Shand - Central Works of Philosophy v1

Hugh H. Benson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oklahoma. He was educated at Oberlin College, Ohio and the University of Michigan, and has published articles on both Plato and Aristotle. He is author of Socratic Wisdom and editor of Essays on the Philosophy of Socrates.

Stephen R. L. Clark is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Liverpool. His books include Aristotle's Man and From Athens to Jerusalem. He is currently working on Plotinus's use of metaphors as spiritual exercises.

Richard Cross is Tutorial Fellow in Theology at Oriel College, Oxford. He has written extensively on medieval theology and metaphysics. Among his recent publications is The Metaphysics of the Incarnation: Thomas Aquinas toDuns Scotus.

Paula Gottlieb is Professor of Philosophy and Affiliate Professor of Classics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She recently completed an analysis of Nicomachean Ethics I and II for Project Archelogos and is completing a book, The Virtue in Aristotle's Ethics.

R. J. Hankinson is Professor of Philosophy and Classics at the University of Texas, Austin. He is the author of more than fifty articles on various aspects of ancient philosophy and science. His books include The Sceptics and Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought.

Peter King is Professor of Philosophy and of Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto. He has published translations of works of Augustine and Buridan, and is the author of many specialized studies in medieval philosophy He is best known for his work on medieval logic and metaphysics.

Christopher Kirwan is Emeritus Fellow and Lecturer in Philosophy at Exeter College, Oxford. His publications include Aristotle: Metaphysics Gamma, Delta and Epsilon and Augustine.

Harry Lesser is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Manchester, where his teaching has regularly included courses in ancient philosophy He is the author of a number of articles in ancient philosophy and ethics.

John Marenbon is a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he teaches the history of philosophy. His recent publications include Aristotelian Logic, Platonism, and the Context of Early Medieval Philosophy in the West and Boethius.

Paul O'Grady is Lecturer in Philosophy and Fellow of Trinity College Dublin. He previously taught at St Catherine's College, Oxford. He has published papers in epistemology and philosophy of religion and is the author of Relativism (Acumen).

John Shand studied philosophy at the University of Manchester and King's College, Cambridge. He is an Associate Lecturer in Philosophy at the Open University and is the author of Arguing Well and Philosophy and Philosophers: An Introduction to Western Philosophy (Acumen).

The works in the Central Works of Philosophy volumes have been chosen because of their fundamental importance in the history of philosophy and for the development of human thought. Other works might have been chosen; however, the underlying idea is that if any works should be chosen, then these certainly should be. In the cases where the work is a philosopher's magnum opus the essay on it gives an excellent overview of the philosopher's thought.

by Hugh Benson presents the central theme of Plato's Republic , that of the nature of justice. The Republic stands as arguably the most important work of Western philosophy. It is a pivotal work in Plato's thought, presenting a well worked out culmination of previous ideas, following which he subjected those ideas to considerable critical analysis, although he did not abandon them.

by Paula Gottlieb discusses Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, central to understanding the key Greek idea in ethics of eudaimonia, usually translated "happiness". However, happiness here refers not to a subjective state of pleasure, but to aret or virtue, whereby our actions should be guided by what truly contributes to our well-being or excellence as the kind of creatures that we are.

release men from superstition and fear of death simply by showing them that there is nothing of which to be afraid.

by R. J. Hankinson explores in Sextus Empiricus's Outlines of Pyrrhonism the arguments for Pyrrhonian scepticism. This is deeply influential on those later philosophers for whom the function of scepticism is not as a test to establish knowledge on an unshakeable foundation, but rather to show that we should suspend judgement and cease the futile search for knowledge.