Principles and Praxis in Ancient Greek Philosophy

This collection of original articles draws from a cross section of distinguished scholars of ancient Greek philosophy. It is focussed primarily on the philosophy of Aristotle but comprises as well studies of the philosophy of Socrates, Plato, and Epicurus. Its authors explore a range of complementary topics in value theory, moral psychology, metaphysics, natural philosophy, political theory, and methodology, highlighting the rich and lasting philosophical contributions of the thinkers investigated.

Opening with an engaging intellectual autobiography of its honoree, Fred D. Miller, Jr., the volume offers treatments of Socrates as a citizen; Plato’s attitude towards poetry; Socratic self-knowledge; Plato’s conception of law in his Republic; explorations of reason, goodness, and moral conduct in Plato; Platonic metaphysics; Aristotelian causation; Aristotelian metaphysics and normativity; natural philosophy in Aristotle; Aristotelian logic; political theory and approaches to justice in Aristotle’s Politics; methodological reflections on how best to approach Aristotle’s indefensible ideas; and closes with a reconsideration of Epicurus on death and the art of dying.

Altogether, the volume reflects the richness of the ongoing community of philosophical scholars dedicated to reconstructing, assessing, and criticizing the principal philosophers of the ancient world, whose epoch-forming explorations of the key elements of human life—considered socially, politically, psychologically, and metaphysically—remain topics of lively investigation today. It will be of interest to philosophers of many stripes, including those with a primary interest in ancient philosophy but extending as well to those with systematic interests in the themes it explores. This volume will be a valuable addition to all libraries serving communities dedicated to researching and studying the origins of Western philosophy.

David Keyt is Research Professor at the Center for the Philosophy of Freedom at the University of Arizona and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Washington, his home base from 1957 until 2013. He is the author of Nature and Justice: Studies in the Ethical and Political Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle (Peeters, 2017) and Aristotle: Politics V and VI, Translation and Commentary (Clarendon Press, 1999). With Fred D. Miller, Jr. he coedited Freedom, Reason, and the Polis: Essays in Ancient Greek Political Philosophy (Cambridge, 2007) and A Companion to Aristotle’s Politics (Blackwell, 1991). Among his recent work is “Aristotelian Freedom” in The Oxford Handbook of Freedom (Oxford, 2018) and an intellectual memoir entitled “A Life in the Academy” in Reason and Analysis in Ancient Greek Philosophy: Essays in Honor of David Keyt (Springer, 2013).

Christopher Shields is Distinguished University Professor and Henry E. Allison Chair at the University of California San Diego.  He is an Honorary Research Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford; before moving to UCSD, he held positions as  Shuster Professor at the University of Notre Dame and Professor of Classical Philosophy at the University of Oxford. He has held the Tang Chun-I Visiting Professorship at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Collins Visiting Professor at the University of St. Louis, and a Senior Fellowship at TOPOI, the Humboldt University of Berlin.  He has held visiting professorships at Cornell University, Stanford University, Yale University, and The University of Arizona.  He is the author of Order in Multiplicity: Homonymy in the Philosophy of Aristotle (Oxford University Press: 1999), Classical Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge: 2003), Aristotle (Routledge: 2007), Ancient Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge: 2011), with Robert Pasnau, The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas (Westview: 2003; 2nd rev. ed. Oxford University Press: 2015), and Aristotle's De Anima, Translated with Introduction and Commentary (Oxford University Press: 2016).  He is the editor of The Blackwell Guide to Ancient Philosophy (Blackwell: 2002), The Oxford Handbook of Aristotle (Oxford University Press: 2012), with David Brink and Susan Sauvé Meyer, Virtue, Happiness, and Knowledge (Oxford University Press: 2018), and, with António Pedro Mesquita, Simon Noriega-Olmos, Revisiting Aristotle’s Fragments (De Gruyter: 2020).