By reconstructing it and tracing its vicissitudes, David Conway rehabilitates a time-honoured conception of philosophy, originating in Plato and Aristotle, which makes theoretical wisdom its aim. Wisdom is equated with possessing a demonstrably correct understanding of why the world exists and has the broad character it does. Adherents of this conception maintained the world to be the demonstrable creation of a divine intelligence in whose contemplation supreme human happiness resides. Their claims are defended against various latter day scepticisms.

So indeed it would prove, a single cup of hemlock robbing the western philosophical tradition of its founding father. Yet Socrates' influence was not so easily to be done away with. His words were lovingly recorded by his devoted disciple Plato, and his teachings have survived for twenty-seven centuries.

His sense of education as self-discovery and his view of philosophy as preparation for life have been the stuff of western thought at its best. So completely did Socrates embody these values, he was prepared to die in their defence.

This book rethinks Plato's creation and use of myth by drawing on theories and methods from myth studies, religious studies, literary theory and related fields. Individual myths function differently depending on cultural practice, religious context or literary tradition, and this interdisciplinary study merges new perspectives in Plato studies with recent scholarship and theories pertaining to myth. Significant overlaps exist between prominent modern theories of myth and attitudes and approaches in studies of Plato's myths. Considering recent developments in myth studies, this book asks new questions about the evaluation of myth in Plato. Its appreciation of the historical conditions shaping and directing the study of Plato's myths opens deeper philosophical questions about the relationship between philosophy and myth and the relevance of myth studies to philosophical debates. It also extends the discussion to address philosophical questions and perspectives on the distinction between argument and narrative.

In this book an attempt is made to single out those elements in the philosophical system of the Enneads that stand apart from the Platonist tradition. On the basis of an extensive analysis of fundamental texts the author shows that what Plotinus had in mind was a quite independent paradigm of metaphysical theology, with at its centre the human person.

"The Poetics of Eros in Ancient Greece" offers the first comprehensive inquiry into the deity of sexual love, a power that permeated daily Greek life. Avoiding Foucault's philosophical paradigm of dominance/submission, Claude Calame uses an anthropological and linguistic approach to re-create indigenous categories of erotic love. He maintains that Eros, the joyful companion of Aphrodite, was a divine figure around which poets constructed a physiology of desire that functioned in specific ways within a network of social relations. Calame begins by showing how poetry and iconography gave a rich variety of expression to the concept of Eros, then delivers a history of the deity's roles within social and political institutions, and concludes with a discussion of an Eros-centered metaphysics.

Calame's treatment of archaic and classical Greek institutions reveals Eros at work in initiation rites and celebrations, educational practices, the Dionysiac theater of tragedy and comedy, and in real and imagined spatial settings. For men, Eros functioned particularly in the symposium and the gymnasium, places where men and boys interacted and where future citizens were educated. The household was the setting where girls, brides, and adult wives learned their erotic roles--as such it provides the context for understanding female rites of passage and the problematics of sexuality in conjugal relations. Through analyses of both Greek language and practices, Calame offers a fresh, subtle reading of relations between individuals as well as a quick-paced and fascinating overview of Eros in Greek society at large.

This book comprises essays on the nature of Aspasius' commentary, his interpretation of Aristotle, and his own place in the history of thought. The contributions are in English or Italian. Aspasius' commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics is the earliest ancient commentary on Aristotle of which extensive parts survive in their original form. It is important both for the history of commentary as a genre and for the history of philosophical thought in the first two centuries A.D.; it is also still valuable as what its author intended it to be, an aid in interpreting the Ethics. All three aspects are explored by the essays. The book is not formally a commentary on Aspasius' commentary; but between them the essays consider the interpretation of numerous problematic or significant passages. Full indices will enable readers quickly to locate discussion of particular parts of Aspasius' work. This volume of essays will form a natural complement to the first ever translation of Aspasius' commentary into any modern language, currently in preparation by Paul Mercken.

This book explores the place of the sophists within the Greek wisdom tradition, and argues against their almost universal exclusion from serious intellectual traditions. By studying the sophists against the backdrop of the archaic Greek institutions of wisdom, it is possible to detect considerable intellectual overlap between them and their predecessors. This book explores the continuity of this tradition, suggesting that the sophists' intellectual balkanization in modern scholarship, particularly their low standing in comparison to the Presocratics, Platonists, and Aristotelians, is a direct result of Plato's condemnation of them and their practices. This book thus seeks to offer a revised history of the development of Greek philosophy, as well as of the potential--yet never realized--courses it might have followed.

This study argues that Plato's is a gendered philosophy which contains within its basic tenets notions associated with masculinity. Consequently, the book explores the reasons why, in "The Republic" Plato includes women in the ruling class of his proposed ideal State on apparently equal terms with men and appears to offer them the opportunity to become Philosopher Kings - the ultimate rulers.

This work argues that Plato's philosophy is a gendered philosophy: it contains within its basic tenets notions associated with masculinity. Consequently, the book explores the reasons why, in The Republic, Plato includes women in the ruling class of his proposed ideal state on apparently equal terms with men and appears to offer them the opportunity to become philosopher kings, the ultimate rulers.

A major new interpretation of Vergil's epic poem as a struggle between two incompatible versions of the Homeric hero This compelling book offers an entirely new way of understanding the Aeneid. Many scholars regard Vergil's poem as an attempt to combine Homer's Iliad and Odyssey into a single epic. Joseph Farrell challenges this view, revealing how the Aeneid stages an epic contest to determine which kind of story it will tell-and what kind of hero Aeneas will be. Farrell shows how this contest is provoked by the transgressive goddess Juno, who challenges Vergil for the soul of his hero and poem. Her goal is to transform the poem into an Iliad of continuous Trojan persecution instead of an Odyssey of successful homecoming. Farrell discusses how ancient critics considered the flexible Odysseus the model of a good leader but censured the hero of the Iliad, the intransigent Achilles, as a bad one. He describes how the battle over which kind of leader Aeneas will prove to be continues throughout the poem, and explores how this struggle reflects in very different ways on the ethical legitimacy of Rome's emperor, Caesar Augustus. By reframing the Aeneid in this way, Farrell demonstrates how the purpose of the poem is to confront the reader with an urgent decision between incompatible possibilities and provoke uncertainty about whether the poem is a celebration of Augustus or a melancholy reflection on the discontents of a troubled age.

What does it mean to live a good life or a happy life, and what part does reason play in the quest for fulfillment? Proceeding by means of a close and thematically selective commentary on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, this book offers a novel interpretation of Aristotle's teachings on the relation between reason and moral virtue. Pangle shows how Aristotle's arguments for virtue as the core of happiness and for reason as the guide to virtue emerge in dialectical response to Socrates's paradoxical claim that virtue is knowledge and vice is ignorance, and as part of a politically complex project of giving guidance to lawgivers and ordinary citizens while offering spurs to deep theoretical reflection. Against Socrates, Aristotle insists that both virtue and vice are voluntary and that individuals are responsible for their characters, a stance that lends itself to vigorous defense of moral responsibility. At the same time, Pangle shows, Aristotle elucidates the importance of unchosen concerns in shaping all that we do and the presence of some form of ignorance or subtle confusions in all moral failings. Thus the gap between his position and that of Socrates comes on close inspection to be much smaller than first appears, and his true teaching on the role of reason in shaping moral existence far more complex. The book offers fresh interpretations of Aristotle's teaching on the relation of passions to judgments, on what it means to choose virtue for its own sake, on the way reason finds the mean, especially in justice, and on the crucial intellectual virtue of phronesis or active wisdom and its relation to theoretical wisdom. Offering answers to longstanding debates over the status of reason and the meaning of happiness in the Nicomachean Ethics, this book will kindle in readers a new appreciation for Aristotle's lessons on how to make the most out of life, as individuals and in society.

This new edition of Hellenistic Philosophy --including nearly 100 pages of additional materia--offers the first English translation of the account of Stoic ethics by Arius Didymus, substantial new sources on Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Scepticism, expanded representation of Plutarch and Cicero, and a fuller presentation of papyrological evidence. Inwood and Gerson maintain the standard of consistency and accuracy that distinguished their translations in the first edition, while regrouping some material into larger, more thematically connected passages. This edition is further enhanced by a new, more spacious page design.

This book offers new translations of Aristotle's Politics 5 and 6, accompanied by an introduction and commentary, targeted at historians and those who like to read political science in the context in which it was produced. Philosophical analysis remains essential and there is no intention to detract from the books as political theory, but the focus of this volume is the text as a crucial element in the discourse of fourth-century Greece, and the conflict throughout the Greek world between democracy, oligarchy, and the rise of the Macedonian monarchy.

This volume of essays brings together scholars of ancient philosophy and some of today's most distinguished moral philosophers to discuss Aristotle's ethics and the problems of moral realism. One of the central and perennial philosophical problems is the question of whether our ethical assertions and beliefs can be justifiably claimed to rest on some objective foundation. As an upholder of the objectivity of ethics and as one of the most important ethical thinkers in the history of philosophy, Aristotle's writings on these questions are of the greatest interest. Indeed, much of recent moral philosophy has looked directly to Aristotle for inspiration on the problem of moral objectivity. For example, "virtue theorists" were influenced by Aristotle in their proposal that what determines the right thing to do in a particular case is what the virtuous man would do. Similarly, "sensibility theorists" have found support for their view in Aristotle's remarks about the importance of the conditioning of one's desires for the development of virtue and knowledge about the human good.

Philostratus is one of the greatest examples of the vitality and inventiveness of the Greek culture of his period, at once a one-man summation of contemporary tastes and interests and a strikingly individual re-inventor of the traditions in which he was steeped. This Roman-era engagement with the already classical past set important precedents for later understandings of classical art, literature and culture. This volume examines the ways in which the labyrinthine Corpus Philostrateum represents and interrogates the nature of interpretation and the interpreting subject. Taking 'interpretation' broadly as the production of meaning from objects that are considered to bear some less than obvious significance, it examines the very different interpreter figures presented: Apollonius of Tyana as interpreter of omens, dreams and art-works; an unnamed Vinetender and the dead Protesilaus as interpreters of heroes; and the sophist who emotively describes a gallery full of paintings, depicting in the process both the techniques of educated viewing and the various errors and illusions into which a viewer can fall.

The main aim of this book is to reconstruct a philosophical context for the Hieroglyphica of Horapollo, a late 5th century Greek study of hieroglyphic writing. In addition to reviewing and drawing on earlier approaches it explores the range of signs and meanings for which Horapollo is interested in giving explanations, whether there are characteristic types of explanations given, what conception of language in general and of hieroglyphic Egyptian in particular the explanations of the meanings of the glyphs presuppose, and what explicit indications there are of having been informed or influenced by philosophical theories of meaning, signs, and interpretation.

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves-and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives-and destroyed them. Now, Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization, and helped make us who we are. Penguin's Great Ideas series features twelve groundbreaking works by some of history's most prodigious thinkers, and each volume is beautifully packaged with a unique type-drive design that highlights the bookmaker's art. Offering great literature in great packages at great prices, this series is ideal for those readers who want to explore and savor the Great Ideas that have shaped the world. The Stoic writings of the philosopher Seneca, who lived from c. 5 BC to AD 65, offer powerful insights into the art of living, the importance of reason and morality, and continue to provide profound guidance to many through their eloquence, lucidity and timeless wisdom. This selection of Seneca's orks was taken from the Penguin Classics edition of Dialogues and Letters, translated by C.D.N. Costa, and includes the essays On the Shortness of Life, Consolation to Helvia, and On Tranquility of Mind.

Aristotle's Idea of the Soul considers the nature of the soul within Aristotle's psychology and natural philosophy. A survey is provided of the contemporary interpretations of Aristotle's idea of the soul, which are prominent in the Aristotelian scholarship within the analytic tradition. These interpretations are divided into two positions: `attributivism', which considers the soul to be a property; and `substantialism', which considers it to be a thing. Taxonomies are developed for attributivism and substantialism, and the cases for each of them are considered. It is concluded that neither position may be maintained without compromise, since Aristotle ascribes to the soul features that belong exclusively to a thing and exclusively to a property. Aristotle treats the soul as a `property-thing', as a cross between a thing and a property. It is argued that Aristotle comes by this idea of the soul because his hylomorphism casts the soul as a property and his causal doctrine presents it as a causal agent and thereby as a thing.

Aristotle's modal syllogistic has been an object of study ever since the time of Theophrastus; but these studies (apart from an intense flowering in the Middle Ages) have been somewhat desultory. Remarkably, in the 1990s several new lines of research have appeared, with series of original publications by Fred Johnson, Richard Patterson and Ulrich Nortmann. Johnson presented for the first time a formal semantics adequate to a de re reading of the apodeictic syllogistic; this was based on a simple intuition linking the modal syllogistic to Aristotelian metaphysics. Nortmann developed an ingenious de dicto analysis. Patterson articulated the links (both theoretical and genetic) between the modal syllogistic and the metaphysics, using an analysis which strictly speaking is neither de re nor de dicto. My own studies in this field date from 1976, when my colleague Peter Roeper and I jointly wrote a paper "Aristotle's apodeictic syllogisms" for the XXIInd History of Logic Conference in Krakow. This paper contained the disjunctive reading of particular affirmative apodeictic propositions, which I still favour. Nonetheless, I did not consider that paper's results decisive or comprehensive enough to publish, and my 1981 book The Syllogism contained no treatment of the modal syllogism. The paper's ideas lay dormant till 1989, when I read Johnson's and Patterson's initial articles. I began publishing on the topic in 1991. Gradually my thoughts acquired a certain comprehensiveness and systematicity, till in 1993 I was able to take a semester's sabbatical to write up a draft of this book.

This book, which honours the career of a distinguished scholar, contains essays dealing with important problems in Plato, the Platonic tradition, and the texts and transmission of Plato and later Platonic writers. It ranges from the discussion of issues in individual Platonic dialogues to the examination of Platonism in the Middle Ages. The essays are written by leading scholars in the field and reflect the current state of knowledge on the various problems under discussion. The collection as a whole testifies to the importance of the Platonic writings for the history of ideas, and to the vitality that the study of these writings continues to possess.

Nearly two thousand years ago a physician named Galen of Pergamon suggested that much of the variation in human behavior could be explained by an individual's temperament. Since that time, inborn dispositions have fallen in and out of favor. Based on fifteen years of research, Galen's Prophecy now provides fresh insights into these complex questions, offering startling new evidence to support Galen's ancient classification of melancholic and sanguine adults. Integrating evidence and ideas from biology, philosophy, and psychology, Jerome Kagan examines the implications of the idea of temperament for aggressive behavior, conscience, psychopathology, and the degree to which each of us can be expected to control our deepest emotions.

In this personal and practical guide to moral self-improvement and living a good life, the second-century philosopher Epictetus tackles questions of freedom and imprisonment, stubbornness and fear, family, friendship and love, and leaves an intriguing document of daily life in the classical world. GREAT IDEAS. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.

The Politics is one of the most influential texts in the history of political thought, and it raises issues which still confront anyone who wants to think seriously about the ways in which human societies are organized and governed. The work of one of the world's greatest philosophers, it draws on Aristotle's own great knowledge of the political and constitutional affairs of the Greek cities. By examining the way societies are run - from households to city states - Aristotle establishes how successful constitutions can best be initiated and upheld. For this edition Sir Ernest Barker's fine translation, which has been widely used for nearly half a century, has been extensively revised to meet the needs of the modern reader. The accessible introduction and clear notes by R F Stalley examine the historical and philosophical background of the work and discuss its significance for modern political thought. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Agora, Academy, and the Conduct of Philosophy offers extremely careful and detailed criticisms of some of the most important assumptions scholars have brought to bear in beginning the process of (Platonic) interpretation. It goes on to offer a new way to group the dialogues, based on important facts in the lives and philosophical practices of Socrates - the main speaker in most of Plato's dialogues - and of Plato himself. Both sides of Debra Nails's arguments deserve close attention: the negative side, which exposes a great deal of diversity in a field that often claims to have achieved a consensus; and the positive side, which insists that we must attend to what we know of these philosophers' lives and practices, if we are to make a serious attempt to understand why Plato wrote the way he did, and why his writings seem to depict different philosophies and even different approaches to philosophizing. From the Preface by Nicholas D. Smith.

St Augustine on the human condition, justice, the State, slavery, private property and war: essential sourcebook for historians of late classical and medieval thought. The political and social ideas of St Augustine of Hippo are of central importance to the historian of late classical and medieval political thought: Augustine offers a penetrating critique of the moral and political claims of imperial Rome, and he is one of the founders of the Christian political thought of the middle ages. But the student's task is made difficult by the fact that Augustine did not write a single, systematic political treatise. His political remarks are always incidental to his theological and pastoral concerns; they occur in many different contexts; they have to be dissected out from a great variety of works. In this volume, Dr Dyson brings together an extensive selection of primary sources and provides a detailed commentary on them. The result is a full and wide-ranging narrative account of St Augustine's thinking on the human condition, justice, the State, slavery, private property and war. This comprehensive sourcebook will be of value to students of St Augustine at all levels.Dr R W DYSON lectures in the department of politics, University of Durham.