The Heirs of Plato is the first full study of the various directions in philosophy taken by Plato's followers in the first seventy years after his death in 347 BC - the period generally known as 'The Old Academy', unjustly neglected by historians of philosophy. Lucid and accessible, John Dillon's book provides an introductory chapter on the school itself, and a summary of Plato's philosophical heritage, before looking at each of the school heads and other chief characters, exploring both what holds them together and what sets them apart.

As the final work by Ye Xiushan, one of the most famous philosophers and scholars of philosophy in China, this two-volume set scrutinizes the historical development of both Chinese and Western philosophy, aiming to explore the convergence between the two philosophical traditions. Combining historical examination and argumentation based on philosophical problematics, the author discusses the key figures and schools of thought from both traditions. Far from being a cursory comparison between different philosophical concepts and categories, the author discusses the logical paths and conceptual approaches of the two traditions on the same philosophical issues, thus giving insights into conceptual categories commonly used in both Chinese and Western philosophies. The two volumes illuminate the different core spirits and dilemmas of Western philosophy and Chinese philosophy, encouraging a constructive dialogue between the two and a new transformation of Chinese philosophy in itself. The title will appeal to scholars, students, and general readers interested in philosophical history, comparative philosophy, Chinese philosophy, and Western philosophy ranging over Greek philosophy, German classic philosophy, and contemporary continental philosophy.

The Language of Atoms argues that ancient Epicurean writing on language offers a theory of performative language. Such a theory describes how languages acts, providing psychic therapy or creating new verbal meanings, rather than passively describing the nature of the universe. This observation allows us new insight into how Lucretius, our primary surviving Epicurean author, uses language in his great poem, De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things). The book begins with a double contention: on the one hand, while scholarship on Lucretius has looked to connect Lucretius' text to its larger cultural and historical context, it has never turned to speech act theory in this quest. This omission is striking at least in so far as speech act theory was developed precisely as a way of locating language (including texts) within a theory of action. The book studies Lucretius' work in the light of performative language, looking at promising, acts of naming, and the larger political implications of these linguistic acts. The Language of Atoms locates itself at the intersection of both older scholarly work on Epicureanism and recent developments on the reception history, and will thus offer scholars across the humanities a challenging new perspective on Lucretius' work.

The life and teachings of Diogenes of Sinope, the Greek philosopher who gave rise to classical Cynicism, deserve careful consideration because of their relevance to contemporary ethical issues. The task of reconstructing the philosopher's life, however, is exceedingly difficult, because in his case, more than in those of other ancient philosophers, we must deal not only with the scarcity of reliable sources and testimonies, but also with the mountains of anecdotal and fictional accounts that are responsible for the creation of a veritable literary legend around the Cynic who once lived in a tub. This comprehensive study reconstructs his biography on the basis of classical and Arabic sources, identifies the main ideas and principles of his philosophy, and shows the application of his philosophical message for our contemporary world. It also includes an extensively annotated translation of Diogenes Laertius' Life of Diogenes of Sinope, which is our principal source of information about the philosopher.

In the sixth century BC, Pherekydes of Syros, the reputed teacher of Pythagoras and contemporary of Thales and Anaximander, wrote a book about the birth of the gods and the origin of the cosmos. Considered one of the first prose works of Greek literature, Pherekydes' book survives only in fragments. On the basis of these as well as the ancient testimonies, the author attempts to reconstruct the theo-cosmological schema of Pherekydes. An introductory chapter on the life of Pherekydes is followed by four chapters on the contents of his book. From Pherekydes' mythopoeic creation account, his colourful narratives of a divine marriage and a battle of the gods, and finally from his remarks on the soul, Professor Schibli is careful to unfold the philosophical implications. Pherekydes emerges as a figure who moved in that fascinating frontier between myth and philosophy. The theogonies of Hesiod and the Orphics, the cosmological speculations of certain Presocratics, and the Pythagorean tenets on the soul are all profitably compared with the remnants of Pherekydes' book. Pherekydes is thus shown to be an important witness to early Greek thought in its various manifestations. This is the first book-length study in English dedicated to Pherekydes. It includes a comprehensive appendix of the fragments and ancient testimonies, along with limited critical apparatus and English translations.

In God as Reason: Essays in Philosophical Theology, Vittorio Hoesle presents a systematic exploration of the relation between theology and philosophy. In examining the problems and historical precursors of rational theology, he calls on philosophy, theology, history of science, and the history of ideas to find an interpretation of Christianity that is compatible with a genuine commitment to reason. The essays in the first part of God as Reason deal with issues of philosophical theology. Hoesle sketches the challenges that a rationalist theology must face and discusses some of the central ones, such as the possibility of a teleological interpretation of nature after Darwin, the theodicy issue, freedom versus determinism, the mindbody problem, and the relation in general between religion, theology, and philosophy. In the essays of the second part, Hoesle studies the historical development of philosophical approaches to the Bible, the continuity between the New Testament concept of pneuma and the concept of Geist (spirit) in German idealism, and the rationalist theologies of Anselm, Abelard, Llull, and Nicholas of Cusa, whose innovative philosophy of mathematics is the topic of one of the chapters. The book concludes with a thorough evaluation of Charles Taylor's theory of secularization. This ambitious work will interest students and scholars of philosophical theology and philosophy of religion as well as historians of ideas and science.

This is the first volume dedicated to a direct exploration of Wittgenstein and Plato. It is a compilation of essays by thirteen authors of diverse geographical provenance, orientation and philosophical interest.
The volume offers the most complete and detailed view to date on Wittgenstein and Plato, without being tied to any unilateral guidelines from either a critical or philosophical perspective. The authors are scholars of Wittgenstein, but also of Plato and Greek philosophy. The book is a sort of game of mirrors: Plato in the mirror of Wittgenstein, and Wittgenstein in the mirror of Plato. All essays always seek to combine philosophical interest and philological attention, although, in some essays one interest prevails over the other.
Despite the preponderance of scholars of Wittgenstein, the volume seeks to be not only a book on Wittgenstein and Plato, but also, simultaneously, on Plato and Wittgenstein.

This book defines the relationship between the thought of Adam Smith and that of the ancients---Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and the Stoics. Vivenza offers a complete survey of all Smith's writings with the aim of illustrating how classical arguments shaped opinions and scholarship in the eighteenth century.

"The Moral Maxims of the Sages of Israel" is a study of the moral maxims of the sages of Israel, who thrived from 300 B.C.E. to 200 C.E., that are contained in the work known as Pirkei Avot, probably the oldest anthology of its kind in literary history. Although the work has been translated from the original Hebrew numerous times, much of it remains inaccessible because of the epigrammatic rather than discursive style of the original, which employs idiomatic expressions, unusual turns of phrase, grammatically awkward constructions, euphemisms, and plays on words that confound even those who are able to read it in the original language.

An ancient work like Pirkei Avot can be read from a variety of perspectives. It may be read it from the standpoint of what it says that resonates with the contemporary concerns of the reader or commentator, often attaching meaning to a maxim that its author could not reasonably be expected to have intended. It may also be read from the perspective of attempting to understand what the redactor of the work had in mind when making his editorial decisions about what to include or exclude, and why he made such choices from the large volume of materials available to him. Finally, the work can be read as representing the concerns of the individual authors in the context of the times in which they lived.

In essence, then, one must choose between reading meaning into the text and reading meaning out of it. The approach in this book is to do the latter, that is, to understand the maxims and teachings of the sages that appear in Pirkei Avot primarily from the standpoint of the originators, and secondarily from the standpoint of the redactor, some of whose own thoughts are included in the work. In so doing, it will suggest, wherever possible and plausible, the unstated problems and questions to which the sages' teachings and assertions probably were deemed appropriate responses.

Like its ancient rivals, Stoic ethics was a form of virtue ethics, yet while the concept of virtue was clearly central to Stoic ethics, the concept of Stoic virtue has not yet been fully explored. Instead, the existing literature tends to impose on the Stoic material philosophically quite alien non-Aristotelian interpretations of virtue. According to Christoph Jedan, however, a thorough examination of the Stoic concept of virtue leads to a reassessment of our understanding of Stoic ethics. This book emphasises in particular the theological underpinning of Stoic ethics, which Jedan contends has been underestimated in current accounts of Stoic ethics. Jedan argues that the theological motifs in Stoic ethics are in fact pivotal to a complete understanding of Stoic ethics. The book focuses on Chrysippus, the most important of the early Stoic thinkers, suggesting that his contribution, and in particular its religious aspect, remained a key point of reference for later Stoics. This fascinating book makes a crucial contribution to the field of ancient ethics.>

This edited volume brings together contributions from prominent scholars to discuss new approaches to Plato's philosophy, especially in the burgeoning fields of Platonic ontology and psychology. Topics such as the relationship between mind, soul and emotions, as well as the connection between ontology and ethics are discussed through the analyses of dialogues from Plato's middle and late periods, such as the Republic, Symposium, Theaetetus, Timaeus and Laws. These works are being increasingly studied both as precursors for Aristotelian philosophy and in their own right, and the analyses included in this volume reveal some new interpretations of topics such as Plato's attitude towards artistic imagination and the possibility of speaking of a teleology in Plato. Focusing on hot topics in the area, Psychology and Ontology in Plato provides a good sense of what is happening in Platonic scholarship worldwide and will be of interest to academic researchers and teachers interested in ancient philosophy, ontology and philosophical psychology.

Lloyd Gerson offers an original new study of Plato's account of persons, a topic of continuing interest to philosophers. His book locates Plato's psychology within his two-world metaphysics, showing that embodied persons are images of a disembodied ideal, and that they reflect many of the conflicting states of the sensible world. For Plato, Gerson argues, philosophy is the means to recognizing one's true identity.

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

Method in Ancient Philosophy brings together fifteen new, specially written essays by leading scholars on a broad subject of central importance. It is characteristic of human beings that they direct their activities by reasoning. Methods of reasoning, even toward the same ends, vary. Self-conscious reflection on the methods of reasoning marks the beginning of philosophy in the West; examination of how the ancient Greeks reasoned, and how they thought about methods of reasoning, helps us to see how they came to hold the views they did, and how we have come to think as we do. For the views of the ancients have had a considerable influence upon our own assumptions about the demarcations between different kinds of enquiry and the sorts of methods that are appropriate for them. The aims of the volume are thus both exegetical and philosophical. Most of the essays focus on Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle, but earlier and later ancient philosophy is brought into the picture by essays on Eleatic and Epicurean thought.

Sextus Empiricus is one of the most important ancient philosophical writers after Plato and Aristotle. His writings are our main source for the doctrines and methods of Scepticism. He probably lived in the second century AD. Eleven books of his writings have survived, covering logic, physics, ethics, and many other fields. Against the Grammarians is the first book of Sextus' Adversus Mathematicos, his broad-ranging polemic against the various liberal studies of classical learning. It is prefaced by a short general attack on the arts (included in this volume); then Sextus focuses on the grammatical writers of the classical era, categorizing, analysing, and criticizing their doctrines. The result is not only an invaluable source for ancient ideas about grammar, language, and literary technique, but an excellent example of sustained Sceptical reasoning. David Blank presents a new translation into clear modern English of this important treatise, together with the first ever commentary on the work. In an extended introduction he discusses Against the Grammarians in the broad context of Sextus' work as a whole, Scepticism in general, and the history of ancient writings in this field.

Does twentieth-century phenomenology show that the Greek tradition was wrong about the intentionality of the emotions, their place in the mind, and their relevance for ethics? Reason, Emotion, and Will argues that, contrary to some contemporary accounts of mind and consciousness, the views of Levinas, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Ricoeur, and others, are not in conflict with the main lines of Greek and medieval thought in this regard. In addition, the book defends a traditional faculty-based account of the mind in comparison with a recent model based on the direct analysis of consciousness and conscious operations in the writings of Bernard Lonergan. The heart of the study consists of an account of the place of affectivity, including the passions and the higher emotions known as desires of reason or affections of the will, in the philosophy of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Augustine, and especially Thomas Aquinas.

This study offers an in-depth examination of Porphyrian soteriology, or the concept of the salvation of the soul, in the thought of Porphyry of Tyre, whose significance for late antique thought is immense. Porphyry's concept of salvation is important for an understanding of those cataclysmic forces, not always theological, that helped convert the Roman Empire from paganism to Christianity. Porphyry, a disciple of Plotinus, was the last and greatest anti-Christian writer to vehemently attack the Church before the Constantinian revolution. His contribution to the pagan-Christian debate on universalism can thus shed light on the failure of paganism and the triumph of Christianity in late antiquity. In a broader historical and cultural context this study will address some of the issues central to the debate on universalism, in which Porphyry was passionately involved and which was becoming increasingly significant during the unprecedented series of economic, cultural, political, and military crises of the third century. As the author will argue, Porphyry may have failed to find one way of salvation for all humanity, he nonetheless arrived a hierarchical soteriology, something natural for a Neoplatonist, which resulted in an integrative religious and philosophical system. His system is examined in the context of other developing ideologies of universalism, during a period of unprecedented imperial crises, which were used by the emperors as an agent of political and religious unification. Christianity finally triumphed over its competitors owing to its being perceived to be the only universal salvation cult that was capable of bringing about this unification. In short, it won due to its unique universalist soteriology. By examining a rival to Christianity's concept of universal salvation, this book will be valuable to students and scholars of ancient philosophy, patristics, church history, and late antiquity.

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.

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.