1st Edition
From the Socratics to the Socratic Schools Classical Ethics, Metaphysics and Epistemology
In the two golden centuries that followed the death of Socrates, ancient philosophy underwent a tremendous transformation that culminated in the philosophical systematizations of Plato, Aristotle and the Hellenistic schools. Fundamental figures other than Plato were active after the death of Socrates; his immediate pupils, the Socratics, took over his legacy and developed it in a variety of ways. This rich philosophical territory has however been left largely underexplored in the scholarship.
This collection of eleven previously unpublished essays by leading scholars fills a gap in the literature, providing new insight into the ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology as developed by key figures of the Socratic schools. Analyzing the important contributions that the Socratics and their heirs have offered ancient philosophical thought, as well as the impact these contributions had on philosophy as a discipline, this book will appeal to researchers and scholars of Classical Studies, as well as Philosophy and Ancient History.
1. Plato’s Representation of the ‘Socratics’ Voula Tsouna 2. The First-Generation Socratics and the Socratic Schools: The Case of the Cyrenaics Christopher Rowe 3. The Socratic Profile of Antisthenes’ Ethics Aldo Brancacci 4. Rethinking Aeschines of Sphettus Kurt Lampe 5. Phaedo’s Zopyrus (and Socrates’ Confidences) Livio Rossetti 6. The Sources and Scope of Cyrenaic ScepticismTim O’Keefe 7. The Cyrenaics as Metaphysical Indeterminists Ugo Zilioli 8. Diodorus Cronus on Perceptible Minima Francesco Verde 9. Pyrrho and the Socratic Schools Richard Bett 10. Epicureanism and Socratism. The Evidence on the Minor Socratics from the Herculaneum Papyri Tiziano Dorandi 11. Socrates, Alcibiades and Antisthenes in PFlor 113 Menahem Luz
Biography
Ugo Zilioli has been an Irish Research Council fellow at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, and, more recently, a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellow at the University of Pisa, Italy. His main publications include: Protagoras and the Challenge of Relativism (2007; Chinese translation 2012); The Cyrenaics (2012; reprinted for Routledge 2014); The Circle of Megara (London/New York, forthcoming for Routledge).
"Ugo Zilioli has put together an inspiring, dialogical collection of papers, which explore routes traced by the evidence for the ‘other’ (let’s stop saying ‘minor’) Socratics and their heirs through many of the blank spaces left on our historical map between Plato and the Hellenistic age. At the same time as advancing our understanding of Classical metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, the papers grapple with important questions about how we do ancient philosophy, and bring much needed critical light to categories, such as that of the ‘school’ itself, which shape our thinking." – George Boys-Stones, Durham University, UK
