This book offers new insights into the workings of the human soul and the philosophical conception of the mind in Ancient Greece. It collects essays that deal with different but interconnected aspects of that unified picture of our mental life shared by all Ancient philosophers who thought of the soul as an immaterial substance. The papers present theoretical discussions on moral and psychological issues ranging from Socrates to Aristotle, and beyond, in connection with modern psychology. Coverage includes moral learning and the fruitfulness of punishment, human motivation, emotions as psychic phenomena, and more. Some of these topics directly stemmed from the Socratic dialectical experience and its tragic outcome, whereas others found their way through a complex history of refinements, disputes, and internal critique. The contributors present the gradual unfolding of these central themes through a close inspection of the relevant Ancient texts. They deliver a wide-ranging survey of some central and mutually related topics. In the process, readers will learn new approaches to Platonic and Aristotelian psychology and action theory. This book will appeal to graduate students and researchers in Ancient philosophy. Any scholar with a general interest in the history of ideas will also find it a valuable resource.

"[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.

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.

Plato’s Timaeus is unique in Greek Antiquity for presenting the creation of the world as the work of a divine demiurge. The maker bestows order on sensible things and imitates the world of the intellect by using the Forms as models. While the creation-myth of the Timaeus seems unparalleled, this book argues that it is not the first of Plato’s dialogues to use artistic language to articulate the relationship of the objects of the material world to the world of the intellect. The book adopts an interpretative angle that is sensitive to the visual and art-historical developments of Classical Athens to argue that sculpture, revolutionized by the advent of the lost-wax technique for the production of bronze statues, lies at the heart of Plato’s conception of the relation of the human soul and body to the Forms. It shows that, despite the severe criticism of mimēsis in the Republic, Plato’s use of artistic language rests on a positive model of mimēsis. Plato was in fact engaged in a constructive dialogue with material culture and he found in the technical processes and the cultural semantics of sculpture and of the art of weaving a valuable way to conceptualise and communicate complex ideas about humans’ relation to the Forms.

Positively re-assesses the relationship between body and soul in Plato's later dialogues, focusing on the harmony between them.

In the Gorgias Plato offers a synthesis of what he thinks about the bitter conflict between philosophical and non-philosophical approaches to one’s responsibilities in private and public life. This book contributes to a deeper understanding of this historically and conceptually rich canvas by shedding light on its main topics: speech in its philosophical and non-philosophical forms, psychology in relation to virtuous life, and politics which charges the two former topics with high stakes that call for personal choices.