The apostle Paul has reemerged as a force on the contemporary philosophical scene. Some of the most powerful recent affirmations of nonrepresentational, materialist, and event-oriented philosophies repeat topics and tropes of the ancient apostle. Other thinkers find in Paul and his numerous cultural "afterlives" the ideal figure to contest both identity politics and the postmodern political fetish of endless openness and the deferral of presence. Paul is appropriated both for and against Kantian cosmopolitanism, psychoanalytic models of subjectivity and power, Schmittian political theologies, Derridean messianism, political universalism, and an ongoing refashioning of identity politics within postsecular contexts. This book provides the most comprehensive constellation to date of current thinking about Paul and his cultural or philosophical "afterlives" in ancient, modern, and contemporary contexts. It is a groundbreaking international and multidisciplinary exploration of the vexed political history of Paulinisms in philosophy and of philosophies in Paulinism. From his very first utterances, Paul's pronouncements as the self-proclaimed apostle of Jesus were curiously intertwined with philosophical discourse, with Paul presenting himself as both philosopher and anti-philosopher. Early Christian receptions of Paul then carefully managed his legacy in relation to the philosophical schools, presenting him alternately as an exemplary Platonist, a purveyor of Stoic spiritual exercises, and someone whose authority outstrips philosophy altogether. In the modern period, various types of Paulinism were imagined serially as possible escapes of philosophical thought from the domination of inherited metaphysics or ontotheology. The contributors to this volume bring unprecedented multidisciplinary expertise to both the historical reception and the contemporary relevance of a thinker who may come to be seen as the defining figure of our political and intellectual moment.

How was the apostle Paul influenced by the great philosophers of his age? Dodson and Briones have gathered contributors with diverse views who aim to make Paul's engagement with ancient philosophy accessible. These essays address Paul's interaction with Greco-Roman philosophical thinking on a particular topic, including discussion questions and reading lists to help readers engage the material further.

In his epistles, St. Paul sounded a universalism that has recently been taken up by secular philosophers who do not share his belief in Christ, but who regard his project as centrally important for contemporary political life. The Pauline project -- as they see it -- is the universality of truth, the conviction that what is true is true for everyone, and that the truth should be known by everyone. In this volume, eminent New Testament scholars, historians, and philosophers debate whether Paul's promise can be fulfilled. Is the proper work of reading Paul to reconstruct what he said to his audiences? Is it crucial to retrieve the sense of history from the text? What are the philosophical undercurrents of Paul's message? This scholarly dialogue ushers in a new generation of Pauline studies.

These studies continue a tradition of scholarship that flourished around the turn of the century when new editions of ancient philosophical sources were published. Professor Malherbe, however, widens the scope to include other philosophical traditions. He recognizes and identifies the influences of Platonists, Peripatetics, Cynics, Stoics, Epicureans, and Pythagoreans. These popular philosophers aimed at moral reform; they shared both in their substance and in the techniques employed. Yet, they need to be distinguished in order to discern their influence, if any, on Paul.

One of the remarkable developments in the contemporary study of Paul is the dramatic interest in his thought amongst European philosophers. This collection of leading scholars makes accessible a discussion often elusive to those not already conversant in the categories of European philosophy. Each scholar address's systematically what major philosophers have made of Pauland why it matters.

Philosopher, physicist, and anarchist Paul Feyerabend was one of the most unconventional scholars of his time. His book Against Method has become a modern classic. Yet it is not well known that Feyerabend spent many years working on a philosophy of nature that was intended to comprise three volumes covering the period from the earliest traces of stone age cave paintings to the atomic physics of the 20th century – a project that, as he conveyed in a letter to Imre Lakatos, almost drove him nuts: “Damn the ,Naturphilosophie.” The book’s manuscript was long believed to have been lost. Recently, however, a typescript constituting the first volume of the project was unexpectedly discovered at the University of Konstanz. In this volume Feyerabend explores the significance of myths for the early period of natural philosophy, as well as the transition from Homer’s “aggregate universe” to Parmenides’ uniform ontology. He focuses on the rise of rationalism in Greek antiquity, which he considers a disastrous development, and the associated separation of man from nature. Thus Feyerabend explores the prehistory of science in his familiar polemical and extraordinarily learned manner. The volume contains numerous pictures and drawings by Feyerabend himself. It also contains hitherto unpublished biographical material that will help to round up our overall image of one of the most influential radical philosophers of the twentieth century.

This volume assembles for the first time writings from the past two hundred years by philosophers engaging the dramatic work of William Shakespeare.