Robin George Collingwood (1889-1943) was one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century, with his work spanning theory of knowledge, metaphysics, philosophy of art, philosophy of history, and social and political philosophy. The full range and reach of Collingwood's philosophical thought is covered by Peter Skagestad in this study. Following Collingwood's education and his Oxford career, Skagestad considers his relationship with prominent Italian philosophers Croce and De Ruggiero and the British idealists. Taking Collingwood's publications in order, he explains under what circumstances they were produced and the reception of his work by his contemporaries and by posterity, from Religion and Philosophy (1916) and Speculum Mentis (1923) to the posthumously published The Idea of History (1946). Featuring full coverage of Collingwood's philosophy of art, Skagestad also considers his argument, in response to A. J. Ayer, that metaphysics is the historical study of absolute presuppositions. Most importantly, Skagestad reveals how relevant Collingwood is today, through his concept of barbarism as a perceptive diagnosis of totalitarianism and his prescient warning of the rise of populism in the 21st century.

This book compiles James L. Cox's most important writings on a phenomenology of Indigenous Religions into one volume, with a new introduction and conclusion by the author. Cox has consistently exemplified phenomenological methods by applying them to his own field studies among Indigenous Religions, principally in Zimbabwe and Alaska, but also in Australia and New Zealand. Included in this collection are his articles in which he defines what he means by the category 'religion' and how this informs his precise meaning of the classification 'Indigenous Religions'. These theoretical considerations are always illustrated clearly and concisely by specific studies of Indigenous Religions and their dynamic interaction with contemporary political and social circumstances. This collection demonstrates the continued relevance of the phenomenological method in the study of religions by presenting the method as dynamic and adaptable to contemporary social contexts and as responsive to intellectual critiques of the method.

This collection of essays sheds new light on the relationship between two of the main drivers of intellectual discourse in ancient Greece: the epic tradition and the Sophists. The contributors show how throughout antiquity the epic tradition proved a flexible instrument to navigate new political, cultural, and philosophical contexts. The Sophists, both in the Classical and the Imperial age, continuously reconfigured the value of epic poetry according to the circumstances: using epic myths allowed the Sophists to present themselves as the heirs of traditional education, but at the same time this tradition was reshaped to encapsulate new questions that were central to the Sophists' intellectual agenda. This volume is structured chronologically, encompassing the ancient world from the Classical Age through the first two centuries AD. The first chapters, on the First Sophistic, discuss pivotal works such as Gorgias' Encomium of Helen and Apology of Palamedes, Alcidamas' Odysseus or Against the Treachery of Palamedes, and Antisthenes' pair of speeches Ajax and Odysseus, as well as a range of passages from Plato and other authors. The volume then moves on to discuss some of the major works of literature from the Second Sophistic dealing with the epic tradition. These include Lucian's Judgement of the Goddesses and Dio Chrysostom's orations 11 and 20, as well as Philostratus' Heroicus and Imagines.

This volume, edited by Lucilla Guidi and Thomas Rentsch, establishes the first systematic connection between phenomenology and performativity. On the one hand, it outlines the performativity of phenomenology by exploring its enactment and the transformation of attitude it effects; this exploration is conducted through a number of parallels between phenomenology and the ancient understanding of philosophy as an exercise and a way of life. On the other hand, the volume examines different notions of performativity from a phenomenological perspective, so as to show that a phenomenological understanding of embodied experience complements a linguistic account of performativity and can also offer a ground for bodily practices of resistance, critique, and self-transformation in our own day and age.

The Essential Berkeley and Neo-Berkeley is an introduction to the life and work of one of the most significant thinkers in the history of philosophy and a penetrating philosophical assessment of his lasting legacy. Written in clear and user-friendly style, Berman provides: * A concise summary of George Berkeley (1685-1753)'s life and writings * An accessible introduction to the structure of Berkeley's most authoritative work, The Principles of Human Knowledge * An overview of common misunderstandings of Berkeley's philosophy, and how to avoid them Beyond solely an introduction, Berman also gives us a broader and deeper appreciation of Berkeley as a philosopher. He argues for Berkeley's work as a philosophical system with coherence and important key themes hitherto unexplored and provides an analysis of why he thinks Berkeley's work has had such lasting significance. With a particular focus on Berkeley's dualist thinking and theories of 'mental types', Berman provides students and scholars with a key to unlocking the significance of this work. This introductory text will provide an insight into Berkeley's full body of work, the distinctiveness of his thinking and how deeply relevant this key thinker is to contemporary philosophy.

Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks, written between 1929 and 1935, are the work of one of the most original thinkers in twentieth century Europe. Gramsci has had a profound influence on debates about the relationship between politics and culture. His complex and fruitful approach to questions of ideology, power and change remains crucial for critical theory. This volume was the first selection published from the Notebooks to be made available in Britain, and was originally published in the early 1970s. It contains the most important of Gramsci's notebooks, including the texts of The Modern Prince, and Americanism and Fordism, and extensive notes on the state and civil society, Italian history and the role of intellectuals. 'Far the best informative apparatus available to any foreign language readership of Gramsci.' Perry Anderson, New Left Review 'A model of scholarship' New Statesman

This is the first volume exclusively devoted to the Expositio by Berthold of Moosburg (c.1295-c.1361) on Proclus' Elements of Theology. The breadth of its vision surpasses every other known commentary on the Elements of Theology, for it seeks to present a coherent account of the Platonic tradition as such (unified through the concord of Proclus and Dionysius) and at the same time to consolidate and transform a legacy of metaphysics developed in the German-speaking lands by Peripatetic authors (like Albert the Great, Ulrich of Strassburg, and Dietrich of Freiberg). This volume aims to provide a basis for further research and discussion of this unduly overlooked commentary, whose historical-philosophical importance as an attempt to refound Western metaphysics is beginning to be recognized. The publication of this volume has received the generous support of the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme through the ERC Consolidator Grant NeoplAT: A Comparative Analysis of the Middle East, Byzantium and the Latin West (9th-16th Centuries), grant agreement No 771640 (www.neoplat.eu).

Stoicism has had a diverse reception in German philosophy. This is the first interpretive study of shared themes and dialogues between late nineteenth-century and twentieth-century experts on classical antiquity and philosophers. Assessing how modern philosophers have incorporated ancient resources with the context of German philosophy, chapters in this volume are devoted to philosophical giants such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Wilhelm Dilthey, Walter Benjamin, Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Hans Jonas, Hans Blumenberg, and Peter Sloterdijk. Among the ancient Stoics, the focus is on Seneca, Epictetus, and doxography, but reference will also be made to texts that have so far been neglected by non-specialists. Often references to Stoic texts are playful, making it hard for non-specialists to reconstruct their understanding of the sources; by illuminating and enhancing the philosophical significance of these receptions, this book argues that they can change our understanding of Greek and Roman Stoic doctrines and authors, twentieth-century continental philosophy, and the themes which coordinate their ongoing dialogues. Some of these themes are surprising for Stoicism, such as the poetics of tragic drama and the anthropological foundations of hermeneutics. Others are already central to Stoic reception, such as the constitution of the subject in relation to various ethical, ecological, and metaphysical powers and processes; among these are contemplation and knowledge; identity and plurality; temporality, facticity, and fate; and personal, social, and planetary forms of self-cultivation and self-appropriation. Addressing the need for a synoptic vision of related continental readings of Stoicism, this book brings ancient texts into new dialogues with up-to-date scholarship, facilitating increased understanding, critical evaluation, and creative innovation within the continental response to Stoicism.