Download or read book Plato s Pigs and Other Ruminations written by M. D. Usher and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-15 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Greeks and Romans have been charged with destroying the ecosystems within which they lived. In this book, however, M. D. Usher argues rather that we can find in their lives and thought the origin of modern ideas about systems and sustainability, important topics for humans today and in the future. With chapters running the gamut of Greek and Roman experience – from the Presocratics and Plato to Roman agronomy and the Benedictine Rule – Plato's Pigs brings together unlikely bedfellows, both ancient and modern, to reveal surprising connections. Lively prose and liberal use of anecdotal detail, including an afterword about the author's own experiments with sustainable living on his sheep farm in Vermont, add a strong authorial voice. In short, this is a unique, first-of-its-kind book that is sure to be of interest to anyone working in Classics, environmental studies, philosophy, ecology, or the history of ideas.
Download or read book Fragments written by Heraclitus and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2003-10-28 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fragments of wisdom from the ancient world In the sixth century b.c.-twenty-five hundred years before Einstein--Heraclitus of Ephesus declared that energy is the essence of matter, that everything becomes energy in flux, in relativity. His great book, On Nature, the world's first coherent philosophical treatise and touchstone for Plato, Aristotle, and Marcus Aurelius, has long been lost to history--but its surviving fragments have for thousands of years tantalized our greatest thinkers, from Montaigne to Nietzsche, Heidegger to Jung. Now, acclaimed poet Brooks Haxton presents a powerful free-verse translation of all 130 surviving fragments of the teachings of Heraclitus, with the ancient Greek originals beautifully reproduced en face. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Download or read book Heraclitus written by Heraclitus and published by CUP Archive. This book was released on 1962 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A text and study of Heraclitus' philosophical utterances whose subject is the world as a whole rather than man and his part in it.
Download or read book The Ascent from Nominalism written by Terry Penner and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 1987-02-28 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: divisibility in Physics VI. I had been assuming at that time that Aristotle's elimination of reference to the infinitely large in his account of the potential inf inite--like the elimination of the infinitely small from nineteenth century accounts of limits and continuity--gave us everything that was important in a theory of the infinite. Hilbert's paper showed me that this was not obviously so. Suddenly other certainties about Aristotle's (apparently) judicious toning down of (supposed) Platonic extremisms began to crumble. The upshot of work I had been doing earlier on Plato's 'Third Man Argument' began to look different from the way it had before. I was confronted with a possibility I had not till then so much as entertained. What if the more extreme posi tions of Plato on these issues were the more likely to be correct? The present work is the first instalment of the result ing reassessment of Plato's metaphysics, and especially of his theory of Forms. It has occupied much of my teaching and scholarly time over the past fifteen years and more. The central question wi th which I concern myself is, "How does Plato argue for the existence of his Forms (if he does )7" The idea of making this the central question is that if we know how he argues for the existence of Forms, we may get a better sense of what they are.
Download or read book Studies in Greek Philosophy Socrates Plato and their tradition written by Gregory Vlastos and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Presocratic Philosophy written by Professor of Philosophy Patricia Curd and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2008-10-27 with total page 601 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook brings together leading international scholars to study the diverse figures, movements, and approaches that constitute presocratic philosophy. The study presents interpretations and evaluations of the Presocratics' accomplishments, from Thales to the sophists and from theology to science.
Download or read book Authority and Authoritative Texts in the Platonist Tradition written by Michael Erler and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-04 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sheds light on the meaning, import and philosophical outlook of the notion of authority throughout the Platonist tradition.
Download or read book Plato s Parmenides written by Samuel Scolnicov and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2003-07-08 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of all Plato’s dialogues, the Parmenides is notoriously the most difficult to interpret. Scholars of all periods have disagreed about its aims and subject matter. The interpretations have ranged from reading the dialogue as an introduction to the whole of Platonic metaphysics to seeing it as a collection of sophisticated tricks, or even as an elaborate joke. This work presents an illuminating new translation of the dialogue together with an extensive introduction and running commentary, giving a unified explanation of the Parmenides and integrating it firmly within the context of Plato's metaphysics and methodology. Scolnicov shows that in the Parmenides Plato addresses the most serious challenge to his own philosophy: the monism of Parmenides and the Eleatics. In addition to providing a serious rebuttal to Parmenides, Plato here re-formulates his own theory of forms and participation, arguments that are central to the whole of Platonic thought, and provides these concepts with a rigorous logical and philosophical foundation. In Scolnicov's analysis, the Parmenides emerges as an extension of ideas from Plato's middle dialogues and as an opening to the later dialogues. Scolnicov’s analysis is crisp and lucid, offering a persuasive approach to a complicated dialogue. This translation follows the Greek closely, and the commentary affords the Greekless reader a clear understanding of how Scolnicov’s interpretation emerges from the text. This volume will provide a valuable introduction and framework for understanding a dialogue that continues to generate lively discussion today.
Download or read book An Introduction to Early Greek Philosophy written by John Mansley Robinson and published by Advanced Reasoning Forum. This book was released on 2021-03-25 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Introduction to Early Greek Philosophy. The Chief Fragments and Ancient Testimony, with Connecting Commentary. "The selection of primary source materials for the whole sequence from Ionians to Sophists is adequate to generous. [...] Robinson's translations of the fragments are, on the whole, precise and sensitive . . . His introductory and connecting comments are lucid, well-informed, and discreet". Alexander Mourelatos, J. History of Philosophy "[...]this book is so far superior to its rivals that it is hard to imagine how a teacher who uses it once can prefer any other existing text. The style and organization of the book are clear and attractive, the scholarship is sound and up to date, the exposition of philosophic ideas is precise and coherent[...]". Charles H. Kahn, J. of Philosophy
Download or read book Sophie s World written by Jostein Gaarder and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2007-03-20 with total page 599 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.
Download or read book From Truth and truth written by Francis Etheredge and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2016-01-14 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We begin philosophising (cf. Fides et Ratio, 3, 30) without realising that we are philosophers; but, in time, we discover our own identity as philosophers and, at the same time, come to critically examine it. What, therefore, is the interrelationship between reason and sense; indeed, is not “sense”, subtly sensitive through reason? Questions, then, arise out of our life, our observations and from what we learn. But it is not only about being ready, well-trained or perfect in our reasoning; rather, it is about taking up the impulse and the task of seeking the truth. On the one hand, then, we can question everything and end up with nothing; but, on the other hand, there are many points of departure: experience; maxims; and the wisdom which comes through “many advisers” (Prov 15: 22).Ideas abound about what might be the case; but a philosophical investigation is also about coming into the presence of “being”. Many people have gone before and go with us, and will come after us; and, therefore, this book marks a contribution to understanding both the “activity” of philosophising and the conversation about what “is” (cf. Fides et Ratio, 44). We discover that to exist is to search through the apparent contradictions in our experience and to find, eventually, that there are both good foundations and buildings begun, and also great unanswered or unsatisfactorily answered questions. There is an ongoing work, too, to establish the mystery of the person “implicated” in human action. Therefore, there is both the inveterate call of the subject to be investigated, and, at the same time, the ever-present need of the grace of perseverance to pursue it.This book is also about the slow discovery of the beautiful but inadequate nature of natural truth. The wonder of natural truth is that it exists like the literal sense: a kind of foundational reasoning; however, just as Revelation perfects natural truth, so the human person is a living expression of the “whole” literal and spiritual sense of created being. Hence the title of this volume, Faithful Reason, makes explicit a “witness” to what is beyond itself.
Download or read book Heraclitus and Derrida written by Erin O'Connell and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2005 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Famous for their enigmatic ambiguity, the fragmentary texts of the Presocratic philosopher Heraclitus have puzzled and fascinated readers for over two millennia. This comparative analysis of Heraclitus and Jacques Derrida reveals the ancient roots of Derrida's contemporary discourses on deconstruction, logocentrism, and différance. It also demonstrates that reading Derrida enhances further elaboration of the arguments in the Heraclitean fragments. An excellent resource for students of philosophy, comparative literature, and literary theory, this groundbreaking study offers an accessible account of the ancient antecedent to a major trend in the contemporary theory of language, literature, and philosophy.
Download or read book Passion of the Western Mind written by Richard Tarnas and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2011-10-19 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[This] magnificent critical survey, with its inherent respect for both the 'Westt's mainstream high culture' and the 'radically changing world' of the 1990s, offers a new breakthrough for lay and scholarly readers alike....Allows readers to grasp the big picture of Western culture for the first time." SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE Here are the great minds of Western civilization and their pivotal ideas, from Plato to Hegel, from Augustine to Nietzsche, from Copernicus to Freud. Richard Tarnas performs the near-miracle of describing profound philosophical concepts simply but without simplifying them. Ten years in the making and already hailed as a classic, THE PASSION OF THE WESERN MIND is truly a complete liberal education in a single volume.
Download or read book Flow and Flux in Plato s Philosophy written by Andrew J. Mason and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-02 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this bold new study, Andrew J. Mason seeks both to shed light on the key issue of flux in Plato’s work, and to show that there is also in Plato a notion of flow that needs to be distinguished from flux. Mason brings out the importance of this hitherto neglected distinction, and proposes on its basis a new way of understanding the development of Plato’s thought. The opposition between the ‘being’ of Forms and the ‘becoming’ or ‘flux’ of sensibles has been fundamental to the understanding of Plato from Aristotle to the present day. One key concern of this volume is to clarify which kinds or levels of flux Plato accepts in sensibles. In addition, Mason argues that this traditional approach is unsatisfactory, as it leaves out the important notion of flow. Unlike flux, flow is a kind of motion that does not entail intrinsic change. It is also not restricted to the sensible, but covers motions of soul as well, including the circular motion of nous (intelligence) that is crucial in Plato’s later thought, particularly his cosmology. In short, flow is not incompatible with ‘being’, and in this study Plato’s development is presented, largely, as his arrival at this view, in correction of his earlier conflation of flux and flow in establishing the dichotomy between being and becoming. Mason’s study offers fresh insights into many dialogues and difficult passages in Plato’s oeuvre, and situates Plato’s conception and usage of ‘flow’ and ‘flux’ in relation to earlier usage in the Greek poetic tradition and the Presocratic thinkers, particularly Heraclitus. The first study of its kind, Flow and Flux uncovers dimensions of Plato’s thinking that may reshape the way his philosophy is understood.
Download or read book The Cyrenaics written by Ugo Zilioli and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-10-20 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cyrenaic school of philosophy (named after its founder Aristippus' native city of Cyrene in North Africa) flourished in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE and whose importance was much recognized in ancient times. Ugo Zilioli's book provides the first book-length introduction to the school in English. This book begins by introducing the main figures of the Cyrenaic school beginning with Aristippus and by setting them into their historical context. Once the reader is familiar with those figures and with the genealogy of the school, the book offers an overview of ancient and modern interpretations of the Cyrenaics, to provide readers with alternative accounts of the doctrines they endorsed and of the role they played in the context of ancient thought. Finally, this book offers a reconstruction of Cyrenaic philosophy and shows how the ethical side of their speculation connected with the epistemology and ontology they endorsed and that, as a result, the Cyrenaics were able to offer a quite sophisticated philosophy. Indeed, Zilioli demonstrates that they represented, in ancient philosophy, an important and original metaphysical position and alternative to the kind of realism endorsed by Plato and Aristotle.
Download or read book Toward a Process Approach in Psychology written by Paul van Geert and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-07-28 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Psychological science constructs much of the knowledge that we consume in our everyday lives. This book is a systematic analysis of this process, and of the nature of the knowledge it produces. The authors show how mainstream scientific activity treats psychological properties as being fundamentally stable, universal, and isolable. They then challenge this status quo by inviting readers to recognize that dynamics, context-specificity, interconnectedness, and uncertainty, are a natural and exciting part of human psychology – these are not things to be avoided and feared, but instead embraced. This requires a shift toward a process-based approach that recognizes the situated, time-dependent, and fundamentally processual nature of psychological phenomena. With complex dynamic systems as a framework, this book sketches out how we might move toward a process-based praxis that is more suitable and effective for understanding human functioning.
Download or read book Death by Philosophy written by Ava Chitwood and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brings to vivid life the connections between philosophy and biography by examining the spectacular--and often wildly implausible--biographies of famous pre-Socratic thinkers