Plato’s Timaeus is unique in Greek Antiquity for presenting the creation of the world as the work of a divine demiurge. The maker bestows order on sensible things and imitates the world of the intellect by using the Forms as models. While the creation-myth of the Timaeus seems unparalleled, this book argues that it is not the first of Plato’s dialogues to use artistic language to articulate the relationship of the objects of the material world to the world of the intellect. The book adopts an interpretative angle that is sensitive to the visual and art-historical developments of Classical Athens to argue that sculpture, revolutionized by the advent of the lost-wax technique for the production of bronze statues, lies at the heart of Plato’s conception of the relation of the human soul and body to the Forms. It shows that, despite the severe criticism of mimēsis in the Republic, Plato’s use of artistic language rests on a positive model of mimēsis. Plato was in fact engaged in a constructive dialogue with material culture and he found in the technical processes and the cultural semantics of sculpture and of the art of weaving a valuable way to conceptualise and communicate complex ideas about humans’ relation to the Forms.

The awe with which Plato regarded the character of 'the great' Parmenides has extended to the dialogue which he calls by his name. None of the writings of Plato have been more copiously illustrated, both in ancient and modern times, and in none of them have the interpreters been more at variance with one another. Nor is this surprising. For the Parmenides is more fragmentary and isolated than any other dialogue, and the design of the writer is not expressly stated. The date is uncertain; the relation to the other writings of Plato is also uncertain; the connexion between the two parts is at first sight extremely obscure; and in the latter of the two we are left in doubt as to whether Plato is speaking his own sentiments by the lips of Parmenides, and overthrowing him out of his own mouth, or whether he is propounding consequences which would have been admitted by Zeno and Parmenides themselves. The contradictions which follow from the hypotheses of the one and many have been regarded by some as transcendental mysteries; by others as a mere illustration, taken at random, of a new method. They seem to have been inspired by a sort of dialectical frenzy, such as may be supposed to have prevailed in the Megarian School (compare Cratylus, etc.). The criticism on his own doctrine of Ideas has also been considered, not as a real criticism, but as an exuberance of the metaphysical imagination which enabled Plato to go beyond himself.

In this important and highly original book, place, commonality and judgment provide the framework within which works central to the Greek philosophical and literary tradition are usefully located and reinterpreted. Greek life, it can be argued, was defined by the interconnection of place, commonality and judgment. Similarly within the Continental philosophical tradition topics such as place, judgment, law and commonality have had a pervasive centrality. Works by Jacques Derrida and Giorgio Agamben amongst others attest to the current exigency of these topics. Yet the ways in which they are interrelated has been barely discussed within the context of Ancient Philosophy. The conjecture of this book is that not only are these terms of genuine philosophical importance in their own right, but they are also central to Ancient Philosophy. Andrew Benjamin ultimately therefore aims to underscore the relevance of Ancient Philosophy for contemporary debates in Continental Philosophy.

In several of the dialogues of Plato, doubts have arisen among his interpreters as to which of the various subjects discussed in them is the main thesis. The speakers have the freedom of conversation; no severe rules of art restrict them, and sometimes we are inclined to think, with one of the dramatis personae in the Theaetetus, that the digressions have the greater interest. Yet in the most irregular of the dialogues there is also a certain natural growth or unity; the beginning is not forgotten at the end, and numerous allusions and references are interspersed, which form the loose connecting links of the whole. We must not neglect this unity, but neither must we attempt to confine the Platonic dialogue on the Procrustean bed of a single idea. (Compare Introduction to the Phaedrus.) Two tendencies seem to have beset the interpreters of Plato in this matter. First, they have endeavoured to hang the dia-logues upon one another by the slightest threads; and have thus been led to opposite and contradictory assertions respec-ting their order and sequence. The mantle of Schleiermacher has descended upon his successors, who have applied his method with the most various results.

The Cratylus has always been a source of perplexity to the student of Plato. While in fancy and humour, and perfection of style and metaphysical originality, this dialogue may be ranked with the best of the Platonic writings, there has been an uncertainty about the motive of the piece, which interpreters have hitherto not succeeded in dispelling. We need not suppose that Plato used words in order to conceal his thoughts, or that he would have been unintelligible to an educated contemporary. In the Phaedrus and Euthydemus we also find a difficulty in determining the precise aim of the author. Plato wrote satires in the form of dialogues, and his meaning, like that of other satirical writers, has often slept in the ear of posterity. Two causes may be assigned for this obscurity: 1st, the subtlety and allusiveness of this species of composition; 2nd, the difficulty of reproducing a state of life and literature which has passed away. A satire is unmeaning unless we can place ourselves back among the persons and thoughts of the age in which it was written.

This book develops a new account of Socratic method, based on a psychological model of Plato's dramatic depiction of Socrates' character and conduct. Socratic method is seen as a blend of three types of philosophical discourse: refutation, truth-seeking, and persuasion. Cain focuses on the persuasive features of the method since, in her view, it is this aspect of Socrates' method that best explains the content and the value of the dialectical arguments. Emphasizing the persuasive aspect of Socratic method helps us uncover the operative standards of dialectical argumentation in fifth-century Athens. Cain considers both the sophistic style of rhetoric and contentious debate in Socrates' time, and Aristotle's perspective on the techniques of argument and their purposes. An informal, pragmatic analysis of argumentation appropriate to the dialectical context is developed. We see that Socrates uses ambiguity and other strategic fallacies with purposeful play, and for moral ends. Taking specific examples of refutations from Plato's dialogues, Cain links the interlocutors' characters and situations with the dialectical argument that Socrates constructs to refute them. The merit of this interpretation is that it gives broad range, depth, and balance to Socrates' argumentative style; it also maintains a keen sensitivity to the interlocutors' emotional reactions, moral values, and attitudes. The book concludes with a discussion of the overall value, purpose, and success of Socratic method, and draws upon a Platonic/Socratic conception of the soul and a dialectical type of self-knowledge.

This work offers a radical new interpretation of Augustine and of a central aspect of medieval thought as a whole.Augustine and Roman Virtue seeks to correct what the author sees as a fundamental misapprehension in medieval thought, a misapprehension that fuels further problems and misunderstandings in the historiography of philosophy. This misapprehension is the assumption that the development of certain themes associated with medieval philosophy is due, primarily if not exclusively, to extra-philosophical religious commitments rather than philosophical argumentation, referred to here as the 'sacralization thesis'.Brian Harding explores this problem through a detailed reading of Augustine's "City of God" as understood in a Latin context, that is, in dialogue with Latin writers, such as Cicero, Livy, Sallust and Seneca. The book seeks to revise a common reading of Augustine's critique of ancient virtue by focusing on that dialogue, while showing that his attitude towards those authors is more sympathetic, and more critical, than one might expect. Harding argues that the criticisms rest on sympathy and that Augustine's critique of ancient virtue thinks through and develops certain trends noticeable in the major figures of Latin philosophy.

The Republic is a dialogue by Plato in which the famous Athenian philosopher examines the nature of an ideal society. The insights are profound and timeless. A landmark of Western literature, The Republic is essential reading for philosophy students.

This volume presents collected essays - some brand new, some republished, and others newly translated - on the ancient commentators on Aristotle and showcases the leading research of the last three decades. Through the work and scholarship inspired by Richard Sorabji in his series of translations of the commentators started in the 1980s, these ancient texts have become a key field within ancient philosophy. Building on the strength of the series, which has been hailed as 'a scholarly marvel', 'a truly breath-taking achievement' and 'one of the great scholarly achievements of our time' and on the widely praised edited volume brought out in 1990 (Aristotle Transformed) this new book brings together critical new scholarship that is a must-read for any scholar in the field. With a wide range of contributors from across the globe, the articles look at the commentators themselves, discussing problems of analysis and interpretation that have arisen through close study of the texts. Richard Sorabji introduces the volume and himself contributes two new papers. A key recent area of research has been into the Arabic, Latin and Hebrew versions of texts, and several important essays look in depth at these. With all text translated and transliterated, the volume is accessible to readers without specialist knowledge of Greek or other languages, and should reach a wide audience across the disciplines of Philosophy, Classics and the study of ancient texts.

In this lively and original book, Russell Winslow pursues a new interpretation of logos in Aristotle. Rather than a reading of rationality that cleaves human beings from nature, this new interpretation suggests that, for Aristotle, consistent and dependable rational arguments reveal a deep dependency upon nature. To this end, the author shows that a rational account of a being is in fact subject to the very same principle that governs the physical motion and generation of a being under inquiry. Among the many consequences of this argument is a rejection of both of the prevailing oppositional claims that Aristotle's methodological procedure of discovery is one resting on either empirical or conceptual grounds: discovery reveals a more complex structure than can be grasped by either of these modern modes. Further, Winslow argues that this interpretation of rational discovery also contributes to the ethical debates surrounding Aristotle's work, insofar as an ethical claim is achieved through reason, but is not thereby conceived as objective. Again, the demand for agreement in ethical/political decision will be disclosed as superseding in its complexity both those accounts of ethical decision as subjective (for example, "emotivist" accounts) and those as objective ("realist" accounts).

The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote down his thoughts between 170 and 180. He was a late Stoic Philosopher and this one of the few examples of this type of literature that exists today. The book is written as personal notes to himself and his thesis is that one can obtain inner calm irrespective of outer adversity. The text considers good and evil, solidarity, adversity and inner freedom. It is a book that offers wisdom, comfort and inspiration. As well as the thought, this edition contains a biographical sketch and summary of the philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, a number of illustrations and both an index and index of terms.

The magnum opus of Plato's writings that detail out the utopia that Socrates had thought of when debating with his contemporaries in ancient Greece. While many people have criticized these views over the years, these ideas have sparked many ideas of what makes government work and what does not as well as laying down the foundations for our own democratic systems in the present day. Socrates has many things to say about people and society in general making it a very enlightening piece of work.

The work of Aristotle (384-322 BC) is considered to be one of the great achievements of the ancient world, and is a foundation of both Western and Middle Eastern philosophy and science. Although Aristotle left significant material on almost all branches of learning, what has survived is a somewhat disorganized collection of notes and lectures. Moreover, the centuries of interpretation across various epochs and cultures tend to cloud our understanding of him. Thomas Kiefer breaks through this cloud of interpretation and provides an organized account of one key part of Aristotle's philosophy, namely his theory of knowledge. This theory concerns what is knowledge, what we can know, and how we can do so. Kiefer's book is the first work that takes this theory as its sole focus and reconstructs it systematically. Kiefer's work throughout provides many new interpretations of key parts of Aristotle's philosophy, including an unnoticed -but crucial-distinction between knowledge in general and knowledge for us, the differences between his semantic and psychological requirements for knowledge, and 'nous', which is perhaps the most obscure notion in Aristotle's work. He also concludes with a summary of Aristotle's theory in the terms and style of contemporary epistemology. Kiefer's work should be of interest to anyone involved in the history of philosophy or contemporary epistemology.