SUNY in Ancient Greek Philosophy

The ancient view that Plato and Xenophon were rivals at least had the merit of allowing them to respond to each other; in modern times, the view that Plato wrote first eliminates the possibility of an exchange between the only two Socratics whose writings are preserved intact. Challenging the chronological assumptions on which Plato's across-the-board priority currently rests, the purpose of “The Relay Race of Virtue” is to show that Plato and Xenophon were responding to each other and that we can gain a greater appreciation for both by recognizing the back-and-forth nature of their friendly dialogue. Instead of regarding Xenophon as Plato's inept copyist, William H. F. Altman presents him as first blazing the trail for his fellow Socratic and then learning from Plato in return. By emphasizing "Plato's Debts to Xenophon," Altman is charitable to both, justifying Socrates' belief (Memorabilia 1.2.8) "that those of his companions who adopted his principles of conduct would throughout life be good friends to him and to each other."

In “Opining Beauty Itself”, Naomi Reshotko examines Plato's discussions of epistemological states that fall short of knowledge. Wary that interpretations of Plato's epistemology often omit a detailed analysis of the way he deploys the epistemological concepts that are inferior to, but often prerequisites for, knowledge, Reshotko argues that we must understand these inferior prerequisite states, especially belief (doxa), before we can understand what Plato thought about knowledge. Examining how recollection provides what is required for inquiry, Reshotko argues that recollection does not afford doxa-let alone what contemporary philosophers call 'true belief.' Rather, recollection is responsible for an ability to refer to that is a condition for every kind of doxa and for knowledge. Reshotko concludes that Plato regards doxa as the fabric of all the other epistemic states that fall short of knowledge and develops a comprehensive view of Plato's deployment of doxa that can serve as a foundation for further interpretation of Plato's epistemology. In the process, Reshotko shows that, for Plato, ordinary people do opine the Forms and can make progress toward knowledge of them, even if that knowledge is never achieved.

Innovative readings and creative reinterpretations of significant works in the field of ancient philosophy. In classical Greece, the word politeia in its largest sense meant the citizens' engagement with the shared project that is the lived life of their polis, city, civic society. Ancient philosophers, poets, historians, and orators constantly reflected on what this shared project should be and how citizens could participate in it. The chapters in this collection, inspired by the work of Anthony Preus, examine some of the products of their reflections, both the written works themselves and the variety of comparative contexts into which they can be put, from the Greeks' neighboring Asian polities to contemporary philosophical engagements with similar issues. The essays in Politeia hope to inspire readers to think about their own lives in conversation with the lives of the many communities to which we belong-to not only demonstrate the idea of politeia but to bring to life politeia's connection of the individual to the collective, something that seems to be of central importance in a world of division and to be the beating heart of the discipline of philosophy.

An original reading of three Platonic dialogues concerned with the soul, tyranny, self-knowledge, and the beautiful. Guided by the question "What is Socratic self-knowledge," this study begins with Plato's Charmides because it is within this work, more than any other, that the utility of self-knowledge becomes the predominant theme. In this dialogue, Socrates explores the possibility of the very culmination of his philosophical investigations-knowledge of ignorance. This happens through an investigation of the perplexing concept, sphrosunê. Alan Pichanick's approach offers a new perspective upon the perplexing exploration of sphrosunê in the Charmides by placing much greater emphasis on the neglected "erotic setting" in the dramatic introduction and argues that our reading of the rest of the dialogue should be done in light of this dramatic setting. The erotic setting of the Charmides combined with the discussion of philosophical wonder in the Symposium and tyrannical ers in the Republic gives guidance about how to think about the potential connection between Socratic self-knowledge and knowledge of the good and also shows why the characters of Charmides and Critias fail to come to such knowledge. Here we have the Platonic diagnosis of the tyrant, whose soul never wonders at anything beyond itself.

Comprehensive examination of the different senses in which Aristotle uses a group of the most important expressions in his political writings, with the aim of making possible a firmer understanding of his positions. Aristotle's Political Terminology offers a fresh approach to Aristotle's political thought by examining the language he uses in a more complete way than was possible before the appearance of the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae. It allows the reader to see clearly the difficulty scholars have had in commenting on and translating Aristotle's political works, which often ends in sharp differences among scholars who approach Aristotle with differing prior philosophical, political, historical, or ideological commitments. The book addresses eleven words and cognates or phrases that are fundamental to understanding Aristotle's text, many of them related to one another. They include the Greek expressions often translated, and sometimes mistranslated, by nature, property, constitution, and ideal. Helpful in teaching both undergraduate and graduate students, this work gives examples of Aristotle's uses of an expression in a defined universe, as in the case of the 522 occurrences in the Politics alone of the word often rendered by constitution, to give a flavor for how Aristotle might be read to avoid misimpressions. These examples sometimes are accompanied by tabular worksheets so that readers may check the author's work more easily. Further, the pages use transliteration in the main text, with a few mandatory exceptions, as in quoted titles of articles, so that readers whose Greek is not strong can follow the argument; the Greek text is provided in footnotes.

Examines inebriation as a culturally informed metaphor employed by Plato to defend the mind-altering effects of philosophy and its reception to the second-century CE. Wine and Ecstasy in Plato examines Plato's use of inebriation as a metaphor for the experience of transcendence and traces its reception to the second century CE. Drawing on the premises of cognitive phenomenology, Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides explores Socratic inebriation as an imperfect yet surprisingly effective sense-mediated reference to the mental processes that produce consciousness. Given the radical dichotomy in Greek culture between getting drunk with virtue and vice, Plato defends the Socratic way of drinking against misinterpretation. Thus, he engages thoroughly with the political, medical, philosophical, religious, and literary undertones of his metaphor. By replacing other forms of ecstasy with sober philosophical insight, Plato seeks to normalize transcendence and accommodate inspiration in the ideal polis. Socratic inebriation fueled numerous debates about the value and method of pursuing new models of consciousness during the Hellenistic and Roman period. By tracing these debates across several thinkers, including Seneca, Horace, Lucian of Samosata, and importantly Philo of Alexandria, Anagnostou-Laoutides reveals an important chapter in the history of human thought where truth and happiness are always situated beyond reason.

In “Animals in the World”, renowned Aristotle scholar Pierre Pellegrin attempts to demonstrate that Aristotle, by proposing an original version of natural perfection, opposes the whole of the Greek tradition. Nature is perfect, not only in its harmony of a complete and well-organized whole, but also because it brings together functionally perfect individuals.

Offers a careful analysis of how Aristotle understands civil war, partisanship, distrust in government, disagreement, and competition, and explores ways in which these views are relevant to contemporary political theory. Do only modern thinkers like Machiavelli and Hobbes accept that conflict plays a significant role in the origin and maintenance of political community? In this book, Steven Skultety argues that Aristotle not only took conflict to be an inevitable aspect of political life, but further recognized ways in which conflict promotes the common good. While many scholars treat Aristotelian conflict as an absence of substantive communal ideals, Skultety argues that Aristotle articulated a view of politics that theorizes profoundly different kinds of conflict. Aristotle comprehended the subtle factors that can lead otherwise peaceful citizens to contemplate outright civil war, grasped the unique conditions that create hopelessly implacable partisans, and systematized tactics rulers could use to control regrettable, but still manageable, levels of civic distrust. Moreover, Aristotle conceived of debate, enduring disagreement, social rivalries, and competitions for leadership as an indispensable part of how human beings live well together in successful political life. By exploring the ways in which citizens can be at odds with one another, Conflict in Aristotle's Political Philosophy presents a dimension of ancient Greek thought that is startlingly relevant to contemporary concerns about social divisions, constitutional crises, and the range of acceptable conflict in healthy democracies.

Essays on Greek philosophy and literature from Homer and Hesiod to Aristotle. In Logoi and Muthoi, William Wians builds on his earlier volume Logos and Muthos, highlighting the richness and complexity of these terms that were once set firmly in opposition to one another as reason versus myth or rationality versus irrationality. It was once common to think of intellectual history representing a straightforward progression from mythology to rationality. These volumes, however, demonstrate the value of taking the two together, opening up and analyzing a range of interactions, reactions, tensions, and ambiguities arising between literary and philosophical forms of discourse, including philosophical themes in works not ordinarily considered in the canon of Greek philosophical texts. This new volume considers such topics as the pre-philosophical origins of Anaximander's calendar, the philosophical significance of public performance and claims of poetic inspiration, and the complex role of mythic figures (including perhaps Socrates) in Plato. Taken together, the essays offer new approaches to familiar texts and open up new possibilities for understanding the roles and relationships between muthos and logos in ancient Greek thought. William Wians is Professor of Philosophy at Merrimack College. His books include Logos and Muthos: Philosophical Essays in Greek Literature, also published by SUNY Press, and Reading Aristotle: Argument and Exposition (coedited with Ron Polansky).

Corrective intervention in Plato's metaphysics replacing the standard view of Plato as a metaphysical dualist with a novel and revolutionary paradigm of unitary pluralism in a single reality built on ontological diversity. One over Many is a groundbreaking interpretation of Plato's philosophical outlook, solving longstanding problems in the scholarly literature. Its originality and its strength consist in replacing the metaphysical dualism of the traditional interpretation with the paradigm of unitary pluralism: one world with a gradation of reality, including three different types of Forms, as well as the entire spectrum of sensible phenomena, with intermediate ontological constructs in between. The model thus combines a monism of worlds with a pluralism of things, positing a unitary reality of infinite possibilities through ontological stratification. This tightly integrated collection of essays, conceived and developed by the author in pursuit of corrective intervention in Plato's metaphysics, combines his previously published work with newly drafted material for the present volume. The book replaces the standard view of Plato as a metaphysical dualist with a novel interpretation providing greater explanatory power through the paradigm of unitary pluralism in a single reality built on ontological diversity. Necip Fikri Alican is a philosopher specializing in ethics and metaphysics, both especially from a historical perspective.

Otherwise Than the Binary approaches canonical texts and concepts in Ancient Greek philosophy and culture that have traditionally been understood, as examples of binary thinking, particularly concerning sexual difference. In contrast to such patriarchal logic, the essays within this volume explore how many of these seemingly strict binaries in ancient culture and thought were far more permeable and philosophically nuanced. Each contribution asks if there are ways of thinking of antiquity differently-namely, to examine canonical works through a lens that expounds and even celebrates philosophies of difference, so as to discover instances where authors of antiquity valorize and uphold the necessity of what has been seen as feminine, foreign, and/or irrational. As contemporary thinkers turn toward new ways of reading antiquity, these selected studies will inspire other readings of ancient texts through new feminist methodologies and critical vantage points. When examining the philosophers and notable figures of antiquity alongside their overt patriarchal and masculinist agendas, readers are invited to rethink their current biases while also questioning how particular ideas and texts are received and read.

Offers an interdisciplinary investigation of affectivity in various forms of life. E-Co-Affectivity is a philosophical investigation of affectivity in various forms of life: photosynthesis and growth in plants, touch and trauma in bird feathers, the ontogenesis of human life through the placenta, the bare interface of human skin, and the porous materiality of soil. Combining biology, phenomenology, Ancient Greek thought, new materialisms, environmental philosophy, and affect studies, Marjolein Oele thinks through the concrete, living places that show the receptive, responsive power of living beings to be affected and to affect. She focuses on these localized interfaces to explain how affectivity emerges in places that are always evolving, creative, porous, and fluid. Every interface is material, but is also "more" than its current materiality in cocreating place, time, and being. After extensively describing the effects of the milieu and community within which each example of affectivity takes place, in the final chapter Oele adds a prescriptive, ethical lens that formulates a new epoch beyond the Anthropocene, one that is sensitive to the larger ecological, communal concerns at stake. Marjolein Oele is Professor of Philosophy at the University of San Francisco. She is the coeditor (with Gerard Kuperus) of Ontologies of Nature: Continental Perspectives and Environmental Reorientations.

Argues that images are at the heart of the dialogue's philosophical argumentation. Although Plato has long been known as a critic of imagination and its limits, Marina Berzins McCoy explores the extent to which images also play an important, positive role in Plato's philosophical argumentation. She begins by examining the poetic educational context in which Plato is writing and then moves on to the main lines of argument and how they depend upon a variety of uses of the imagination, including paradigms, analogies, models, and myths. McCoy takes up the paradoxical nature of such key metaphysical images as the divided line and cave: on the one hand, the cave and divided line explicitly state problems with images and the visible realm. On the other hand, they are themselves images designed to draw the reader to greater intellectual understanding. The author gives a perspectival reading, arguing that the human being is always situated in between the transcendence of being and the limits of human perspective. Images can enhance our capacity to see intellectually as well as to reimagine ourselves vis-à-vis the timeless and eternal. Engaging with a wide range of continental, dramatic, and Anglo-American scholarship on images in Plato, McCoy examines the treatment of comedy, degenerate regimes, the nature of mimesis, the myth of Er, and the nature of Platonic dialogue itself. Marina Berzins McCoy is Professor of Philosophy at Boston College. She is the author of Wounded Heroes: Vulnerability as a Virtue in Ancient Greek Literature and Philosophy and Plato on the Rhetoric of Philosophers and Sophists.

Advances an interpretation of Aristotle's theory of truth in terms of accurate measurement. On the basis of careful textual exegesis and philosophical analysis of Aristotle's Metaphysics, Mark R. Wheeler offers a groundbreaking interpretation of Aristotle's theory of truth in terms of measurement. Wheeler demonstrates that Aristotle's investigation of truth and falsehood in the Metaphysics is rigorously methodical, that Aristotle's conceptions of truth contribute to the main lines of thought in the treatise, and that the Metaphysics, taken as a whole, contributes fundamentally to Aristotle's theory of truth. Wheeler provides not only an excellent introduction to the main problems in the theory of truth but also provides contemporary truth theorists with a rigorous explanation of Aristotle's theory of truth.

A fresh look at Aristotle's political theory with attention to the resonance of his thought for contemporary concerns. In Endangered Excellence, Pierre Pellegrin provides a fresh interpretation of Aristotle's Politics, revealing the extent to which Aristotle diverged from other ancient writers on politics, and the extent to which many of his positions resemble modern attitudes in political philosophy. Pellegrin highlights a number of strikingly original positions in his thought. Aristotle took humans to be inherently political, for example, even as he believed this characteristic developed more completely in men than in women, and in Greeks more than in barbarians. He maintained a nuanced and flexible conception of the way that cities ought to develop their constitutions, one that would be responsive to their particular social and historical contexts. Realist enough to recognize that virtuous men are rare and that class conflict is inevitable, Aristotle envisioned a political system that would be resilient in navigating the choppy waters of civic life. With this original approach to Aristotle's Politics, and incorporating key developments in European and English-language scholarship on the subject, Pellegrin demonstrates Aristotle's important and often unrecognized innovations in understanding political life. Pierre Pellegrin is Director of the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, France. His books include Aristotle's Classification of Animals: Biology and the Conceptual Unity of the Aristotelian Corpus (translated by Anthony Preus) and A Companion to Ancient Philosophy (coedited with Mary Louise Gill). Anthony Preus is Distinguished Teaching Professor in Philosophy at Binghamton University, State University of New York. He is the author and editor of many books, including Historical Dictionary of Ancient Greek Philosophy.

Offers an innovative reading of Plato, analyzing his metaphysical, ethical, and political commitments in connection with feminist critiques. For centuries, it has been the prevailing view that in prioritizing the soul, Plato ignores or even abhors the body; however, in Plato and the Body Coleen P. Zoller argues that Plato does value the body and the role it plays in philosophical life, focusing on Plato's use of Socrates as an exemplar. Zoller reveals a more refined conception of the ascetic lifestyle epitomized by Socrates in Plato's Phaedo, Symposium, Phaedrus, Gorgias, and Republic. Her interpretation illuminates why those who want to be wise and good have reason to be curious about and love the natural world and the bodies in it, and has implications for how we understand Plato's metaphysical and political commitments. This book shows the relevance of this broader understanding of Plato for work on a variety of relevant contemporary issues, including sexual morality, poverty, wealth inequality, and peace. Coleen P. Zoller is Professor of Philosophy at Susquehanna University.

Examines the ideas of justice in Euripidean tragedy which reveals the human experience of justice to be paradoxical and reminds us of the need for humility in our unceasing quest for a just world.

This book explores Plato's implicit understanding of argumentation by reviewing his standing as a logician, rhetorician, and dialectician. The question of his "standing" on these matters is approached on his terms (gleaned from the dialogues) rather than simply from the judgments of commentators. Traditionally, arguments are distinguished as logical, rhetorical, or dialectical, and the source of these distinctions is taken to be Aristotle. This book proceeds on the assumption that Aristotle's tripartite theory of argumentation did not arise in a vacuum and explores the different degrees to which substantive antecedents of parts of that model can be traced to Plato.

Inquiring into Being is a study of Parmenides, the early Greek pre-Socratic philosopher often credited as the first metaphysician and whose sole written work was a philosophical poem. In his poem, Parmenides has a narrating goddess character indicate the sense of being that must be and cannot be as a corrective to the errors mortals make when accounting for the ultimate nature of reality while showing a keen scientific understanding of natural phenomena. Inquiring into Being brings together and further develops recent work on Parmenides and the surviving fragments of his text through twelve chapters by scholars from the United States and United Kingdom working in analytic and continental philosophy, classics, political theory, literary theory, and the history of science. It serves as a guide through many of the interpretive controversies in Parmenides's poem while offering new insights into Parmenides's role as poet, scientist, natural philosopher, and investigator into the nature of being.