This book consists of Gregory Vlastos' studies on a variety of themes in Plato's metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and social philosophy. Although many of the essays have appeared in various philosophical and classical journals or symposia, new in the volume are two major studies. One is on Plato's theory of love, exploring its metaphysical dimension and its far-reaching implications for personal and political relations. The other centers on semantic and logical problems in the Sophist; it offers solutions to crucial difficulties in this fundamental Platonic work. In these essays the author presents ideas which are likely to provoke comment and may be discussed as vigorously in scholarly journals as has some of his earlier work. The other papers, some of them extensively revised, comprise virtually all the author's published work on Plato, with the exception of a few papers easily accessible elsewhere. This second edition includes three additional essays and extensive notes that were not included in the original edition.

Roughly formulating many of the themes he later developed at length, Nietzsche sketches concepts such as the will to power, eternal recurrence, and self-overcoming and links them to specific pre-Platonics." "This translation, complete with Nietzsche's own extensive sidenotes and philological citations, is accompanied by a prologue, introductory essay, and extensive translator's commentary.".

This collection of original essays pays tribute to the man by exploring topics that have interested him through a long and productive career. Plato's mathematical imagery, his theory of perception, the role of engineering techne in the origin of Greek science, time and free will in Kant, Whitehead as teacher of teachers, mapping friendships, Kierkegaard and the necessity of forgery. These and other topics are given fresh treatments meant to stimulate further philosophical thinking in the spirit of Brumbaugh himself.

English description: What did the early Greek philosophers think about animals and their lives? How did they view plants? And, ultimately, what type of relationship did they envisage between all sorts of living beings? On these topics there is evidence of a prolonged investigation by several Presocratics. However, scholarship has paid little attention to these issues and to the surprisingly 'modern' development they received in Presocratics' doctrines. This book fills this lacuna through a detailed (and largely unprecedented) analysis of the extant evidence. The volume also includes the first extensive collection of the ancient sources pertaining to living beings and life in early Greek philosophy, organized chronologically and thematically. German description: Was dachten die fruhen Griechischen Philosophen uber das Leben der Tiere? Welches Bild machten sie sich von Pflanzen? Und schliesslich, welche Vorstellung hatten sie davon, wie alles Leben untereinander zusammenhangt? Es lassen sich hierzu viele Nachweise in Traktaten der Prasokratiker finden, jedoch haben bisherige wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen diesem Thema wenig Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt. Diese Lucke wird vom vorliegenden Band mit detaillierten, textnahen Analysen der mannigfaltigen Nachweise gefullt. Zusatzlich wartet das Werk mit einer beispiellosen Sammlung der prasokratischen Quellen auf, welche sich mit der Philosophie des Lebens und der Lebewesen auseinandersetzen, sowohl chronologisch als auch thematisch gruppiert.

One of the outstanding thinkers of our time offers in this book his final words to posterity. Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy was well underway at the time of Leo Strauss's death in 1973. Having chosen the title for the book, he selected the most important writings of his later years and arranged them to clarify the issues in political philosophy that occupied his attention throughout his life. As his choice of title indicates, the heart of Strauss's work is Platonism—a Platonism that is altogether unorthodox and highly controversial. These essays consider, among others, Heidegger, Husserl, Nietzsche, Marx, Moses Maimonides, Machiavelli, and of course Plato himself to test the Platonic understanding of the conflict between philosophy and political society. Strauss argues that an awesome spritual impoverishment has engulfed modernity because of our dimming awareness of that conflict. Thomas Pangle's Introduction places the work within the context of the entire Straussian corpus and focuses especially on Strauss's late Socratic writings as a key to his mature thought. For those already familiar with Strauss, Pangle's essay will provoke thought and debate; for beginning readers of Strauss, it provides a fine introduction. A complete bibliography of Strauss's writings if included.

This book explains how to read Plato, emphasizing the philosophic importance of the dramatic aspects of the dialogues, and showing that Plato is an ironic thinker and that his irony is deeply rooted in his philosophy.