How did ancient philosophers understand the relationship between human capacities for thinking and our experiences of pleasure and pain?

Mathematician and astronomer Eudoxus of Cnidus was a younger contemporary of Plato and an older contemporary of Aristotle, on both of whom he exerted some influence during his stays in Athens. This is perhaps most apparent with regard to his ethical doctrine that identifies the good as pleasure (hedonism). While Plato seems rather unsure how seriously to take this proposal, Aristotle provides the materials for reconstructing the battery of ingenious arguments that Eudoxus brought forward in its defence. Taken together in this Element, these arguments foreshadow almost everything that has been said in the Western tradition in favour of the positive value of pleasure, and, if taken aright, point in the direction of a hedonism that sets store by the cultivation of activities akin to those for which Eudoxus has been most renowned: mathematics and astronomy.

An orator turns to an actor for advice, citizens expect assemblies to unfold like dramas, and a theater-goer cries at a play thinking of his fallen enemy: no Life escapes the mention of theatrical imagery in Plutarch’s paralleled biographies. And yet this is the first book not only to examine Plutarch’s consistent and coherent use of this imagery but also to argue that it is systematically employed to describe, explore, and evaluate politics in action. The theater becomes Plutarch’s invitation for us to question and uncover key moments of Athenian, Spartan, and Roman history as it unfolds.

Specifically focusing on the relationship between the Eudemian and the Nicomachean Ethics, this collection of essays studies major themes from Aristotle’s ethics. This volume builds on a recent revival of interest in Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics, which offers an invaluable complement to the Nicomachean Ethics in the study of the development of Aristotle's ethical ideas. It brings together a series of new studies by leading scholars covering the main points of inquiry raised by the relationship between the two works, exploring their continuities and divergences. At the same time, it showcases a variety of approaches to and perspectives on the main questions posed by Aristotle’s ethical thought. Investigating the Relationship Between Aristotle’s Eudemian and Nicomachean Ethics is offered as a contribution to long-standing debates over Aristotle's ethical thinking, as well as an inspiration for new approaches, which take both of his surviving ethical treatises seriously. The volume will be of interest to students and scholars of ancient philosophy and ethics, particularly Aristotle’s two ethics.

Plato’s Philebus presents a fascinating dialogue between the life of the mind and the life of pleasure. While Socrates decisively prioritizes the life of reason, he also shows that certain pleasures contribute to making the good life good. The Emerging Good in Plato’s "Philebus" argues that the Socratic pleasures of learning emphasize, above all, the importance of being open to change. John V. Garner convincingly refines previous interpretations and uncovers a profound thesis in the Philebus: genuine learners find value not only in stable being but also in the process of becoming. Further, since genuine learning arises in pluralistic communities where people form and inform one another, those who are truly open to learning are precisely those who actively shape the betterment of humanity. The Emerging Good in Plato’s "Philebus" thus connects the Philebus’s grand philosophical ideas about the order of values, on the one hand, to its intimate and personal account of the experience of learning, on the other. It shows that this dialogue, while agreeing broadly with themes in more widely studied works by Plato such as the Republic, Gorgias, and Phaedo, also develops a unique way of salvaging the whole of human life, including our ever-changing nature.

Plato is the best known, and continues to be the most widely studied, of all the ancient Greek philosophers. The updated and original essays in the second edition of the Oxford Handbook of Plato provide in-depth discussions of a variety of topics and dialogues, all serving several functions at once: they survey the current academic landscape; express and develop the authors' own views; and situate those views within a range of alternatives. The result is a useful state-of-the-art reference to the man many consider the most important philosophical thinker in history. This second edition of the Oxford Handbook of Plato differs in two main ways from the first edition. First, six leading scholars of ancient philosophy have contributed entirely new chapters: Hugh Benson on the Apology, Crito, and Euthyphro; James Warren on the Protagoras and Gorgias; Lindsay Judson on the Meno; Luca Castagnoli on the Phaedo; Susan Sauvé Meyer on the Laws; and David Sedley on Plato's theology. This new edition therefore covers both dialogues and topics in more depth than the first edition did. Secondly, most of the original chapters have been revised and updated, some in small, others in large, ways.

The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270 BCE), though often despised for his materialism, hedonism, and denial of the immortality of the soul during many periods of history, has at the same time been a source of inspiration to figures as diverse as Vergil, Hobbes, Thomas Jefferson, and Bentham. This volume offers authoritative discussions of all aspects of Epicurus's philosophy and then traces out some of its most important subsequent influences throughout the Western intellectual tradition. Such a detailed and comprehensive study of Epicureanism is especially timely given the tremendous current revival of interest in Epicurus and his rivals, the Stoics. The thirty-one contributions in this volume offer an unmatched resource for all those wishing to deepen their knowledge of Epicurus' powerful arguments about happiness, death, and the nature of the material world and our place in it. At the same time, his arguments are carefully placed in the context of ancient and subsequent disputes, thus offering readers the opportunity of measuring Epicurean arguments against a wide range of opponents--from Platonists, Aristotelians and Stoics, to Hegel and Nietzsche, and finally on to such important contemporary philosophers as Thomas Nagel and Bernard Williams. The volume offers separate and detailed discussions of two fascinating and ongoing sources of Epicurean arguments, the Herculaneum papyri and the inscription of Diogenes of Oenoanda. Our understanding of Epicureanism is continually being enriched by these new sources of evidence and the contributors to this volume have been able to make use of them in presenting the most current understanding of Epicurus's own views. By the same token, the second half of the volume is devoted to the extraordinary influence of Epicurean doctrines, often either neglected or misunderstood, in literature, political thinking, scientific innovation, personal conceptions of freedom and happiness, and in philosophy generally. Taken together, the contributions in this volume offer the most comprehensive and detailed account of Epicurus and Epicureanism available in English.