Category Archives: Books

Books

Cambridge Companion to Plato’s Republic

This Companion provides a fresh and comprehensive account of this outstanding work, which remains among the most frequently read works of Greek philosophy, indeed of Classical antiquity in general. The sixteen essays, by authors who represent various academic disciplines, bring a spectrum of interpretive approaches to bear in order to aid the understanding of a wide-ranging audience, from first-time readers of the Republic who require guidance, to more experienced readers who wish to explore contemporary currents in the work’s interpretation. The three initial chapters address aspects of the work as a whole. They are followed by essays that match closely the sequence in which topics are presented in the ten books of the Republic. Since the Republic returns frequently to the same topics by different routes, so do the authors of this volume, who provide the readers with divergent yet complementary perspectives by which to appreciate the Republic’s principal concerns.

Books

The Ethics of Ontology

Announcing the publication of Christopher P. Long’s, The Ethics of Ontology: Rethinking an Aristotelian Legacy, published by the State University of New York Press.

The publisher’s description of the book reads as follows:

A novel rereading of the relationship between ethics and ontology in Aristotle. Concerned with the meaning and function of principles in an era that appears to have given up on their possibility altogether, Christopher P. Long traces the paths of Aristotle’s thinking concerning finite being from the Categories, through the Physics, to the Metaphysics, and ultimately into the Nicomachean Ethics.

Long argues that a dynamic and open conception of principles emerges in these works that challenges the traditional tendency to seek security in permanent and eternal absolutes. He rethinks the meaning of Aristotle’s notion of principle (archē) and spans the divide of analytic and continental methodological approaches to ancient Greek philosophy, while connecting Aristotle’s thinking to that of Levinas, Gadamer, and Heidegger.

“This book is cogently presented, well written, and easy to follow. Long defends a controversial thesis and provides persuasive and extensive argumentation. The carefully constructed treatment of the relationship between Aristotle’s theoretical and practical philosophy offers an integrated interpretation of Aristotle’s philosophy as a whole.” — Walter Brogan, coeditor of American Continental Philosophy: A Reader