Method and Metaphysics presents twenty-six essays in ancient philosophy by Jonathan Barnes, one of the most admired and influential scholars of his generation. The essays span four decades of his career, and are drawn from a wide variety of sources: many of them will be relatively unknown even to specialists in ancient philosophy. Several essays are now translated from the original French and made available in English for the first time; others have been substantially revised for republication here.
The volume opens with eight essays about the interpretation of ancient philosophical texts, and about the relationship between philosophy and its history. The next five essays examine the methods of ancient philosophers. The third section comprises thirteen essays about metaphysical topics, from the Presocratics to the late Platonists. This collection will be a rich feast for students and scholars of ancient philosophy.

Method and Metaphysics presents twenty-six essays in ancient philosophy by Jonathan Barnes, one of the most admired and influential scholars of his generation. The essays span four decades of his career, and are drawn from a wide variety of sources: many of them will be relatively unknown even to specialists in ancient philosophy. Several essays are now translated from the original French and made available in English for the first time; others have been substantially revised for republication. The volume opens with eight essays about the interpretation of ancient philosophical texts, and about the relationship between philosophy and its history. The next five essays examine the methods of ancient philosophers. The third section comprises thirteen essays about metaphysical topics, from the Presocratics to the late Platonists. This collection will be a rich feast for students and scholars of ancient philosophy.

Proof, Knowledge, and Scepticism is the third volume of Jonathan Barnes' papers on ancient philosophy. It contains twenty-two pieces which turn about epistemological matters. The papers have all been brushed down, and some of them have been revised. One or two of them appear for the first time in English. The first three pieces form a prologue (and link this volume to its predecessor): they deal with certain ancient views about the relation between logic on the one hand and knowledge and science on the other. After that, the book divides into two unequal parts. The first part is concerned with proof, five of its ten chapters discussing Aristotle and three. The second is chiefly occupied with scepticism-more particularly, with the Pyrrhonian version of ancient scepticism. A final piece says something about the Book of Ecclesiastes. The essays in this volume, some of which are less familiar than others, are written with brio: anyone with an interest in ancient philosophy will find them amusing.

The second volume of Jonathan Barnes' papers on ancient philosophy contains twenty-seven pieces under the broad heading of Logic. The essays were written over a period of some forty years. Some of them were published in obscure places (and two or three of them in a foreign language). The French essays have been done into English; and all the essays have been retouched, and a few of them substantially revised.
The first three essays in the volume are of a general nature, being concerned with ancient views on the status of logic--and with the distinction between formal and material inferences. The next nine items deal with different aspects of Aristotelian logic--the copula, negation, the categories, homonymy, and the principle of contradiction. Then come three papers about the connection (or lack of connection) between Aristotelian logic and Stoic logic. Two of the pieces discuss Theophrastus' theory of 'hypothetical' syllogisms. After that, things run more or less chronologically--a short notice on the Dialecticians, three essays on aspects of Stoic logic, a pair of papers on ancient theories of meaning, items on adverbs and connectors, on Philoponus and Boethius, and on an anonymous tract written in the autumn of 1007 AD. All in all, there is matter to divert scholars and students of ancient philosophy.

This is the fourth (and last) volume of Jonathan Barnes' collected essays on ancient philosophy. As its title suggests, the twenty-three papers which it contains cover a wide range of topics. The first paper discusses the size of the sun, and the last looks at Plato and Aristotle in Victorian Oxford. In between come pieces on-inter alia-the theory of just war and the definition of comedy, the nature of the soul according to Plato and Aristotle and Zeno and Tertullian, atheism of Protagoras, Timaeus the Sophist (and his Platonic Lexicon) and the early history of Aristotle's writings, Nietzsche on Diogenes Laertius, the first Christian novel ... One of the pieces is new. The others have all been retouched, and some of them revised. Half a dozen were written in French and have been translated into English. The volume is kitted out with a bibliography and with two rather good indexes. The papers are, in parts at least, well written, and some of them are mildly diverting: no-one with a nose for ancient philosophy will sniff at them.

English summary: Although Aristotle never used the term "metaphysics," the primary link between philosophy and physics is a central issue of his philosophy, which has largely determined the history of Western metaphysics. The contributions all study questions related to this link. French text. French description: La metaphysique se definit etymologiquement comme ce qui est au-dela de la physique. Bien qu'Aristote n'ait jamais fait usage du terme metaphysique, le lien entre la philosophie premiere et la physique est une question centrale de sa philosophie, qui a largement determine l'histoire de la metaphysique occidentale. Aristote, a plusieurs reprises, affirme que si seuls les etres naturels existaient, la physique serait la premiere sagesse, mais ajoute que, comme il y des etres au-dela de ceux-ci, c'est la science qui les a pour objets qui est premiere. Pourtant, on constate que certains objets relevent a la fois de la physique et de la metaphysique: l'ame, le premier moteur . Comment ces objets peuvent-ils appartenir a deux sciences differentes? Comment la metaphysique est-elle et peut-elle etre a la fois science de l'etre en tant qu'etre (ce qu'on appellera plus tard l'ontologie), science de la substance, theologie, ou encore science des principes et des premieres causes? Quel rapport ces differentes conceptions de la metaphysique entretiennent-elles avec la physique? Quel est le contenu de la metaphysique? Comment determiner son statut par rapport a la physique? Telles sont les questions que l'on trouvera traitees dans les etudes reunies ici, qui ont fait l'objet, sous la direction de Jonathan Barnes, de communications et de discussions dans le cadre du seminaire 2005-2007 du Centre de recherches sur la Pensee Antique (Centre Leon Robin)