In Plato’s Sophist, the main speaker (not Socrates in this case!) mocks those he calls “late-learners," I fall decidedly into that category. When I first read the works of Plato, I was lured into a lifelong attempt to understand and explain the figure of Socrates as he appears in Plato’s dialogues. Lately I have been reading materials by ancient Socratic sources other than Plato and have been wrestling with the uneasy recognition that this “father of Western philosophy” was not seen in the same way even by those who knew him personally. Who was Socrates??? Once upon a time, I thought I knew…
It was exciting for me to read this book because the author is deeply committed to the view that Xenophon—and not Plato—is the most reliable and also most interesting source on the life and thought of Socrates. And what a different picture from Plato is given here!
Plato’s Socrates can be enigmatic, but Johnson’s review of the evidence in Xenophon gives a clear and robust portrait. But does this mean that Plato just lied?
Xenophon's Socratic Works demonstrates that Xenophon, a student of Socrates, military man, and man of letters, is an indispensable source for our understanding of the life and philosophy of Socrates.
David M. Johnson restores Xenophon's most ambitious Socratic work, the Memorabilia (Socratic Recollections), to its original literary context, enabling readers to experience it as Xenophon's original audience would have, rather than as a pale imitation of Platonic dialogue. He shows that the Memorabilia, together with Xenophon's Apology, provides us with our best evidence for the trial of Socrates, and a comprehensive and convincing refutation of the historical charges against Socrates.…
There is more than one history of the human world and more than one high culture–but all those histories and cultures may contribute to a unified sense of being and human potential. We need to step outside our immediate world, history, culture, and sensibility to learn–as G.K. Chesterton remarked–that humanity can be great and even glorious under conditions and with beliefs and fancies far different from ours. Knowing this, we may also gain new insight into our familiar local world. We may end, in Kipling’s words, by realizing that in the endless opposition of We and They, We ourselves are only a sort of They!
I was delighted by McEvilley’s learned and systematic effort to compare ideas and practices from the Mediterranean and Indian worlds. I had attempted similar, much smaller-scale comparisons in my own earliest academic work on Aristotle—seeking to understand neglected Aristotelian ideas in the light of Buddhist thought. However, McEvilley managed a much wider and more knowledgeable discussion, taking ancient thought more seriously than the majority of scholars.
Our predecessors did a good job of analyzing, interrogating, and controlling the many shades and phantoms of human consciousness. We may have surpassed them in the control of the external world, but we still have much to learn about our inner worlds.
This revolutionary study by the renowned classical philologist reveals the interplay of Greek and Indian thought at the roots of Western culture.
Thomas C. McEvilley’s magisterial work demonstrates that Eastern and Western civilizations have not always had separate, autonomous metaphysical schemes, but have mutually influenced each other over a long period of time. Examining ancient trade routes, imperialist movements, and migration currents, he shows how some of today’s key philosophical ideas circulated freely in the triangle between Greece, India, and Persia, leading to an intense metaphysical interchange between Greek and Indian cultures.
While scholars have sensed a philosophical kinship between…
This is a wonderful book. It makes the case for Cicero’s continuing importance to us all, especially in an era in which democratic values are under threat.
Written in a clear accessible style that avoids technical jargon and any need to have a detailed knowledge of Roman history, this is a book that will appeal to anyone interested in either today’s political situation or the legacy of Rome.
Why Cicero Matters shows us how the Roman philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius, better known as Cicero, can help realize a new political world. His impact on humanitarianism, the Enlightenment and the Founding Fathers of America is immense. Yet we give Julius Caesar all our attention. Why? What does this say about modern politics and political culture?
This book gives us Cicero as an antidote to the myth of the strong man of history. Reading Cicero's On Duties alongside two more introspective philosophical texts, On Friendship and On Old Age, we see how Cicero turned politics into a higher, intellectual…
In Plato’s Sophist, the main speaker (not Socrates in this case!) mocks those he calls “late-learners," I fall decidedly into that category. When I first read the works of Plato, I was lured into a lifelong attempt to understand and explain the figure of Socrates as he appears in Plato’s dialogues. Lately I have been reading materials by ancient Socratic sources other than Plato and have been wrestling with the uneasy recognition that this “father of Western philosophy” was not seen in the same way even by those who knew him personally. Who was Socrates??? Once upon a time, I thought I knew…
Most people who hear about Socrates are given a kind of stock portrait that comes straight out of Plato’s depictions in his dialogues. I really admire this book because it opens up new possibilities for readers to reconsider the Platonic portrait and reminded me to think about what it means for an important philosopher to be “remembered” by multiple people.
The book’s chapters include all of the important alternatives to Plato and Xenophon, usually considered the two “main” sources for Socrates.
In the two golden centuries that followed the death of Socrates, ancient philosophy underwent a tremendous transformation that culminated in the philosophical systematizations of Plato, Aristotle and the Hellenistic schools. Fundamental figures other than Plato were active after the death of Socrates; his immediate pupils, the Socratics, took over his legacy and developed it in a variety of ways. This rich philosophical territory has however been left largely underexplored in the scholarship.
This collection of eleven previously unpublished essays by leading scholars fills a gap in the literature, providing new insight into the ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology as developed by…
I spent my career teaching Classics, mostly at Oxford University, where I was a fellow of Lady Margaret Hall and Professor of the Classical Tradition. I have worked on the influence of the ancient world on British literature and culture, especially in the Victorian age, and when being a conventional classicist have written mostly about Latin literature and Roman culture. I have also written short books on Jane Austen and Westminster Abbey.
The participants at a drinking party disclose their ideas about love: a doctor is a bit pompous, Aristophanes tells a wacky pseudo-myth, Socrates unveils ‘the truth about love,’ which has supposedly been revealed to him by a priestess. "Plato was mad," an eminent scholar told me once. "But he was a genius." "Maybe, but a mad genius." Well, the Platonic theory of love does seem miles from our own experience, but there are extraordinary insights along the way—into the creative impulse, sexuality, and human psychology. It may have influenced Freud. It is also a literary treat, with details that you would expect more in a novel than a work of philosophy. And after Socrates seems to have wrapped things up, Alcibiades crashes in tipsy …
'Perhaps the most entertaining work of philosophy ever written ... the first really systematic and serious attempt to say what love is' John Armstrong, Guardian
In the course of a lively drinking party, a group of Athenian intellectuals exchange views on eros, or desire. From their conversation emerges a series of subtle reflections on gender roles, sex in society and the sublimation of basic human instincts. The discussion culminates in a radical challenge to conventional views by Plato's mentor, Socrates, who advocates transcendence through spiritual love. The Symposium is a deft interweaving of different viewpoints and ideas about the nature…
I grew up in an area that had been forest, then became farms, then became a suburb. The world around me was a palimpsest, the old stories always vaguely discernable beneath the new ones, and always in some way part of the new ones. Until recently there was always a working farm in my life as well, two in Oregon and one in North Central Washington, where I saw the daily labor of trying to make the earth say “wheat” or “cattle” instead of “dust” or “sagebrush.” My poems try to preserve that experience.
It’s the oldest book I know of that tries to explain the mutable material world in strictly material terms. Appropriately, or maybe paradoxically, Lucretius puts his treatise into the form of poetry, following strict rules of prosody, as if the conventions of verse could create order out of chaos. Two thousand years later, the master poet A.E. Stallings translates it into formal English poetry. Nothing remains fixed, especially not language, and yet we never quit trying.
One of a major new Classics series - books that have changed the history of thought, in sumptuous, clothbound hardbacks.
Lucretius' poem On the Nature of Things combines a scientific and philosophical treatise with some of the greatest poetry ever written. With intense moral fervour he demonstrates to humanity that in death there is nothing to fear since the soul is mortal, and the world and everything in it is governed by the mechanical laws of nature and not by gods; and that by believing this men can live in peace of mind and happiness. He bases this on the…
In Plato’s Sophist, the main speaker (not Socrates in this case!) mocks those he calls “late-learners," I fall decidedly into that category. When I first read the works of Plato, I was lured into a lifelong attempt to understand and explain the figure of Socrates as he appears in Plato’s dialogues. Lately I have been reading materials by ancient Socratic sources other than Plato and have been wrestling with the uneasy recognition that this “father of Western philosophy” was not seen in the same way even by those who knew him personally. Who was Socrates??? Once upon a time, I thought I knew…
Collected in this one book are very reliable and readable translations of a prudent selection of the fragments of Socratic authors other than Plato and Xenophon, and these are compared very intelligently to what may be found on similar topics in Plato and Xenophon.
Reading these gave me, as Platonically fixated as I am, a feeling of whiplash. Will the real Socrates please stand up?
In addition to works by Plato and Xenophon, we know of dozens of treatises and dialogues written by followers of Socrates that are now lost. The surviving evidence for these writings constitutes an invaluable resource for our understanding of Socrates and his philosophical legacy. The Circle of Socrates presents new--sometimes the first--English translations of a representative selection of this evidence, set alongside extracts from Plato and Xenophon. The texts are arranged according to theme, with concise introductions that provide an overview of the topics and the main lines of thought within them.
I’m a child psychologist, mother of three, and parenting writer who reads way too much parenting content. My personal mission is to be a voice of science-based, compassionate, and realistic parenting guidance to counteract the pitfalls of modern parenting advice. As a psychologist, I know much of this advice lacks good science and even common sense. As a mother, I find a majority of parenting advice oppressive in its unrealistic expectations and a source of unnecessary guilt, shame, and feelings of failure—especially for mothers. I love highlighting the work of other parenting experts who share my mission: to empower and uplift parents with good information and authentic support.
Dr. Schonbrun turns the whole idea of work-life conflict on its head by reframing this tension not as a conflict of roles but as an opportunity for these roles to enrich each other with the science of work-life enrichment.
Basically, I discovered that being a parent can help me be better at my jobs and my work can help me be a better parent. Life-changing!
From each chapter, I got tips for how to work on my thoughts and behaviors to make this shift. I loved the book’s combination of ancient philosophy, current science, and real-life stories. Reading this changed my whole way of thinking about how to be a present mom and an ambitious professional.
Twelve practical strategies to experience more joy and feel less guilt as a working parent, drawn from ACT, the groundbreaking therapy technique that has helped countless people.
Dr. Yael Schonbrun calls out the myth of the work-life balance and offers practical strategies that can help us reframe our approach to working and parenting from the inside out. Based in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), these strategies won’t create more hours in the day, but they can shift how we label our experiences, revise the stories we tell…
A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, I was educated at Stanford and MIT. I taught for four years at Yale and 24 years at Princeton before moving to USC, where I am Chair of the Philosophy Department. I specialize in the Philosophy of Language, History of Philosophy, and the Philosophy of Law. I have published many articles, authored fifteen books, co-authored two, and co-edited two. I am fascinated by philosophy's enduring role in our individual and collective lives, impressed by its ability to periodically reinvent itself, and challenged to bring what it has to offer to more students and to the broader culture.
These dialogues introduce the ideas that gave birth to western philosophy and its contributions to civilization. Providing the foundations of rational thought and theoretical knowledge in multiple domains, Greek philosophers, especially Socrates and Plato, imbued the search for truth with the urgency of both a personal, and a communal, quest for meaning. Just as the advances of Greek mathematics required concepts that are precisely defined or rigorously governed by axioms, so, the dialogues teach, advances in our knowledge of the world, and of ourselves, require well-regulated concepts like truth, knowledge,justice, virtue, and happiness. In these dialogues, we see the birth of philosophy's two great projects--providing concepts needed to advance theoretical knowledge in every domain and charting the path to wisdom in leading a good and meaningful life.
The second edition of Five Dialogues presents G. M. A. Grube's distinguished translations, as revised by John Cooper for Plato, Complete Works . A number of new or expanded footnotes are also included along with an updated bibliography.
I’m an Indonesian writer who loves the idea of supernatural fantasy. I’ve always liked daydreaming. It started when a story suddenly kept playing inside my head like a movie. And that story now became my first fantasy book, Royal Arcanum. Never I imagined I’ll be a full-time writer now. I feel blessed that my family supported my writing career.
Hey, this non-fiction book I’ve read has a lot to offer. Great study for those who wants to understand more about metaphysical world!
This is his fourth book that I’ve read besides Reincarnation, The Secret Teaching of All Ages, and The Wisdom of the Knowing Ones. I love his books, because can I learn a lot of mystical things which is related to the fantasy series that I’ve been working on. And it has a great impact on my writing for the first book in my series.
It taught me that we are not alone in this world. There are a lot that we don’t know about spiritual dimension that can’t be seen with our mundane eyes. As within, so without. Our inner wisdom creates the reflection of our reality. I feel contented with the knowledge shared in this book. It helped me to enlighten my perspective…
Complete in itself, this volume originated as a commentary and expansion of Manly P. Hall's masterpiece of symbolic philosophy, The Secret Teachings of All Ages. In Lectures on Ancient Philosophy, Manly P. Hall expands on the philosophical, metaphysical, and cosmological themes introduced in his classic work, The Secret Teachings of All Ages. Hall wrote this volume as a reader's companion to his earlier work, intending it for those wishing to delve more deeply into the esoteric philosophies and ideas that undergird the Secret Teachings. Particular attention is paid to Neoplatonism, ancient Christianity, Rosicrucian and Freemasonic traditions, ancient mysteries, pagan rites…
