7th Edition

Philosophic Classics: Ancient Philosophy, Volume I

Edited By Forrest Baird Copyright 2019
    582 Pages
    by Routledge

    582 Pages
    by Routledge

    This seventh edition of Philosophic Classics, Volume I: Ancient Philosophy includes essential writings of the most important Greek philosophers, along with selections from some of their Roman followers. In updating this edition, editor Forrest E. Baird has continued to follow the same criteria established by the late Walter Kaufmann when the Philosophic Classics series was first established: (1) to use complete works or, where more appropriate, complete sections of works (2) in clear translations (3) of texts central to the thinker’s philosophy or widely accepted as part of the "canon." To make the works more accessible to students, most footnotes treating textual matters (variant readings, etc.) have been omitted and important Greek words have been transliterated and put in angle brackets. In addition, each thinker is introduced by a brief essay composed of three sections: (1) biographical (a glimpse of the life), (2) philosophical (a résumé of the philosopher’s thought), and (3) bibliographical (suggestions for further reading). 

    New to this seventh edition:

    Changes in translations:

      • New translations of Plato’s Apology and Phaedo and Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics and Politics from the acclaimed Focus Philosophical Library Series.
      • New translations of Plato’s Euthyphro and Crito.
      • New translations of Epicurus’s Letter to Herodotus, Letter to Menoeceus, and Principal Doctrines.
      • New translation of the Parmenides fragments.

    Additional material:

      • Gorgias’s model oration, Encomium on Helen, which gives a defense of Helen of Troy.
      • A selection from Plato’s Gorgias on nature <physis> versus convention or law <nomos>.
      • Additional material from the opening of Plato’s Symposium to contextualize the dialogue.
      • Additional material from Plato’s Republic (Book IX) on the tri-partite soul.
      • Additional material from Aristotle’s Metaphysics (Book IV, 1-4, 7) on the nature of being and the so-called "three rules of thought."
      • A brief selection from Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus, giving a sense of the person.
      • Updated and reorganized bibliographies.
      • To allow for all these changes, a section of Book V from Plato’s Republic has been dropped.

    Those who use this first volume in a one-term course in ancient philosophy will find more material here than can easily fit a normal semester. But this embarrassment of riches gives teachers some choice and, for those who offer the same course year after year, an opportunity to change the menu.

    Contents

    PREFACE

    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

    BEFORE SOCRATES

    The Milesians

    Thales

    Anaximander

    Anaximenes

    Three Solitary Figures

    Pythagoras

    Xenophanes

    Heraclitus

    The Monists

    Parmenides

    Zeno of Elea

    The Pluralists

    Empedocles

    Anaxagoras

    Democritus (and Leucippus)

    Three Sophists

    Protagoras

    Gorgias

    Critias

    EPILOGUE I: TWO VIEWS OF ATHENS

    Thucydides

    Pericles’ Funeral Oration

    The Melian Conference

    EPILOGUE II: ASPASIA

    SOCRATES AND PLATO

    Euthyphro

    Apology

    Crito

    Phaedo

    Gorgias (482e-484c)

    Meno

    Symposium (172a-173b, 189c–193d; 201d–223d)

    Republic (Book I, 336b–349b, 350d–354b; Book II, 357a–362c, 368e–376e; Book III, 386b-388a, 412b–417b; Book IV, 427d–445e; Book V, 449-462e, 469c-474a; Book VI–VII, 502c–521b; Book VIII, 562a–563e; Book IX, 580d-583a)

    Parmenides (127a–135d)

    Theaetetus (selections)

    Timaeus (27d–34b)

    Laws (selections)

    ARISTOTLE

    Categories (Chapters 1–5)

    On Interpretation (Chapters 1–9)

    Posterior Analytics (Book I, 1–2; Book II, 19)

    Physics (Book II complete)

    Metaphysics (Book I complete; Book IV, 1-4, 7; Book XII complete)

    On the Soul (Book II, 1–3; Book III, 4–5)

    Nicomachean Ethics (Book I–II; Book III, 1–5; Book IV, 3; Books VI–VII; Book X, 6–8, 9)

    Politics (Book I, 1–2; Book III, 6–9; Book IV, 11–12; Book VII, 3b–4, 9)

    Poetics (Chapter 6)

    HELLENISTIC AND ROMAN PHILOSOPHY

    Epicurus

    Letter to Herodotus

    Letter to Menoeceus

    Principal Doctrines

    Lucretius

    On the Nature of Things (Book Two, 216–284; Book Three, selections through 831)

    The Early Stoa

    Zeno of Citium (selections from Diogenes Laertius)

    Cleanthes—Hymn to Zeus

    Epictetus

    Handbook (Enchiridion)

    Marcus Aurelius

    Meditations (Book IV)

    Pyrrho and Sextus Empiricus

    Outlines of Pyrrhonism (Book I, 1–13)

    Plotinus and Porphyry

    Life of Plotinus (Chapters 1-2)

    Enneads (I, Tractate 6; V, Tractate 1, 1–12)

    Biography

    Forrest E. Baird is Professor of Philosophy at Whitworth University, USA. He has overseen the seven-volume Philosophic Classics series since 1992.