Books V and VI of Aristotle's Politics constitute a manual on practical politics. In the fifth book Aristotle examines the causes of faction and constitutional change and suggests remedies for political instability. In the sixth book he offers practical advice to the statesman who wishes to establish, preserve, or reform a democracy or an oligarchy. He discusses many political issues, theoretical and practical, which are still widely debated today-revolution and reform, democracy and tyranny, freedom and equality. David Keyt presents a clear and accurate new translation of these books, together with a commentary which, though primarily philosophical, also supplies a key to Aristotle's many historical references. It is intended to guide readers towards a proper understanding of this classic text in the history of political thought, and does not assumes knowledge of Greek or of ancient history and politics.

Plato in the Third Sophistic examines the influence and impact of Plato and Platonism in the era of Byzantine and Christian rhetoric. The volume brings together specially commissioned articles from leading scholars of late antique philosophy and literature. Their examinations show that Plato is the single most important and influential literary figure used to frame the literature of this time. Plato in the Third Sophistic will help scholars and students from a wide range of disciplines to better understand the development of Christian literature in this era as an essential link in the history of Platonism as well as that of Christianity.

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.

In this insightful new book David J. Yount argues, against received wisdom, that there are no essential differences between the metaphysics of Plato and Plotinus. Yount covers the core principles of Plotinian thought: The One or Good, Intellect, and All-Soul (the Three Hypostases), Beauty, God(s), Forms, Emanation, Matter, and Evil. After addressing the interpretive issues that surround the authenticity of Plato's works, Plotinus: The Platonist deftly argues against the commonly held view that Plotinus is best interpreted as a Neo-Platonist, proposing he should be thought of as a Platonist proper. Yount presents thorough explanations and quotations from the works of each classical philosopher to demonstrate his thesis, concluding comprehensively that Plato and Plotinus do not essentially differ on their metaphysical conceptions. This is an ideal text for Plato and Plotinus scholars and academics, and excellent supplementary reading for upper-level undergraduates students and postgraduate students of ancient philosophy.

Evading established accounts of the development of doctrine in the Patristic era, Augustine's Christology has yet to receive the critical scholarly attention it deserves. This study focuses on Augustine's understanding of the humanity of Christ, as it emerged in dialogue with his anti-Pelagian conception of human freedom and Original Sin. By reinterpreting the Pelagian controversy as a Western continuation of the Origenist controversy before it, Dominic Keech argues that Augustine's reading of Origen lay at the heart of his Christological response to Pelagianism. Augustine is therefore situated within the network of fourth and fifth century Western theologians concerned to defend Origen against accusations of Platonic error and dangerous heresy. Opening with a survey of scholarship on Augustine's Christology and anti-Pelagian theology, Keech proceeds by redrawing the narrative of Augustine's engagement with the issues and personalities involved in the Origenist and Pelagian controversies. He highlights the predominant motif of Augustine's anti-Pelagian Christology: the humanity of Christ, 'in the likeness of sinful flesh' (Rom. 8.3), and argues that this is elaborated through a series of receptions from the work of Ambrose and Origen. The theological problems raised by this Christology - in a Christ who is exempt from sin in a way which unbalances his human nature - are explored by examining Augustine's understanding of Apollinarianism, and his equivocal statements on the origin of the human soul. This forms the backdrop for the book's speculative conclusion, that the inconsistencies in Augustine's Christology can be explained by placing it in an Origenian framework, in which the soul of Christ remains sinless in the Incarnation because of its relationship to the eternal Word, after the fall of souls to embodiment.

i. Introductory remarks 1 Plato, but not Socrates, concluded that the Forms are substances. Whether the Forms are substances is not an issue that Socrates had in mind. He did not deny it, but neither did he affirm it. If Socrates were asked a series of questions designed to determine whether he believed that the Forms are substances, he would admit that he had no opinion about this philosophical issue. Unlike Plato, Socrates was not a metaphysician. The same, of course, would not have always been true of Plato. Unlike Socrates, he was a metaphysician. At some point in his career, and at least by the time of the Phaedo and the Republic, Plato did what Socrates never thought to do. Plato considered the question and concluded that the Forms are substances. Although this development occurred more than two thousand years ago, time has not eclipsed its importance. It is one of the most seminal events in the history of the philosophy. With his defense of Socrates's method of intellectual inquiry, and the development of his Theory of Forms, Plato caused a now familiar cluster of metaphysical and epistemological issues to become central to philosophy.

Political communities are constituted through the representation of their own origin. The Iroquois and the Athenians is a philosophical exploration of the material traces left by that constitutional act in the political practices of the classical Iroquois and Athenians. Tempering Kant with Nietzsche this work offers an account of political action that locates the roots of justice in its radical impossibility, an aporia in place of a foundation. Instead of mythical references to a state of nature or an act of the founding fathers, the Iroquois and the Athenians recognized that political legitimacy can never be established, in principle, but must be continually enacted, repeated, a repetition that stimulates the withdrawal of natural foundations and holds open the site of any possible democracy. For philosophers and political theorists, this is a unique, hybrid deployment of Kant (the transcendental move) and Nietzsche (the use of history), offering a new view of the origins of Democracy. Scholars in Native American Studies will find much of value in its unprecedented use of traditional Iroquois political discourse and practice as a resource for mainstream political philosophy. Finally, scholars of ancient Greece and Classics will appreciated its novel presentation of ancient Greek political discourse and political practice.

After Plato and Aristotle, the Stoics, from the 3rd century BCE onwards, developed the third great classical conception of wisdom. This book offers a reconstruction of this pivotal notion in Stoicism, starting out from the two extant Stoic definitions, 'knowledge of human and divine matters' and 'fitting expertise'. It focuses not only on the question of what they understood by wisdom, but also on how wisdom can be achieved, how difficult it is to become a sage, and how this difficulty can be explained. The answers to these questions are based on a fresh investigation of the evidence, with all central texts offered in the original Greek or Latin, as well as in translation. The Stoic Sage can thus also serve as a source book on Stoic wisdom, which should be invaluable to specialists and to anyone interested in one of the cornerstones of the Graeco-Roman classical tradition.

Reissuing works originally published between 1938 and 1993, this set offers a range of scholarship covering Aristotle's logic, virtues and mathematics as well as a consideration of De Anima and of his work on physics, specifically light. The first two books are in themselves a pair, which investigate the philosopher's life and his lost works and development of his thought.

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.

Ever since Vlastos' "Theology and Philosophy in Early Greek Thought," scholars have known that a consideration of ancient philosophy without attention to its theological, cosmological and soteriological dimensions remains onesided. Yet, philosophers continue to discuss thinkers such as Parmenides and Plato without knowledge of their debt to the archaic religious traditions. Perhaps our own religious prejudices allow us to see only a "polis religion" in Greek religion, while our modern philosophical openness and emphasis on reason induce us to rehabilitate ancient philosophy by what we consider the highest standard of knowledge: proper argumentation. Yet, it is possible to see ancient philosophy as operating according to a different system of meaning, a different "logic." Such a different sense of logic operates in myth and other narratives, where the argument is neither completely illogical nor rational in the positivist sense. The articles in this volume undertake a critical engagement with this unspoken legacy of Greek religion. The aim of the volume as a whole is to show how, beyond the formalities and fallacies of arguments, something more profound is at stake in ancient philosophy: the salvation of the philosopher-initiate.

Despite its importance in the history of Ancient science, Menelaus' Spherics is still by and large unknown. This treatise, which lies at the foundation of spherical geometry, is lost in Greek but has been preserved in its Arabic versions. The reader will find here, for the first time edited and translated into English, the essentials of this tradition, namely: a fragment of an early Arabic translation and the first Arabic redaction of the Spherics composed by al-Mahani /al-Harawi, together with a historical and mathematical study of Menelaus' treatise. With this book, a new and important part of the Greek and Arabic legacy to the history of mathematics comes to light. This book will be an indispensable acquisition for any reader interested in the history of Ancient geometry and science and, more generally, in Greek and Arabic science and culture.

Intellectuals in Politics in the Greek World, first published in 1984, was the first comprehensive study of this recurrent theme in political sociology with specific reference to antiquity, and led to significant revaluation of the role of intellectuals in everyday political life. The term 'intellectual' is carefully defined, and figures as diverse as Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle; Isocrates, Heracleides of Ponteius and Clearchus of Soli are discussed. The author examines the difference between the success of an intellectual politician, like Solon, and the failure of those such as Plato who attempted to mould society to abstract ideals. It is concluded that, ultimately, most philosophers were conspicuously unsuccessful when they intervened in politics: citizens regarded them as propagandists for their rulers, while rulers treated them as intellectual ornaments. The result was that many thinkers retreated to inter-scholastic disputation where the political objects of discussion increasingly became far removed from contemporary reality.

Plato's thinking on courage, manliness and heroism is both profound and central to his work, but these areas of his thought remain underexplored. This book examines his developing critique of the notions and embodiments of manliness prevalent in his culture (particularly those in Homer), and his attempt to redefine such notions in accordance with his ethical, psychological and metaphysical principles. It further seeks to locate the discussion within the framework of Plato's general approach to ethics.

It is the first expression of the concept of a Utopia, a perfect society. It is the first thoughtful examination of the concept of an inner life. It is the classic discussion of concepts of justice. It is a profoundly reflective work on the nature of philosophy itself. It is 2,300 years old, and one of the greatest books humanity has ever produced. Written around 360 B.C., The Republicby the Greek philosopher and mathematician PLATO (c. 428 B.C.c. 347 B.C.)is the foundational work of Western thought, with notable influences on thinkers and writers as diverse as Shakespeare, Saint Augustine, and Bertrand Russell. It is impossible to overstate its importance, and its wisdom is so intense, wide-ranging, and often seemingly contradictory that it continues to generate heated debate, even controversy, to this day. Essential reading for anyone who wishes to consider him- or herself educated, this is the unabridged Republic presented in the highly readable 1894 translation by Benjamin Jowett.

First published in 1964, this is a short collection of both literary and philosophical essays. Whilst two essays consider Greek literature written at the point at which the Athenian empire was breaking apart, another group explore the background from which Christianity arose, considering Paganism and the religious philosophy at the time of Christ. These, in particular, display Gilbert Murray's 'profound belief in ethics and disbelief in all revelational religions' as well as his conviction that the roots of our society lie within Greek civilization. Finally, there is an interesting discussion of Order and the motives of those who seek to overthrow it.

In the works of Sextus Empiricus, scepticism is presented in its most elaborate and challenging form. This book investigates - both from an exegetical and from a philosophical point of view - the chief argumentative forms which ancient scepticism developed. Thus the particular focus is on the Agrippan aspect of Sextus' Pyrrhonism. Barnes gives a lucid explanation and analysis of these arguments, both individually and as constituent parts of a sceptical system. For, taken together, these forms amount to a formidable and systematic challenge to any claim to knowledge or rational belief. The challenge had a great influence on the history of philosophy. And it has never been met. This study reflects the growing interest in ancient scepticism. Quotations from the ancient sources are all translated and Greek terms are explained. Notes on the ancient authors give a brief guide to the sources, both familiar and unfamiliar.

Ancient philosophers from an otherwise diverse range of traditions were connected by their shared use of aporia - translated as puzzlement rooted in conflicts of reasons - as a core tool in philosophical enquiry. The essays in this volume provide the first comprehensive study of aporetic methodology among numerous major figures and influential schools, including the Presocratics, Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Academic sceptics, Pyrrhonian sceptics, Plotinus and Damascius. They explore the differences and similarities in these philosophers' approaches to the source, structure, and aim of aporia, their views on its function and value, and ideas about the proper means of generating such a state among thinkers who were often otherwise opposed in their overall philosophical orientation. Discussing issues of method, dialectic, and knowledge, the volume will appeal to those interested in ancient philosophy and in philosophical enquiry more generally.

Plato is the best known and most widely studied of all the ancient Greek philosophers. Malcolm Schofield, a leading scholar of ancient philosophy, offers a lucid and accessible guide to Plato's political thought, enormously influential and much discussed in the modern world as well as the
ancient. Schofield discusses Plato's ideas on education, democracy and its shortcomings, the role of knowledge in government, utopia and the idea of community, money and its grip on the psyche, and ideological uses of religion.

Late Antique Epistemology explores the techniques used by late antique philosophers to discuss truth. Non-rational ways to discover truth, or to reform the soul, have usually been thought inferior to the philosophically approved techniques of rational argument, suitable for the less philosophically inclined, for children, savages or the uneducated. Religious rituals, oracles, erotic passion, madness may all have served to waken courage or remind us of realities obscured by everyday concerns. What is unusual in the late antique classical philosophers is that these techniques were reckoned as reliable as reasoned argument, or better still. Late twentieth century commentators have offered psychological explanations of this turn, but only recently had it been accepted that there might also have been philosophical explanations, and that the later antique philosophers were not necessarily deluded.