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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.
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.
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.
Augustine, probably the single thinker who did the most to
Christianize the classical learning of ancient Greece and Rome,
exerted a remarkable influence on medieval and modern thought, and
he speaks forcefully and directly to twentieth-century readers as
well. The most widely read of his writings today are, no doubt, his
"Confessions"--the first significant autobiography in world
literature--and "The City of God," The preoccupations of those two
works, like those of Augustine's less well-known writings, include
self-examination, human motivation, dreams, skepticism, language,
time, war, and history--topics that still fascinate and perplex us
1,600 years later.
"The Augustinian Tradition," like a number of recent
single-authored books, expresses a new interest among contemporary
philosophers in interpreting Augustine freshly for readers today.
These articles, most of them written expressly for the book,
present Augustine's ideas in a way that respects their historical
context and the long history of their influence. Yet the authors,
among whom are some of the best philosophers writing in English
today, make clear the relevance of Augustine's ideas to present-day
debates in philosophy, literary studies, and the history of ideas
and religion. Students and scholars will find that these essays
provide impressive evidence of the persisting vitality of
Augustine's thought.
Ammonius, who taught most of the leading sixth-century
Neoplatonists, introduced the methods of his own teacher, Proclus,
from Athens to Alexandria. These are exemplified in his
commentaries: for instance, in the set of ten introductory
questions prefixed to this commentary, which became standard. The
commentary is interesting for the light it sheds on the religious
situation in Alexandria. It used to be said that the Alexandrian
Neoplatonist school was allowed to remain open after the Athenian
school closed because Ammonius has agreed with the Christian
authorities to keep quiet about his religious views. On the
contrary, as this commentary shows he freely declared his belief in
the Neoplatonist deities. The philosophical problems considered by
Ammonius offer a unique insight into Aristotle's Categories. They
exercise the mind and deepen understanding of the subject matter.
Modern readers would do well to put the same questions to
themselves.
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Augustine's Confessions (Hardcover)
William E. Mann; Contributions by Paul Bloom, Gareth B. Matthews, Scott MacDonald, Nicholas Wolterstorff, …
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R4,253
Discovery Miles 42 530
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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Unique in all of literature, the Confessions combines frank and
profound psychological insight into Augustine's formative years
along with sophisticated and beguiling reflections on some of the
most important issues in philosophy and theology. The Confessions
discloses Augustine's views about the nature of infancy and the
acquisition of language, his own sinful adolescence, his early
struggle with the problem of evil, his conversion to Christianity,
his puzzlement about the capacities of human memory and the nature
of time, and his views about creation and biblical interpretation.
The essays contained in this volume, by some of the most
distinguished recent and contemporary thinkers in the field,
insightfully explore these Augustinian themes not only with an eye
to historical accuracy but also to gauge the philosophical acumen
of Augustine's reflections.
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Augustine's Confessions (Paperback)
William E. Mann; Contributions by Paul Bloom, Gareth B. Matthews, Scott MacDonald, Nicholas Wolterstorff, …
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R1,667
Discovery Miles 16 670
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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Unique in all of literature, the Confessions combines frank and
profound psychological insight into Augustine's formative years
along with sophisticated and beguiling reflections on some of the
most important issues in philosophy and theology. The Confessions
discloses Augustine's views about the nature of infancy and the
acquisition of language, his own sinful adolescence, his early
struggle with the problem of evil, his conversion to Christianity,
his puzzlement about the capacities of human memory and the nature
of time, and his views about creation and biblical interpretation.
The essays contained in this volume, by some of the most
distinguished recent and contemporary thinkers in the field,
insightfully explore these Augustinian themes not only with an eye
to historical accuracy but also to gauge the philosophical acumen
of Augustine's reflections.
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.
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