What is the relationship between forms of thought in literature, philosophy and visual art in ancient Greece, and how are these forms related to their socio-political and economic context? This is the question raised by Richard Seaford in his final book. His answer is framed in terms of the relationship between aggregation and antithesis. In Greece between the eight and fourth centuries BCE, Seaford traces a progressive and complex shift from aggregation to antithesis in literature, philosophy and visual art, and correlates this with the shift from a pre-monetary and pre-polis society to a monetised polis. In the Platonic metaphysics of being, he identifies a further move, the negation of antithesis, which he links with the non-circulating possession of money. In this characteristically ambitious and challenging study, Richard Seaford extends his socio-economic analysis of Greek culture to visual art and includes contrasts with Near Eastern society and art.

Stoic cosmology held that our cosmos is periodically destroyed and restored. In this, it is unique compared to earlier cosmologies. Ricardo Salles offers a detailed reconstruction of the philosophical ideas behind this thesis which explains its uniqueness and how it competes with earlier cosmologies. The reconstruction is based on a rigorous analysis of the evidence, made accessible to non-specialists who are familiar with the history of ancient philosophy but do not specialise in Stoicism. Furthermore, the book reveals how the Stoics combined their meteorology, their cosmology, their physics and their metaphysics to explain natural phenomena, thereby illustrating how different disciplines can interact in ancient philosophy. It also refers to central questions in the interpretation of Stoicism, such as the role of the Stoic god in cosmology.

This is a study of Proclus' engagement with Aristotle's theory of motion, with a specific focus on Aristotle's criticism of Plato. It refutes the often-held view that Proclus – in line with other Neoplatonists – adheres to the idea of an essential harmony between Plato and Aristotle. Proclus' views on motion, a central concept in his thought, are illuminated by examining his Aristotelian background. The results enhance our view of the reception and authority of Aristotle in late antiquity, a crucial period for the transmission of Aristotelian thought which immensely shaped the later reading of his work. The book also counteracts the commonly held view that late antique philosophers straightforwardly accepted Aristotle as an authority in certain areas such as logic or natural philosophy.

The Meditations of the second-century Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius is consistently one of the best-selling philosophy books among the general public. Over the years it has also attracted famous admirers, from the Prussian king Frederick the Great to US President Bill Clinton. It continues to attract large numbers of new readers, drawn to its reflections on life and death. Despite this, it is not the sort of text read much by professional philosophers or even, until recently, taken especially seriously by specialists in ancient philosophy. It is a highly personal, easily accessible, yet deceptively simple work. This volume, written by leading experts and aimed at non-specialists, examines the central philosophical ideas in the work and assesses the extent to which Marcus is committed to the philosophy of Stoicism. It also considers how we ought to read this unique work and explores its influence from its first printed publication to today.

In this book Robert Roreitner offers a fresh interpretation of Aristotle's philosophically intriguing answers to what the nature of perception is, how it can be explained, and how perception is distinguished from mere appearance. He argues that for Aristotle, perception is a complete passive activity, and explains why this notion merely appears self-contradictory to us. He shows how Aristotle succeeds in integrating causal, qualitative, and relational aspects of perception, and explains why he is neither a 'spiritualist' nor a 'materialist'. He presses and resolves an unappreciated dilemma for Aristotle's hylomorphic account of perception and the role of the soul therein. This rich study shows that although Aristotle's understanding of perception may be in many respects outmoded, its core insights remain philosophically engaging. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

All volumes of Professor Guthrie's great history of Greek philosophy have won their due acclaim. The most striking merits of Guthrie's work are his mastery of a tremendous range of ancient literature and modern scholarship, his fairness and balance of judgement and the lucidity and precision of his English prose. He has achieved clarity and comprehensiveness.

This is a new edition of the fragments of 'Anonymus Iamblichi', the mysterious Greek author excerpted by Iamblichus in chapter 20 of Protrepticus. The fragments are an important but overlooked source for early Greek ethical and political thought. Among other things, they criticize traditional forms of social benefaction, and they offer a strikingly modern approach to the analysis of society and economy revolving around the concept of pistis ('trust'). The text and translation are supplemented by a lengthy introduction, which analyses the language and style of the fragments and explores them in the literary and philosophical context of early Socratic literature. The detailed commentary discusses issues pertaining to text and interpretation.

In this major new study, Tyler Huismann connects Aristotle's natural philosophy to modern theories of causation and provides fresh interpretations of classic issues. He links two of the most important notions in Aristotle's philosophy, accidents and causes, and using the concept of accidental causation as a guide, argues for ground-breaking proposals on some of the most foundational areas of Aristotle's thought: the relation between substances and accidents, the nature of efficient causation, the workings of 'qua,' the possibility of uncaused events, and the role of accidental causation in the natural world. Structured around close readings of Aristotle's Physics and Metaphysics and informed by contemporary theories of causation, Huismann's book offers students an accessible treatment of some of Aristotle's core texts, and provides specialists with a series of provocative interpretations.

In Book 4 of Plato's Republic, Socrates introduces what is regarded by scholars as the Platonic account of justice, according to which it is essentially internal and self-regarding, a matter of relations among the parts of a city or soul. In this book, Roslyn Weiss contends that there is another notion of justice, as other-regarding and external, which is to be found in a series of conversations in Book 1 between Socrates and three successive interlocutors. Weiss considers the relationship between justice as conceived in Book 1 and Book 4, and carefully examines what can be learned from each of the arguments. Her close analysis of Book 1 brings to light what Socrates really believed about justice, and extracts and explores this Book's many insights concerning justice—at both the political and the personal level.

In this study, Mateusz Stróżyński offers an experiential and practical way of understanding Plotinus' thought and philosophy through a focus on the act of contemplation. He argues that contemplation, or direct seeing of the principles of reality, is not merely a part of Plotinus' thought, but rather a significant dimension of it. Moreover, he argues that Plotinus understands metaphysics as a conceptual and propositional description of reality from a third-person perspective, as well as an expression of an experience of that reality from a first-person perspective. Stróżyński focuses on the first phase of the journey to the Good, namely, on the contemplation of the intelligible world: Nature, Soul, and Intellect. He describes the fall of the soul and her return through the lens of the so-called “Great Kinds”: Being, Movement, Rest, Difference, and Identity. Stróżyński also shows how this concept, derived from Plato's Sophist, is creatively used by Plotinus to explain both the loss and the restoration of our ability to contemplate through philosophical practice.

To be human is to strive to be better, and we cannot be better without knowing what is best. In ancient Greek philosophy and the Bible, what is best is god. Plato and Aristotle argue that the goal of human life is to become as much like god as is humanly possible. Despite its obvious importance, this theme of assimilation to god has been neglected in Anglo-American scholarship. Classical Greek philosophy is best understood as a religious quest for divinity by means of rational discipline. By showing how Greek philosophy grows out of ancient Greek religion and how the philosophical quest for god compares to the biblical quest, we see Plato and Aristotle properly as major religious thinkers. In their shared quest for divine perfection, Greek philosophy and the Bible have enough in common to make their differences deeply illuminating.

Scholars have paid ample attention to Aristotle's works on animals. By contrast, they have paid little or no attention to Theophrastus' writings on plants. That is unfortunate because there was a shared research project in the early Peripatos which amounted to a systematic, and theoretically motivated, study of perishable living beings (animals and plants). This is the first sustained attempt to explore how Aristotle and Theophrastus envisioned this study, with attention focused primarily on its deep structure. That entails giving full consideration to a few transitional passages where Aristotle and Theophrastus offer their own description of what they are trying to do. What emerges is a novel, sophisticated, and largely idiosyncratic approach to the topic of life. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Plato's Gorgias depicts a conversation between Socrates and a number of guests, which centers on the question of how one should live. This "choice of lives" is presented both as a choice between philosophy and ordinary political rhetoric, and as a choice between justice and injustice. The essays in this Critical Guide offer detailed analyses of each of the main candidates in the choice of lives, and of how the advocates for these ways of life understand and argue with each other. Several essays also relate the Gorgias to the philosophical and political context of its time and place. Together, these features of the volume illuminate the interpretive issues in the Gorgias and enable readers to achieve a thorough understanding of the philosophical issues which the work raises.