Philosophic Classics: Volume 1

This seventh edition of Philosophic Classics, Volume I: Ancient Philosophy includes essential writings of the most important Greek philosophers, along with selections from some of their Roman followers. In updating this edition, editor Forrest E. Baird has continued to follow the same criteria established by the late Walter Kaufmann when the Philosophic Classics series was first established: (1) to use complete works or, where more appropriate, complete sections of works (2) in clear translations (3) of texts central to the thinkers philosophy or widely accepted as part of the "canon." To make the works more accessible to students, most footnotes treating textual matters (variant readings, etc.) have been omitted and important Greek words have been transliterated and put in angle brackets. In addition, each thinker is introduced by a brief essay composed of three sections: (1) biographical (a glimpse of the life), (2) philosophical (a rsum of the philosophers thought), and (3) bibliographical (suggestions for further reading). New to this seventh edition: Changes in translations: New translations of Platos Apology and Phaedo and Aristotles Nichomachean Ethics and Politics from the acclaimed Focus Philosophical Library Series. New translations of Platos Euthyphro and Crito. New translations of Epicuruss Letter to Herodotus, Letter to Menoeceus, and Principal Doctrines. New translation of the Parmenides fragments. Additional material: Gorgiass model oration, Encomium on Helen, which gives a defense of Helen of Troy. A selection from Platos Gorgias on nature versus convention or law . Additional material from the opening of Platos Symposium to contextualize the dialogue. Additional material from Platos Republic (Book IX) on the tri-partite soul. Additional material from Aristotles Metaphysics (Book IV, 1-4, 7) on the nature of being and the so-called "three rules of thought." A brief selection from Porphyrys Life of Plotinus, giving a sense of the person. Updated and reorganized bibliographies. To allow for all these changes, a section of Book V from Platos Republic has been dropped. Those who use this first volume in a one-term course in ancient philosophy will find more material here than can easily fit a normal semester. But this embarrassment of riches gives teachers some choice and, for those who offer the same course year after year, an opportunity to change the menu.