Method in Ancient Philosophy brings together fifteen new, specially written essays by leading scholars on a broad subject of central importance. It is characteristic of human beings that they direct their activities by reasoning, but methods of reasoning, even towards the same ends, vary. Self-conscious reflection on the methods of reasoning marks the beginning of philosophy in the West; and the views of the ancient Greeks have had considerable influence upon our own assumptions about the demarcations between different kinds of enquiry and the sorts of methods that are appropriate for them. For this reason, examination of how the ancients reasoned, and how they thought about methods of reasoning, helps us to see how they came to hold the views they did, and how we have come to think as we do. Most of the essays focus on Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle, but earlier and later ancient philosophy is brought into the picture by essays on Eleatic and Epicurean thought.

Contents

1:Eleatic Arguments, Patricia Curd
2:Common Sense and Socratic Method, T. H. Irwin
3:Platonism and the Study of Nature (Phaedo 95e ff.), Ian Mueller
4:Plato's Discovery of Metaphysics: The New Methodos of the Phaedo, Robert Bolton
5:Plato's Apologies and Socrates in the Theaetetus, A. A. Long
6:Relativism and Self-Refutation: Plato, Protagoras, and Burnyeat, Gail Fine
7:Prometheus's Bounds: Peras and Apeiron in Plato's Philebus, Constance C. Meinwald
8:Innovation and Continuity: The Battle of Gods and Giants, Sophist 245-249, Lesley Brown
9:Aristotle and the Uses of Logic, Gisela Striker
10:Dialectic and Philosophy in Aristotle, C. D. C. Reeve
11:Teleology in Aristotelian Metaphysics, Charlotte Witt
12:Aristotle on Method and Moral Education, Richard Kraut
13:Interpreting Aristotle's Directions, Sarah Broadie
14:Epicurian Inferences: The Evidence of Philodemus's De signis, James Allen
15:Techniques and Dialectic: Methods in Greek and Chinese Mathematics and Medicine, G. E. R. Lloyd
Index of Names
Index Locorum