The fourth volume of Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy is devoted to essays in honor of Professor John Ackrill on the occasion of his 65th birthday. Contributors include: David Wiggins, Colin Strand, Julius Moravcsik, Lesley Brown, Gail Fine, Julia Annas, David Charles, Michael Woods, Christopher Kirwan, Bernard Williams, Jonathan Barnes, and Richard Sorabji.

This book further develops Professor Seaford's innovative work on the study of ritual and money in the developing Greek polis. It employs the concept of the chronotope, which refers to the phenomenon whereby the spatial and temporal frameworks explicit or implicit in a text have the same structure, and uncovers various such chronotopes in Homer, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Presocratic philosophy and in particular the tragedies of Aeschylus. Mikhail Bakhtin's pioneering use of the chronotope was in literary analysis. This study by contrast derives the variety of chronotopes manifest in Greek texts from the variety of socially integrative practices in the developing polis - notably reciprocity, collective ritual and monetised exchange. In particular, the Oresteia of Aeschylus embodies the reassuring absorption of the new and threatening monetised chronotope into the traditional chronotope that arises from collective ritual with its aetiological myth. This argument includes the first ever demonstration of the profound affinities between Aeschylus and the (Presocratic) philosophy of his time.

Aristotle's modal syllogistic has been an object of study ever since the time of Theophrastus; but these studies (apart from an intense flowering in the Middle Ages) have been somewhat desultory. Remarkably, in the 1990s several new lines of research have appeared, with series of original publications by Fred Johnson, Richard Patterson and Ulrich Nortmann. Johnson presented for the first time a formal semantics adequate to a de re reading of the apodeictic syllogistic; this was based on a simple intuition linking the modal syllogistic to Aristotelian metaphysics. Nortmann developed an ingenious de dicto analysis. Patterson articulated the links (both theoretical and genetic) between the modal syllogistic and the metaphysics, using an analysis which strictly speaking is neither de re nor de dicto. My own studies in this field date from 1976, when my colleague Peter Roeper and I jointly wrote a paper "Aristotle's apodeictic syllogisms" for the XXIInd History of Logic Conference in Krakow. This paper contained the disjunctive reading of particular affirmative apodeictic propositions, which I still favour. Nonetheless, I did not consider that paper's results decisive or comprehensive enough to publish, and my 1981 book The Syllogism contained no treatment of the modal syllogism. The paper's ideas lay dormant till 1989, when I read Johnson's and Patterson's initial articles. I began publishing on the topic in 1991. Gradually my thoughts acquired a certain comprehensiveness and systematicity, till in 1993 I was able to take a semester's sabbatical to write up a draft of this book.

This book comprises essays on the nature of Aspasius' commentary, his interpretation of Aristotle, and his own place in the history of thought. The contributions are in English or Italian. Aspasius' commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics is the earliest ancient commentary on Aristotle of which extensive parts survive in their original form. It is important both for the history of commentary as a genre and for the history of philosophical thought in the first two centuries A.D.; it is also still valuable as what its author intended it to be, an aid in interpreting the Ethics. All three aspects are explored by the essays. The book is not formally a commentary on Aspasius' commentary; but between them the essays consider the interpretation of numerous problematic or significant passages. Full indices will enable readers quickly to locate discussion of particular parts of Aspasius' work. This volume of essays will form a natural complement to the first ever translation of Aspasius' commentary into any modern language, currently in preparation by Paul Mercken.

Organization, Society and Politics helps readers understand the strengths and limitations of Western civilization's most influential social theorist. Would you like to know why Aristotle said we are 'political animals' (and what that really means); or see how his Politics can be used to evaluate the legacy of the Blair government, and examine David Cameron's 'Big Society'? How does the Nicomachean Ethics help us understand the 2011 UK riots? Perhaps you are suspicious of claims that 'good ethics is good business' and would like to be able to say why, or curious to see how Aristotle's Poetics can be used to teach about revolution, or glimpse the rhetorical skills of Barack Obama? This thought-provoking volume explores these topics amongst many others. Specialists will welcome the attention to original texts, whilst non-specialists will appreciate the lucid summaries and applications that make Aristotle fascinatingly accessible and relevant across politics, business studies, and social science.

Paul Lettinck has restored a lost text of Philoponus by translating it for the first time from Arabic (only limited fragments have survived in the original Greek). The text, recovered from annotations in an Arabic translation of Aristotle, is an abridging paraphrase of Philoponus' commentary on Physics Books 5-7, with two final comments on Book 8. The Simplicius text, which consists of his comments on Aristotle's treatment of the void in chapters 6-9 of Book 4 of the Physics, comes from Simplicius' huge commentary on Book 4. Simplicius' comments on Aristotle's treatment of place and time have been translated by J. O. Urmson in two earlier volumes of this series.

The Aurea Catena Homeri, written in German by Dr. Anton Josef Kirchweger, was first printed in 1723, though it was distributed in a handwritten format prior to that time. It is said to be one of the most important books ever created giving insight into alchemy-the idea that all creation, no matter what its nature, is closely interconnected, that a deeply secret connection pervades all of nature, that one thing relates to the next and things depend upon each other.

In "The Golden Chain of Homer," editors Gregory S. Hamilton and Philip N. Wheeler provide an English translation of Aurea Catena Homeri, complete with frequent, detailed footnotes and extensive commentary that offers a detailed analysis and insight into Kirchweger's work, considered a masterpiece of alchemical literature.

"The Golden Chain of Homer" shows Kirchweger's book in a new, enlightening way. Through this translation, it becomes easier to understand alchemical principles and unveil the mysteries that shroud the science of alchemy.

The papyri transmit a part of the testimonia relevant to pre-Socratic philosophy. The 'Corpus dei Papiri Filosofici' takes this material only partly into account. In this volume, a team of specialists discusses some of the most important papyrological texts that are major instruments for reconstructing pre-Socratic philosophy and doxography. Furthermore, these texts help to increase our knowledge of how pre-Socratic thought - through contributions to physics, cosmology, ethics, ontology, theology, anthropology, hermeneutics, and aesthetics - paved the way for the canonic scientific fields of European culture. More specifically, each paper tackles (published and unpublished) papyrological texts concerning the Orphics, the Milesians, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, the early Atomists, and the Sophists. For the first time in the field of pre-Socratics studies, several papers are devoted to the Herculanean sources, along with others concerning the Graeco-Egyptian papyri and the Derveni Papyrus.

Interpretation of ancient Greek literature is often enough distorted by the preconceptions of modern times, especially on ancient morality. This is often equivalent to begging the question. If we think e.g. of arete, which has different meanings in different contexts, we shall think in English (or in Modern Greek or in French or in German) and shall falsify the phenomena. If we are to understand the Greek concept e.g. of arete we must study the nature of the situations in which it is applied. For it is an important fact in the study of Greek society that the Greeks used the one word (e.g. arete) where we use different words. If we are to understand properly the texts, we have to view them in their historical and social context. Ancient Greek thought needs to be studied together with politics, ethics, and economic behaviour. Moreover, the best insights can be found in those who confine themselves to the terms of each ancient author's analysis. From this principle each of the contributions of the volume begins.

This volume investigates the reasons why Plotinus, a philosopher inspired by Plato, made critical use of Epicurean philosophy. Eminent scholars show that some fundamental Epicurean conceptions pertaining to ethics, physics, epistemology and theology are drawn upon in the Enneads to discuss crucial notions such as pleasure and happiness, providence and fate, matter and the role of sense perception, intuition and intellectual evidence in relation to the process of knowledge acquisition. By focusing on the meaning of these terms in Epicureanism, Plotinus deploys sophisticated methods of comparative analysis and argumentative procedures that ultimately lead him to approach certain aspects of Epicurus' philosophy as a benchmark for his own theories and to accept, reject or discredit the positions of authors of his own day. At the same time, these discussions reveal what aspects of Epicurean philosophy were still perceived to be of vital relevance in the third century AD.

Plotinus, Self and the World addresses the question of the individual subject in its relationship with the world, the 'all'. It traces the self through its experience of memory and forgetfulness, looks at whether the idea of the subconscious exists in Plotinus, and notes the probable impact of Plotinus' thought on the development of the autobiography, in the form of Augustine's Confessions. Augustine historicises the Plotinian individual self. The book reinterprets the idea of to oikeion in Plotinus and places great emphasis on the importance of the idea of 'having', and the ability to possess is itself linked to being: thus we are close to the idea of personal authenticity. Lastly the book examines Plotinus' view of images and art, and notes his respect for the beauty of the human face. His positive view of the physical world is stressed.

Aristotle's modal syllogistic is his study of patterns of reasoning about necessity and possibility. Many scholars think the modal syllogistic is incoherent, a 'realm of darkness'. Others think it is coherent, but devise complicated formal modellings to mimic Aristotle's results. This volume provides a simple interpretation of Aristotle's modal syllogistic using standard predicate logic. Rini distinguishes between red terms, such as 'horse', 'plant' or 'man', which name things in virtue of features those things must have, and green terms, such as 'moving', which name things in virtue of their non-necessary features. By applying this distinction to the "Prior Analytics," Rini shows how traditional interpretive puzzles about the modal syllogistic melt away and the simple structure of Aristotle's own proofs is revealed. The result is an applied logic which provides needed links between Aristotle's views of science and logical demonstration. The volume is particularly valuable to researchers and students of the history of logic, Aristotle's theory of modality, and the philosophy of logic in general.

The essays compiled in this volume individually address the varied forms in which the revival of Platonism manifested itself in ancient philosophy. It pays special attention to the issues of unity and beauty, the mind and knowledge, the soul and the body, virtue and happiness, and additionally considers the political and religious dimensions of Platonic thought. Starting from Plato and Aristotle, the studies examine the multiple transformational forms of Platonism, including the Neo-Platonists - Plotinus, Porphyrios, Iamblichus, Themistius, Proclus, and Marinus - along with Christian thinkers such as St. Augustine, Boethius, and Dionysus the Areopagite. The authors who have contributed to this volume make multiple references to the scholarly work of Dominic J. O'Meara. Their further refinement of O'Meara's approach particularly casts a new light on Late-Platonic ethics. The essays in this collection also contribute to scholarly research about the multiple inter-relationships among the Platonists themselves and between Platonists and philosophers from other schools. Taken as a whole, this book reveals the full breadth of potential in the revival and transformation of ancient Platonism.

Medieval writers such as Chaucer, Abelard, and Langland often overlaid personal story and sacred history to produce a distinct narrative form. The first of its kind, this study traces this widely used narrative tradition to Augustine's two great histories: Confessions and City of God .

Herophilus, a contemporary of Euclid, practiced medicine in Alexandria in the third century B.C., and seems to have been the first Western scientist to dissect the human body. He made especially impressive contributions to many branches of anatomy and also developed influential views on many other aspects of medicine. Von Staden assembles the fragmentary evidence concerning one of the more important scientists of ancient Greece. Part 1 of the book presents the Greek and Latin texts accompanied by English translation and interpretative commentary. Significant background information is given in the introductory essay preceding each chapter. Part 2 briefly sketches the major developments within the Herophilean school after Herophilus, and discusses the individual members within it. Anyone interested in the history of science, the history of medicine, or intellectual history will find this book a rich source of information about an unusual and important aspect of Greek culture.

The writings of Greek philosopher ARISTOTLE (384Bi322Be-student of Plato, teacher of Alexander the Great-are among the most influential on Western thought, and indeed upon Western civilization itself. From theology and logic to ethics and even biology, there is no area of human knowledge that has not been touched by his thinking. In Politics-considered a companion piece to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics-the philosopher discusses the nature of the state, of citizenship, of public education and private wealth. In what is a response to the works of his teacher Plato, Aristotle explores the idea of the individual household as a microcosm and building block of the state; examines trade and the economy as functions of human affairs; discusses the battle between self-interest and nationalism; and much more. This edition features the classic introduction by H.W.C. Davis, the renowned English historian of the early 20th century. Students of philosophy, government, and human nature continue to find Aristotle's Politics a provocative work more than two millennia after it was written.

Aristotle's Heirs explores the development of Peripatetic thought from Theophrastus and Strato to the work of the commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias. The book examines whether the internal dynamics of this philosophical school allowed for a unity of Peripatetic thought, or whether there was a fundamental tension between philosophical creativity and the notions of core teachings and canonisation. The book discusses the major philosophical preoccupations of the Peripatetics, interactions with Hellenistic schools of thought, and the shift in focus among Greek philosophers in a changing political landscape. It is the first book of its kind to provide a survey of this important philosophical tradition.

A philosopher asks how ancient Stoicism can help us flourish today.

Whenever we worry about what to eat, how to love, or simply how to be happy, we are worrying about how to lead a good life. No goal is more elusive. In How to Be a Stoic, philosopher Massimo Pigliucci offers Stoicism, the ancient philosophy that inspired the great emperor Marcus Aurelius, as the best way to attain it. Stoicism is a pragmatic philosophy that focuses our attention on what is possible and gives us perspective on what is unimportant.

By understanding Stoicism, we can learn to answer crucial questions: Should we get married or divorced? How should we handle our money in a world nearly destroyed by a financial crisis? How can we survive great personal tragedy?

Whoever we are, Stoicism has something for us—and How to Be a Stoic is the essential guide.

Aristotle's "Meterology Book 4" provides an account of the formation of minerals, metals and other homogeneous stuffs. In doing so, this text argues, it offers us fresh and important insights into Aristotle's conception of matter. The 15,000 pages of the ancient Greek commentators on Aristotle, written mainly between 200 and 600 AD, constitute the largest corpus of extant Greek philosophical writing not translated into English or other European languages. This is a new series of translations, planned in 60 volumes which fills an important gap in the history of European thought.

Cicero's speech on behalf of L. Lucinius Murena, newly elected to the consulship of 62 BCE but immediately prosecuted for electoral bribery, is especially famous for its digressions and valuable for its insights into the complex political wrangles of the late 60s. It is, however, a speech more commonly excerpted and cited than read in its entirety, though whether the absence of an English-language commentary is a cause or effect of that situation remains uncertain. In short, a pedagogical commentary on this important and strange speech is long overdue. Distinguished Latinist Elaine Fantham's commentary is noteworthy for its ability to elucidate not only the rhetorical structure of this speech but the rationale behind Cicero's strategic decisions in creating that structure. It also calls attention to the stylistic features like word choice, rhetorical figures, and rhythmic effects that make the speech so effective, and explains with care and precision the political, social, and historical considerations that shaped the prosecution and defense of the somewhat hapless defendant. This commentary includes the kind of grammatical explication required to make its riches accessible to undergraduate students of Latin.

Eros and Socratic Political Philosophy offers a new account of Plato's view of eros, or romantic love, by focusing on a question which has vexed many scholars: why does Plato's Socrates praise eros highly on some occasions but also criticize it harshly on others? Through detailed analyses of Plato's Republic, Phaedrus, and Symposium, Levy shows how, despite the apparent tensions between Socrates' statements about eros in each dialogue, these statements supplement each other well and serve to clarify Socrates' understanding of the complex relationship between eros, religious belief, and philosophy. Thus, Levy's interpretation sheds new light not only on Plato's view of eros, but also on his view of piety and philosophy, challenging common assumptions about the erotic nature of Socratic philosophy. This novel approach to classic political theory will incite discussion and interest among scholars of classics, philosophy, and political theory.

The Homeric Questions of the Neoplatonic philosopher Porphyry (3rd cent. CE) is an important work in the history of Homeric criticism. In contrast to the philosopher's allegorical readings of Homer in De Antro and De Styge, in the Homeric Questions Porphyry solves problemata by applying the dictum that "the poet explains himself". Based on a new collation of the manuscripts, this edition of Porphyry's Homeric Questions on the Iliad is the first since 1880. The preface contains sections on Porphyry's life and works, the manuscript tradition of the text, scholarship on the Homeric Questions, and the principles of this edition. The editor has eliminated much that had been wrongly attributed to Porphyry on stylistic grounds and has constructed text according to a strict distinction between extracts of the Homeric Questions, epitomes of the extracts, and Porphyrian scholia - all confusingly interspersed in the old text. A facing English translation at last makes this text accessible to the Greek-less reader. The commentary explains Porphyry's arguments and the editor's textual decisions. The editor sheds new light on Porphyry's use of the dictum that "the poet explains himself", by differentiating it from that of Alexandria textual critics.