Ward Ann - Matter and form: from natural science to political philosophy

Douglas Al-Maini teaches philosophy at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Canada. Specializing in Ancient Philosophy with an emphasis on Plato, he has publications in the area from the Presocratics to the Stoics. He is currently working on a translation of the Roman Stoic Musonius Rufus.

Leah Bradshaw teaches political theory at Brock University in Ontario, Canada. Much of her work has grown out of considerations on the thought of Hannah Arendt. Recent publications have been on ancient and modern tyranny, configurations of love and women in the Western tradition, narrative and political identity, and the relation between emotions and reason in making political judgments.

Juhana Lemetti, Doc Soc Sci (Helsinki, 2006) is a postdoctoral researcher of the Academy of Finland at the University of Helsinki. He is the author of Imagination and Diversity in the Philosophy of Hobbes (Helsinki University Press, Helsinki, 2006) and a co-editor (with Eva Piirime) of Human Nature as the Basis of Morality and Society in Early Modern Philosophy, Acta Philosophica Fennica vol. 83 (Helsinki, 2007). Currently, Lemetti is writing a historical dictionary of the philosophy of Hobbes. He is also the associate editor of Hobbes Studies. His other areas of interest include political philosophy and the history of science.

Ingrid Makus teaches political theory at Brock University, including courses on liberal democracy, gender and political thought, and philosophy of law. Her publications include pieces on pity in Rousseau, Socratic reason in Nietzsche, and identity politics in Charles Taylor. Her recent work examines Simone de Beauvoirs contributions to a politics of responsibility.

Ahmed El-Sayed Abdel Meguid earned his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Economics, Summa Cum Laude, at The American University in Cairo. He then earned his M.A. and is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Philosophy Department, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. The title of his dissertation is Humanity as historical-interpretative being: human nature and religious imagination between Kant and Ibn al-Arab_. His research interests focus on German transcendental Philosophy and Phenomenology and Islamic Philosophy.

Dwayne Raymond earned a Ph.D. with distinction from the University of Western Ontario, Canada, in 2006. He is currently a visiting scholar at Texas A&M University, where he is writing a book on the origins of formal logic in ancient Greece. Dr. Raymond has given talks on the subject in Canada, America, Britain, France, and Finland.

Steven Robinson is currently the Acting Dean of Arts at Brandon University in Manitoba, Canada. He is an academic generalist. He began in physics and mathematics, and then made the shift into philosophy via the philosophy of biology and the evolution of ethics. Since discovering ethics proper he has concentrated on the history of value theory and metaphysics, and he wrote his dissertation on Platos Symposium. He currently works on the origins of philosophy, and moral philosophy, within the social context created by ancient Greek democracy and tragic literature.

David Lewis Schaefer is Professor of Political Science at Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he teaches courses on political philosophy and American political thought. A three-time fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities, he is author of The Political Philosophy of Montaigne (1990) and Illiberal Justice: John Rawls vs. the American Political Tradition (2007), co-editor of Sir Henry Taylors The Statesman (1992), and editor/ contributing author of Freedom Over Servitude: Montaigne, La Botie, and Of Voluntary Servitude (1998).

Leonard Sorenson is Professor of Politics at Assumption College, Worcester, Massachusetts. He has published extensively on Jean Jacques Rousseau and James Madison. In addition, his most recent article, Leo Strauss and the Defence of Western Civilization, has appeared in the journal, The European Legacy.

Paul Ulrich is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Philosophy, and Great Ideas at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He has published on Plato and has research interests in ancient political philosophy, early liberal thought, and Tocqueville.

Ann Ward is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Political Science at Campion College, University of Regina in Canada. She has published on Herodotus, Plato, Aristotle, Montesquieu and Kierkegaard. Her book is Herodotus and the Philosophy of Empire (2008). She has edited Socrates: Reason or Unreason as the Foundation of European Identity (2007), and co-edited with Lee Ward the Ashgate Research Companion to Federalism (2009). She is also an advisory editor for The European Legacy.

Lee Ward is an Associate Professor and Alpha Sigma Nu Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Campion College at the University of Regina. He is author of The Politics of Liberty in England and Revolu tionary America (Cambridge, 2004) and co-edited with Ann Ward The Ashgate Research Companion to Federalism (Ashgate Publishing, 2009). He has published numerous articles on political thinkers including John Locke, Montesquieu, Aristotle, Plato, and Algernon Sidney.

Michael Weinman is currently on leave as Tutor at St. Johns College, Annapolis and teaching ancient Greek philosophy at Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheva, Israel. His book, Pleasure in Aristotles Ethics, was released by Continuum Books in 2007. Weinman received the Alfred Schutz Oustanding Dissertation Award from the New School for Social Research in 2005. His articles on ethics and political philosophy have appeared in International Studies in Philosophy and Essays in Philosophy.

Mostafa Younesie is Assistant Professor of Greek/Persian political and lingual thought at the Humanities Faculty, University of Tarbiat Modares in Iran. He has published articles on Plato, Aristotle, Farabi, and Avicenna. His book is Polis and Logos in Plato (2008, in Persian), and he is currently writing his book Qualities of the Text: Platos Republic. His current research is on the subject Classical Greek Speculative Grammar.

Coleen Zoller is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. She specializes in ancient philosophy and ethical theory. Her recent publications include Plato on Hypothesis, Proportion, and the Education of Philosophers in Auslegung, The Pre-Critical Roots of Kants Compatibilism in Philosophy and Theology, and To Graze Freely in the Pastures of Philosophy: The Political Motives and Pedagogical Methods of Socrates and the Sophists in Polis.

The present volume arose from the workshop that I chaired for the 11th International Conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas (ISSEI), Language and the Scientific Imagination , held at the University of Helsinki in Helsinki, Finland, 28 July2 August 2008. I wish to thank Dr. Marja Harmanmaa of the University of Helsinki for organizing and convening the conference and the ISSEI for sponsoring it. I would like to give special thanks to Ezra Talmor and Rachel Ben-David of the ISSEI for inviting me to develop and chair the workshop that has given this volume its name. The ISSEI has provided me on more than one occasion the opportunity to pursue my research in collaboration with others such that I would not be the scholar I am today without the society. I also wish to express my gratitude to the participants of the workshop and the contributors to this volume. It is their expertise and far-reaching intellectual interests that have made this volume possible. I have benefited both professionally and personally from their research and hopefully their friendship.

I also wish to acknowledge the University of Regina Presidents Fund for awarding me a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) General Research Grant, and Campion College at the University of Regina for awarding me two Campion College Presidents Research Awards, all of which provided generous financial support for my participation in the 11th International Conference of the ISSEI and for preparation of the manuscript of this volume. I also wish to express my gratitude to my research assistants, Kris Schmaltz, graduate of the MA Program for Social and Political Thought at the University of Regina, and Even Dechief, student in Political Science at the University of Regina. In the beginning stages of the project Kris provided assistance in researching and presenting the general concept of the volume, and in the latter stages of the project Evan provided much needed help in the composition of the index. The diligence, technological skill, and intellectual curiosity of both Kris and Evan were invaluable in bringing this project to fruition.