Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Symposium

by Robin Waterfield, Paul Woodruff, R. L. Hunter, Jamey Hecht, Plato, Alan Bloom

In his celebrated masterpiece, Symposium, Plato imagines a high-society dinner-party in Athens in 416 BC. The guests--including the comic poet Aristophanes and Plato's mentor Socrates--each deliver a short speech in praise of love. The sequence of dazzling speeches culminates in Socrates' famous account of the views of Diotima, a prophetess who taught him that love is our means of trying to attain goodness, and a... (more)

Gorgias (Clarendon Plato Series)

by Robin Waterfield, James H. Nicholas, Plato, Terence Irwin, E. R. Dodds

Taking the form of a dialogue among Socrates, Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles, the Gorgias debates crucial questions about the nature of government. While the aspiring politician Callicles propounds the view that might is right, and the rhetorician Gorgias argues that oratory and the power to persuade represent "the greatest good," Socrates insists on the duty of politicians to consider the welfare of... (more)

The Essential Plato

by Plato

Plato is indisputably one of the most important philosophers of all time, forming with Socrates and Aristotle the trio of great figures at the heart of classical philosophy. The Essential Plato brings together the thinker's writings with an accessible, informative, and entertaining introduction from Alain de Botton, which puts Plato in a historical context and explains why his life and work are still... (more)

Interpreting Plato's Dialogues

by J. Angelo Corlett

"Interpreting Plato's Dialogues" introduces readers to some key problems in understanding Plato's writings, and explores in-depth and critically the various ways of approaching Plato. The problem of how to interpret Plato's dialogues dates back to Plato's Academy, and Plato's interpreters ought not to forego this important discussion. For how one approaches texts will inevitably influence how one interprets their... (more)

Four Texts on Socrates: Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito and Aristophanes' Clouds

Four Texts on Socrates: Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito and Aristophanes' Clouds

by Aristophanes

Widely adopted for classroom use, this book offers translations of four major works of ancient Greek literature which treat the life and thought of Socrates, focusing particularly on his trial and defense (the platonic dialogues Euthyphro, Apology of Socrates, and Crito) and on the charges against Socrates (Aristophanes' comedy Clouds). This is the only collection of the three Platonic dialogues that... (more)

The Illustrated To Think Like God: Pythagoras and Parmenides, The Origins of Philosophy

The Illustrated To Think Like God: Pythagoras and Parmenides, The Origins of Philosophy

by Arnold Hermann

Fascinating illustrations contribute to this illuminating and award-winning account of how and why philosophy emerged and make it a must-read for any inquisitive thinker unsatisfied with prevailing assumptions on this timely and highly relevant subject. By taking the reader back to the Greek colonies of Southern Italy more than 500 years B.C., the author, with unparalleled insight, tells the story of the... (more)

To Think Like God, The: Pythagoras and Parmenides,the Origins of Philosophy

To Think Like God, The: Pythagoras and Parmenides,the Origins of Philosophy

by Arnold Hermann

This book is the scholarly & fully annotated edition of the award-winning The Illustrated To Think Like God. To Think Like God focuses on the emergence of philosophy as a speculative science, tracing its origins to the Greek colonies of Southern Italy, from the late 6th century to mid-5th century B.C. Special attention is paid to the sage Pythagoras and his movement, the poet Xenophanes of Colophon,... (more)

Black Market Truth: The Aristotle Quest, Book 1: A Dana McCarter Trilogy (Aristotle Quest: A Dana McCarter Trilogy)

The Aristotle Quest

Black Market Truth: The Aristotle Quest, Book 1: A Dana McCarter Trilogy (Aristotle Quest: A Dana McCarter Trilogy)

by Sharon M. Kaye

A secret concealed for centuries, shrouded in myth, silenced by stone. A secret that if unleashed threatens to shake the very foundation of Western civilization. A secret that can remain hidden no longer. The quest begins in Rome, where a grizzly murder and a plundered tomb serve to ignite perhaps the most controversial conflict in human history. Inspector Domenico Conti is charged with the task of... (more)

A Life Worthy of the Gods: The Materialist Psychology of Epicurus

A Life Worthy of the Gods: The Materialist Psychology of Epicurus

by David Konstan

Epicurus, and his Roman disciple Lucretius, held that the primary cause of human unhappiness was an irrational fear of death. What is more, they believed that a clear understanding of the nature of the world would help to eliminate this fear; for if we recognize that the universe and everything in it is made up of atoms and empty space, we will see that the soul cannot possibly survive the extinction of the body -... (more)

Platonic Patterns: A Collection of Studies

Platonic Patterns: A Collection of Studies

by Holger Thesleff

Platonic Patterns is a reprint collection of many of Holger Thesleff's studies in Plato—spanning from 1967 to 2003. It includes three books, four articles and a new introduction by the author, which sets the general outline of his interpretation of Plato. Whereas much of the scholarship on Plato has tended to operate within the frame of one language and/or a single school of thought, Thesleff constructively... (more)

Parmenides, Venerable and Awesome: Proceedings of the International Symposium

Parmenides, Venerable and Awesome: Proceedings of the International Symposium

by Nestor-Luis Cordero

In October of 2007, the Universidad Nacional de San Martin (Argentina) hosted an International Symposium on the philosophy of Parmenides to celebrate the creation of the University's new Center for the Study of Ancient Philosophy. The event - co-organized by the HYELE Institute for Comparative Studies (Switzerland) and Parmenides Publishing - brought together scholars from around the world to present their latest... (more)

Plotinus, The Platonist: The Platonist

by David J. Yount

An unprecedented and comprehensive demonstration of the numerous connections between the philosophies of Plato and Plotinus, their epistemologies, metaphysics, and ethics, including the argument that if Plotinus is a mystic, so is Plato—addressing criticisms in English scholarship to this view throughout.

Dialogues. (English.)

by Benjamin Jowett, Plato

The four best-known works of the most influential thinker in Western philosophy.

One and many in Aristotle's Metaphysics.

One and many in Aristotle's Metaphysics.

by Edward C. Halper

The problem of the one and the many is central to ancient Greek philosophy, but surprisingly little attention has been paid to Aristotle's treatment of it in the Metaphysics. This omission is all the more surprising because the Metaphysics is one of our principal sources for thinking that the problem is central and for the views of other ancient philosophers on it. "The Central Books of the Metaphysics" are widely... (more)

The Collected Dialogues of Plato

by Edith Hamilton, Huntington Cairns

All the writings of Plato generally considered to be authentic are here presented in the only complete one-volume Plato available in English. The editors set out to choose the contents of this collected edition from the work of the best British and American translators of the last 100 years, ranging from Jowett (1871) to scholars of the present day. The volume contains prefatory notes to each dialogue, by Edith... (more)

The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics)

The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics)

by Aristotle

Preserved by Arabic mathematicians and canonized by Christian scholars, Aristotle’s works have shaped Western thought, science, and religion for nearly two thousand years. Richard McKeon’s The Basic Works of Aristotle –constituted out of the definitive Oxford translation and in print as a Random House hardcover for sixty years–has long been considered the best available one-volume Aristotle. Appearing in... (more)

The Trial and Execution of Socrates: Sources and Controversies

The Trial and Execution of Socrates: Sources and Controversies

by Nicholas D. Smith

Socrates is one of the most important yet enigmatic philosophers of all time; his fame has endured for centuries despite the fact that he never actually wrote anything. In 399 B.C.E., he was tried on the charge of impiety by the citizens of Athens, convicted by a jury, and sentenced to death (ordered to drink poison derived from hemlock). About these facts there is no disagreement. However, as the sources... (more)

Nicomachean Ethics, 2nd Edition

by Aristotle

Building on the strengths of the first edition, the second edition of the Irwin Nicomachean Ethics features a revised translation (without extensive editorial intervention), expanded notes (including a summary of the argument of each chapter), an expanded Introduction, and a revised glossary. Terence Irwin is Susan Linn Sage Professor of Philosophy, Cornell University.

Medieval Philosophy (Philosophic Classics, Volume II--4th Edition)

Medieval Philosophy (Philosophic Classics, Volume II--4th Edition)

by Walter Arnold Kaufmann, Forrest E. Baird

For courses in Medieval Philosophy. Designed to be accessible to today's students, this anthology in Western Medieval philosophy studies ethics,politics, metaphysics and epistemology,questions on the nature of universals, the nature and essence of God, the relationship of God to time and creation, and the ability of humans to know God and creation.

By Being, It Is: The Thesis of Parmenides

By Being, It Is: The Thesis of Parmenides

by Nestor-Luis Cordero

The adventure of philosophy began in Greece, where it was gradually developed by the ancient thinkers as a special kind of knowledge by which to explain the totality of things. In fact, the Greek language has always used the word onta , "beings," to refer to things. At the end of the sixth century BCE, Parmenides wrote a poem to affirm his fundamental thesis upon which all philosophical systems should be based:... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: ancient philosophy

by Robin Waterfield, Paul Woodruff, R. L. Hunter, Jamey Hecht, Plato, Alan Bloom

by Robin Waterfield, James H. Nicholas, Plato, Terence Irwin, E. R. Dodds

by Plato

by J. Angelo Corlett

by Aristophanes

by Arnold Hermann

by Arnold Hermann

by Sharon M. Kaye

by David Konstan

by Holger Thesleff

by Nestor-Luis Cordero

by David J. Yount

by Benjamin Jowett, Plato

by Edward C. Halper

by Edith Hamilton, Huntington Cairns

by Aristotle

by Nicholas D. Smith

by Aristotle

by Walter Arnold Kaufmann, Forrest E. Baird

by Nestor-Luis Cordero