Socrates (20 page)
Authors: C. C. W. Taylor Christopher;taylor
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CLASSICS
A Very Short Introduction
Mary Beard and John Henderson
This Very Short Introduction to Classics links a haunting temple on a lonely mountainside to the glory of ancient Greece and the grandeur of Rome, and to Classics within modern culture – from Jefferson and Byron to Asterix and Ben-Hur.
‘The authors show us that Classics is a “modern” and sexy subject. They succeed brilliantly in this regard … nobody could fail to be informed and entertained – and the accent of the book is provocative and stimulating.’
John Godwin,
Times Literary Supplement
‘Statues and slavery, temples and tragedies, museum, marbles, and mythology – this provocative guide to the Classics demysties its varied subject-matter while seducing the reader with the obvious enthusiasm and pleasure which mark its writing.’
Edith Hall
www.oup.co.uk/vsi/classics
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY
A Very Short Introduction
Julia Annas
The tradition of ancient philosophy is a long, rich and varied one, in which a constant note is that of discussion and argument. This book aims to introduce readers to some ancient debates and to get them to engage with the ancient developments of philosophical themes. Getting away from the presentation of ancient philosophy as a succession of Great Thinkers, the book aims to give readers a sense of the freshness and liveliness of ancient philosophy, and of its wide variety of themes and styles.
‘Incisive, elegant, and full of the excitement of doing philosophy, Julia Annas’s Short Introduction boldly steps outside of conventional chronological ways of organizing material about the Greeks and Romans to get right to the heart of the human problems that exercised them, problems ranging from the relation between reason and emotion to the objectivity of truth. I can’t think of a better way to begin.’
Martha Nussbaum, University of Chicago
www.oup.co.uk/vsi/ancientphilosophy
ARISTOTLE
A Very Short Introduction
Jonathan Barnes
The influence of Aristotle, the prince of philosophers, on the intellectual history of the West is second to none. In this book Jonathan Barnes examines Aristotle’s scientific research, his discoveries in logic, his metaphysical theories, his work in psychology, ethics, and politics, and his ideas about art and poetry, placing his teachings in their historical context.
‘With compressed verve, Jonathan Barnes displays the extraordinary Versatility of Aristotle, the great systematising empiricist.’
Sunday Times
www.oup.co.uk/isbn/0-19-285408-9
Table of Contents
3 Socratic Literature and the Socratic Problem