practical and productive "sciences" such as ethics, politics, rhetoric, and art

This commentary records, through notes taken by Hermias, Syrianus' seminar on Plato's Phaedrus, one of the world's most influential celebrations of erotic beauty and love. It is the only Neoplatonic commentary on Plato's Phaedrus to have survived in its entirety. Further interest comes from the recorded interventions by Syrianus' pupils - including those by Proclus, his eventual successor as head of the Athenian school, who went on to teach Hermias' father, Ammonius. The first of two volumes of Hermias' commentary, the chapters translated here discuss the argument that the soul can be proved immortal as being the self-moving source of eternal motion. Aristotle explicitly disagreed with Plato on this treatment of the soul and Syrianus, having previously (in a commentary on the Metaphysics) criticised Aristotle severely when he disagreed with Plato, feels obliged here, too, to address the apparent disagreement. This new translation is thus vital for understanding Syrianus' attitude to Aristotle.

Of all the topics in the history of philosophy, the history of different forms of thinking and contemplation is one of the most important, and yet is also relatively overlooked. What is it to think philosophically? How did different forms of thinking-reflection, contemplation, critique and analysis-emerge in different epochs? This collection offers a rich and diverse philosophical exploration of the history of contemplation, from the classical period to the twenty-first century. It covers canonical figures including Plato, Aristotle, Descartes and Kant, as well as debates in less well-known areas such as classical Indian and Islamic thought and the role of speculation in twentieth-century Russian philosophy. Comprising twenty-two chapters by an international team of contributors, the volume is divided into five parts: * Flourishing and Thinking from Homer to Hume * The Thinking of Thinking from Augustine to Goedel * Images and Thinking from Plotinus to Unger * Bodies of Thought and Habits of Thinking from Plato to Irigaray * The Efficacy of Thinking from Sextus to Bataille Thought: A Philosophical History is the first comprehensive investigation of the history of philosophical thought and contemplation. As such, it is a landmark publication for anyone researching and teaching the history of philosophy, and a valuable resource for those studying the subject in related fields such as literature, religion, sociology and the history of ideas.

Apologizing for Socrates examines some of Plato's and Xenophon's Socratic writings, specifically those that address well-known controversiese concerning the life and death of Socrates. Gabriel Danzig argues that the effort to defend Socrates from a variety of contemporary charges helps explain some of the central philosophical arguments and literary features that appear in these works. Concentrating on the two Apologies, Crito, Euthyphro, Xenophon's Symposium and Memorabilia, Lysis, and Oeconommicus, Danzig argues that the apologetic efforts were essential for rebuilding the community of Socratic friends and companions, which was devastated by the trial and death of Socrates. The Socratic writings are not merely literary or philosophical endeavors, but also political acts of great competence.

In recent years the philosophy of information has emerged as an important area of research in philosophy. However, until now information's philosophical history has been largely overlooked. Information and the History of Philosophy is the first comprehensive investigation of the history of philosophical questions around information, including work from before the Common Era to the twenty-first century. It covers scientific and technology-centred notions of information, views of human information processing, as well as socio-political topics such as the control and use of information in societies. Organised into five parts, 19 chapters by an international team of contributors cover the following topics and more: Information before 500 CE, including ancient Chinese, Greek and Roman approaches to information; Early theories of information processing, sources of information and cognition; Information and computation in Leibniz, visualised scientific information, copyright and social reform; The nineteenth century, including biological information, knowledge economies and information's role in empire and eugenics; Recent and contemporary philosophy of information, including racialised information, Shannon information and the very idea of an information revolution. Information and the History of Philosophy is a landmark publication in this emerging field. As such, it is essential reading for students and researchers in the history of philosophy, philosophy of science and technology, and library and information studies. It is also a valuable resource for those working in subjects such as the history of science, media and communication studies and intellectual history.

The author of "Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic" has unearthed a sensational, true story of a mystical and esoteric tradition that lies hidden at the roots of Western culture--and that gave rise to the world we live in.

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.

Commenting on the end of Aristotle On the" Heavens" Book 3, Simplicius examines Aristotle's criticisms of Plato's theory of elemental chemistry in the "Timaeus." Plato makes the characteristics of the four elements depend on the shapes of component corpuscles and ultimately on the arrangement of the triangles which compose them. Simplicius preserves and criticizes the contributions made to the debate in lost works by two other major commentators, Alexander the Aristotelian, and Proclus the Platonist. In Book 4, Simplicius identifies fifteen objections by Aristotle to Plato's views on weight in the four elements. He finishes Book 4 by elaborating Aristotle's criticisms of Democritus' theory of weight in the atoms, including Democritus' suggestions about the influence of atomic shape on certain atomic motions.

In the second half of the twentieth century, ethics has gained considerable prominence within philosophy. In contrast to other scholars, Levinas proposed that it be not one philosophical discipline among many, but the most fundamental and essential one. Before philosophy became divided into disciplines, Plato also treated the question of the Good as the most important philosophical question.

Levinas's approach to ethics begins in the encounter with the other as the most basic experience of responsibility. He acknowledges the necessity to move beyond this initial, dyadic encounter, but has problems extending his approach to a larger dimension, such as community. To shed light on this dilemma, Tanja Staehler examines broader dimensions which are linked to the political realm, and the problems they pose for ethics.

Staehler demonstrates that both Plato and Levinas come to identify three realms as ambiguous: the erotic, the artistic, and the political. In each case, there is a precarious position in relation to ethics. However, neither Plato nor Levinas explores ambiguity in itself. Staehler argues that these ambiguous dimensions can contribute to revealing the Other s vulnerability without diminishing the fundamental role of unambiguous ethical responsibility.

It is commonly held that Aristotle's views on politics have little relevance to the preoccupations of modern political theory with authority and obligation. Andres Rosler's original study argues that, on the contrary, Aristotle does examine the question of political obligation and its limits, and that contemporary political theorists have much to learn from him. Rosler takes his exploration further, considering the ethical underpinning of Aristotle's political thought, the normativity of his ethical and political theory, and the concepts of political authority and obligation themselves.

The much-acclaimed present-day philosophical turn to the letters of Saint Paul points to a profound consonance between ancient and modern thought. Such is the bold claim of this study in which scholars from contemporary continental philosophy, new testamentary studies and ancient philosophy discuss with each other the meaning Paul's terms pistis, faith. In this volume, this theme discusses in detail the threefold relation between Paul and (1) continental thought, (2) the Graeco-Roman world, and (3) political theology. It is shown that pistis does not only concern a mode of knowing, but rather concerns the human ethos or mode of existence as a whole. Moreover, it is shown that the present-day political theological interest in Paul can be seen as an attempt to recuperate Paul's pistis in this comprehensive sense. Finally, an important discussion concerning the specific ontological implications and background of this reinterpretation of pistis is examined by comparing the ancient ontological commitments to those of the present-day philosophers. Thus, the volume offers an insight in a crucial consonance of ancient and modern thought concerning the question of pistis in Paul while not forgetting to stipulate important differences.

This engaging work of comparative philosophy brings together American pragmatism and Chinese philosophy in a way that generates new interpretations of Chinese philosophy and a fresh perspective on issues in process philosophy. Through an analysis of key terms, Haiming Wen argues that Chinese philosophical terminology is not simply a retrospective language that through a process of stipulation promises us knowledge of an existing world, but is also an open, prospective vocabulary that through productive associations allows philosophers to realize a desired world. Relying on this productive power of Chinese terminology, Wen introduces a new term: 'Confucian pragmatism.' Wen convincingly shows that although there is much that distinguishes American pragmatism from Confucian philosophy, there is enough conceptual overlap to make Confucian pragmatism a viable and exciting field of study.

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.

Facing censorship and being confined to the fringes of the political debate of his time, Thomas Hobbes turned his attention to translating Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey from Greek into English. Many have not considered enough the usefulness of these translations. In this book, Andrea Catanzaro analyses the political value of Hobbes' translations of Homer's works and exposes the existence of a link between the translations and the previous works of the Malmesbury philosopher. In doing so, he asks: * What new information concerning Hobbes' political and philosophical thought can be rendered from mere translation? * What new offerings can a man in his eighties at the time offer, having widely explained his political ideas in numerous famous essays and treatises? * What new elements can be deduced in a text that was well-known in England and where there were better versions than the ones produced by Hobbes? Andrea Catanzaro's commentary and theoretical interpretation offers an incentive to study Hobbes lesser known works in the wider development of Western political philosophy and the history of political thought.

The fragments and testimonia of the early Greek philosophers (often labeled the Presocratics) have always been not only a fundamental source for understanding archaic Greek culture and ancient philosophy but also a perennially fresh resource that has stimulated Western thought until the present day. This new systematic conception and presentation of the evidence differs in three ways from Hermann Diels's groundbreaking work, as well as from later editions: it renders explicit the material's thematic organization; it includes a selection from such related bodies of evidence as archaic poetry, classical drama, and the Hippocratic corpus; and it presents an overview of the reception of these thinkers until the end of antiquity. Volume I contains introductory and reference materials essential for using all other parts of the edition. Volumes II-III include chapters on ancient doxography, background, and the Ionians from Pherecydes to Heraclitus. Volumes IV-V present western Greek thinkers from the Pythagoreans to Hippo. Volumes VI-VII comprise later philosophical systems and their aftermath in the fifth and early fourth centuries. Volumes VIII-IX present fifth-century reflections on language, rhetoric, ethics, and politics (the so-called sophists and Socrates) and conclude with an appendix on philosophy and philosophers in Greek drama.