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Philosophers Speak for Themselves From Aristotle to Plotinus Edited by T. V. SMITH Phoenix Books THE UNIVERSITY OP CHICAGO PRESS This book, together with FROM THALES TO PLATO Phoenix Book P 8 is also amiable in a one-volume, clothbound edition from THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, CHICAGO 37 Cambridge University Press, London, N. W. i, England The University of Toronto Press, Toronto 5, Canada M4 di95 v ty The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. Published i 934 . Second Edition 1956. Third Impres sion ip5p. Composed and printed fy THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, Chicago tilinois, U. S. A. PHILOSOPHIC OVERTONES A PHILOSOPHERS FAITH That we shall be better and braver and less helpless if we think that we ought to enquire, than we should have been if we indulged in the idle fancy that there was no knowing and no use in seeking to know what we do not know that is a theme upon which I am ready to fight, in word and deed, to the utmost of my power. PLATO. A PHILOSOPHERS CAUTION It is, the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits it is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician scientific proofs. ARISTOTLE. A PHILOSOPHERS PRAYER Beloved Pan, and all ye other gods who haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul and may the outward and inward man be at one. May I reckon the wise to be the wealthy, and may I have such a quantity of gold as a tem perate man and he only can bear and carry, SOCRATES. A PHILOSOPHERS ADVICE Absorb not all that you wish, but all that you can hold. Only be of sound mind, and then you will be able to hold all that you wish. For the more the mind receives, the more does it expand. What then you say, do we not know certain men who have sat for many years at the feet of a philosopher and yet have not acquired the slightest tinge of wisdom Of course I know such men. There are indeed persevering gentlemen who stick at it I do not call them pupils of the wise, kit merely squatters. .... This class, as you will see, con- V iii 6116550 vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS letting me use a large body of material without charge, but has made it possible in this way for me to call attention in fashion exemplary to the greatest storehouse in English of classic wisdom from Greece and Rome. Every student who uses this book will, I hope, treasure for present and later use the knowledge of where he can get more, much more, of such mellow reflection as he has here sampled from this ever grow ing Loeb series. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE A PANORAMA i ARISTOTLE CHAPTER I. ARISTOTLE 3 His SYNTHESIS IN ITS HISTORICAL SETTING On His Predecessors Metaphysics 4 PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE How We Are To Conceive Nature and Cause Physics 40 PHILOSOPHY OF FIRST PRINCIPLES Development as Matter Taking on Form Metaphysics 48 The Final Cause of Development from the Potential to Actuality Hid. 6 THE FUNCTION OF MAN AND THE TECHNIQUE OF INTELLI GENCE The Theory of the Good Life Ethics 60 Education for Citizenship Politics 107 THE LATER ETHICAL PERIOD II. THE CYRENAIC-EPICUREAN TRADITION 113 Diogenes Laertius on Epicurus and the Epicureans . 114 III. THE CYNIC-STOIC TRADITION 154 Diogenes Laertius on Zeno and the Stoics .... 155 IV. THE SKEPTICAL CULMINATION 171 Diogenes, Laertius on Pyrrho and the Skeptics . . . 172 V. THE GREEK AND ROMAN CAREER OF THE ATHENIAN SCHOOLS 184 Cicero on Their Interrelations Academica . . . . 185 THE ROMANS VI. ROMAN STOICISM COSMOPOLITANISM AND CONSOLATION . ... ... Read more

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This book is a philosophical analysis of Plotinus' views on sense-perception. It aims to show how his thoughts were both original and a development of the ideas of his predecessors, in particular those of Plato, Aristotle and the Peripatetics. Special attention is paid to Plotinus' dualism with respect to soul and body and its implications for his views on the senses. The author combines a historical approach to his subject, setting Plotinus' thought in the context of thinkers who preceded and succeeded him, with a proper analysis of his ideas and, where appropriate, of those from which they derived. ... Read more

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The first book-length philosophical study on the Presocratic influences in Plotinus' Enneads. ... Read more

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This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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In Ennead II.1 (40) Plotinus is primarily concerned to argue for the everlastingness of the universe, the heavens, and the heavenly bodies as individual substances. Here he must grapple both with the philosophical issue of personal identity through time and with the rich tradition of cosmology which pitted the Platonists against the Aristotelians and Stoics. What results is a historically informed cosmological sketch explaining the constitution of the heavens as well as sublunar and celestial motion. This book contains an extensive introduction aimed at providing the necessary background in Platonic, Aristotelian, and Stoic cosmology, the text itself, and a line-by-line commentary designed to elucidate its philosophical, philological and historical details. ... Read more

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Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. ... Read more

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ON PLOTINUS, like other titles in the Wadsworth Philosopher's Series, offers a concise, yet comprehensive, introduction to this philosopher's most important ideas. Presenting the most important insights of well over a hundred seminal philosophers in both the Eastern and Western traditions, the Wadsworth Philosophers Series contains volumes written by scholars noted for their excellence in teaching and for their well-versed comprehension of each featured philosopher's major works and contributions. These titles have proven valuable in a number of ways. Serving as standalone texts when tackling a philosophers' original sources or as helpful resources for focusing philosophy students' engagements with these philosopher's often conceptually daunting works, these titles have also gained extraordinary popularity with a lay readership and quite often serve as "refreshers" for philosophy instructors. ... Read more

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In Two Volumes. Being The Treatises Of The First Ennead With Porphyry's Life Of Plotinus And The Preller-Ritter Extracts Forming A Conspectus Of The Plotinian System. ... Read more

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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free.This is an OCR edition with typos.Excerpt from book:PAGEartp-qais—absence of essence. Vice not a privation of good in the soul. Privation again not a quality. The relation of Privation to Matter. Agreement of Privation and Matter in point of indeterminateness. The relation of Matter to indeterminateness. Indeterminateness not a property, but the essence of Matter. Matter not identical with all " otherness " or " difference," but only with difference from Being as such. Matter, then, or Not-being identical simply with privation of Being. Privation not destroyed by the advent of determination. Matter not in itself rendered good by its union with the Good ....... 259Further questions regarding the nature of moral evil. Vice not the same as the entrance of the Soul into Matter, body, and generation. Matter, then, the cause of evil in the soul. Plotinus's rejection of the Aristotelian theory of the particular—the r65e Ti—composed of Form and Matter. Abolition of all but a nominal distinction between moral and physical evil .... 270Matter as a physical substratum. Plotinus's adoption of the Aristotelian Argument. Form alone insufficient to account for Change. His criticism of the hylozoistic and atomistic theories of Matter. More detailed criticism of Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Anaximander, and Leucippus. Conclusion that Matter in itself is without qualities, primary or secondary ..... 274Intelligible Matter. Plotinus's distinction between intelligible and sensible Matter. Intelligible Matter the common quality and basis in the Ideas and Forms, i.e. Being. Matter implied or created by the Idea of Difference as the medium in which the differentiation of the Forms takes place. The indefiniteness of intelligible Matter an image of the infinity of the One ; the indeterminateness of sensible Matter the image of the indefinite- ne... ... Read more

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In this book an attempt is made to single out those elements inthe philosophical system of the Enneads that stand apart from thePlatonist tradition. On the basis of an extensive analysis offundamental texts the author shows that what Plotinus had in mind wasa quite independent paradigm of metaphysical theology, with at itscentre the human person. ... Read more

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This study explicates Plotinus's doctrine of freedom by seeking to pay much attention to his thought, together with its background and underlying intentions. ... Read more

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1929. Edited, preface, and bibliography by G.R.S. Mead. Contents: On the virtues; On Dialectic; On Matter; Against the Gnostics; On the Impassivity of Incorporeal Natures; On Eternity and Time; On the Immortality of the Soul; On the Three Hypostases that rank as the Principles of Things; On Intellect, Ideas, and Real Being; On the Essence of the Soul; A discussion of Doubts relative to the Soul; On the Generation and Order of Things after the First; On Gnostic Hypostases, and That which is beyond Them; That the Nature which is beyond Being is not Intellective, etc.; On the Good, or the One. ... Read more

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The mystical revelations of Plotinus, the great Neo-Platonist philosopher who taught in 3rd century Rome, have long been read and appreciated by scholars and theologians; but this new treatment of Plotinus explores his ideas and his influence upon the Western philosophical tradition in a way that is as accesssible to the modern lay reader as to scholars. This book,THE ORIGIN OF WESTERN MYSTICISM: Selected Writings of Plotinus is formed almost entirely of excerpts from Plotinus' book, the Enneads, arranged topically so as to facillitate a clear understanding of all elements of his metaphysical philosophy. And it includes a revealing Introduction, and commentaries by S. Abhayananda which should serve to open the way to a modern reevaluation of this great mystic's extraordinary vision. ... Read more

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1908. Being the Sixth Treatise of the First Ennead Literally Translated. ... Read more