Plato's thinking on courage, manliness and heroism is both profound and central to his work, but these areas of his thought remain underexplored. This book examines his developing critique of the notions and embodiments of manliness prevalent in his culture (particularly those in Homer), and his attempt to redefine such notions in accordance with his ethical, psychological and metaphysical principles. It further seeks to locate the discussion within the framework of Plato's general approach to ethics.

Plato's thinking on courage, manliness and heroism is both profound and central to his work, but these areas of his thought remain under-explored. This book examines his developing critique of both the notions and embodiments of manliness prevalent in his culture (particularly those in Homer), and his attempt to redefine them in accordance with his own ethical, psychological and metaphysical principles. It further seeks to locate the discussion within the framework of his general approach to ethics, an approach which focuses on concepts of flourishing and virtue, rather than on consequences or duty. The question of why courage is necessary in the flourishing life in its turn leads to Plato's bid to unify the noble and the beneficial and the tensions this unification creates between human and divine ideals. The issue of manliness also raises problems of gender: does Plato conceive of the ethical subject as human or male?

There's a tropical paradise in the middle of the Meridian Sea that sits quarantined from the rest of the modern world. Ankira is an island devastated, with villages that resemble ghost towns and natives who are soon to become as extinct as the dinosaurs. A black magic sorceress from a rival island has cursed every Ankiran child. Under the curse, at the precise moment Ankiran youth reach the age of twenty, they undergo a gruesome, physical transformation into beasts that roam free and terrorize the land.

Like every other child he's known, nineteen-year-old Raphael Solomon has spent his short life coming to terms with his own inevitable transformation. With his twentieth birthday just hours away, however, an uncovered secret rocks the entire island and leaves Raphael in a state he never imagined - alive on the other side of twenty. Raphael's salvation incites the entire island to wonder, have Ankira's children escaped a decades old curse?

An unexpected outcome sends Raphael right back into turmoil and places the future of the island teetering on his inexperienced shoulders. Allies turn into foes who challenge Raphael's skill and courage in the face of danger. Ankira's dark past thrusts Raphael on a path that leads him through betrayal, a shocking discovery, and right into the fatal clutches of the beasts.

"Isle of Beasts" thrills in this fast paced journey that stretches the imagination and questions our own will to survive under pressure. A visit to paradise has never been so intense.

In his "Symposium," Plato crafted a set of speeches in praise of love that has influenced writers and artists from antiquity to the present. Early Christian writers read the dialogue's 'ascent passage' as a vision of the soul's journey to heaven. Ficino's commentary on the "Symposium" inspired poets and artists throughout Renaissance Europe and introduced 'a Platonic love' into common speech. Themes or images from the dialogue have appeared in paintings or sketches by Rubens, David, Feuerbach, and La Farge, as well as in musical compositions by Satie and Bernstein. The dialogue's view of love as 'desire for eternal possession of the good' is still of enormous philosophical interest in its own right. Nevertheless, questions remain concerning the meaning of specific features, the significance of the dialogue as a whole, and the character of its influence. This volume brings together an international team of scholars to address such questions.