L G Westerink's fine text and parallel translation of the surviving Greek Commentaries on Plato's Phaedo in two volumes are works which have not only been out of print for many years, but which have been virtually unobtainable even in the second hand market. This is the first volume being the Commentary of Olympiodorus (the second being the two Commentaries of Damascius)/ Both volumes have excellent introductions, extensive notes, and indexes.

The two volume work of L G Westerink's fine text and parallel translation of the surviving Greek Commentaries on Plato's Phaedo have not only been out of print for many years, but which have been virtually unobtainable even in the second hand market. This is the second volume (the first being the Commentary of Olympiodorus) which presents the two Commentaries of Damascius. Both volumes have excellent introductions, extensive notes, and indexes. Amendments and updates have been added to these volumes from the notes of Westerink.

The belief in the immortality of the soul has been described as one of the “twin pillars of Platonism” and is famously defended by Socrates in Plato’s Phaedo. The ancient commentaries on the dialogue by Olympiodorus and Damascius offer a unique perspective on the reception of this belief in the Platonic tradition. Through a detailed discussion of topics such as suicide, the life of the philosopher and arguments for immortality, this study demonstrates the commentators’ serious engagement with problems in Plato’s text as well as the dialogue's importance to Neoplatonic ethics. The book will be of interest to students of Plato and the Platonic tradition, and to those working on ancient ethics and psychology.

Plato’s Phaedo has never failed to attract the attention of philosophers and scholars. Yet the history of its reception in Antiquity has been little studied. The present volume therefore proposes to examine not only the Platonic exegetical tradition surrounding this dialogue, which culminates in the commentaries of Damascius and Olympiodorus, but also its place in the reflections of the rival Peripatetic, Stoic, and Sceptical schools. This volume thus aims to shed light on the surviving commentaries and their sources, as well as on less familiar aspects of the history of the Phaedo’s ancient reception. By doing so, it may help to clarify what ancient interpreters of Plato can and cannot offer their contemporary counterparts.

This is the first collected volume dedicated to Olympiodorus of Alexandria, the last pagan Platonic philosopher at the end of antiquity.

Gadamer's Hermeneutics and the Art of Conversation covers the nature of dialogue and understanding in Hans-Georg Gadamer's lingually oriented hermeneutics and its relevance for contemporary philosophy. This timely collection of essays stresses the fundamental significance of the other for a further development of Heidegger's analytics of Dasein. By recognizing the priority of the other over oneself, Gadamerian hermeneutics founds a culture of dialogue sorely needed in our multi-cultural globalized community. The essays solicited for this volume are presented in three thematic blocks: "Hermeneutic Conversation," "Hermeneutics, Aesthetics, and Transcendence," "Hermeneutic Ethics, Education, and Politics." The volume proposes a dynamic understanding of hermeneutics as putting into practice the art of conversation.