Aristotle on Method and Metaphysics is a collection of new and cutting-edge essays by prominent Aristotle scholars and Aristotelian philosophers on themes in ontology, causation, modality, essentialism, the metaphysics of life, natural theology, and scientific and philosophical methodology. Though grounded in careful exegesis of Aristotle's writings, the volume aims to demonstrate the continuing relevance of Aristotelian ideas to contemporary philosophical debate. The contributors are Robert Bolton, Stephen Boulter, David Charles, Edward Feser, Lloyd Gerson, Gyula Klima, Kathrin Koslicki, E. J. Lowe, Fred D. Miller, Jr., David S. Oderberg, Christopher Shields, Allan Silverman, Tuomas Tahko, and Stephen Williams

Richard Bett presents a ground-breaking study of Pyrrho of Elis, the supposed originator of Greek scepticism, active around 300 BC. Against the standard scholarly view, Bett argues that Pyrrho's philosophy was significantly different from the long later tradition which called itself 'Pyrrhonism', and that this was not a monolithic tradition but had two distinct phases. Bett also investigates the origins and antecedents of Pyrrho's ideas. The result is the first comprehensive picture of this key figure in the development of ancient philosophy.

The latest installment of this annual publication includes original articles, often of substantial length, and review articles on major books. Contributors include Panagiotis Dimas, Thomas Wheeton Bestor, Iakovos Vasiliou, Susanne Bobzien, William O. Stephens, Job Van Eck, Christopher Rowe, Michael V. Wedin, Gail Fine, and Anne Sheppard.

This study argues that a revolution in the approach to philosophy took place during the first centuries of our era. Covering topics in Stoicism, Hellenistic antisemitism and Jewish apologetic, Platonism, and early Christian philosophy, it examines a trend to seek for the truth in antiquity which shaped the future course of Western thought.

The Republic by Plato is a landmark achievement in Ancient Greek philosophy - this edition contains every book, complete in a superb translation by Benjamin Jowett, in hardcover. The Republic is part conversation between friends active in the Athens intellectual community, and part monologue from various participants in the discussion. The narrator and lead character is Socrates, Plato's mentor, who appears in most Platonic dialogues and acts as surrogate to Plato's ideas. Throughout the text the 'Socratic method', whereby Socrates feigns ignorance and questions an adversary to receive insight on a given subject, is amply demonstrated. The discussion begins with an attempt to find a definition for justice, wherein a disagreement between Thrasymachus - who believes justice is what is good for who is strongest at a given place and time - and Socrates, who believes that all members of society should, for the highest benefit of all, conform to just action.

This volume is a revised translation of the complete text of Book Six about Diogenes of Sinope and the Cynics, taken from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers written around AD 230 by the Graeco-Roman author Diogenes Laertius. The Life of Diogenes is accompanied by a detailed outline of Cynic philosophy, explaining Cynic doctrine and its significance for today's audience. Alongside the Life of Diogenes are accounts of other Cynics, including Antisthenes, Crates and Hipparchia. The works of the early Cynics have all been lost, and this text by Diogenes Laertius thankfully preserves an important range of quotations and references. Despite the Cynic's extreme stance, this idealistic philosophy still has a valid part to play in the face of the increasing materialism of our modern society, challenging us to re-evaluate our priorities. The nineteenth-century translation of C. D. Yonge has been substantially revised, and is supported by a new Introduction, Glossary of Names, Notes and Index.

A distinguished group of scholars of ancient philosophy here presents a systematic study of the twelfth book of Aristotle's Metaphysics. Lambda, which can be regarded as a self-standing treatise on substance, has been attracting particular attention in recent years, and was chosen as the focus of the fourteenth Symposium Aristotelicum, from which this volume derives.

From Aristotle to Darwin, from ancient teleology to contemporary genealogies, this book offers an overview of the birth and then persistence of Aristotle's framework into modernity, until its radical overthrow by the evolutionary revolution.

This is the only commentary on Aristotle's theological work, Metaphysics, Book 12, to survive from the first six centuries CE - the heyday of ancient Greek commentary on Aristotle. Though the Greek text itself is lost, a full English translation is presented here for the first time, based on Arabic versions of the Greek and a Hebrew version of the Arabic. In his commentary Themistius offers an extensive re-working of Aristotle, confirming that the first principle of the universe is indeed Aristotle's God as intellect, not the intelligibles thought by God. The identity of intellect with intelligibles had been omitted by Aristotle in Metaphysics 12, but is suggested in his Physics 3.3 and On the Soul 3, and later by Plotinus. Laid out here in an accessible translation and accompanied by extensive commentary notes, introduction and indexes, the work will be of interest for students and scholars of Neoplatonist philosophy, ancient metaphysics, and textual transmission.

Parmenides of Elea is widely regarded as the most important of the Presocratic philosophers and one of the most influential thinkers of all time. He is famous, or notorious, for asserting that change, movement, generation and perishing are illusions arising from our senses, that past and future do not exist, and that the universe is a single, homogeneous, static sphere. This picture of the world is not only contrary to the experience of every conscious moment of our lives, it is also unthinkable, since thoughts themselves are events that come into being and pass away. In this important new book, Raymond Tallis critically examines Parmenides conclusions and argues that, although his views have had a huge influence, they are in fact the result of a failure to allow for possibility, for what-might-be, which neither is nor is not. Without possibility, there is neither truth nor falsehood. Tallis explores the limits of Parmenides ideas, his influence on Plato and, through him, Aristotle and finally, why Parmenides is still relevant today.

"Continuum's Reader's Guides" are clear, concise and accessible introductions to classic works of philosophy. Each book explores the major themes, historical and philosophical context and key passages of a major philosophical text, guiding the reader toward a thorough understanding of often demanding material. Ideal for undergraduate students, the guides provide an essential resource for anyone who needs to get to grips with a philosophical text. Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" is one of the most significant works of moral philosophy ever written. It is certainly among the most widely read and studied, a staple of undergraduate courses that continues to inspire ethical thought to this day. As such, it is a hugely important and exciting, yet challenging, piece of philosophical writing. In "Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics': A Reader's Guide", Christopher Warne offers a clear and thorough account of this key philosophical work. The book sets Aristotle's work in context, introduces the major themes and provides a detailed discussion of the key sections and passages of the text. Warne goes on to explore some of the areas of thought that the "Nicomachean Ethics" has impacted upon and provides useful information on further reading. This is the ideal companion to study of this most influential and challenging of texts.

Plato on Knowledge and Forms brings together a set of connected essays by Gail Fine, in her main area of research since the late 1970s: Plato's metaphysics and epistemology. She discusses central issues in Plato's metaphysics and epistemology, issues concerning the nature and extent of knowledge, and its relation to perception, sensibles, and forms; and issues concerning the nature of forms, such as whether they are universals or particulars, separate or immanent, and whether they are causes. A specially written introduction draws together the themes of the volume, which will reward the attention of anyone interested in Plato or in ancient metaphysics and epistemology.

Truth, Language, and History is the much-anticipated final volume of Donald Davidson's philosophical writings. In four groups of essays, Davidson continues to explore the themes that occupied him for more than fifty years: the relations between language and the world; speaker intention and linguistic meaning; language and mind; mind and body; mind and world; mind and other minds. He asks: what is the role of the concept of truth in these explorations? And, can a scientific world view make room for human thought without reducing it to something material and mechanistic? Including a new introduction by his widow, Marcia Cavell, this volume completes Donald Davidson's colossal intellectual legacy.

While the dramatic approach to Plato's dialogues has become popular over the last decade, little attention has been paid to the poetic quality of Plato's writing, and the received view of Platonic philosophy still depends on an unpoetic and largely literalist reading of the dialogues. The authors of this volume focus on the text of selected dialogues to identify the thread that unifies each of them from a literary point of view. The conclusions they reach in practicing this kind of reading are diametrically opposed to the largest stream of Platonic scholarship and show the fallacy of important metaphysical, epistemological, political, and ethical positions frequently attributed to Plato.

In his utopian novel Hiera Anagraphe (Sacred History) Euhemerus of Messene (ca. 300 B.C.) describes his travel to the island Panchaia in the Indian Ocean where he discovered an inscribed stele in the temple of Zeus Triphylius. It turned out that the Olympian gods (Uranos, Kronos, Zeus) were deified kings. The travels of Zeus allowed to describe peoples and places all over the world. Winiarczyk investigates the sources of the theological views of Euhemerus. He proves that Euhemerus' religious views were rooted in old Greek tradition (the worship of heroes, gods as founders of their own cult, tombs of gods, euergetism, rationalistic interpretation of myths, the explanations of the origin of religion by the sophists, the ruler cult). The description of the Panchaian society is intended to suggest an archaic and closed culture, in which the stele recording res gestae of the deified kings might have been preserved. The translation of Ennius' Euhemerus sive Sacra historia (ca. 200 - ca. 194) is a free prose rendering, which Lactantius knew only indirectly. The book is concluded by a short history of Euhemerism in the pagan, Christian and Jewish literature.

This special supplementary volume of Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy contains the proceedings of the Colloquium on Ancient Philosophy held at Oberlin, Ohio in 1986. The exceptionally high quality of the papers, and the format of speaker, reply, and speaker's reply, has resulted in a volume which furthers some issues which are currently the object of keen controversy in ancient philosophy. Contributors include Michael Frede, Terence Irwin, and Martha Nussbaum.

"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.

The question of what it means for Christ to be the "image of God," or imago dei, lies at the heart of the Christological debates of the fourth century. Is an image a derivation from its source? Are they two separate substances? Does an image serve to reveal its source? Is an image ontologically inferior to its source? In this book, Gerald P. Boersma examines three Western pro-Nicene theologies of the imago dei, which tackle the question of whether human beings and Christ can both be considered to be the "image of God." Boersma goes on to examine Augustine's early theology of the imago dei, prior to his ordination (386-391). According to Boersma, Augustine's early thought posits that Christ is an image of equal likeness to God, while a human being is an image of unequal likeness. He argues that although Augustine's early theology of image builds on that of Hilary of Poitiers, Marius Victorinus, and Ambrose of Milan, Augustine was able to affirm, in ways that his predecessors were not, how both Christ and the human person can be considered the imago dei.

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.