Reverence is an ancient virtue that survives among us in half-forgotten patterns of civility and moments of inarticulate awe. Reverence gives meaning to much that we do, yet the word has almost passed out of our vocabulary. Reverence, says philosopher and classicist Paul Woodruff, begins in an understanding of human limitations. From this grows the capacity to be in awe of whatever we believe lies outside our control - God, truth, justice, nature, even death. It is a quality of character that is especially important in leadership and in teaching, although it figures in virtually every human relationship. It transcends religious boundaries and can be found outside religion altogether. Woodruff draws on thinking about this lost virtue in ancient Greek and Chinese traditions and applies lessons from these highly reverent cultures to today's world. The book covers reverence in a variety of contexts - the arts, leadership, teaching, warfare, and the home - and shows how essential a quality it is to a well-functioning society. First published by Oxford University Press in 2001, this new edition of Reverence is revised and expanded. It contains two new chapters, one on the sacred and one on compassion, and an epilogue focused on renewing reverence in our own lives.

Meineck and Woodruff's new annotated translations of Sophocles' Ajax , Women of Trachis , Electra , and Philoctetes combine the same standards of accuracy, concision, clarity, and powerful speech that have so often made their Theban Plays a source of epiphany in the classroom and of understanding in the theatre. Woodruff's Introduction offers a brisk and stimulating discussion of central themes in Sophoclean drama, the life of the playwright, staging issues, and each of the four featured plays.

We live in a world where CEOs give themselves million dollar bonuses even as their companies go bankrupt and ordinary workers are laid off; where athletes make millions while teachers struggle to survive; a world, in short, where rewards are often unfairly meted out. In The Ajax Dilemma, Paul Woodruff examines one of today's most pressing moral issues: how to distribute rewards and public recognition without damaging the social fabric. How should we honor those whose behavior and achievement is essential to our overall success? Is it fair or right to lavish rewards on the superstar at the expense of the hardworking rank-and-file? How do we distinguish an impartial fairness from what is truly just? Woodruff builds his answer to these questions around the ancient conflict between Ajax and Odysseus over the armor of the slain warrior Achilles. King Agamemnon arranges a speech contest to decide the issue. Ajax, the loyal workhorse, loses the contest, and the priceless armor, to Odysseus, the brilliantly deceptive strategist who will lead the Greeks to victory. Deeply insulted, Ajax goes on a rampage and commits suicide, and in his rage we see the resentment of every loyal worker who has been passed over in favor of those who are more gifted, or whose skills are more highly valued. How should we deal with the "Ajax dilemma"? Woodruff argues that while we can never create a perfect system for distributing just rewards, we can recognize the essential role that wisdom, compassion, moderation, and respect must play if we are to restore the basic sense of justice on which all communities depend. This short, thoughtful book, written with Woodruff's characteristic elegance, investigates some of the most bitterly divisive issues in American today.

In giving to charity, should we strive to do the greatest good or promote a lesser good that we care more about? On such issues, ethical theory can have momentous practical effects. This volume is a unique collection of new papers on philanthropy from a range of philosophical perspectives. The authors are among the best-regarded philosophers writing on ethics today and include a number of thinkers who have not previously published on the subject. Most recently published work by philosophers on charitable giving tends to support what is called effective altruism-doing the most good you can. In practice, however, charitable giving is often local and relatively ineffective, supporting causes dear to the givers' hearts. Are ineffective givers doing wrong or merely doing less praiseworthy work than they might? This volume includes at least three challenges to the effective altruism movement, as well as two chapters that defend it against the gathering tide of objections. Most thinkers who align with utilitarianism support effective altruism, and some other perspectives do as well. But the ideal of personal integrity can push the other way. So can justice-based theories of giving: perhaps I could do the most good by stealing and giving to the poor, but that would be unjust. In the most important cases, however, justice leads to the same result as effective altruism. Other theories give different results. The authors represent include intuitionism, virtue ethics, Kantian ethics, utilitarianism, theory of justice, and the ideal of personal integrity.

Designed for students with little or no background in ancient Greek language and culture, this collection of extracts from The History of the Peloponnesian War includes those passages that shed most light on Thucydides' political theory--famous as well as important but lesser-known pieces frequently overlooked by nonspecialists. Newly translated into spare, vigorous English, and situated within a connective narrative framework, Woodruff's selections will be of special interest to instructors in political theory and Greek civilization. Includes maps, notes, glossary.

This edition of early Greek writings on social and political issues includes works by more than thirty authors, including the sophists, poets, tragedians, historians, medical writers and presocratic philosophers. Besides political theory, ancient political thought includes early sociology, anthropology, ethics and rhetoric, and the wide range of issues discussed includes the origin of human society, the origin of law, the nature of justice, the forms of good government, and the distribution of power among genders and social classes.

Oedipus presents ceaseless paradoxes that have fascinated readers for centuries. He is proud of his intellect, but he does not know himself and succumbs easily to self-deceptions. As a ruler he expresses the greatest good will toward his people, but as an exile he will do nothing to save them from their enemies. Faced with a damning prophecy, he tries to take destiny into his own hands and fails. Realizing this, he struggles at the end of his life for a serenity that seems to elude him. In his last misery, he is said to illustrate the tragic lament that it is better not to be born, or, once born, better to die young than to live into old age. Such are the themes a set of powerful thinkers take on in this volume-self-knowledge, self-deception, destiny, the value of a human life. There are depths to the Oedipus tragedies that only philosophers can plumb; readers who know the plays will be startled by what they find in this volume. There is nothing in literature to compare with the Oedipus plays of Sophocles that let us see the same basic myth through different lenses. The first play was the product of a poet in vibrant late middle age, the second of a man who was probably in his eighties, with the vision of a very old poet still at the height of his powers. In the volume's introduciton, Paul Woodruff provides historical backdrop to Sophocles and the plays, and connections to the contributions by philosophers and classicists that follow.

Oedipus presents ceaseless paradoxes that have fascinated readers for centuries. He is proud of his intellect, but he does not know himself and succumbs easily to self-deceptions. As a ruler he expresses the greatest good will toward his people, but as an exile he will do nothing to save them from their enemies. Faced with a damning prophecy, he tries to take destiny into his own hands and fails. Realizing this, he struggles at the end of his life for a serenity that seems to elude him. In his last misery, he is said to illustrate the tragic lament that it is better not to be born, or, once born, better to die young than to live into old age. Such are the themes a set of powerful thinkers take on in this volume-self-knowledge, self-deception, destiny, the value of a human life. There are depths to the Oedipus tragedies that only philosophers can plumb; readers who know the plays will be startled by what they find in this volume. There is nothing in literature to compare with the Oedipus plays of Sophocles that let us see the same basic myth through different lenses. The first play was the product of a poet in vibrant late middle age, the second of a man who was probably in his eighties, with the vision of a very old poet still at the height of his powers. In the volume's introduciton, Paul Woodruff provides historical backdrop to Sophocles and the plays, and connections to the contributions by philosophers and classicists that follow.

The four late plays of Euripides collected here, in beautifully crafted translations by Cecelia Eaton Luschnig and Paul Woodruff, offer a faithful and dynamic representation of the playwright's mature vision.

[Woodruff's translation] is clear, fluent, and vigorous, well thought out, readable and forceful. The rhythms are right, ever-present but not too insistent or obvious. It can be spoken instead of read and so is viable as an acting version; and it keeps the lines of the plot well focused. The Introduction offers a good survey of critical approaches. The notes at the foot of the page are suitably brief and nonintrusive and give basic information for the non-specialist. --Charles Segal, Harvard University

This edition of early Greek writings on social and political issues includes works by more than thirty authors, including the sophists, poets, tragedians, historians, medical writers and presocratic philosophers. Besides political theory, ancient political thought includes early sociology, anthropology, ethics and rhetoric, and the wide range of issues discussed includes the origin of human society, the origin of law, the nature of justice, the forms of good government, and the distribution of power among genders and social classes.

What is unique and essential about theater? What separates it from other arts? Do we need "theater" in some fundamental way? The art of theater, as Paul Woodruff says in this elegant and unique book, is as necessary--and as powerful--as language itself. Defining theater broadly, including sporting events and social rituals, he treats traditional theater as only one possibility in an art that--at its most powerful--can change lives and (as some peoples believe) bring a divine presence to earth.
The Necessity of Theater analyzes the unique power of theater by separating it into the twin arts of watching and being watched, practiced together in harmony by watchers and the watched. Whereas performers practice the art of being watched--making their actions worth watching, and paying attention to action, choice, plot, character, mimesis, and the sacredness of performance space--audiences practice the art of watching: paying close attention. A good audience is emotionally engaged as spectators; their engagement takes a form of empathy that can lead to a special kind of human wisdom. As Plato implied, theater cannot teach us transcendent truths, but it can teach us about ourselves.
Characteristically thoughtful, probing, and original, Paul Woodruff makes the case for theater as a unique form of expression connected to our most human instincts. The Necessity of Theater should appeal to anyone seriously interested or involved in theater or performance more broadly.

Americans have an unwavering faith in democracy and are ever eager to import it to nations around the world. But how democratic is our own "democracy"? If you can vote, if the majority rules, if you have elected representatives-does this automatically mean that you have a democracy? In this eye-opening look at an ideal that we all take for granted, classical scholar Paul Woodruff offers some surprising answers to these questions. Drawing on classical literature, philosophy, and history-with many intriguing passages from Sophocles, Aesop, and Plato, among others-Woodruff immerses us in the world of ancient Athens to uncover how the democratic impulse first came to life. The heart of the book isolates seven conditions that are the sine qua non of democracy: freedom from tyranny (including the tyranny of majority rule), harmony (the blending of different views), the rule of law, natural equality, citizen wisdom, reasoning without knowledge, and general education. He concludes that a true democracy must be willing to invite everyone to join in government. It must respect the rule of law so strongly that even the government is not above the law. True democracy must be mature enough to accept changes that come from the people. And it must be willing to pay the price of education for thoughtful citizenship. Ancient Athens didn't always live up to these ideals. Nor does modern America. If we learn anything from the story of Athens, Woodruff concludes, it should be this-never lose sight of the ideals of democracy. This compact, eloquent book illuminates these ideals and lights the way as we struggle to keep democracy alive at home and around the world.

Socrates urged his followers to commit to a lifelong activity of nurturing the moral health of the soul through self-examination. By contrast, modern philosophers who follow Aristotle in ethics have mostly taught that living well depends on having virtues or traits that are robust traits of character. But traits are not reliable in all situations, and they do not help us make hard decisions. Having a trait is no substitute for the Socratic activity we need to practice in order to live toward virtue. In Living Toward Virtue, Paul Woodruff shows how we can set about living ethically, drawing on what Socrates called Human Wisdom - a philosophy centered on the recognition of the limits of our moral knowledge. Woodruff uses this ancient set of ideas to develop a practical approach to ethics that goes beyond what Plato tells us of Socrates, in order to show how we can nurture our souls, enjoy a virtuous happiness, and avoid moral injury. Paul Woodruff's Living Toward Virtue shows how richly a Socratic approach to the moral challenges of life can reward us.

This volume brings together mostly previously unpublished studies by prominent historians, classicists, and philosophers on the roles and effects of religion in Socratic philosophy and on the trial of Socrates. Among the contributors are Thomas C. Brickhouse, Asli Gocer, Richard Kraut, Mark L. McPherran, Robert C. T. Parker, C. D. C. Reeve, Nicholas D. Smith, Gregory Vlastos, Stephen A. White, and Paul B. Woodruff.

This volume offers the fruits of Peter Meineck and Paul Woodruff's dynamic collaboration on the plays of Sophocles' Theban cycle, presenting the translators' Oedipus Tyrannus (2000) along with Woodruff's Antigone (2001) and a muscular new Oedipus at Colonus by Meineck. Grippingly readable, all three translations combine fidelity to the Greek with concision, clarity, and powerful, hard-edged speech. Each play features foot-of-the-page notes, stage directions, and line numbers to the Greek. Woodruff's Introduction discusses the playwright, Athenian theatre and performance, the composition of the plays, and the plots and characters of each; it also offers thoughtful reflections on major critical interpretations of these plays.

Few topics are more ubiquitous in everyday life and, at the same time, more controversial in practice, than that of one's moral obligation to loyalty. Featuring essays by scholars working in a variety of subjects from law to psychology, Loyalty presents diverse perspectives on dilemmas posed by potential conflicts between loyalties to specific institutions or professional roles and more universalistic conceptions of moral duty. The volume begins with a philosophical exploration of theories of loyalty, both Eastern and Western, then moves to examine several problematic situations in which loyalty is often a factor: partisan politics, the armed forces, and lawyer-client relationships. A fair and balanced analysis from a wide range of disciplinary and normative viewpoints, Loyalty infuses new life into an oft-tread avenue of scholarly inquiry. Contributors: Ryan K. Balot, Paul O. Carrese, Yasmin Dawood, Bernard Gert, Kathleen M. Higgins, Sanford Levinson, Daniel Markovits, Lynn Mather, Russell Muirhead, Nancy Sherman, Paul Woodruff

Thucydides was the first ancient Greek historian to double as a social scientist. He set out to understand human events entirely in human terms, without recourse to myth. He sought to know why people go to war and how they are affected by its violence. He studied the civil war in Corcyra, which began when radicals burst into the council house and killed leaders who favored democracy. The strengths and weaknesses of democracy are a major theme of his History . Its larger story shows how the Athenians tried to expand their empire too far and came to a crushing defeat. Here are vivid stories of land and sea battles, interspersed with fascinating and disturbing debates about war and policy. All of Thucydides's History is here, either in summary or translation, in a volume short enough for a wide readership. This Second Edition is expanded to include all the important debates and battle scenes, and the entire translation has been revised in accord with the latest scholarship. The Essential Thucydides (Hackett, fall 2021) is the second edition of Paul Woodruff's On Justice, Power, and Human Nature: Selections from The History of the Peloponnesian War (first published by Hackett Publishing Company in 1993, paperback ISBN 978-0-87220-168-2, cloth ISBN 978-0-87220-169-9).

The Garden of Leaders explores two related questions: What is leadership? And what sort of education could prepare young people to be leaders? Paul Woodruff argues that higher education-particularly but not exclusively in the liberal arts-should set its main focus on cultivating leadership in students. Woodruff advances a new view of liberal arts education that places leadership at the root of everything it does, so that students will be prepared to lead in their lives and careers-and not necessarily in management roles. Woodruff views the contemporary university as sorely lacking an emphasis on leadership, and presents three core sets of recommendations for how they can and should foster it. First, Woodruff posits co-curricular groups, activities, and projects as essential activities for students to gain confidence and leadership skills. Administrations should encourage students to engage in activities outside the classroom, convert coached sports teams into student-led clubs as far as possible, and discourage social organizations that are segregated by race or sex. Second, Woodruff advocates for a different curriculum for all undergraduates, no matter their major-arguing that they need to be taught leadership in the forms of key skills including communication (including good writing, listening, and speaking), as well as exposure to key material in history literature, social science, and ethics. Students should be asked to consider the hardest ethical dilemmas that leaders face, toggling between Machiavelli and great ethical thinkers such as Confucius and Socrates. Third, Woodruff calls for the teaching methods used by instructors to re-orient themselves around the question of leadership, particularly by emphasizing teamwork. Professors should respect their students' independence, avoid tyrannical teaching, and remember that all teachers teach ethics simply by the examples they set in dealing with students. Whether in engineering, music, or classics, The Garden of Leaders advances leadership as a core value that should be at the heart of the educational enterprise-contending that while a college campus can be many things, it should at the very least be a ground upon which new leaders can grow.

Aeschylus: The Libation Bearers ; Euripides: Electra ; Sophocles: Electra

Thucydides was the first ancient Greek historian to double as a social scientist. He set out to understand human events entirely in human terms, without recourse to myth. He sought to know why people go to war and how they are affected by its violence. He studied the civil war in Corcyra, which began when radicals burst into the council house and killed leaders who favored democracy. The strengths and weaknesses of democracy are a major theme of his History . Its larger story shows how the Athenians tried to expand their empire too far and came to a crushing defeat. Here are vivid stories of land and sea battles, interspersed with fascinating and disturbing debates about war and policy. All of Thucydides's History is here, either in summary or translation, in a volume short enough for a wide readership. This Second Edition is expanded to include all the important debates and battle scenes, and the entire translation has been revised in accord with the latest scholarship. The Essential Thucydides (Hackett, fall 2021) is the second edition of Paul Woodruff's On Justice, Power, and Human Nature: Selections from The History of the Peloponnesian War (first published by Hackett Publishing Company in 1993, paperback ISBN 978-0-87220-168-2, cloth ISBN 978-0-87220-169-9).

The four late plays of Euripides collected here, in beautifully crafted translations by Cecelia Eaton Luschnig and Paul Woodruff, offer a faithful and dynamic representation of the playwright's mature vision.

Peter Meineck and Paul Woodruff's collaboration on this new translation combines the strengths that have recently distinguished both as translators of Greek tragedy: expert knowledge of the Greek and of the needs of the teaching classicist, intimate knowledge of theatre, and an excellent ear for the spoken word. Their Oedipus Tyrannus features foot-of-the-page notes, an Introduction, stage directions and a translation characterized by its clarity, accuracy, and power.

"A superb translation that captures the rhetorical brilliance of the Greek. . . . The translation is faithful in the very best sense: it reflects both the meaning and the beauty of the Greek text. . . . The footnotes are always helpful, never obtrusive. A one-page outline is useful since there are no editorial additions to mark major divisions in the dialogue. An appendix containing fragments of early Greek love poetry helps the reader appreciate the rich, and perhaps elusive, meaning of eros. . . . The entire Introduction is crisply written, and the authors' erudition shines throughout, without a trace of pedantry. . . . this is an excellent book that deservedly should find wide circulation for many years to come". --Tim Mahoney, University of Texas at Arlington

Peter Meineck and Paul Woodruff's collaboration on this new translation combines the strengths that have recently distinguished both as translators of Greek tragedy: expert knowledge of the Greek and of the needs of the teaching classicist, intimate knowledge of theatre, and an excellent ear for the spoken word. Their Oedipus Tyrannus features foot-of-the-page notes, an Introduction, stage directions and a translation characterized by its clarity, accuracy, and power.