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.

This collected volume is inspired by the work of Edward Halper and is historically focused with contributions from leading scholars in Ancient and Medieval philosophy. Though its chapters cover a diverse range of topics in epistemology, ethics, and political philosophy, the collection is unified by the contributors' consideration of these topics in terms of the fundamental questions of metaphysics. The first section of the volume, "Knowing and Being," is dedicated to the connection between metaphysics and epistemology and includes chapters on Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, and the Ancient Daoists. The second section, "Goodness as Knowing How to Be," addresses ethics as an outgrowth of human metaphysical concerns and includes chapters on Plato, Aristotle, and Maimonides. Contributors include William H. F. Altman, Luc Brisson, Ronna Burger, Miriam Byrd, Owen Goldin, Lenn Goodman, Mitchell Miller, Richard Parry, Richard Patterson, Nastassja Pugliese, John Rist, May Sim, Roslyn Weiss, and Chad Wiener.

The ancient Greek philosopher Antiphon was a contemporary of Socrates who lived in the fifth century BCE Athens. Antiphon wrote several major works, which have survived only in very fragmentary form. All that is known about these works as well as about Antiphon is included in this study. The material is translated, and its significance assessed in a detailed commentary that addresses the numerous problems raised by the fragmentary material. Antiphon's contribution to the wider history of ideas is addressed in conclusion.

What are the objects of science? Are they just the things in our scientific experiments that are located in space and time? Or does science also require that there be additional things that are not located in space and time? Using clear examples, these are just some of the questions that Scott Berman explores as he shows why alternative theories such as Nominalism, Contemporary Aristotelianism, Constructivism, and Classical Aristotelianism, fall short. He demonstrates why the objects of scientific knowledge need to be not located in space or time if they are to do the explanatory work scientists need them to do. The result is a contemporary version of Platonism that provides us with the best way to explain what the objects of scientific understanding are, and how those non-spatiotemporal things relate to the spatiotemporal things of scientific experiments, as well as everything around us, including even ourselves.

In this book, Marian Demos demonstrates the significance of three famous lyric quotations within their respective contexts in the dialogues of Plato. Demos reminds us that familiarity with the lyric poets was part of the educational background of Plato and his audience; therefore, she argues, Socrates is portrayed in the Platonic dialogues not only as a philosopher but also as someone with poetic sensibilities. Demos first investigates the Simonides poem in the Protagoras, showing that Plato has Socrates provide a fundamentally sound interpretation of the meaning of Simonides' words. She then argues that a purposeful misquotation of Pindar placed in the mouth of Callicles by Plato is not altogether implausible in light of the quotation's context in the Gorgias. Finally, Demos discusses Socrates' quotation of Stesichorus' palinode in the Phaedrus. Demos' analysis of the important role played by lyric quotation in Platonic dialogues will be of great interest to students and scholars of Plato and ancient lyric poetry.

Pharmakon: Plato, Drug Culture, and Identity in Ancient Athens examines the emerging concern for controlling states of psychological ecstasy in the history of western thought, focusing on ancient Greece (c. 750 - 146 BCE), particularly the Classical Period (c. 500 - 336 BCE) and especially the dialogues of the Athenian philosopher Plato (427 - 347 BCE). Employing a diverse array of materials ranging from literature, philosophy, medicine, botany, pharmacology, religion, magic, and law, Pharmakon fundamentally reframes the conceptual context of how we read and interpret Plato's dialogues. Michael A. Rinella demonstrates how the power and truth claims of philosophy, repeatedly likened to a pharmakon, opposes itself to the cultural authority of a host of other occupations in ancient Greek society who derived their powers from, or likened their authority to, some pharmakon. These included Dionysian and Eleusinian religion, physicians and other healers, magicians and other magic workers, poets, sophists, rhetoricians, as well as others.Accessible to the general reader, yet challenging to the specialist, Pharmakon is a comprehensive examination of the place of drugs in ancient thought that will compel the reader to understand Plato in a new way.

This is a comprehensive, authoritative and innovative account of Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism, one of the most enigmatic and influential philosophies in the West. In twenty-one chapters covering a timespan from the sixth century BC to the seventeenth century AD, leading scholars construct a number of different images of Pythagoras and his community, assessing current scholarship and offering new answers to central problems. Chapters are devoted to the early Pythagoreans, and the full breadth of Pythagorean thought is explored including politics, religion, music theory, science, mathematics and magic. Separate chapters consider Pythagoreanism in Plato, Aristotle, the Peripatetics and the later Academic tradition, while others describe Pythagoreanism in the historical tradition, in Rome and in the pseudo-Pythagorean writings. The three great lives of Pythagoras by Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry and Iamblichus are also discussed in detail, as is the significance of Pythagoras for the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

First published in 1981 this unique study discusses the evolution of Plato's thought through the actual developments in Athenian democracy, the book also demonstrates Plato's continuing responses to changes in political theory and argues for a new understanding of Plato's goals for the state and his ultimate concern for the moral well-being of the citizens.

With this translation, all 12 volumes of translation of Simplicius’ commentary on Aristotle’s Physics have been published (full list below). In Physics 1.1–2, Aristotle raises the question of the number and character of the first principles of nature and feels the need to oppose the challenge of the paradoxical Eleatic philosophers who had denied that there could be more than one unchanging thing. This volume, part of the groundbreaking Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series, translates into English for the first time Simplicius' commentary on this selected text, and includes a brief introduction, extensive explanatory notes, indexes and a bibliography. Previous published volumes translating Simplicius' commentary on Aristotle's Physics can all be found in Bloomsbury’s series: - On Aristotle Physics 1.3–4, tr. P. Huby and C. C. W. Taylor, 2011 - On Aristotle Physics 1.5–9, tr. H. Baltussen, M. Atkinson, M. Share and I. Mueller, 2012 - On Aristotle Physics 2, tr. B. Fleet, 1997 - On Aristotle Physics 3, tr. J. O. Urmson with P. Lautner, 2001 - On Aristotle Physics 4.1–5 and 10–14, tr. J. O. Urmson, 1992 - On Aristotle on the Void, tr. J. O. Urmson, 1994 (=Physics 4.6–9; published with Philoponus, On Aristotle Physics 5–8, tr. P. Lettinck) - On Aristotle Physics 5, tr. J. O. Urmson, 1997 - On Aristotle Physics 6, tr. D. Konstan, 1989 - On Aristotle Physics 7, tr. C. Hagen, 1994 - On Aristotle Physics 8.1–5, tr. I. Bodnar, M. Chase and M. Share, 2012 - On Aristotle Physics 8.6–10, tr. R. McKirahan, 2001

Plato has often been read as denigrating the cognitive and ethical value of poetry. In his dialogues, the faculty that corresponds to the poetic-the imagination-is located at the lowest level of human intelligence, and so it is furthest from true understanding. Simultaneously, the Platonic dialogues violate Plato's own alleged prohibitions against quoting and imitating poets, and much of the writing in the dialogues is poetic. All too often, the voluminous literature on Plato dismisses Plato's poetic formulations as merely the unintended contradictions of an otherwise meticulous author. In Praise of Plato's Poetic Imagination asks whether this ubiquitous reading misses something truly significant in Plato's understanding of the cognitive and ethical dimensions of human existence. Throughout the dialogues, Plato formulates ideas so precisely, utilizing carefully crafted images and structures, that we must question whether his flagrant and performative poetics can be mere mistakes, and inquire into how the poetic and creative arts contribute to true understanding. This book approaches the latter question by analyzing the role of the imagination in Platonic dialogues. It argues that critiquing poetry by poetic means, just as arguing against mimesis mimetically in the Republic or writing against the written word in the Phaedrus, constitute performative contradictions that bear significant philosophical meaning on further examination. The book suggests that the elusive examples of dialectic referred to in the divided line are the dialogues themselves-the putting into practice of ethical ideals. If so, the role of the imagination is to be sought in the unfolding of the dialogues themselves, not simply in what is said, but also in what takes place within the dialogues.

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.

Ancient Greek Philosophy: From the Presocratics to the Hellenistic Philosophers presents a comprehensive introduction to the philosophers and philosophical traditions that developed in ancient Greece from 585 BC to 529 AD. * Provides coverage of the Presocratics through the Hellenistic philosophers * Moves beyond traditional textbooks that conclude with Aristotle * A uniquely balanced organization of exposition, choice excerpts and commentary, informed by classroom feedback * Contextual commentary traces the development of lines of thought through the period, ideal for students new to the discipline * Can be used in conjunction with the online resources found at http://tomblackson.com/Ancient/toc.html

This book elaborates a moral realism of phenomenological inspiration by introducing the idea that moral experience, primordially, constitutes a perceptual grasp of actions and of their solid traces in the world. The main thesis is that, before any reference to values or to criteria about good and evil?that is, before any reference to specific ethical outlooks?one should explain the very materiality of what necessarily constitutes the ?moral world?. These claims are substantiated by means of a text- centered interpretation of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics in dialogue with contemporary moral realism. The book concludes with a critique of Heidegger?s, Gadamer's and Arendt's approaches to Aristotle's ethics.

This book examines the relationship between athletics and philosophy in ancient Greece and Rome focused on the connection between athleticism and virtue. It begins by observing that the link between athleticism and virtue is older than sport, reaching back to the athletic feats of kings and pharaohs in early Egypt and Mesopotamia. It then traces the role of athletics and the Olympic Games in transforming the idea of aristocracy as something acquired by birth to something that can be trained. This idea of training virtue through the techniques and practice of athletics is examined in relation to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Then Roman spectacles such as chariot racing and gladiator games are studied in light of the philosophy of Lucretius, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius. The concluding chapter connects the book's ancient observations with contemporary issues such as the use of athletes as role models, the relationship between money and corruption, the relative worth of participation and spectatorship, and the role of females in sport. The author argues that there is a strong link between sport and philosophy in the ancient world, calling them offspring of common parents: concern about virtue and the spirit of free enquiry. This book was previously published as a special issue of the Ethics and Sport.

How do we find calm in times of stress and uncertainty? How do we cope with sudden losses or find meaning in a world that can easily rob us of what we most value? Drawing on the wisdom of Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and others, Nancy Sherman's Stoic Wisdom presents a compelling, modern Stoicism that teaches grit, resilience, and the importance of close relationships in addressing life's biggest and smallest challenges. A renowned expert in ancient and modern ethics, Sherman relates how Stoic methods of examining beliefs and perceptions can help us correct distortions in what we believe, see, and feel. Her study reveals a profound insight about the Stoics: They never believed, as Stoic popularizers often hold, that rugged self-reliance or indifference to the world around us is at the heart of living well. We are at home in the world, they insisted, when we are connected to each other in cooperative efforts. We build resilience and goodness through our deepest relationships. Bringing ancient ideas to bear on 21st century concerns—from workers facing stress and burnout to first responders in a pandemic, from soldiers on the battlefield to citizens fighting for racial justice—Sherman shows how Stoicism can help us fulfil the promise of our shared humanity. In nine lessons that combine ancient pithy quotes and daily exercises with contemporary ethics and psychology, Stoic Wisdom is a field manual for the art of living well.

Madness Transformed: A Reading of Ovid's Metamorphoses is a detailed critical examination of a masterpiece of Augustan Latin epic poetry. In the manner of Lee Fratantuono's previous volume, Madness Unchained: A Reading of Virgil's Aeneid, this sequel seeks to explicate Ovid's magnum opus by moving scene by scene through the entire work. Through a close study of Ovid's limpid dactylic hexameters, Fratantuono demonstrates the way in which the Metamorphoses stands forth as a bold answer to the Aeneid as another epic consideration of the enigma that was the Augustan principate, with a vision of Roman history (and literature) that both responds to and challenges Virgil. Much of what Virgil left enigmatic and ambiguous is addressed more directly by Ovid, who, unlike his epic predecessor, suffered rather than prospered under the Augustan regime. Madness Transformed considers each tale of wondrous metamorphosis and ironic commentary as it seeks to provide a coherent reading of what might appear a most incoherent poem. Fratantuono carefully examines and critiques secondary scholarship on the Metamorphoses, but the primary method for this journey through Ovid is a close reading of what Ovid the epic poet (and Roman historian) actually says. Fratantuono pays special attention to the sources for Ovid's myths and the Nachleben of Ovid's great achievement, especially in medieval and Renaissance France. These considerations will prove valuable to any reader of classical literature and Roman history from novice to expert. An annotated bibliography provides a guide to further reading on the poem, while the introduction offers a foundation for this study: Ovid as reader of Virgil, in the aftermath of some of the more momentous turning points of Augustus' reign. The madness that was unchained in Virgil, destined to haunt Rome forever, is now revealed by Ovid to have been transformed, as Rome moves definitively from Republic to Empire.

This work synthesizes work previously published in leading journals in the field into a coherent narrative that has a distinctive focus on Germany while also being aware of a broader European dimension. It argues that the German Lutheran Christoph August Heumann (1681-1764) marginalized the biographical approach to past philosophy and paved the way for the German Lutheran Johann Jacob Brucker's (1696-1770) influential method for the writing of past philosophy, centred on depersonalised and abstract systems of philosophy. The work offers an authoritative and engaging account of how late ancient Platonism, Plotinus in particular, was interpreted in eighteenth-century Germany according to these new precepts. Moreover, it reveals the Lutheran religious assumptions of this new approach to past philosophy, which underpinned the works of Heumann and Brucker, but also influential reviews that rejected the English Plato translator Thomas Taylor (1758-1835) and his understanding and evaluation of late ancient Platonism.

Stoicism, the most influential philosophy of the Roman Empire, offers refreshingly modern ways to strengthen our inner character in the face of an unpredictable world. Widely recognised as the most talented and humane writer of the Stoic tradition, Seneca teaches us to live with freedom and purpose. His most enduring work, over a hundred "Letters from a Stoic" written to a close friend, explains how to handle adversity; overcome grief, anxiety and anger; transform setbacks into opportunities for growth and recognise the true nature of friendship. In Breakfast with Seneca, philosopher David Fideler mines Seneca's classic works in a series of focused chapters, clearly explaining Seneca's ideas without oversimplifying them. Best enjoyed as a daily ritual, like an energising cup of coffee, Seneca's wisdom provides us with a steady stream of time-tested advice about the human condition-which, as it turns out, hasn't changed much over the past two thousand years.

This Companion presents both an introduction to the history of the ancient philosophical school of Epicureanism and also a critical account of the major areas of its philosophical interest. Chapters span the school's history from the early Hellenistic Garden to the Roman Empire and its later reception in the Early Modern period, introducing the reader to the Epicureans' contributions in physics, metaphysics, epistemology, psychology, ethics and politics. The international team of contributors includes scholars who have produced innovative and original research in various areas of Epicurean thought and they have produced essays which are accessible and of interest to philosophers, classicists, and anyone concerned with the diversity and preoccupations of Epicurean philosophy and the state of academic research in this field. The volume emphasises the interrelation of the different areas of the Epicureans' philosophical interests while also drawing attention to points of interpretative difficulty and controversy.

This 2005 book is a critical examination of Michel Foucault's relation to ancient Greek thought, in particular his famous analysis of Greek history of sexuality. Wolfgang Detel offers an understanding of Foucault's theories of power and knowledge based on modern analytical theories of science and concepts of power. He offers a complex reading of the texts which Foucault discusses, covering topics such as Aristotle's ethics and theory of sex, Hippocratic dietetics, the earliest treatises on economics, and Plato's theory of love. The result is a philosophically rich and probing critique of Foucault's later writings, and a persuasive account of the relation between ethics, power and knowledge in classical antiquity. His book will have a wide appeal to readers interested in Foucault and in Greek thought and culture.

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.

Ancient and Medieval Philosophy Series 2, No. 37The Stadsbibliotheek of Brugge houses a manuscript (ms. 510, f. 227ra-237vb) that holds a short logical text on the Syncategoremata. In this manuscript the text is ascribed to Henry of Ghent, who was a leading thinker of the second half of the thirteenth century. If Henry wrote the text, he had much more technical knowledge of logic and semantics than is often imagined. The text was influenced by the logical works of Peter of Spain."

Is music just matter of hearing and producing notes? And is it of interest just to musicians? By exploring different authors and philosophical trends of the Roman Empire, from Philo of Alexandria to Alexander of Aphrodisias, from the rebirth of Platonism with Plutarch to the last Neoplatonists, this book sheds light on different ways in which music and musical notions were made a crucial part of philosophical discourse. Far from being mere metaphors, notions such as harmony, concord and attunement became key philosophical tools in order to better grasp and conceptualise fundamental notions in philosophical debates from cosmology to ethics and from epistemology to theology. The volume is written by a distinguished international team of contributors.

Cicero is best known for his political speeches. His Catilinarian orations are regularly studied in third or fourth year Latin; his self-proclaimed role as savior of the Republic is much discussed in courses on Roman history. But, however fascinating such material may be, there is another side to Cicero which is equally important and only now receiving the attention it deserves. This is Cicero's interest in Hellenistic thought. As a young man he studied philosophy in Greece; throughout his life he maintained a keen interest in intellectual history; and during periods of political inactivity - especially in his last years as the Republic collapsed - he wrote treatises that today are invaluable sources for our knowledge of Hellenistic philosophy, including the School of Aristotle. The essays collected in this volume deal with these treatises and in particular with Cicero's knowledge of Peripatetic philosophy. They ask such questions as: Did Cicero-know Aristotle first hand, or was the corpus Aristotelicum unavailable to him and his contemporaries? Did Cicero have access to the writings of Theophrastus, and in general did he know the post-Aristotelians whose works are all but lost to us? When Cicero reports the views of early philosophers, is he a reliable witness, and is he conveying important information? These and other fundamental questions are asked with special reference to traditional areas of Greek thought: logic and rhetoric, politics and ethics, physics, psychology, and theology. The answers are various, but the overall impression is clear: Cicero himself was a highly intelligent, well educated Roman, whose treatises contain significant material. Scholars working on Peripatetic thought and on the Hellenistic period as a whole cannot afford to ignore them. This fourth volume in the Rutgers University Studies in Classic Humanities series deals with Cicero, orator and writer of the late Roman Republic. Interest in Cicero arose out of Project Theophrastus, an international undertaking based at Rutgers dedicated to collecting, editing, and translating the fragments of Theophrastus. This collection will be of value to philologists, classicists, philosophers, as well as those interested in the history of science.