It is commonly held that Aristotle's views on politics have little relevance to the preoccupations of modern political theory with authority and obligation. Andres Rosler's original study argues that, on the contrary, Aristotle does examine the question of political obligation and its limits, and that contemporary political theorists have much to learn from him. Rosler takes his exploration further, considering the ethical underpinning of Aristotle's political thought, the normativity of his ethical and political theory, and the concepts of political authority and obligation themselves.

This book contains nine essays on Lucius Annaeus Seneca, distinguished Stoic Philosopher, creative writer, and Statesman of the Neronian Age. As author of epistles, treatises, dialogues, dramas, and epigrams, he produced a variety of works that enriched Rome's literary achievement. Like the previous volumes -- Essays on Seneca (Peter Lang, 1993) and Further Essays on Seneca (Peter Lang, 2001) -- this book presents an in-depth analysis of the Cordoban Philosopher's thoughts and portrays his erudition, humanitas, artistry, and deep psychological understanding of the frailties and strengths of human nature.

This book shows how and why debates in the philosophy of film can be advanced through the study of the role of images in Plato's dialogues, and, conversely, why Plato studies stands to benefit from a consideration of recent debates in the philosophy of film. Contributions range from a reading of Phaedo as a ghost story to thinking about climate change documentaries through Plato's account of pleonexia. They suggest how philosophical aesthetics can be reoriented by attending anew to Plato's deployment of images, particularly images that move. They also show how Plato's deployment of images is integral to his practice as a literary artist. Contributors are Shai Biderman, David Calhoun, Michael Forest, Jorge Tomas Garcia, Abraham Jacob Greenstine, Paul A. Kottman, Danielle A. Layne, David McNeill, Erik W. Schmidt, Timothy Secret, Adrian Switzer, and Michael Weinman.

In the second half of the twentieth century, ethics has gained considerable prominence within philosophy. In contrast to other scholars, Levinas proposed that it be not one philosophical discipline among many, but the most fundamental and essential one. Before philosophy became divided into disciplines, Plato also treated the question of the Good as the most important philosophical question.

Levinas's approach to ethics begins in the encounter with the other as the most basic experience of responsibility. He acknowledges the necessity to move beyond this initial, dyadic encounter, but has problems extending his approach to a larger dimension, such as community. To shed light on this dilemma, Tanja Staehler examines broader dimensions which are linked to the political realm, and the problems they pose for ethics.

Staehler demonstrates that both Plato and Levinas come to identify three realms as ambiguous: the erotic, the artistic, and the political. In each case, there is a precarious position in relation to ethics. However, neither Plato nor Levinas explores ambiguity in itself. Staehler argues that these ambiguous dimensions can contribute to revealing the Other s vulnerability without diminishing the fundamental role of unambiguous ethical responsibility.

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.

Aristotle is a rarity in the history of philosophy and science - he is a towering figure in the history of both disciplines. Moreover, he devoted a great deal of philosophical attention to the nature of scientific knowledge. How then do his philosophical reflections on scientific knowledge impact his actual scientific inquiries? In this book James Lennox sets out to answer this question. He argues that Aristotle has a richly normative view of scientific inquiry, and that those norms are of two kinds: a general, question-guided framework applicable to all scientific inquiries, and domain-specific norms reflecting differences in the target of inquiry and in the means of observation available to researchers. To see these norms of inquiry in action, the second half of this book examines Aristotle's investigations of animals, the soul, material compounds, the motions of heavenly bodies, and respiration.

This engaging work of comparative philosophy brings together American pragmatism and Chinese philosophy in a way that generates new interpretations of Chinese philosophy and a fresh perspective on issues in process philosophy. Through an analysis of key terms, Haiming Wen argues that Chinese philosophical terminology is not simply a retrospective language that through a process of stipulation promises us knowledge of an existing world, but is also an open, prospective vocabulary that through productive associations allows philosophers to realize a desired world. Relying on this productive power of Chinese terminology, Wen introduces a new term: 'Confucian pragmatism.' Wen convincingly shows that although there is much that distinguishes American pragmatism from Confucian philosophy, there is enough conceptual overlap to make Confucian pragmatism a viable and exciting field of study.

This book is a consideration of the differences between Aristotelian and symbolic logic (and the metaphysical assumptions they come packaged with) and the consequences these have for how we view the world. What Veatch propose is to try to exhibit with respect to several of the key logical tools and devices – propositions, inductive and deductive arguments, scientific and historical explanations, definitions, etc. – how these several instruments are differently conceived, both as to their natures and their functions, in each of these respective logics.

Commenting on the end of Aristotle On the" Heavens" Book 3, Simplicius examines Aristotle's criticisms of Plato's theory of elemental chemistry in the "Timaeus." Plato makes the characteristics of the four elements depend on the shapes of component corpuscles and ultimately on the arrangement of the triangles which compose them. Simplicius preserves and criticizes the contributions made to the debate in lost works by two other major commentators, Alexander the Aristotelian, and Proclus the Platonist. In Book 4, Simplicius identifies fifteen objections by Aristotle to Plato's views on weight in the four elements. He finishes Book 4 by elaborating Aristotle's criticisms of Democritus' theory of weight in the atoms, including Democritus' suggestions about the influence of atomic shape on certain atomic motions.

Marcus Cicero, Rome's greatest statesman and orator, was elected to the Roman Republic's highest office at a time when his beloved country was threatened by power-hungry politicians, dire economic troubles, foreign turmoil, and political parties that refused to work together. Sound familiar? Cicero's letters, speeches, and other writings are filled with timeless wisdom and practical insight about how to solve these and other problems of leadership and politics. How to Run a Country collects the best of these writings to provide an entertaining, common sense guide for modern leaders and citizens. This brief book, a sequel to "How to Win an Election," gathers Cicero's most perceptive thoughts on topics such as leadership, corruption, the balance of power, taxes, war, immigration, and the importance of compromise. These writings have influenced great leaders--including America's Founding Fathers--for two thousand years, and they are just as instructive today as when they were first written.

Organized by topic and featuring lively new translations, the book also includes an introduction, headnotes, a glossary, suggestions for further reading, and an appendix containing the original Latin texts. The result is an enlightening introduction to some of the most enduring political wisdom of all time.

Immortality was central to ancient philosophical reflections on the soul, happiness, value and divinity. Conceptions of immortality flowed into philosophical ethics and theology, and modern reconstructions of ancient thought in these areas sometimes turn on the interpretation of immortality. This volume brings together original research on immortality from early Greek philosophy, such as the Pythagoreans and Empedocles, to Augustine. The contributors consider not only arguments concerning the soul's immortality, but also the diverse and often subtle accounts of what immortality is, both in Plato and in less familiar philosophers, such as the early Stoics and Philo of Alexandria. The book will be of interest to all those interested in immortality and divinity in ancient philosophy, particularly scholars and advanced students.

Accompanied by a new translation of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics X, this volume presents a hybrid between a traditional commentary and a scholarly monograph. Aristotle's text is divided into one hundred lemmata which not only explore comprehensively the content and strength of each of these units of thought, but also emphasise their continuity, showing how the smaller units feed into the larger structure. The Commentary illuminates what Aristotle thinks in each lemma (and why), and also shows how he thinks. In order to bring Aristotle alive as a thinker, it often explores several possible ways of reading the text to enable the reader to make up their own mind about the best interpretation of a given passage. The relevant background in Plato's dialogues is discussed, and a substantial Introduction sets out the philosophical framework necessary for understanding Book X, the final and most arresting section of the Ethics.

Death and immortality played a central role in Greek and Roman thought, from Homer and early Greek philosophy to Marcus Aurelius. In this book A. G. Long explains the significance of death and immortality in ancient ethics, particularly Plato's dialogues, Stoicism and Epicureanism; he also shows how philosophical cosmology and theology caused immortality to be re-imagined. Ancient arguments and theories are related both to the original literary and theological contexts and to contemporary debates on the philosophy of death. The book will be of major interest to scholars and students working on Greek and Roman philosophy, and to those wishing to explore ancient precursors of contemporary debates about death and its outcomes.

Timeless wisdom on controlling anger in personal life and politics from the Roman Stoic philosopher and statesman Seneca In his essay "On Anger" (De Ira), the Roman Stoic thinker Seneca (c. 4 BC-65 AD) argues that anger is the most destructive passion: "No plague has cost the human race more dear." This was proved by his own life, which he barely preserved under one wrathful emperor, Caligula, and lost under a second, Nero. This splendid new translation of essential selections from "On Anger," presented with an enlightening introduction and the original Latin on facing pages, offers readers a timeless guide to avoiding and managing anger. It vividly illustrates why the emotion is so dangerous and why controlling it would bring vast benefits to individuals and society. Drawing on his great arsenal of rhetoric, including historical examples (especially from Caligula's horrific reign), anecdotes, quips, and soaring flights of eloquence, Seneca builds his case against anger with mounting intensity. Like a fire-and-brimstone preacher, he paints a grim picture of the moral perils to which anger exposes us, tracing nearly all the world's evils to this one toxic source. But he then uplifts us with a beatific vision of the alternate path, a path of forgiveness and compassion that resonates with Christian and Buddhist ethics. Seneca's thoughts on anger have never been more relevant than today, when uncivil discourse has increasingly infected public debate. Whether seeking personal growth or political renewal, readers will find, in Seneca's wisdom, a valuable antidote to the ills of an angry age.

In recent years the philosophy of information has emerged as an important area of research in philosophy. However, until now information's philosophical history has been largely overlooked. Information and the History of Philosophy is the first comprehensive investigation of the history of philosophical questions around information, including work from before the Common Era to the twenty-first century. It covers scientific and technology-centred notions of information, views of human information processing, as well as socio-political topics such as the control and use of information in societies. Organised into five parts, 19 chapters by an international team of contributors cover the following topics and more: Information before 500 CE, including ancient Chinese, Greek and Roman approaches to information; Early theories of information processing, sources of information and cognition; Information and computation in Leibniz, visualised scientific information, copyright and social reform; The nineteenth century, including biological information, knowledge economies and information's role in empire and eugenics; Recent and contemporary philosophy of information, including racialised information, Shannon information and the very idea of an information revolution. Information and the History of Philosophy is a landmark publication in this emerging field. As such, it is essential reading for students and researchers in the history of philosophy, philosophy of science and technology, and library and information studies. It is also a valuable resource for those working in subjects such as the history of science, media and communication studies and intellectual history.

This book focuses on the development of civism as it contributed to ancient Greek culture, and helped shape the psychology of citizenship in the Western world. The strength of this work is its interdisciplinary examination of those trends and influences that combined to give new insights into the rise and the fall of democracy in the ancient polis of Athens. The author presents an extensive description of the intellectual forces that attracted «international scholars and teachers to Athens, who in turn established important schools of higher learning as they labored to develop and advance the study of rhetoric and philosophy as competing alternative approaches for addressing the perceived weakness of the democratic system. This volume is an ideal supplement for instruction in courses in classical history, political science, philosophy, history of Western education, and advanced foundations of education.

The original essays in this volume discuss ideas relating to democracy, political justice, equality and inequalities in the distribution of resources and public goods. These issues were as vigorously debated at the height of ancient Greek democracy as they are in many democratic societies today. Contributing authors address these issues and debates about them from both philosophical and historical perspectives. Readers will discover research on the role of Athenian democracy in moderating economic inequality and reducing poverty, on ancient debates about how to respond to inborn and social inequalities, and on Plato's and Aristotle's critiques of Greek participatory democracies. Early chapters examine Plato's views on equality, justice, and the distribution of political and non-political goods, including his defense of the abolition of private property for the ruling classes and of the equality of women in his ideal constitution and polis. Other papers discuss views of Socrates or Aristotle that are particularly relevant to contemporary political and economic disputes about punishment, freedom, slavery, the status of women, and public education, to name a few. This thorough consideration of the ancient Greeks' work on democracy, justice, and equality will appeal to scholars and researchers of the history of philosophy, Greek history, classics, as well as those with an interest in political philosophy.

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.

This book explores the concepts of evil in the world-views of Plotinus and the Nso' people of Cameroon. The author analyzes the theories of the natural structure and social organization of these views of the world. He stresses the importance of comparing Plotinus and African philosophy. The book offers a proper appreciation of fundamental differences, parallels and similarities and seeks to build on shared values and common existential concerns in the world-views of Plotinus and the Nso'. This book highlights the assumption that the world understood in terms of its wider dimensions is not a purposeless conglomerate of phenomena and events that bear no relation to each other, but is rather a structured whole, defined by hierarchy and order.

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The much-acclaimed present-day philosophical turn to the letters of Saint Paul points to a profound consonance between ancient and modern thought. Such is the bold claim of this study in which scholars from contemporary continental philosophy, new testamentary studies and ancient philosophy discuss with each other the meaning Paul's terms pistis, faith. In this volume, this theme discusses in detail the threefold relation between Paul and (1) continental thought, (2) the Graeco-Roman world, and (3) political theology. It is shown that pistis does not only concern a mode of knowing, but rather concerns the human ethos or mode of existence as a whole. Moreover, it is shown that the present-day political theological interest in Paul can be seen as an attempt to recuperate Paul's pistis in this comprehensive sense. Finally, an important discussion concerning the specific ontological implications and background of this reinterpretation of pistis is examined by comparing the ancient ontological commitments to those of the present-day philosophers. Thus, the volume offers an insight in a crucial consonance of ancient and modern thought concerning the question of pistis in Paul while not forgetting to stipulate important differences.

Aristotle has been continuously at the frontier of philosophical reflection for almost 2400 years. Throughout the 20th century the influence of his practical philosophy has been growing. His "non-modernist" concept of phronesis or practical wisdom is attracting increasing interest as an alternative to both "modernism" and "post-modernism". This book is a meticulous study of Aristotle's phronesis and its applications to the fields of personal development or character formation and of ethical virtues. It also relates phronesis to the wider context of Aristotle's theoretical philosophy and of his different ways of knowing, and to both theoretical and practical concerns within modern social and action research. The whole of Aristotle's thinking is radically practice-based and directed. However, it never loses its theoretical focus. His theoretical philosophy is fundamentally dialogical. Hence, the relevance of Aristotelian thinking is striking for the current reconfigurations in the social organisation of learning and knowledge production.

Of all the topics in the history of philosophy, the history of different forms of thinking and contemplation is one of the most important, and yet is also relatively overlooked. What is it to think philosophically? How did different forms of thinking-reflection, contemplation, critique and analysis-emerge in different epochs? This collection offers a rich and diverse philosophical exploration of the history of contemplation, from the classical period to the twenty-first century. It covers canonical figures including Plato, Aristotle, Descartes and Kant, as well as debates in less well-known areas such as classical Indian and Islamic thought and the role of speculation in twentieth-century Russian philosophy. Comprising twenty-two chapters by an international team of contributors, the volume is divided into five parts: * Flourishing and Thinking from Homer to Hume * The Thinking of Thinking from Augustine to Goedel * Images and Thinking from Plotinus to Unger * Bodies of Thought and Habits of Thinking from Plato to Irigaray * The Efficacy of Thinking from Sextus to Bataille Thought: A Philosophical History is the first comprehensive investigation of the history of philosophical thought and contemplation. As such, it is a landmark publication for anyone researching and teaching the history of philosophy, and a valuable resource for those studying the subject in related fields such as literature, religion, sociology and the history of ideas.