How To Read Ancient Philosophy

Description

It is through wonder that men now begin and originally began to philosophise.' - Aristotle Thinkers such as Aristotle, Plato and Parmenides have shaped the way we see the world, and it is their original conception of philosophy which has placed topics such as logic, metaphysics, ethics and ontology at the heart of philosophical debates for centuries. Miriam Leonard not only explores the central theories of their works, but also gives some sense of the messy process of abstraction, where written texts get transformed into timeless ideals. She looks at how simple phrases such as 'in what way?' or 'there is' are turned into the language of philosophy. Taking passages from Heraclitus, Parmenides, Lucretius and Cicero as well as Plato and Aristotle, she investigates the breadth and diversity of Greek and Roman thought, and provides an insight into the influence of its texts on the later history of ideas.

Miriam Leonard is Lecturer in Classics at University College London. She is author of Athens in Paris: Ancient Greece and the Political in Post-War French Thought and co-editor of a volume on classical myth and feminist thought.