Retrieving the Ancients – An Introduction to Greek Philosophy

David Roochnik is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston University. His previous publications Of Art and Wisdom: Plato's Understanding of Techne (1996) and Beautiful City: The Dialectical Character of Plato's Republic (2003). In addition to his scholarly work in the field of ancient Greek philosophy, he has also published a short story and has recently completed a novel.

Introduction.Two Reasons to Study Ancient Greek Philosophy.The Organization and Strategy of This Book.1: The Presocratics.Preliminaries.Before the Beginning: Hesiod.The Ionian Philosophers of the Sixth Century.a) The Beginning: Thales of Miletus.b) The First Debate: Anaximander v. Anaximenes.c) Sixth-Century Rationalism: Xenophanes and Pythagoras.d) The Crisis of Sixth-Century Philosophy.Heraclitus and Parmenides: Extreme Solutions.a) Heraclitus: Lover of Flux.b) Parmenides: Champion of Being.Fifth-Century Elementalism.a) Democritus: Atomic Theory.b) Empedocles: Evolution.c) Anaxagoras.2: The Sophists and Socrates.A New Beginning: The Sophists.Protagoras.Gorgias.Socrates.3: Plato.Preliminaries.Plato's Critique of the Presocratics.Plato's Critique of the Sophists.a) The "Self-Reference" Argument.b) The Reductio ad Absurdum.c) "What is it?".d) "The Old Quarrel:" Philosophy v. Sophistry.Recollection.a) The Phaedo.b) The Meno.The Divided Line and the Form of the Good.a) The Divided Line.b) The Form of the Good.Eros.The Political Implications of the Forms.4: Aristotle.Preliminaries.Aristotle's Conception of Nature.a) "By Nature".b) Form and Matter.c) The Four Causes.Aristotle's Psychology.Teleological Ethics.a) Moral Virtue.b) Intellectual Virtue.Natural Politics.a) The Political Animal.b) Best Life; Best City.Conclusion.References.Index