Sarah Fielding (1710-1768), the younger sister of Henry Fielding, and the close friend of his literary rival Samuel Richardson, was one of the very few English women to master ancient languages like Latin and Greek. With the help of Shaftesbury's nephew, James Harris, a distinguished writer, scholar and grammarian, she embarked on the ambitious project of translating Xenophon's Memorabilia and the Apology of Socrates from the Greek. This work, titled Memoirs of Socrates, with the Defence of Socrates before his (...) Judges, was finally released in 1762. She proved a discreet editor and a talented Hellenist, whose elegant style garnered praise from Tobias Smollett in his Critical Review. This superb translation is re-published in its entirety for the first time since the 18th century"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Two Short Communications:R. A. Markus, Gregory the Great and In I Regum, by Francis ClarkAquinas's Claim ‘Anima Mea Non Est Ego’, by Stephen Priest.

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

An essential text for understanding Socrates, Xenophon's Memorabilia is the compelling tribute of an affectionate student to his teacher, providing a rare firsthand account of Socrates' life and philosophy. The Memorabilia is invaluable both as a work of philosophy in its own right and as a complement to the study of Plato's dialogues. The longest of Xenophon's four Socratic works, it is particularly revealing about the differences between Socrates and his philosophical predecessors. Far more obviously than Plato in (...) the dialogues, Xenophon calls attention in the Memorabilia to his own relationship with Socrates. A colorful and fully engaged writer, Xenophon aims above all to convince his readers of the greatness of Socrates' thought and the disgracefulness of his conviction on a capital charge. In thirty-nine chapters, Xenophon presents Socrates as an ordinary person and as a great benefactor to those associated with him. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Nietzsche-Studien Jahrgang: 44 Heft: 1 Seiten: 597-645.

If people are to have rights to themselves, then they must have the right to affiliate in sovereign entities composed of people who mutually agree to affiliate with one another. This requires that any individual or group has a right to secede from any sovereign entity. The article develops the idea that a right of secession is natural when rights to territory and other gifts of nature are regarded as belonging equally to all persons, and all persons have rights to (...) themselves. The article also argues that a world that recognizes a right of secession is feasible. (shrink)

Plato and Xenophon: Apologies compares two key dialogues on the death of Socrates. Socrates was accused of impiety and corrupting the youth of ancient Athens and was tried, convicted, imprisoned, and executed. Both Plato and Xenophon make clear that the charges were not brought forward in the spirit of true piety, and that Socrates was a man of real virtue and beneficence. To this day, his trial and execution remain a mark upon the democracy that put him to (...) death. These dialogues underscore the limitations of democratic relativism and emphasize the nature of philosophy or the free mind. Plato’s Apology of Socrates is both poetry and an act of reformation, justifying the life of philosophy, challenging the authority of the pagan gods and heroes, and introducing Socrates as a heroic and even divine figure. In contrast, Xenophon’s Socrates is not dialectical and otherworldly, but makes a different appeal for philosophy. From Xenophon emerges the heroic tradition of Plutarch with its reflections on the virtues and vices of great historical men. Focus Philosophical Library translations are close to and are non-interpretative of the original text, with the notes and a glossary intending to provide the reader with some sense of the terms and the concepts as they were understood by Plato and Xenophon’s immediate audience. (shrink)

Modernity has been accompanied by a regain control of religious power cores by the State that were previously outside it. However, one can show that this break is superimposed another noteworthy discontinuity: the emergence of a new concept of power, dealing with life itself and not with its margins, which would be the biopolitics. It is possible to identify conceptual levers that engage all these changes in one of a key thinkers of this political modernity, Spinoza. While he demonstrates the (...) need for political power of emancipation from religious and resumption, he takes part in a new way of thinking the exercise of power. (shrink)

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

What is love? Why do we idealize those whom we love? How do we choose whom to love? Are some kinds of love better than others? Each age returns to these questions with renewed perplexity. Gerasimos Santas examinees the two greatest theoretical architectures of love, side by side. It provides a thorough critical description and comparison of these theories, allowing a sophisticated dialogue to emerge between the two thinkers. In the first half of the book Professor Santas reconstructs and explains (...) Plato's theories of eros and philia: erotic love, familial love and friendship. He attempt to show that Plato's was a unified theory in which erotic love has a special connecion with creativity and beauty. He then discusses Freud's notion of love as distinct from, though based on, his general theory of sexuality. He discusses in detail Freud's explanations, before and after narcissism, of idealization and choice of beloved. Freud too, it emerges, had a unified theory of love: all love has its origins in the libidinal instincts of infancy and childhood. The book concludes by showing that, despite Freud's claim that his theory of love is 'Platonic', the two theories are instructively different. (shrink)

Xenophon's portrait is the only one other than Plato's to survive, and while it offers a very personal interpretation of Socratic thought, it also reveals much about the man and his philosophical views.

Das grosse Geschichtswerk des Thukydides bricht ab um das Jahr 411. Hier setzt Xenophon, ein Schuler des Sokrates, ein. Seine "Hellenika" in sieben Buchern, die einzige vollstandig erhaltene Fortsetzung des Thukydides, ist die Darstellung der griechischen Geschichte vom letzten Teil des Peleponnesischen Krieges bis zur Schlacht von Mantinea im Jahre 362. Leitgedanke des Werkes ist der Aufstieg Spartas zur Hegemonialmacht und sein Niedergang. Die objektive Form des Berichterstattung des Thukydides wird zwar beibehalten, jedoch ohne strenge Chronologie und mit einer (...) gewissen Willkur der Stoffverteilung. Die sachkundige Beschreibung der Strategie und Kriegstechnik wird belebt durch zahlreiche eingelegte Reden und dramatisch gestaltete Einzelszenen.". (shrink)