This book examines the studies of Aristotle's Poetics and related texts in which three Medieval philosophers proposed a conception of poetic validity (beauty), and a just relation between subjects in a community (goodness).

Contents:
Chapters:
1. The Polis and its culture
2. The Ionians
3. Heraclitus
4. Pythagoreans and Eleatics
5. Empedocles
6. Anaxagoras and the atomists
7. The Sophists
8. Greek arithmetic, geometry and harmonics: Thales to Plato
9. Socrates and the beginnings of moral philosophy
10. Plato: metaphysics and epistemology
11. Plato: ethics and politics
12. Plato: aesthetics and psychology

Contents:
Chapters:
1. Aristotle: the philosophy of nature
2. Aristotle's logic and metaphysics
3. Aristotle: Aesthetics and philosophy of mind
4. Aristotle: Ethics and politics
5. The Peripatetic school
6. Epicureanism
7. Stoicism
8. The sceptics
9. The exact sciences in Hellenistic times: Texts and issues
10. Hellenistic biological sciences
11. Neo-Platonism
12. Augustine

In the 20th century theorists of mind were almost exclusively concerned with various versions of the materialist thesis, but prior to current debates accounts of soul and mind reveal an extraordinary richness and complexity which bear careful and impartial investigation. This book is the first single-authored, comprehensive work to examine the historical, linguistic and conceptual issues involved in exploring the basic features of the human mind - from its most remote origins to the beginning of the modern period. MacDonald traces the development of an armature of psychical concepts from the Old Testament and Homer's works to the 18th century advocacy of an empirical science of the mind. Along the way, detailed attention is paid to the Presocratics, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Epicurus, before turning to look at the New Testament, Neoplatonism, Augustine, Medieval Islam, Aquinas and Dante. Treatment of Renaissance theories is followed by an unusual (perhaps unique) chapter on the words "soul" and "mind" in English literature from Chaucer to Shakespeare; the story then rejoins the mainstream with analyses of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Chapter-focused bibliographies.

This fascinating examination of the development of virtue ethics in the early stages of western civilization deals with a wide range of philosophers and schools of philosophy -- from Socrates and the Stoics to Plato, Aristotle, and the Epicureans, among others. This introduction examines those human attributes that we have come to know as the "stuff" of virtue: desire, happiness, the "good," character, the role of pride, prudence, and wisdom, and links them to more current or modern conceptions and controversies.

The tension between viewing ethics and morality as fundamentally religious or as fundamentally rational still runs deep in our culture. A second tension centers on whether we view morality primarily in terms of our obligations or primarily in terms of our desires for what is good. The Greek term "arete," which we generally translate as "virtue," can also be translated as "excellence." "Arete" embraced both intellectual and moral excellence as well as human creations and achievements. Useful, certainly, for classrooms, "Virtue Ethics" is also for anyone interested in the fundamental question Socrates posed, "What kind of life is worth living?"

The Charmides is a difficult and enigmatic dialogue traditionally considered one of Plato's Socratic dialogues. This book provides a close text commentary on the dialogue which tracks particular motifs throughout. These notably include the characterization of Critias, Charmides, and Socrates; the historical context and subtext, literary features such as irony and foreshadowing; the philosophical context and especially how the dialogue looks back to more traditional Socratic dialogues and forward to dialogues traditionally placed in Plato's middle and late period; and most importantly the philosophical and logical details of the arguments and their dialectical function. A new translation of the dialogue is included in an appendix. This will be essential reading for all scholars and students of Plato and of ancient philosophy.

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 writings not translated into English or other European languages. This series of translations with introductions, copious notes and indexes fills an important gap in the history of European thought.

Can the intellect or the intellectual faculty be its own object of thought, or can it not think or apprehend itself? This book explores the ancient treatments of the question of self-intellection - an important theme in ancient epistemology and of considerable interest to later philosophical thought. The manner in which the ancients dealt with the intellect apprehending itself, took them into both the metaphysical and epistemological domains with reflections on questions of thinking, identity and causality. Ian Crystal traces the origins from which the concept of self-intellection springs, by examining Plato's account of the epistemic subject and the emergence of self-intellection through the Aristotelian account, before the final part of the book explores the problem of how the intellect apprehends itself, and its resolution including Plotinus' reformulation and the dilemma raised by Sextus Empiricus. Crystal concludes that Plotinus recasts the metaphysical structures of Plato and Aristotle in such a way that he casts the concept of self-intellection in an entirely new light and offers a solution to the problem.

Recovering the Ancient View of Founding questions the consensus view of contemporary scholars who view Cicero as an eclectic and unoriginal political thinker. For them, De Legibus is perhaps the most striking example of this eclecticism. They say that Cicero claims a universal ground for laws that would restore the political privileges of his own aristocratic class. Yet Timothy Caspar shows that Cicero offers a unified, coherent, and original teaching about politics whose aim is justice for the entire republic, not just a part of it. Contrary to the prevailing view, Cicero does not embrace but rejects Stoicism and any philosophy that culminates in a community of the wise as a standard for politics. Instead, nature serves as the foundation of Cicero's laws, and he elucidates a political standard grounded in nature and applicable to all citizens. Thus, the law codes of De Legibus are not only in harmony with but required by Cicero's natural law principles. Caspar's Recovering the Ancient View of Founding is a reinterpretation of a key work of ancient Roman political philosophy and belongs on the bookshelf of anyone interested in philosophy, politics, or ancient Rome.

This reading of Aristotle's Politics builds on the insight that the history of political philosophy is a series of configurations of nature and reason. Aristotle's conceptualization of nature is unique because it is not opposed to or subordinated to reason. Adriel M. Trott uses Aristotle's definition of nature as an internal source of movement to argue that he viewed community as something that arises from the activity that forms it rather than being a form imposed on individuals. Using these definitions, Trott develops readings of Aristotle's four arguments for the naturalness of the polis, interprets deliberation and the constitution in Politics as the form and final causes of the polis, and reconsiders Aristotle's treatment of slaves and women. Trott then argues that Aristotle is relevant for contemporary efforts to improve and encourage genuine democratic practices.

In this comprehensive anthology, twenty-seven outstanding scholars from North America and Europe address every major aspect of Thomas Aquinas' understanding of morality and comment on his remarkable legacy. While there has been a revival of interest in recent years in the ethics of St. Thomas, no single work has yet fully examined the basic moral arguments and content of Aquinas' major moral work, the Second Part of "The Summa Theologiae". This work fills that lacuna. The first chapters of "The Ethics of Aquinas" introduce readers to the sources, methods, and major themes of Aquinas' ethics. The second part of this book provides an extended discussion of ideas in the Second Part of "The Summa Theologiae", in which contributors present cogent interpretations of the structure, major arguments, and themes of each of the treatises. The third and final part examines aspects of Thomistic ethics in the twentieth century and beyond. These essays reflect a diverse group of scholars representing a variety of intellectual perspectives. Contributors span numerous fields of study, including intellectual history, medieval studies, moral philosophy, religious ethics, and moral theology. This remarkable variety underscores how interpretations of Thomas' ethics continue to develop and evolve - and stimulate fervent discussion within the academy and the church. This volume is aimed at scholars, students, clergy, and all those who continue to find Aquinas a rich source of moral insight.

This edition of volume 1 in the series Rutgers University Studies in Classical Humanities concerns Hellenistic ethics. Its particular focus is the compendium of Stoic and Peripatetic ethics attributed to Arius Didymus, court philosopher to the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus. Arius was admired in antiquity for his Consolatio addressed to Livia, Augustus' wife, on the death of her son Drusus. He was also known for having advised Augustus to spare the inhabitants of Alexandria when that city fell to the army of Augustus. Arius was, then, an important advisor to a powerful emperor; he held the position that Plato dreamed of and Kant recommended. He advised the ruler of the Mediterranean world and practiced an ethics based on his knowledge of Hellenistic philosophy. That knowledge is discussed in On Stoic and Peripatetic Ethics.

Prior to the publication of On Stoic and Peripatetic Ethics, Arius was best known in the English-speaking world for fragments concerning physical philosophy. There were some works in German and Italian but discussion in English was meager and largely inconsequential. Within the English-speaking world, there is now a significant and growing body of scholarly literature on Arius' compendium. Far from supplanting the present volume, this body of literature underlines the importance of the volume and builds on issues raised in it.

The philosophers of the Roman world were asking questions whose answers had practical effects on people's lives in antiquity, and which still influence our thinking to this day. In spite of being neglected in the modern era, this important age of philosophical thought is now undergoing a revival of interest.
Mark Morford's lively survey makes these recent scholarly developments accessible to a wide audience, examining the writings and ideas of both famous and lesser known figures - from Cato the Censor in 155 BCE to Marcus Aurelius in 180 CE. Based around extensive and fully translated quotations from the philosophical texts of the era, full consideration is given throughout to historical, political and cultural context.

A chronological guide to influential Greek and Roman writers, Fifty Key Classical Authors is an invaluable introduction to the literature, philosophy and history of the ancient world. Including essays on Sappho, Polybius and Lucan, as well as on major figures such as Homer, Plato, Catullus and Cicero, this book is a vital tool for all students of classical civilization.

Plato's Utopia Recast is an illuminating reappraisal of Plato's later works, which reveals radical changes in his ethical and political theory. Christopher Bobonich examines later dialogues, with a special emphasis upon the Laws, and argues that in these late works Plato both rethinks and revises the basic ethical and political positions that he held in his better known earlier works, such as the Republic. This book will change our understanding of Plato. His controversial moral and political theory, so influential in Western thought, will henceforth be seen in a new light.

This title was first published in 2000. This work identifies the differences between the Russian intellectual approach to reading Plato and that of other European countries. This study offers a complex perspective on Russian philosophical learnings up to 1930. The book contains five chapters with the first aiming to provide the general institutional context in which Russian 19th century Plato scholarship developed, caught as it were, between the rise of the historical sciences and the heavy hand of state interference in standardizing the educational system in the name of nation building and modernization. The second chapter attempts to illustrate how Plato served as a reference in Russian philosophical culture and the third deals with aspects of Russian philosophy of law. In the fourth chapter, the author shifts his approach to compare and contrast a number of reactions to a single dialogue, the "Republic" and in the final concluding chapter, addresses the question of whether it is legitimate to speak of a Russian Platonism.

This title was first published in 2001. A collection of fifteen studies which explore topics in the psychology and philosophy of mind of Plotinus, Augustine, and Boethius, as well as the development of Augustine's views on history and Roman religion.

Why is the human mind able to perceive and understand the truth about reality; that is, why does it seem to be the mind's specific function to know the world? Sean Kelsey argues that both the question itself and the way Aristotle answers it are key to understanding his work De Anima, a systematic philosophical account of the soul and its powers. In this original reading of a familiar but highly compressed text, Kelsey shows how this question underpins Aristotle's inquiry into the nature of soul, sensibility, and intelligence. He argues that, for Aristotle, the reason why it is in human nature to know beings is that 'the soul in a way is all beings'. This new perspective on the De Anima throws fresh and interesting light on familiar Aristotelian doctrines: for example, that sensibility is a kind of ratio (logos), or that the intellect is simple, separate, and unmixed.

Contents:
Preface Introduction: The Argument of the Cratylus 1. From Convention to Nature 1.1 Conventionalism 1.2 Subjectivism 1.3. The Significance of Conventionalism 1.4. Against Conventionalism 1.5 The First Stage of Naturalism: Names as Tools 2. The Second Stage of Naturalism: Function and Genre in the Etymologies 2.1 Rational Reconstruction 2.2 The Inspiration of Episode 2.3 The Agonistic Display 2.4 The Etymologies as Agon 2.5 Polato and Parmendis on the Deceptiveness of Language 3. The Third Stage of Naturalism: Mimetic Correctness 3.1 Beyond Etymology 3.2 Mimesis and the Elements of Language 3.3 Draft and the Foundations of Correctness 4. Natureal Correctness Re-examined 4.1 The dianome Argument 4.2 On the Correctness of Images 4.3 The Two Cratyluses 4.4 The Sklerotes Argument 4.5 The Names of the Numbers 4.6 Conclusions About Correctness 5. The Name of Things 5.1 Against the Study of Names 5.2 Language, Knowledge and Flux 6. The Cratylus and After: Names and Logoi 6.1 The Seventh Letter and the Weakness of Language 6.2. Logos and Knowledge 7. The Cratylus and After: false Statement 7.1 False Statement in the Cratylus 7.2 The Sophist on Syntax 7.3 The Sophist on False Statement Bibliography Index

As an essential companion to Plato's Apology and Crito this book provides valuable historical and cultural context for our understanding of the trial of Socrates. The complexity and significance of the trial is illuminated through discussion of such important elements as the nature of Athenian democracy, the polis ideal, Greek shame culture, Athenian religion, civil disobedience, and Socrates' rejection of politics.
Colaiaco's approach is unique because he does justice both to Socrates and to Athens by demonstrating their individual strengths and weaknesses - and ultimately, their tragic incompatibility. Another highlight is that he provides a comprehensive picture of this conflict - essentially Socrates' radical challenge to traditional Athenian values - within the necessary historical and cultural context so that readers are better able to grasp the complexity and significance inherent to this trial.

In this book Paul Carrick charts the ancient Greek and Roman foundations of Western medical ethics. Surveying 1500 years of pre-Christian medical moral history, Carrick applies insights from ancient medical ethics to developments in contemporary medicine such as advance directives, gene therapy, physician-assisted suicide, abortion, and surrogate motherhood. He discusses such timeless issues as the social status of the physician; attitudes toward dying and death; and the relationship of medicine to philosophy, religion, and popular morality. Opinions of a wide range of ancient thinkers are consulted, including physicians, poets, philosophers, and patients. He also explores the puzzling question of Hippocrates' identity, analyzing not only the Hippocratic Oath but also the Father of Medicine's lesser-known works.

Complete with chapter discussion questions, illustrations, a map, and appendices of ethical codes, "Medical Ethics in the Ancient World" will be useful in courses on the medical humanities, ancient philosophy, bioethics, comparative cultures, and the history of medicine. Accessible to both professionals and to those with little background in medical philosophy or ancient science, Carrick's book demonstrates that in the ancient world, as in our own postmodern age, physicians, philosophers, and patients embraced a diverse array of perspectives on the most fundamental questions of life and death.

Title first published in 2003. In commemoration of the philosophical interests of Stanley Victor Keeling, the annual lectures in his memory highlight the interest and importance of ancient philosophy for contemporary study of the subject. This volume brings together the Keeling lectures from leading international figures in ancient and modern philosophy, presented between 1992 and 2002. Including contributions from Bernard Williams and Martha Nussbaum, lectures range across topics such as 'Intrinsic Goodness', Necessity, Fate and Determinism and Quality of Life, extending from Plato through Aristotle to the Stoics. Edited and with a preface by R. W. Sharples.

The series, founded in 1970, publishes works which either combine studies in the history of philosophy with a systematic approach or bring together systematic studies with reconstructions from the history of philosophy. Monographs are published in English as well as in German. The founding editors are Erhard Scheibe (editor until 1991), Gunther Patzig (until 1999) and Wolfgang Wieland (until 2003). From 1990 to 2007, the series had been co-edited by Jurgen Mittelstrass.

Philosophy in the medieval Latin West before 1200 is often thought to have been dominated by Platonism. The articles in this volume question this view, by cataloguing, describing and investigating the tradition of Aristotelian logic during this period, examining its influence on authors usually placed within the Aristotelian tradition (Eriugena, Anselm, Gilbert of Poitiers), and also looking at some of the characteristics of early medieval Platonism. Abelard, the most brilliant logician of the age, is the main subject of three articles, and the book concludes with two more general discussions about how and why medieval philosophy should be studied.