Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy

Continuing the Colloquium’s tradition of publishing current research by leaders in the field of ancient philosophy, Volume VIII presents eight papers with responses concentrating on Plato and Aristotle. It presents: Two important but divergent studies of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, one focusing on the role of eudaimonia as a unifying theme in the treatise, the other treating the work’s debt to Aristotle’s psychology; Two assessments of the role of authority in the Platonic dialogues which reach quite different conclusions regarding the Symposium and the Republic; A ground-breaking study of the ancient concept of hermeneutics that ranges from Plato’s dialogues to Aristotle’s De Interpretatione, and from the Protestant Reformation to Gadamer; Two studies of Aristotle’s reaction to predecessors, one arguing for the importance of Protagoras in the defense of the principle of non-contradiction, the other for Parmenides in the defense of a science of nature; A highly original comparison of the Nicomachean and the Eudemian Ethics that asks whether human beings are naturally inclined toward behavior promoting their own happiness. Contributors: Markus Woerner, John Cleary, Amelie Oksenberg Rorty, Christos Evengelius, C.D.C. Reeve, Mary Whitlock Blundell, Stephen A. White, Michael Pakaluk, Paula Gottlieb, Klaus Brinkmann, Jean Grondin, P. Christopher Smith, Stephen Salkever, William Wians, Michael Loux, and Arthur Madigan. Co-published with the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy.