The task of philosophy, the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze once wrote, is to 'overturn Platonism'. This might be true, if only we could define what Platonism is. In this clear and accessible book Mauro Bonazzi provides the first comprehensive introduction to ancient Platonism. He begins his story with Plato's Academy before moving on to the sceptical turn which occurred during the Hellenistic centuries. He then explains the theologically oriented interpretation of Plato typical of Middl...

Myles Burnyeat (1939-2019) was a major figure in the study of ancient Greek philosophy during the last decades of the twentieth century and the first of this. After teaching positions in London and Cambridge, where he became Laurence Professor, in 1996 he took up a Senior Research Fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford, from which he retired in 2006. In 2012 he published two volumes collecting essays dating from before the move to Oxford. Two new posthumously published volumes bring toget...

Myles Burnyeat (1939–2019) was a major figure in the study of ancient Greek philosophy during the last decades of the twentieth century and the first of this. After teaching positions in London and Cambridge, where he became Laurence Professor, in 1996 he took up a Senior Research Fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford, from which he retired in 2006. In 2012 he published two volumes collecting essays dating from before the move to Oxford. Two new posthumously published volumes bring toget...

The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Philosophy is a wide-ranging 2003 introduction to the study of philosophy in the ancient world. A team of leading specialists surveys the developments of the period and evaluates a comprehensive series of major thinkers, ranging from Pythagoras to Epicurus. There are also separate chapters on how philosophy in the ancient world interacted with religion, literature and science, and a final chapter traces the seminal influence of Greek and Roman phi...

Plato's Meno and Phaedo are two of the most important works of ancient western philosophy and continue to be studied around the world. The Meno is a seminal work of epistemology. The Phaedo is a key source for Platonic metaphysics and for Plato's conception of the human soul. Together they illustrate the birth of Platonic philosophy from Plato's reflections on Socrates' life and doctrines. This edition offers new and accessible translations of both works, together with a thorough introduct...

Antiochus of Ascalon was one of the seminal philosophers of the first century BC, an era of radical philosophical change. Some called him a virtual Stoic, but in reality his programme was an updated revival of the philosophy of the 'ancients', meaning above all Plato and Aristotle. His significance lies partly in his enormous influence on Roman intellectuals of the age, including Cicero, Brutus and Varro, and partly in his role as the harbinger of a new style of philosophy, which thereafte...

How does God think? How, ideally, does a human mind function? Must a gap remain between these two paradigms of rationality? Such questions exercised the greatest ancient philosophers, including those featured in this book: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Plotinus. This volume encompasses a series of studies by leading scholars, revisiting key moments of ancient philosophy and highlighting the theme of human and divine rationality in both moral and cognitive psychology. It is a t...

The definitive sequel to New York Times bestseller How the Scots Invented the Modern World is a magisterial account of how the two greatest thinkers of the ancient world, Plato and Aristotle, laid the foundations of Western culture—and how their rivalry shaped the essential features of our culture down to the present day.Plato came from a wealthy, connected Athenian family and lived a comfortable upper-class lifestyle until he met an odd little ma...

Sir Anthony Kenny tells the fascinating story of the birth of philosophy and its remarkable flourishing in the ancient Mediterranean world. This is the first of four volumes in which he will unfold a magisterial new history of Western philosophy. Specially written for a broad popular readership, but serious and deep enough to offer a genuine understanding of the great philosophers, Kenny's lucid and stimulating history will become the definitive work for anyone interested in the people and...

This unique volume offers an odyssey through the ideas of the Stoics in three particular ways: first, through the historical trajectory of the school itself and its influence; second, through the recovery of the history of Stoic thought; third, through the ongoing confrontation with Stoicism, showing how it refines philosophical traditions, challenges the imagination, and ultimately defines the kind of life one chooses to lead. A distinguished roster of specialists have written an authorit...

'Courage is knowing what not to fear' Plato'One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors'Without the work of Plato, western thought is, quite literally, unthinkable. No single influence has been greater, in every age and in every philosophic field. Even those thinkers who have rejected Plato's views have found themselves working to an agenda he set.Yet between the n...