What is the good life for a human being? Aristotle’s exploration of this question in the Nicomachean Ethics has established it as a founding work of Western philosophy, though its teachings have long puzzled readers and provoked spirited discussion. Adopting a radically new point of view, Ronna Burger deciphers some of the most perplexing conundrums of this influential treatise by approaching it as Aristotle’s dialogue with the Platonic Socrates. Tracing the argument of the Ethics as it emerges through that approach, Burger’s careful reading shows how Aristotle represents ethical virtue from the perspective of those devoted to it while standing back to examine its assumptions and implications. “This is the best book I have read on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. It is so well crafted that reading it is like reading the Ethics itself, in that it provides an education in ethical matters that does justice to all sides of the issues.”—Mary P. Nichols, Baylor University

Rich in drama and humour, they include the controversial Ion, a debate on poetic inspiration; Laches, in which Socrates seeks to define bravery; and Euthydemus, which considers the relationship between philosophy and politics. Together, these dialogues provide a definitive portrait of the real Socrates and raise issues still keenly debated by philosophers, forming an incisive overview of Plato's philosophy.

The period from Plato's birth to Aristotle's death (427–322 BC) is one of the most influential and formative in the history of Western philosophy. The developments of logic, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and science in this period have been investigated, controversies have arisen and many new theories have been produced. But this is the first book to give detailed scholarly attention to the development of dialectic during this decisive period. It includes chapters on topics such as: dialectic as interpersonal debate between a questioner and a respondent; dialectic and the dialogue form; dialectical methodology; the dialectical context of certain forms of arguments; the role of the respondent in guaranteeing good argument; dialectic and presentation of knowledge; the interrelations between written dialogues and spoken dialectic; and definition, induction and refutation from Plato to Aristotle. The book contributes to the history of philosophy and also to the contemporary debate about what philosophy is.

In Plato's Apology, Socrates says he spent his life examining and questioning people on how best to live, while avowing that he himself knows nothing important. Elsewhere, however, for example in Plato's Republic, Plato's Socrates presents radical and grandiose theses. In this book Sandra Peterson offers a hypothesis which explains the puzzle of Socrates' two contrasting manners. She argues that the apparently confident doctrinal Socrates is in fact conducting the first step of an examination: by eliciting his interlocutors' reactions, his apparently doctrinal lectures reveal what his interlocutors believe is the best way to live. She tests her hypothesis by close reading of passages in the Theaetetus, Republic and Phaedo. Her provocative conclusion, that there is a single Socrates whose conception and practice of philosophy remain the same throughout the dialogues, will be of interest to a wide range of readers in ancient philosophy and classics.

This elegant collector's edition presents the classic philosophical work 'The Dialogues of Socrates' featuring gold cover embossing and gilded page-edges. Socrates' most dedicated student, Plato, offers a detailed and eye-opening account of the Socratic belief in one's own responsibility through Socrates' dialogue with his fellow Athenians. This collection includes six of Plato's dialogues focusing on the life of Socrates: Charmides, in which Socrates discusses the meaning of restraint; Symposium, depicting a contest of speeches and rhetoric over the subject of love; Euthyphro, in which Socrates and Euthyphro ponder the meaning of piety; Apology which includes Socrates' defence from his trial; Crito investigates the meaning of justice; Phaedo which recounts the day of Socrates death. All parts come together to create a moving read for newly curious philosophy students and experienced intellectuals alike. This beautiful pocket-sized gift edition contains these classic and unabridged tales, presented with a gold embossed cover design, ivory pages, beautifully designed endpapers and gold gilded page edges. Part of the Arcturus Ornate Classics series, this book makes wonderful gift for any philosophy lover.

Socrates and the Socratic Dialogue assembles the most complete range of studies on Socrates and the Socratic dialogue. It focuses on portrayals of Socrates, whether as historical figure or protagonist of ‘Socratic dialogues’, in extant and fragmentary texts from Classical Athens through Late Antiquity. Special attention is paid to the evolving power and texture of the Socratic icon as it adopted old and new uses in philosophy, biography, oratory, and literature. Chapters in this volume focus on Old Comedy, Sophistry, the first-generation Socratics including Plato and Xenophon, Aristotle and Aristoxenus, Epicurus and Stoicism, Cicero and Persius, Plutarch, Apuleius and Maximus, Diogenes Laertius, Libanius, Themistius, Julian, and Proclus.

Dialogue has suffered a long eclipse in the history of philosophy and the history of rhetoric but has enjoyed a rebirth in the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer, Martin Buber, and Mikhail Bakhtin. Among twentieth-century figures, Bakhtin took a special interest in the history of the dialogue form. This book explores Bakhtin's understanding of Socratic dialogue and the notion that dialogue is not simply a way of persuading others to accept our ideas, but a way of holding ourselves, and others, accountable for all of our thoughts, words, and actions. In supporting this premise, Bakhtin challenges the traditions of argument and persuasion handed down from Plato and Aristotle, and he offers, as an alternative, a dialogical rhetoric that restructures the traditional relationship between speakers and listeners, writers and readers, as a mutual testing, contesting, and creating of ideas. The author suggests that Bakhtin's dialogical rhetoric is not restricted to oral discourse, but is possible in any medium, including written, graphic, and digital.

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Winner of the 2022 Goldstein-Goren Book Award from the Goldstein-Goren International Center for Jewish Thought at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Yehuda Halper examines Jewish depictions of Socrates and Socratic questioning of the divine among European and North African Jews of the 12th-15th centuries. Without direct access to Plato, their understanding of Socrates is indirect, based on legendary material, on fragmentary quotations from Plato, or on Aristotle. Out of these sources, Jewish authors of this period formed two distinct views of Socrates: one as a wise, ascetic, monotheist, and the other as a vocal skeptic. The latter view has its roots in Plato's Apology where Socrates describes his divine mandate to question all knowledge, including knowledge of the divine. After exploring how this and similar questions arise in the works of Judah Halevi and the Hebrew Averroes, Halper traces how such open-questioning of the divine arises in the works of Maimonides, Jacob Anatoli, Gersonides, and Abraham Bibago.

Aristotle's Quarrel with Socrates is an account of the role friendship plays in ancient political thought. Examining Platonic dialogues and Aristotle's ethical and political treatises, John Boersma makes the case that the different stances Aristotle and Socrates take toward politics can be traced to their divergent accounts of friendship. Aristotle's Quarrel with Socrates brings to the fore the tension that exists between the philosophic life as exemplified by Socrates and the life devoted to politics. It goes on to argue that Aristotle's account of a friendship of the good, based on human excellence, can reduce, not to say eliminate, this tension, enabling the development of a political community that is organized for action in history.