This volume presents stimulating and provocative work on how the history of philosophy is done and how it should be done, by Michael Frede, a pre-eminent figure in ancient philosophy until his early death in 2007. His Nellie Wallace lectures are published here accompanied by three related articles."--Publisher.
As readers will quickly discover, the quality of the text that [Frede] has bequeathed fully matches the brilliance and incisiveness for which all his work is admired." From the foreword by David Sedley
Lombardo and Bell have translated this important early dialogue on virtue, wisdom, and the nature of Sophistic teaching into an idiom remarkable for its liveliness and subtlety. Michael Frede has provided a substantial introduction that illuminates the dialogue's perennial interest, its Athenian political background, and the particular difficulties and ironic nuances of its argument.
The Seventh Platonic Letter describes Plato's attempts to turn the ruler of Sicily, Dionysius II, into a philosopher ruler along the lines of the Republic. It explains why Plato turned from politics to philosophy in his youth and how he then tried to apply his ideas to actual politics later on. It also sets out his views about language, writing and philosophy. As such, it represents a potentially crucial source of information about Plato, who tells us almost nothing about himself in his dialogues. But is it genuine? Scholars have debated the issue for centuries, although recent opinion has moved in its favour. The origin of this book was a seminar given in Oxford in 2001 by Myles Burnyeat and Michael Frede, two of the most eminent scholars of ancient philosophy in recent decades. Michael Frede begins by casting doubt on the Letter by looking at it from the general perspective of letter writing in antiquity, when it was quite normal to fabricate letters by famous figures from the past. Both then attack the authenticity of the letter head-on by showing how its philosophical content conflicts with what we find in the Platonic dialogues. They also reflect on the question of why the Letter was written, whether as an attempt to exculpate Plato from the charge of meddling in politics (Frede), or as an attempt to portray, through literary means, the ways in which human weakness and emotions can lead to disasters in political life (Burnyeat).
Michael J. Loux here presents a fresh reading of two of the most important books of the Metaphysics, Books Z and H, in which Aristotle presents his mature theory of primary substances (ousiai). Focusing on the interplay of Aristotle's early and late views, Loux maintans that the later concept of ousia should be understood in terms of a theory of predication that carries interesting implications for contemporary metaphysics. Loux argues that in his first attempt in identifying ousiai in the Categories, Aristotle encountered a set of ontological problems which he wrestled with again in Metaphysics Z and H. In the Categories, where the primary realities are basic subjects of predication construed in essentialist terms as things falling under natural kinds, familiar particulars are the primary ousiai. In subsequent works, Aristotle holds that since familiar particulars come into being and pass away, they must be composites of matter and form; and in Metaphysics Z and H, he explores the implications of this insight for the search for ousia. Maintaining that the substantial forms of familiar particulars are the primary ousiai, the later Aristotle interprets forms as predicable universals rather than as particulars, each uniquely possessed by a single object.
This volume presents stimulating and provocative work on how the history of philosophy is done and how it should be done, by Michael Frede, a pre-eminent figure in ancient philosophy until his early death in 2007. His Nellie Wallace lectures are published here accompanied by three related articles."--Publisher.
Aristotle's views on the fundamental nature of reality are usually taken to be inconsistent. Two sources for these views are Categories and the central books of Metaphysics. This text argues that he is engaged in different projects in these books.
Michael J. Loux here presents a fresh reading of two of the most important books of the Metaphysics, Books Z and H, in which Aristotle presents his mature theory of primary substances (ousiai). Focusing on the interplay of Aristotle's early and late views, Loux maintans that the later concept of ousia should be understood in terms of a theory of predication that carries interesting implications for contemporary metaphysics. Loux argues that in his first attempt in identifying ousiai in the Categories, Aristotle encountered a set of ontological problems which he wrestled with again in Metaphysics Z and H. In the Categories, where the primary realities are basic subjects of predication construed in essentialist terms as things falling under natural kinds, familiar particulars are the primary ousiai. In subsequent works, Aristotle holds that since familiar particulars come into being and pass away, they must be composites of matter and form; and in Metaphysics Z and H, he explores the implications of this insight for the search for ousia. Maintaining that the substantial forms of familiar particulars are the primary ousiai, the later Aristotle interprets forms as predicable universals rather than as particulars, each uniquely possessed by a single object.
While modern students of Greek religion are alert to the occasion-boundedness of epiphanies and divinatory dreams in Greek polytheism, they are curiously indifferent to the generic parameters of the relevant textual representations on which they build their argument. Instead, generic questions are normally left to the literary critic, who in turn is less interested in religion. To evaluate the relation of epiphanies and divinatory dreams to Greek polytheism, the book investigates relevant representations through all major textual genres in pagan antiquity. The evidence of the investigated genres suggests that the ‘epiphany-mindedness’ of the Greeks, postulated by most modern critics, is largely an academic chimaera, a late-comer of Christianizing 19th-century-scholarship. It is primarily founded on a misinterpretation of Homer’s notorious anthropomorphism (in the Iliad and Odyssey but also in the Homeric Hymns). This anthropomorphism, which is keenly absorbed by Greek drama and figural art, has very little to do with the religious lifeworld experience of the ancient Greeks, as it appears in other genres. By contrast, throughout all textual genres investigated here, divinatory dreams are represented as an ordinary and real part of the ancient Greeks' lifeworld experience.
This book introduces and translates Sedulius Scottus' Prologue (to the entire Collectaneum in Apostolum) and commentaries on Galatians and Ephesians. The introduction outlines the historical context of composition, identifies Sedulius' literary model - Servius, discusses Sedulius' organizing trope for the Prologue - the septem circumstantiae, asserts for what purpose and for whom he composed the Collectaneum, explains pertinent philological and stylistic issues, such as formatting, existing (or lack thereof) traits of Hiberno Latin, and Sedulius' knowledge of Greek, and it explores his use of exegetical and theological sources - predominantly Jerome, Augustine, and Pelagius. Since the commentaries are based upon these formative religious authors (among many others), the introduction also surveys Sedulius' doctrinal stances on important theological and ecclesiastical issues of his own time with particular relation to his reception of these authors. Sedulius' Collectaneum in Apostolum reveals an erudite author familiar with the style of classical commentaries, which he uses to harmonize the sometimes discordant voices of patristic authors for the purposes of education in accordance with Carolingian programmatic aims.
This study offers an in-depth examination of Porphyrian soteriology, or the concept of the salvation of the soul, in the thought of Porphyry of Tyre, whose significance for late antique thought is immense. Porphyry's concept of salvation is important for an understanding of those cataclysmic forces, not always theological, that helped convert the Roman Empire from paganism to Christianity. Porphyry, a disciple of Plotinus, was the last and greatest anti-Christian writer to vehemently attack the Church before the Constantinian revolution. His contribution to the pagan-Christian debate on universalism can thus shed light on the failure of paganism and the triumph of Christianity in late antiquity. In a broader historical and cultural context this study will address some of the issues central to the debate on universalism, in which Porphyry was passionately involved and which was becoming increasingly significant during the unprecedented series of economic, cultural, political, and military crises of the third century. As the author will argue, Porphyry may have failed to find one way of salvation for all humanity, he nonetheless arrived a hierarchical soteriology, something natural for a Neoplatonist, which resulted in an integrative religious and philosophical system. His system is examined in the context of other developing ideologies of universalism, during a period of unprecedented imperial crises, which were used by the emperors as an agent of political and religious unification. Christianity finally triumphed over its competitors owing to its being perceived to be the only universal salvation cult that was capable of bringing about this unification. In short, it won due to its unique universalist soteriology. By examining a rival to Christianity's concept of universal salvation, this book will be valuable to students and scholars of ancient philosophy, patristics, church history, and late antiquity.
It is not very surprising that it was no less true in antiquity than it is today that adult human beings are held to be responsible for most of their actions. Indeed, virtually all cultures in all historical periods seem to have had some conception of human agency which, in the absence of certain responsibility-defeating conditions, entails such responsibility. Few philosophers have had the temerity to maintain that this entailment is trivial because such responsibility-defeating conditions are always present. Another not very surprising fact is that ancient thinkers tended to ascribe integrality to "what is" (to on). That is, they typically regarded "what is" as a cosmos or whole with distinguishable parts that fit together in some coherent or cohesive manner, rather than either as a "unity" with no parts or as a collection containing members (ta onta or "things that are") standing in no "natural" relations to one another. 1 The philoso phical problem of determinism and responsibility may, I think, best be characterized as follows: it is the problem of preserving the phenomenon of human agency (which would seem to require a certain separateness of individual human beings from the rest of the cosmos) when one sets about the philosophical or scientific task of explaining the integrality of "what is" by means of the development of a theory of causation or explanation ( concepts that came to be lumped together by the Greeks under the term "aitia") .
As readers will quickly discover, the quality of the text that [Frede] has bequeathed fully matches the brilliance and incisiveness for which all his work is admired." From the foreword by David Sedley
This book examines a pivotal period in ancient human history: the fall of the Roman Empire and the birth of a new European civilization in the early Middle Ages. The Early Medieval World: From the Fall of Rome to the Time of Charlemagne addresses the social and material culture of this critical period in the evolution of Western society, covering the social, political, cultural, and religious history of the Mediterranean world and northern Europe. The two-volume set explains how invading and migrating barbarian tribes—spurred by raiding Huns from the steppes of Central Asia—contributed to the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and documents how the blending of Greco-Roman, Germanic, and Christian cultures birthed a new civilization in Western Europe, creating the Christian Church and the modern nation-state. A-Z entries discuss political transformation, changing religious practices in daily life, sculpture and the arts, material culture, and social structure, and provide biographies of important men and women in the transitional period of late antiquity. The work will be extremely helpful to students learning about the factors that contributed to the decline of the Roman Empire—an important and common topic in world history curricula.
This volume studies the origin and evolution of philosophical interest in Aristotle's Categories, and illuminates the earliest arguments for Aristotle's approach to logic as the foundation of higher education.
Drawing on unusually broad range of sources for this study of Imperial period philosophical thought, Michael Trapp examines the central issues of personal morality, political theory, and social organization: philosophy as the pursuit of self-improvement and happiness; the conceptualization and management of emotion; attitudes and obligations to others; ideas of the self and personhood; constitutional theory and the ruler; the constituents and working of the good community. Texts and thinkers discussed range from Alexander of Aphrodisias, Aspasius and Alcinous, via Hierocles, Seneca, Musonius, Epictetus, Plutarch and Diogenes of Oenoanda, to Dio Chrysostom, Apuleius, Lucian, Maximus of Tyre, Pythagorean pseudepigrapha, and the Tablet of Cebes. The distinctive doctrines of the individual philosophical schools are outlined, but also the range of choice that collectively they presented to the potential philosophical 'convert', and the contexts in which that choice was encountered. Finally Trapp turns his attention to the status of philosophy itself as an element of the elite culture of the period, and to the ways in which philosophical values may have posed a threat to other prevalent schemes of value; Trapp argues that the idea of 'philosophical opposition', though useful, needs to be substantially modified and extended.
Wolff's book defends the Kantian idea of a "general logic" whose principles underlie special systems of deductive logic. It thus undermines "logical pluralism," which tolerates the co-existence of divergent systems of modern logic without asking for consistent common principles. Part I of Wolff’s book identifies the formal language in which the most general principles of logic must be expressed. This language turns out to be a version of syllogistic language already used by Aristotle. The universal validity of logical principles, as well as the translatability of other logical languages into this language, are shown to depend only on the meanings of its logical vocabulary. Part II of the book answers the metalogical question concerning the deductive relation between general logic and special logical systems, which also have their own (less general) principles. This part identifies the rules according to which logical rules can be derived from principles. The main result of the book is that the highest principles of logic and metalogics are provided by the syllogistic, when properly understood.
The rejection by Anglo-Saxon philosophers of much "continental philosophy" (from Hegel on down) is largely based on the perceived failure of continental thinkers to grapple with the tough questions of epistemology in general and skepticism in particular. Forster demonstrates that Hegel did not in fact ignore epistemology, but on the contrary he fought a tireless and subtle campaign to defeat the threat of skepticism. Forster's work should dispel once and for all the view that Hegel was naive or careless in epistemological matters. Forster begins by discussing Hegel's critical interpretation of the skeptical tradition, in particular his convincingly argued case for the superiority of ancient over modern skepticism. He goes on to show that the difficulties characteristic of ancient skepticism play a crucial and fascinating role in Hegel's philosophy of history. Hegel sees in the emergence of these difficulties an explanation of why the harmonious unified Greek culture collapsed and was replaced by the division and alienation characteristic of subsequent western culture. Finally, Forster examines the elaborate and ingenious system of defenses erected by Hegel to protect his philosophical thought against skeptical difficulties, as the core of a somewhat broader epistemological project. Along the way, Forster makes much that has hither to remained obscure in Hegel's texts intelligible for the first time. This book should cause a re-evaluation of Hegel, and German Idealism generally, and contribute to a re-evaluation of the skeptical tradition in philosophy.
The soils are fundamental to our existence, delivering water and nutrients to plants, that feed us. But they are in many ways in danger and their conservation is therefore a most important focus for science, governments and society as a whole. A team of world recognised researchers have prepared this first English edition based on the 16th European edition. • The precursors and the processes of soil development • The physical, biological and chemical properties of soils • Nutrients and Pollutants • The various soil classifications with the main focus on the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB) • The most important soils and soil landscapes of the world • Soil Evaluation Techniques • Basic Principles of Soil Conservation Whoever works with soils needs this book.
Philosophy of language has for some time now been the very core of the discipline of philosophy. But where did it begin? Frege has sometimes been identified as its father, but in fact its origins lie much further back, in a tradition that arose in eighteenth-century Germany. Michael Forster explores that tradition. He also makes a case that the most important thinker within that tradition was J. G. Herder. It was Herder who established such fundamental principles in the philosophy of language as that thought essentially depends on language and that meaning consists in the usage of words. It was he who on that basis revolutionized the theory of interpretation ("hermeneutics") and the theory of translation. And it was he who played the pivotal role in founding such whole new disciplines concerned with language as anthropology and linguistics. In the course of developing these historical points, this book also shows that Herder and his tradition are in many ways superior to dominant trends in more recent philosophy of language: deeper in their principles and broader in their focus.
The nineteenth century is a key period in the history of the interpretation of the Greek gods. The Greek Gods in Modern Scholarship examines how German and British scholars of the time drew on philology, archaeology, comparative mythology, anthropology, or sociology to advance radically different theories on the Greek gods and their origins. For some, they had been personifications of natural elements, for others, they had begun as universal gods like the Christian god, yet for others, they went back to totems or were projections of group unity. The volume discusses the views of both well-known figures like K. O. Muller (1797-1840), or Jane Harrison (1850-1928), and of forgotten, but important, scholars like F. G. Welcker (1784-1868). It explores the underlying assumptions and agendas of the rival theories in the light of their intellectual and cultural context, laying stress on how they were connected to broader contemporary debates over fundamental questions such as the origins and nature of religion, or the relation between Western culture and the 'Orient'. It also considers the impact of theories from this period on twentieth- and twenty-first-century scholarship on Greek religion and draws implications for the study of the Greek gods today.
In 1988 the philosopher Gilles Deleuze remarked that, throughout his career, he had always been 'circling around' a concept of nature. Providing critical analysis of his highly original readings of Stoicism, Aristotle, and Epicurus, this book shows that it is Deleuze's interpretations of ancient Greek physics that provide the key to understanding his conception of nature. Using the works of Aristotle, Plato, Chrysippus, and Epicurus, Michael Bennett traces the development of Deleuze's key concepts of event, difference, and problem. Arguing that it is difficult, if not impossible, to fully understand these ideas without an appreciation of Deleuze's Hellenistic influences, Deleuze and Ancient Greek Physics situates his commentaries in the context of contemporary scholarship on ancient Greek philosophy. Delving into the original Greek and Latin texts, this book shows that Deleuze's readings are more complex and controversial than they first appear, simultaneously advancing Deleuze as a new voice in interpretations of ancient Greek philosophy. Generating both new critical analyses of Deleuze and a new appreciation for his classical erudition, Deleuze and Ancient Greek Physics will be a valuable resource for anyone interested in ancient Greek philosophy, Deleuze's philosophical project or his unique methodology in the history of philosophy.
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