In this volume Simplicius deals with Aristotle's account of the Presocratics, and for many of them he is our chief or even sole authority. He quotes at length from Melissus, Parmenides and Zeno, sometimes from their original works but also from later writers from Plato onwards, drawing particularly on Alexander's lost commentary on Aristotle's Physics and on Porphyry. Much of his approach is just scholarly, but in places he reveals his Neoplatonist affiliation and attempts to show the basic agreement among his predecessors in spite of their apparent differences. This volume, part of the groundbreaking Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series, translates into English for the first time Simplicius' commentary, and includes a detailed introduction, extensive explanatory notes and a bibliography.
An astounding project of analysis on more than one hundred translations of ancient philosophical texts, this index of words found in the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series comprises some 114,000 entries. It forms in effect a unique dictionary of philosophical terms from the post-Hellenistic period through to late antiquity and will be an essential reference tool for any scholar working on the meaning of these ancient texts. As traditional dictionaries have usually neglected to include translation examples from philosophical texts of this period, scholars interested in how meanings of words vary across time and author have been ill served. This index fills a huge gap, therefore, in the lexical analysis of ancient Greek and has application well beyond the reading of ancient philosophical commentaries. Bringing together the full indexes from 110 of the volumes published in Bloomsbury's Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series, McKirahan has combined each word entry and analysed how many times particular translations occur. He presents his findings numerically so that each meaning in turn has a note as to the number of times it is used. For meanings that are found between one and four times the volume details are also given so that readers may quickly and easily look up the texts themselves.
This survey of the history of Western philosophy, from Thales to Augustine, introduces the central tenets of each philosopher or school within the cultural and historical aspect of the particular time. Topics covered include metaphysics, ethics and politics, and Epicureanism.
Themistius' treatment of Books 1-3 of Aristotle's Physics presents central features of Aristotle's thought about principles, causation, change and infinity. The tradition of synthesising and epitomising exegesis is here raised to a new level by the innovative method of paraphrase pioneered by Themistius. Taking a selective, but telling, account of the earlier Peripatetic and Presocratic tradition, Themistius creates a framework that can still be profitably used in the study of Aristotle. This volume contains the first English translation of Themistius' commentary, accompanied by a detailed introduction, extensive explanatory notes and a bibliography.
The eighth book of Aristotle's Physics is the culmination of his theory of nature. He discusses not just physics, but the origins of the universe and the metaphysical foundations of cosmology and physical science. He moves from the discussion of motion in the cosmos to the identification of a single source and regulating principle of all motion, and so argues for the existence of a first 'unmoved mover'. Daniel Graham offers a clear, accurate new translation of this key text in the history of Western thought, and accompanies the translation with a careful philosophical commentary to guide the reader towards an understanding of the wealth of important and influential arguments and ideas that Aristotle puts forward.
Ancient Greek Cosmogony is the first detailed, comprehensive account of ancient Greek theories of the origins of the world. It covers the period from 800 BC to 600 AD, beginning with myths concerning the creation of the world; the cosmogonies of all the major Greek and Roman thinkers; and the debate between Greek philosophical cosmogony and early Christian views. It argues that Greeks formulated many of the perennial problems of philosophical cosmogony and produced philosophically and scientifically interesting answers. The atomists argued that our world was one among many worlds, and came about by chance. Plato argued that it is unique, and the product of design. Empedocles and the Stoics, in quite different ways, argued that there was an unending cycle whereby the world is generated, destroyed and generated again. Aristotle on the other hand argued that there was no such thing as cosmogony, and the world has always existed. Reactions to, and developments of, these ideas are traced through Hellenistic philosophy and the debates in early Christianity on whether God created the world from nothing or from some pre-existing chaos. The book examines issues of the origins of life and the elements for the ancient Greeks, and how the cosmos will come to an end. It argues that there were several interesting debates between Greek philosophers on the fundamental principles of cosmogony, and that these debates were influential on the development of Greek philosophy and science.
This seventh edition of Philosophic Classics, Volume I: Ancient Philosophy includes essential writings of the most important Greek philosophers, along with selections from some of their Roman followers. In updating this edition, editor Forrest E. Baird has continued to follow the same criteria established by the late Walter Kaufmann when the Philosophic Classics series was first established: (1) to use complete works or, where more appropriate, complete sections of works (2) in clear translations (3) of texts central to the thinker’s philosophy or widely accepted as part of the "canon." To make the works more accessible to students, most footnotes treating textual matters (variant readings, etc.) have been omitted and important Greek words have been transliterated and put in angle brackets. In addition, each thinker is introduced by a brief essay composed of three sections: (1) biographical (a glimpse of the life), (2) philosophical (a résumé of the philosopher’s thought), and (3) bibliographical (suggestions for further reading). New to this seventh edition: Changes in translations: New translations of Plato’s Apology and Phaedo and Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics and Politics from the acclaimed Focus Philosophical Library Series. New translations of Plato’s Euthyphro and Crito. New translations of Epicurus’s Letter to Herodotus, Letter to Menoeceus, and Principal Doctrines. New translation of the Parmenides fragments. Additional material: Gorgias’s model oration, Encomium on Helen, which gives a defense of Helen of Troy. A selection from Plato’s Gorgias on nature versus convention or law . Additional material from the opening of Plato’s Symposium to contextualize the dialogue. Additional material from Plato’s Republic (Book IX) on the tri-partite soul. Additional material from Aristotle’s Metaphysics (Book IV, 1-4, 7) on the nature of being and the so-called "three rules of thought." A brief selection from Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus, giving a sense of the person. Updated and reorganized bibliographies. To allow for all these changes, a section of Book V from Plato’s Republic has been dropped. Those who use this first volume in a one-term course in ancient philosophy will find more material here than can easily fit a normal semester. But this embarrassment of riches gives teachers some choice and, for those who offer the same course year after year, an opportunity to change the menu.
This volume relates to natural philosophy apart from the study of living things. Topics covered include the principles of scientific inquiry, place, time, motion, the heavens, the sublunary world, meteorology and the study of materials.
First published in 1961, Forrest E. Baird's revision of Philosophic Classics continues the tradition of providing generations of students with high quality course material. Using the complete works, or where appropriate, complete sections of works, this anthology allows philosophers to speak directly to students. Esteemed for providing the best available translations, Philosophic Classics: Ancient Philosophy, features complete works or complete sections of the most important works by the major thinkers, as well as shorter samples from transitional thinkers.
