Description
Book SynopsisThis 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 thinkerâs 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 rÃsumà of the philosopherâs thought), and
Table of Contents
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)
