This book is part of a series covering surgical specialties. The volumes are multi-authored, containing brief chapters, each of which are devoted to one or two specific questions or decisions within that specialty that are difficult or controversial. The volumes are intended as a current and timely reference source for practicing surgeons, surgeons in training, and educators that describe the recommended ideal approach, rather than customary care, in selected clinical situations.

The Socratic method of questioning and refutation (elenchus) predominates the early Platonic dialogues. But things change in the middle dialogues, as Socrates goes beyond merely asking questions and begins to provide answers to his questions. And the method virtually disappears in the late dialogues. The standard explanation of this phenomenon is that the early dialogues were intended to commemorate Socrates and the elenchus, while in the middle and late dialogues Plato went beyond Socrates to present his own mature philosophical thought. In this book, Matthews revises this explanation by uncovering the shortcomings that Plato came to find in the Socratic method and the reasons why Plato lost interest in it.

An appropriate motto for Augustine's great work On the Trinity is 'faith in search of understanding'. In this treatise Augustine offers a part-theological, part-philosophical account of how God might be understood in analogy to the human mind. On the Trinity can be fairly described as the first modern philosophy of mind: it is the first work in philosophy to recognize the 'problem of other minds', and the first to offer the 'argument from analogy' as a response to that problem. Other subjects that it discusses include the nature of the mind and the nature of the body, the doctrine of 'illumination', and thinking as inner speech. This volume presents the philosophical section of the work, and in a historical and philosophical introduction Gareth Matthews places Augustine's arguments in context and assesses their influence on later thinkers.

An appropriate motto for Augustine's great work On the Trinity is 'faith in search of understanding'. In this treatise Augustine offers a part-theological, part-philosophical account of how God might be understood in analogy to the human mind. On the Trinity can be fairly described as the first modern philosophy of mind: it is the first work in philosophy to recognize the 'problem of other minds', and the first to offer the 'argument from analogy' as a response to that problem. Other subjects that it discusses include the nature of the mind and the nature of the body, the doctrine of 'illumination', and thinking as inner speech. This volume presents the philosophical section of the work, and in a historical and philosophical introduction Gareth Matthews places Augustine's arguments in context and assesses their influence on later thinkers.

A collection of essays examining how philosophers in the Western tradition have viewed and written about children through the ages. The Philospoher's Child is an edited collection of 9 contemporary essays (7 new works, 2 revised from previously published work), each of which examines the views of a different philosopher (Socrates, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Kant, Mill, Wittgenstein, Rawls, and Firestone) on the topic of children. Each of the contributors to this groundbreaking volume is a specialist in the area of the philosopher he or she considers and offers to the reader both the opportunity to review the thoughts of these important thinkers on a subject that is fast becoming an issue of great urgency and the chance to those thoughts in a critical context.

Gareth Matthews suggests that we can better understand the nature of philosophical inquiry if we recognize the central role played by perplexity. The seminal representation of philosophical perplexity is in Plato's dialogues; Matthews invites us to view this as a response to something inherently problematic in the basic notions that philosophy deals with. He examines the intriguing shifts in Plato's attitude to perplexity and suggests that this development may be seen as an archetypal pattern that philosophers follow even today. So it is that one may be won over to philosophy in the first place by the example of a Socratic teacher who displays an uncanny gift at getting one perplexed about something one thought one understood perfectly well. Later, however, wanting like Plato to move beyond perplexity to produce philosophical 'results', one may be chagrined to discover that one's very best attempt to develop a philosophical theory induces its own perplexity. Then, like late Plato and like Aristotle, the philosopher may seek to 'normalize' perplexity in a way that both allows for progress and yet respects the peculiarly baffling character of philosophical questions.

Gareth Matthews suggests that we can better understand the nature of philosophical inquiry if we recognize the central role played by perplexity. The seminal representation of philosophical perplexity is in Plato's dialogues; Matthews examines the intriguing shifts in Plato's attitude to perplexity and suggests that these may represent a course of philosophical development that philosophers follow even today.

This book is part of a series covering surgical specialties. The volumes are multi-authored, containing brief chapters, each of which are devoted to one or two specific questions or decisions within that specialty that are difficult or controversial. The volumes are intended as a current and timely reference source for practicing surgeons, surgeons in training, and educators that describe the recommended ideal approach, rather than customary care, in selected clinical situations.

Twice Told Tales are not only for the young. Many have discovered the "magnificent, colorful, many-sided, fantasy world of fairy tales" as children, but, as Hans Dieckmann points out, we can rediscover their value as adults. "As with all great art, the fairy tale's deepest meaning will be different for each person, and different for the same person at various moments in his life." (Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment) By the use of case histories, Dr. Dieckmann recounts ways in which "the greatest treasures of the soul" can be revealed in fairy tales. He graphically shows how fairy tales can give "color and vivacity to a life grown empty, sterile, and desolate." Dr. Dieckmann interprets the symbolic significance of many individual fairy tales and relates their meaning to various stages of a person's development.

This volume explores the relationship between rationality and happiness from ancient Greek philosophy to early Latin medieval philosophy. What connection is there between human rationality and happiness? This issue was uppermost in the minds of the Ancient Greek philosophers and continued to be of importance during the entire early medieval period. Starting with theSocrates of Plato's early dialogues, who is regarded as having initiated the eudaimonistic ethical tradition, the present volume looks at Plato, Aristotle, the Skeptics, Seneca [Stoicism], Epicurus, Plotinus [neo-Platonism], Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, and ends with Abelard, the final major figure in early medieval philosophy. Special efforts are made to reveal and trace the continuity and development of the views on rationality and happiness among these major thinkers within this period. The book's approach is historical, but the topics it treats are relevant to many discussions pursued in contemporary philosophical circles. Specifically, the book aims to make two major contributions to the ongoing development of virtue ethics. First, contemporary virtue ethics often draws distinctions between ancient Greek ethics and modern moral philosophy [mainly utilitarianism and Kantianism], and seeks to model ethics on ancient ethics. In doing so, however, contemporary virtue ethics often ignores the transition from Greek ethics to the early Latin medieval tradition. Second, contemporary virtue-based ethics, in its efforts to seek insights from ancient ethics, centers on virtue. In contrast, in ancient and medieval ethics, virtue is pursued for the sake of happiness [eudaimonia], and virtue is conceived as excellence of rationality. Hence, the relationship between rationality and happiness provides the framework for ethical inquiry within which the discussion of virtue takes place. Contributors: JULIA ANNAS, RICHARD BETT, JORGE J.E. GRACIA, BRAD INWOOD, WILLIAM MANN,JOHN MARENBON, GARETH B. MATTHEWS, MARK L. McPHERRAN, DONALD MORRISON, C.C.W. TAYLOR, JONATHAN SANFORD, JIYUAN YU. Jiyuan Yu is Assistant Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Jorge J. E. Gracia is Samuel P. Capen Chair and SUNY Distinguised Professor in the Departments of Philosophy and Comparative Literature at the State University of New York at Buffalo.