Early Greek Thought calls into question a longstanding mythology - operative in both the Analytic and Continental traditions - that the 'Pre-Socratics had the grandiose audacity to break with all traditional forms of knowledge' (Badiou). Each of the variants of this mythology is dismantled in an attempt to not only retrieve an 'indigenous' interpretation of early Greek thought, but also to expose the mythological character of our own contemporary meta-narratives regarding the 'origins' of 'Western', 'Occidental' philosophy. Using an original hermeneutical approach, James Luchte excavates the context ofemergence of early Greek thought through an exploration of the mytho-poetic horizons of the archaic world, in relation to which, as Plato testifies, the Greeks were merely 'children'. Luchte discloses 'philosophy in the tragic age' as a creative response to a 'contestation' of mytho-poetic narratives and 'ways of being'. The tragic character of early Greek thought is unfolded through a cultivation of a conversation between its basic thinkers, one which would remain incomprehensible, with Bataille, in the 'absence of myth' and the exile of poetry.

Aristotle's Topics is a handbook for dialectic, which can be understood as a philosophical debate between a questioner and a respondent. In book 2, Aristotle mainly develops strategies for making deductions about 'accidents', which are properties that might or might not belong to a subject (for instance, Socrates has five fingers, but might have had six), and about properties that simply belong to a subject without further specification. In the present commentary, here translated into English for the first time, Alexander develops a careful study of Aristotle's text. He preserves objections and replies from other philosophers whose work is now lost, such as the Stoics. He also offers an invaluable picture of the tradition of Aristotelian logic down to his time, including innovative attempts to unify Aristotle's guidance for dialectic with his general theory of deductive argument (the syllogism), found in the Analytics. The work will be of interest not only for its perspective on ancient logic, rhetoric, and debate, but also for its continuing influence on argument in the Middle Ages and later.

This book argues against the common view that there are no essential differences between Plato and the Neoplatonist philosopher, Plotinus, on the issues of mysticism, epistemology, and ethics. Beginning by examining the ways in which Plato and Plotinus claim that it is possible to have an ultimate experience that answers the most significant philosophical questions, David J. Yount provides an extended analysis of why we should interpret both philosophers as mystics. The book then moves on to demonstrate that both philosophers share a belief in non-discursive knowledge and the methods to attain it, including dialectic and recollection, and shows that they do not essentially differ on any significant views on ethics. Making extensive use of primary and secondary sources, Plato and Plotinus on Mysticism, Epistemology and Ethics shows the similarities between the thought of these two philosophers on a variety of philosophical questions, such as meditation, divination, wisdom, knowledge, truth, happiness and love.

Greek tragedy occupies a prominent place in the development of early Greek thought. However, even within the partial renaissance of debates about tragedy's roots in the popular thought of archaic Greece, its potential connection to the early philosophical tradition remains, with few exceptions, at the periphery of current interest. This book aims to show that our understanding of Aeschylus' Oresteia is enhanced by seeing that the trilogy's treatment of Zeus and Justice (Dike) shares certain concepts, assumptions, categories of thought, and forms of expression with the surviving fragments and doxography of certain Presocratic thinkers (especially Anaximander, Xenophanes, Heraclitus, and Parmenides). By examining several aspects of the tragic trilogy in relation to Presocratic debates about theology and cosmic justice, it shows how such scrutiny may affect our understanding of the theological 'tension' and metaphysical assumptions underpinning the Oresteia's dramatic narrative. Ultimately, it argues that Aeschylus bestows on the experience of human suffering, as it is given in the contradictory multiplicity of the world, the status of a profound form of knowledge: a meeting point between the human and divine spheres.

This book argues that, rather than being conceived merely as a hindrance, the body contributes constructively in the fashioning of a Platonic unified self. The Phaedo shows awareness that the indeterminacy inherent in the body infects the validity of any scientific argument but also provides the subject of inquiry with the ability to actualize, to the extent possible, the ideal self. The Republic locates bodily desires and needs in the tripartite soul. Achievement of maximal unity is dependent upon successful training of the rational part of the soul, but the earlier curriculum of Books 2 and 3, which aims at instilling a pre-reflectively virtuous disposition in the lower parts of the soul, is a prerequisite for the advanced studies of Republic 7. In the Timaeus, the world soul is fashioned out of Being, Sameness, and Difference: an examination of the Sophist and the Parmenides reveals that Difference is to be identified with the Timaeus' Receptacle, the third ontological principle which emerges as the quasi-material component that provides each individual soul with the alloplastic capacity for psychological growth and alteration.

This book presents a thorough study and an up to date anthology of Plato's Protagoras. International authors' papers contribute to the task of understanding how Plato introduced and negotiated a new type of intellectual practice - called philosophy - and the strategies that this involved. They explore Plato's dialogue, looking at questions of how philosophy and sophistry relate, both on a methodological and on a thematic level. While many of the contributing authors argue for a sharp distinction between sophistry and philosophy, this is contested by others. Readers may consider the distinctions between philosophy and traditional forms of poetry and sophistry through these papers. Questions for readers' attention include: To what extent is Socrates' preferred mode of discourse, and his short questions and answers, superior to Protagoras' method of sophistic teaching? And why does Plato make Socrates and Protagoras reverse positions as it comes to virtue and its teachability? This book will appeal to graduates and researchers with an interest in the origins of philosophy, classical philosophy and historical philosophy.

A new approach to understanding the relationship between Aristotle's political philosophy and the natural law tradition. "Aristotle and Natural Law" offers an important new examination of Aristotle's political thought and its relationship to the natural law tradition. The book challenges recent alternative interpretations of Aristotle and argues that Aristotle's ethics is most usefully seen as a particular type of natural law theory. Tony Burns shows that the type of natural law theory to which Aristotle subscribes is an unusual one because it does not allow for the possibility that individuals might appeal to natural law in order to critically evaluate existing laws and institutions. Rather its function is to provide legitimacy for existing laws and conventions by providing them with a philosophical justification from the standpoint of Aristotle's metaphysics. Burns claims that this way of thinking about natural law can be traced in the writings of a number of thinkers in the history of philosophy, from Aquinas through to Hegel, but argues that because this tradition begins with Aristotle it is appropriate to describe it as 'the Aristotelian natural law tradition'. "Continuum Studies in Ancient Philosophy" presents cutting edge scholarship in the history of ancient philosophy. The wholly original arguments, perspectives and research findings in titles in this series make it an important and stimulating resource for students and academics from across the fields of Philosophy and Classical Studies.

Chinese and Greek ethics remain influential in modern philosophy, yet it is unclear how they can be compared to one another. This volume, following its predecssor 'How should one live?' (DeGruyter 2011), is a contribution to comparative ethics, loosely centered on the concepts of life and the good life. Methods of comparing ethics are treated in three introductory chapters (R.A.H.King, Ralph Weber, G.E.R. Lloyd), followed by chapters on core issues in each of the traditions: human nature (David Wong, Guo Yi), ghosts (Paul Goldin), happiness (Christoph Harbsmeier), pleasure (Michael Nylan), qi (Elisabeth Hsu & Zhang Ruqing), cosmic life and individual life (Dennis Schilling), the concept of mind (William Charlton), knowledge and happiness (Joerg Hardy), filial piety (Richard Stalley), the soul (Hua-kuei Ho), and deliberation (Thomas Buchheim). The volume closes with three essays in comparison - Mencius and the Stoics (R.A.H. King), equanimity (Lee Yearley), autonomy and the good life (Lisa Raphals). An index locorum each for Chinese and Greco-Roman authors, and a general index complete the volume.

Lucretius' philosophical epic De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) is a lengthy didactic and narrative celebration of the universe and, in particular, the world of nature and creation in which humanity finds its abode. This earliest surviving full scale epic poem from ancient Rome was of immense influence and significance to the development of the Latin epic tradition, and continues to challenge and haunt its readers to the present day. A Reading of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura offers a comprehensive commentary on this great work of Roman poetry and philosophy. Lee Fratantuono reveals Lucretius to be a poet with deep and abiding interest in the nature of the Roman identity as the children of both Venus (through Aeneas) and Mars (through Romulus); the consequences (both positive and negative) of descent from the immortal powers of love and war are explored in vivid epic narrative, as the poet progresses from his invocation to the mother of the children of Aeneas through to the burning funeral pyres of the plague at Athens. Lucretius' epic offers the possibility of serenity and peaceful reflection on the mysteries of the nature of the world, even as it shatters any hope of immortality through its bleak vision of post mortem oblivion. And in the process of defining what it means both to be human and Roman, Lucretius offers a horrifying vision of the perils of excessive devotion both to the gods and our fellow men, a commentary on the nature of pietas that would serve as a warning for Virgil in his later depiction of the Trojan Aeneas.

Plotinus' mysticism of henosis, unification with the One, is a highly controversial topic in Plotinian scholarship. This book presents a careful reading of the Enneads and suggests that Plotinus' mysticism be understood as mystical teaching that offers practical guidance concerning henosis. It is further argued that a rational interpretation thereof should be based on Plotinus' metaphysics, according to which the One transcends all beings but is immanent in them. The main thesis of this book is that Plotinus' mystical teaching does not help man attain henosis on his own, but serves to remind man that he fails to attain henosis because it already pertains to his original condition. Plotinus' mysticism seeks to change man's misconception about henosis, rather than his finite nature.

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.

This book combines the mainstream liberal arguments for religious tolerance with arguments from religious traditions in India to offer insights into appropriate attitudes toward religious 'others' from the perspective of the devout. The respective chapters address the relationship between religions from a comparative perspective, helping readers understand the meaning of religion and the opportunities for interreligious dialogue in the works of contemporary Indian philosophers such as Gandhi and Ramakrishna Paramhansa. It also examines various religious traditions from a philosophical viewpoint in order to reassess religious discussions on how to respond to differing and different religious others. Given its comprehensive coverage, the book is of interest to scholars working in the areas of anthropology, philosophy, cultural and religious diversity, and history of religion.

Confronting the scientific revolution's dismissal of Aristotle's physics and epistemology, Nathan R. Colaner revives this foundational philosopher's work to expose within it the underpinnings of modern philosophers' most common intuitions about knowledge. After Aristotle's picture of reality had been judged obsolete by the physics of the scientific revolution, modern Western epistemologists fumbled along with doctrines that had little to do with everyday life. These included Descartes' notion of the evil genius, Hume's claim that we can't know anything that we are not presently observing, and Kant's rescue of knowledge in the context of idealism. In Aristotle on Knowledge of Nature and Modern Skepticism, Colaner articulates a notion of knowledge that is characteristically Aristotelian without being dependent on his metaphysics. Simultaneously, Colaner places Aristotle in dialogue with modern thinkers to create a bridge between classical and modern philosophy and reinstate Aristotle's prominence in the discipline of epistemology.