Addressing Merleau-Ponty's work Phenomenology of Perception, in dialogue with The Visible and the Invisible, his lectures at the College de France, and his reading of Proust, this book argues that at play in his thought is a philosophy of "ontological lateness". This describes the manner in which philosophical reflection is fated to lag behind its objects; therefore an absolute grasp on being remains beyond its reach. Merleau-Ponty articulates this philosophy against the backdrop of what he calls "cruel thought", a style of reflecting that seeks resolution by limiting, circumscribing, and arresting its object. By contrast, the philosophy of ontological lateness seeks no such finality-no apocalypsis or unveiling-but is characterized by its ability to accept the veiling of being and its own constitutive lack of punctuality. To this extent, his thinking inaugurates a new relation to the becoming of sense that overcomes cruel thought. Merleau-Ponty's work gives voice to a wisdom of dispossession that allows for the withdrawal of being. Never before has anyone engaged with the theme of Merleau-Ponty's own understanding of philosophy in such a sustained way as Whitmoyer does in this volume.

Philoponus' commentary on the last part of Aristotle's Physics Book 4 does not offer major alternatives to Aristotle's science, as did his commentary on the earlier parts, concerning place, vacuum and motion in a vacuum. Aristotle's subject here is time, and his treatment of it had led to controversy in earlier writers. Philoponus does offer novelties when he treats motion round a bend as in one sense faster than motion on the straight over the same distance in the same time, because of the need to consider the greater effort involved. And he points out that in an earlier commentary on Book 8 he had argued against Aristotle for the possibility of a last instant of time.This book is in the prestigious series, The Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, which translates the works of the ancient commentators into English for the first time.

Marx's early work is well known and widely available, but it usually interpreted as at best a kind of stepping-stone to the Marx of Capital. This book offers something completely different; it reconstructs, from his first writings spanning from 1835 to 1846, a coherent and well-rounded political philosophy. The influence of Engels upon the development of that philosophy is discussed. This, it is argued, was a philosophy that Marx could have presented had he put the ideas together, as he hinted was his eventual intention. Had he done so, this first Marx would have made an even greater contribution to social and political philosophy than is generally acknowledged today. Arguments regarding revolutionary change, contradiction and other topics such as production, alienation and emancipation contribute to a powerful analysis in the early works of Marx, one which is worthy of discussion on its own merits. This analysis is distributed among a range of books, papers, letters and other writings, and is gathered here for the first time. Marx's work of the period was driven by his commitment to emancipation. Moreover, as is discussed in the conclusion to this book, his emancipatory philosophy continues to have resonance today. This new book presents Marx in a unique, new light and will be indispensable reading for all studying and following his work.

In the Platonic work "Alcibiades I," a divinely guided Socrates adopts the guise of a lover in order to divert Alcibiades from an unthinking political career. The contributors to this carefully focussed volume cover aspects of the background to the work; its arguments and the philosophical issues it raises; its relationship to other Platonic texts, and its subsequent history up to the time of the Neoplatonists. Despite its ancient prominence, the authorship of "Alcibiades I" is still unsettled; the essays and two appendices, one historical and one stylometric, come together to suggest answers to this tantalising question.