"The Ideas of Socrates" offers a unique interpretation of the ideas (forms, eide) in Plato's writings. In this concise and accessible study, Matthew S. Linck makes four major claims. Firstly, the ideas as Socrates discusses them in the "Phaedo", "Parmenides", and "Symposium" are shown to be integral to the person of Socrates as presented in Plato's dialogues. Secondly, Linck argues that if we take Plato's dialogues as an integrated set of writings, then we must acknowledge that the mature Socrates is perfectly aware of the difficulties entailed in the positing of ideas. Thirdly, the book shows that Socrates' recourse to the ideas is not simply an epistemological issue but one of self-transformation. And finally Linck examines how Socrates relates to the ideas in two ways, one practical, the other speculative. As the only group of Plato's narrated dialogues that are not narrated by Socrates, the "Phaedo", "Parmenides", and "Symposium" constitute a unique collection. These three dialogues also contain accounts of Socrates as a young man, and all of these accounts explicitly discuss the ideas. "The Ideas of Socrates" serves as a commentary on the relevant passages of these dialogues and goes on to build up an explicit series of arguments about the ideas that will transform the way in which we approach these key texts. This important new book will be of interest to anyone involved in the study of Ancient Philosophy.

This is the first collection of original essays entirely devoted to a detailed study of the Pyrrhonian tradition. The twelve contributions collected in the present volume combine to offer a historical and systematic analysis of the form of skepticism known as "Pyrrhonism". They discuss whether the Pyrrhonist is an ethically engaged agent, whether he can claim to search for truth, and other thorny questions concerning ancient Pyrrhonism; explore its influence on certain modern thinkers such as Pierre Bayle and David Hume; and examine Pyrrhonian skepticism in relation to contemporary analytic philosophy.

This is the first commentary on Lucretius' theory of atomic motion, one of the most difficult and technical parts of De rerum natura. The late Don Fowler sets new standards for Lucretian studies in his awesome command both of the ancient literary, philological, and philosophical background to this Latin Epicurean poem, and of the relevant modern scholarship.

This book examines the revival of antique philosophy in the Renaissance as a literary preoccupation informed by wit. Humanists were more inspired by the fictionalized characters of certain wise fools, including Diogenes the Cynic, Socrates, Aesop, Democritus, and Heraclitus, than by codified systems of thought. Rich in detail, this study offers a systematic treatment of wide-ranging Renaissance imagery and metaphors and presents a detailed iconography of certain classical philosophers. Ultimately, the problems of Renaissance humanism are revealed to reflect the concerns of humanists in the twenty-first century.

Oxford Scholarly Classics is a new series that makes available again great academic works from the archives of Oxford University Press. Reissued in uniform series design, the reissues will enable libraries, scholars, and students to gain fresh access to some of the finest scholarship of the last century.

Chinese and Greco-Roman ethics present highly articulate views on how one should live; both of these traditions remain influential in modern philosophy. The question arises how these traditions can be compared with one another. Comparative ethics is a relatively young discipline, and this volume is a major contribution to the field. Fundamental questions about the nature of comparing ethics are treated in two introductory chapters, followed by chapters on core issues in each of the traditions : harmony, virtue, friendship, knowledge, the relation of ethics to morality, relativism. The volume closes with a number of comparative studies on emotions, being and unity, simplicity and complexity, and prediction.

With the growth of interest in later Greek philosophy, the importance of Plotinus (AD 205-270) as a seminal influence on later thinkers, both pagan and Christian, is being increasingly recognized. The Enneads have been readily available for some time, both in Greek and in English translation, and there is no shortage of scholarly writing on the Enneads in general, and on particular aspects of Plotinus' thought. However, apart from Michael Atkinson's translation and commentary on Ennead V.1 (Clarendon Press, 1985), there has been no major commentary in English on any single treatise. Plotinus' Greek is notoriously obscure, and mere translation often sheds little light. Barrie Fleet's translation and commentary on Ennead III.6 elucidates the text of a major treatise in which Plotinus uses the concept of impassivity to shed light on three questions of importance to Platonists: the nature of change in the human soul; its analogue in the Sensible World; and the nature of Matter. Dr Fleet shows how texts of Plato and Aristotle, and Hellenistic commentaries on them, were central to the seminars held in Rome under the leadership of Plotinus. This treatise is the outcome of one such seminar. All Greek quotations in the commentary are translated into English, and all Greek terms are either translated or transliterated, making this edition fully accessible to readers with or without Greek.

This is an important new study offering a new historical and philosophical insight Parmenides in light of the oral tradition of ancient Greece. "Parmenides and To Eon" offers a new historical and philosophical reading of Parmenides of Elea by exploring the significance and dynamics of the oral tradition of ancient Greece. The book disentangles our theories of language from what evidence suggests is an archaic Greek experience of speech. With this in mind, the author reconsiders Parmenides' poem, arguing that the way we divide up his text is inconsistent with the oral tradition Parmenides inherits. Wilkinson proposes that, although Parmenides may have composed his poem in writing, it is probable that the poem was orally performed rather than silently read. This book explores the aural and oral components of the poem and its performance in terms of their significance to Parmenides' philosophy. Wilkinson's approach yields an interpretative strategy that permits us to engage with the ancient Greeks in terms closer to their own without, however, forgetting the historical distance that separates us or sacrificing our own philosophical concerns.

Much has been written about Heidegger's reappropriation of Aristotle, but little has been said about the philosophical import and theoretical context of this element of Heidegger's work. In this important new book, Michael Bowler sheds new light on the philosophical context of Heidegger's return to Aristotle in his early works and thereby advances a reinterpretation of the background to Heidegger's forceful critique of the primacy of theoretical reason and his radical reconception of the very nature of philosophical thinking. This book offers a detailed analysis of the development of Heidegger's thought from his early enagagement with neo-Kantianism and Husserlian phenomenology. Through this reading, a criticism of the theoretical conception of philosophy as primordial science, especially in relation to life and lived-experience (Erlebnis), emerges. It is in this context that Bowler examines Heidegger's reappropriation of key aspects of Aristotle's thought. In Aristotle's notions of movement, life and activity proper (praxis), Heidegger perceives a new approach to the dilemma presently facing philosophy, namely how philosophy is situated within life and human existence.

This book offers new insights into the workings of the human soul and the philosophical conception of the mind in Ancient Greece. It collects essays that deal with different but interconnected aspects of that unified picture of our mental life shared by all Ancient philosophers who thought of the soul as an immaterial substance. The papers present theoretical discussions on moral and psychological issues ranging from Socrates to Aristotle, and beyond, in connection with modern psychology. Coverage includes moral learning and the fruitfulness of punishment, human motivation, emotions as psychic phenomena, and more. Some of these topics directly stemmed from the Socratic dialectical experience and its tragic outcome, whereas others found their way through a complex history of refinements, disputes, and internal critique. The contributors present the gradual unfolding of these central themes through a close inspection of the relevant Ancient texts. They deliver a wide-ranging survey of some central and mutually related topics. In the process, readers will learn new approaches to Platonic and Aristotelian psychology and action theory. This book will appeal to graduate students and researchers in Ancient philosophy. Any scholar with a general interest in the history of ideas will also find it a valuable resource.

Pauliina Remes and Juha Sihvola In the course of history, philosophers have given an impressive variety of answers to the question, "What is self?" Some of them have even argued that there is no such thing at all. This volume explores the various ways in which selfhood was approached and conceptualised in antiquity. How did the ancients understand what it is that I am, fundamentally, as an acting and affected subject, interpreting the world around me, being distinct from others like and unlike me? The authors hi- light the attempts in ancient philosophical sources to grasp the evasive character of the specifically human presence in the world. They also describe how the ancient philosophers understood human agents as capable of causing changes and being affected in and by the world. Attention will be paid to the various ways in which the ancients conceived of human beings as subjects of reasoning and action, as well as responsible individuals in the moral sphere and in their relations to other people. The themes of persistence, identity, self-examination and self-improvement recur in many of these essays. The articles of the collection combine systematic and historical approaches to ancient sources that range from Socrates to Plotinus and Augustine.

This book examines the biography of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. It seeks to further understand the author of the Historia Augusta alongside the reminiscences of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Geoff W. Adams arrives at this understanding through a study of a wide range of literary texts. Marcus Aurelius was a very important ruler of the Roman Empire, who has had an impact symbolically, philosophically, and historically upon how the Roman Empire has been envisioned. Adams achieves this end to bring a clearer understanding to his representation and to modern interpretations of his highly interpreted and romanticized representations in the ancient texts.

There can be little doubt that the Greek tradition of philosophical criticism had its main source in Ionia. . . It thus leads the tradition which created the rational or scienti?c attitude, and with it our Western civilization, the only civilization, which is based upon science (though, of course, not upon science alone). Karl Popper, Back to the Presocratics Harvard University physicist and historian of Science, Gerald Holton, coined the term "Ionian Enchantment," an expression that links the idea back in the 6th c- tury B. C. to the ancient Ionians along the eastern Aegean coast, while capturing its fascination. Approximately within a seventy- ve year period (600-525 B. C. ) -a split second in the history of humanity- the three Milesian thinkers, Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes, without plain evidence, but with an unequalled power of critical abstraction and intuition, had achieved a true intellectual re- lution; they founded and bequeathed to future generations a new, unprecedented way of theorizing the world; it could be summarized in four statements: beneath the apparent disorder and multiplicity of the cosmos, there exists order, unity and stability; unity derives from the fundamental primary substratum from which the cosmos originated; this, and, consequently, the cosmic reality, is one, and is based not on supernatural, but on physical causes; they are such that man can - vestigate them rationally. These four statements are neither self-evident nor se- explanatory.

Katja Maria Vogt's Belief and Truth: A Skeptic Reading of Plato explores a Socratic intuition about the difference between belief and knowledge. Beliefs - doxai - are deficient cognitive attitudes. In believing something, one accepts some content as true without knowing that it is true; one holds something to be true that could turn out to be false. Since our actions reflect what we hold to be true, holding beliefs is potentially harmful for oneself and others. Accordingly, beliefs are ethically worrisome and even, in the words of Plato's Socrates, "shameful." As Vogt argues, this is a serious philosophical proposal and it speaks to intuitions we are likely to share. But it involves a notion of belief that is rather different from contemporary notions. Today, it is a widespread assumption that true beliefs are better than false beliefs, and that some true beliefs (perhaps those that come with justifications) qualify as knowledge. Socratic epistemology offers a genuinely different picture. In aiming for knowledge, one must aim to get rid of beliefs. Knowledge does not entail belief - belief and knowledge differ in such important ways that they cannot both count as kinds of belief. As long as one does not have knowledge, one should reserve judgment and investigate by thinking through possible ways of seeing things. According to Vogt, the ancient skeptics and Stoics draw many of these ideas from Plato's dialogues, revising Socratic-Platonic arguments as they see fit. Belief and Truth retraces their steps through interpretations of the Apology, Ion, Republic, Theaetetus, and Philebus, reconstructs Pyrrhonian investigation and thought, and illuminates the connections between ancient skepticism and relativism, as well as the Stoic view that beliefs do not even merit the evaluations "true" and "false."

This book provides an introduction to the Stoics, ideal for undergraduate students taking courses in Ethics and Ancient Philosophy.Stoicism was a key philosophical movement in the Hellenistic period. Today, the Stoics are central to the study of Ethics and Ancient Philosophy. In "The Stoics: A Guide for the Perplexed", M. Andrew Holowchak sketches, from Zeno to Aurelius, a framework that captures the tenor of Stoic ethical thinking in its key terms.Drawing on the readily available works of Seneca, Epictetus and Aurelius, "The Stoics: A Guide for the Perplexed" makes ancient texts accessible to students unfamiliar with Stoic thought. Providing ancient and modern-day examples to illustrate Stoic principles, the author guides the reader through the main themes and ideas of Stoic thought: Stoic cosmology, epistemology, views of nature, self-knowledge, perfectionism and, in particular, ethics. Holowchak also endeavours to present Stoicism as an ethically viable way of life today through rejecting their notion of ethical perfectionism in favour of a type of ethical progressivism consistent with other key Stoic principles. Thus, "The Stoics: A Guide for the Perplexed" is the ideal companion to the study of Stoic thinking in philosophy.Continuum's "Guides for the Perplexed" are clear, concise and accessible introductions to thinkers, writers and subjects that students and readers can find especially challenging - or indeed downright bewildering. Concentrating specifically on what it is that makes the subject difficult to grasp, these books explain and explore key themes and ideas, guiding the reader towards a thorough understanding of demanding material.

Alan Bailey offers a clear and vigorous exposition and defence of the philosophy of Sextus Empiricus, one of the most influential of ancient thinkers, the father of philosophical scepticism. The subsequent sceptical tradition in philosophy has not done justice to Sextus: his views stand up today as remarkably insightful, offering a fruitful way to approach issues of knowledge, understanding, belief, and rationality. Bailey's refreshing presentation of Sextus to a modern philosophical readership rescues scepticism from the sceptics.

Die Bibliotheca Teubneriana, established in 1849, has evolved into the world's most venerable and extensive series of editions of Greek and Latin literature, ranging from classical to Neo-Latin texts. Some 4-5 new editions are published every year. A team of renowned scholars in the field of Classical Philology acts as advisory board: Gian Biagio Conte (Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa) James Diggle (University of Cambridge) Donald J. Mastronarde (University of California, Berkeley) Franco Montanari (Universita di Genova) Heinz-Gunther Nesselrath (Georg-August-Universitat Goettingen) Dirk Obbink (University of Oxford) Oliver Primavesi (Ludwig-Maximilians Universitat Munchen) Michael D. Reeve (University of Cambridge) Richard J. Tarrant (Harvard University) Formerly out-of-print editions are offered as print-on-demand reprints. Furthermore, all new books in the Bibliotheca Teubneriana series are published as eBooks. The older volumes of the series are being successively digitized and made available as eBooks. If you are interested in ordering an out-of-print edition, which hasn't been yet made available as print-on-demand reprint, please contact us: [email protected] All editions of Latin texts published in the Bibliotheca Teubneriana are collected in the online database BTL Online.

The Chinese Tao and the Western Trinity have a fundamental unity of theme: the unity of opposites. Both are connected with problems as broad and diverse as how to describe the entire universe, how a system can talk about itself, the relationship between symbols and realities, and the nature of signs and sacraments.

Early Skepticism and its founder, Pyrrho of Elis, were introduced to the world in the third century BCE by the poet and philosopher Timon of Phlius. This is the first book-length study in English of the fragments of Timon's works. Of his more than 100 titles, four fragments remain of a catalogue elegy, the Indalmoi, and 133 verses of the Silloi, a hexameter parody in three books in which Timon ridicules philosophers of all periods whom he observes on a trip to Hades. Dee L. Clayman reconstructs the books of the Silloi starting from an outline in Diogenes Laertius and the book numbers assigned to a few fragments by their sources. This has not been attempted since Wachsmuth's edition of 1885, and carries his approach further by careful observation of syntactic and contextual clues in the text. Using the Greek text of Lloyd-Jones and Parsons of 1983, all of the extant fragments are translated into English and discussed as literature, rather than as source material for the history of philosophy. Separate chapters demonstrate that the principle Hellenistic poets, Callimachus, Theocritus and Apollonius of Rhodes, were aware of Timon's work specifically, and of Skepticism generally. The book concludes with a definition of "Skeptical aesthetics" that places many of the characteristic features of Hellenistic literature in a skeptical milieu.

This book meets the need to revise the standard interpretations of an apparently aporetic dialogue, full of eloquent silences and tricky suggestions, as it explores, among many other topics, the dramatis personae, including Plato's self-references behind the scene and the role of Socrates on stage, the question of method and refutation and the way dialectics plays a part in the dialogue. More especifically, it contains a set of papers devoted to perception and Plato's criticism of Heraclitus and Protagoras. A section deals with the problem of the relation between knowledge and thinking, including the the aviary model and the possibility of error. It also emphasizes some positive contributions to the classical Platonic doctrines and his philosophy of education. The reception of the dialogue in antiquity and the medieval age closes the analysis. Representing different hermeneutical traditions, prestigious scholars engage with these issues in divergent ways, as they shed new light on a complex controversial work.

Aristotle's Prior Analytics marks the beginning of formal logic. For Aristotle himself, this meant the discovery of a general theory of valid deductive argument, a project that he had described as either impossible or impracticable, probably not very long before he actually came up with syllogistic reasoning. A syllogism is the inferring of one proposition from two others of a particular form, and it is the subject of the Prior Analytics. The first book, to which this volume is devoted, offers a fairly coherent presentation of Aristotle's logic as a general theory of deductive argument.