The Great Conversation Volume 1: Hesiod through Descartes

by Melchert, Norman

• ISBN13: 9780195175110
• ISBN10: 0195175115
• Edition: 4th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-07-15
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Volume I of this historically organized introductory text presents philosophy as an ongoing conversation about humankind's deepest and most persistent concerns. The Great Conversation traces the exchange of ideas between history's key philosophers, demonstrating that while constructing anargument or making a claim, one philosopher almost always has others in mind. Volume I covers Hesiod through Descartes (Chapters 1-13); Volume II covers Descartes through Derrida and Quine (Chapters 13-25). It is also available as a single combined text, The Great Conversation: A HistoricalIntroduction to Philosophy.

Table of Contents

A Word to Instructors	ix
A Word to Students	xi
Acknowledgments	xv
Before Philosophy: Myth in Hesiod and Homer	1	(9)
Hesiod: War among the Gods	2	(2)
Homer: Heroes, Gods, and Excellence	4	(6)
Philosophy before Socrates	10	(27)
Thales: The One as Water	11	(1)
Anaximander: The One as the Boundless	12	(2)
Xenophanes: The Gods as Fictions	14	(2)
Profile: Pythagoras	16	(3)
Heraclitus: Oneness in the Logos	19	(5)
Parmenides: Only the One	24	(4)
Zeno: The Paradoxes of Common Sense	28	(2)
Atomism: The One and the Many Reconciled	30	(7)
The Key: An Ambiguity	30	(2)
The World	32	(1)
The Soul	33	(2)
How to Live	35	(2)
The Sophists: Rhetoric and Relativism in Athens	37	(22)
Democracy	37	(1)
The Persian Wars	38	(2)
The Sophists	40	(9)
Rhetoric	42	(2)
Relativism	44	(1)
Physis and Nomos	45	(4)
Athens and Sparta at War	49	(5)
Aristophanes and Reaction	54	(5)
Socrates: To Know Oneself	59	(12)
Character	60	(3)
Is Socrates a Sophist?	63	(3)
What Socrates ``Knows''	66	(5)
We Ought to Search for Truth	66	(1)
Human Excellence Is Knowledge	67	(1)
All Wrongdoing Is Due to Ignorance	68	(1)
The Most Important Thing of All Is to Care for Your Soul	69	(2)
The Trial and Death of Socrates	71	(46)
Euthyphro	71	(14)
Translator's Introduction	71	(1)
The Dialogue	72	(8)
Commentary and Questions	80	(5)
Apology	85	(18)
Translator's Introduction	85	(1)
The Dialogue	85	(13)
Commentary and Questions	98	(5)
Crito	103	(10)
Translator's Introduction	103	(1)
The Dialogue	103	(7)
Commentary and Questions	110	(3)
Phaedo (Death Scene)	113	(4)
Translator's Introduction	113	(1)
The Dialogue (Selection)	113	(2)
Commentary and Questions	115	(2)
Plato: Knowing the Real and the Good	117	(40)
Knowledge and Opinion	118	(8)
Making the Distinction	119	(1)
We Do Know Certain Truths	120	(1)
The Objects of Knowledge	121	(3)
The Reality of the Forms	124	(2)
The World and the Forms	126	(8)
How Forms Are Related to the World	126	(3)
Lower and Higher Forms	129	(2)
The Form of the Good	131	(3)
The Love of Wisdom	134	(8)
What Wisdom Is	134	(4)
Love and Wisdom	138	(4)
The Soul	142	(3)
The Immortality of the Soul	142	(2)
The Structure of the Soul	144	(1)
Justice	145	(6)
The State	151	(2)
Problems with the Forms	153	(4)
Aristotle: The Reality of the World	157	(43)
Aristotle and Plato	157	(3)
Otherworldliness	157	(1)
The Objects of Knowledge	158	(1)
Human Nature	158	(1)
Relativism and Skepticism	158	(1)
Ethics	159	(1)
Logic and Knowledge	160	(9)
Terms and Statements	161	(2)
Truth	163	(1)
Reasons Why: The Syllogism	164	(3)
Knowing First Principles	167	(2)
The World	169	(5)
Nature	170	(1)
The Four ``Becauses''	170	(2)
Is There Purpose in Nature?	172	(1)
Teleology	173	(1)
First Philosophy	174	(7)
Not Plato's Forms	175	(1)
What of Mathematics?	176	(1)
Substance and Form	176	(2)
Pure Actualities	178	(1)
God	179	(2)
The Soul	181	(5)
Levels of Soul	181	(1)
Soul and Body	182	(2)
Nous	184	(2)
The Good Life	186	(14)
Happiness	188	(3)
Virtue or Excellence (Arete)	191	(1)
The Role of Reason	192	(3)
Responsibility	195	(1)
The Highest Good	196	(4)
Epicureans, Stoics, and Skeptics: Happiness for the Many	200	(18)
The Epicureans	201	(5)
The Stoics	206	(5)
The Skeptics	211	(7)
The Christians: Sin, Salvation, and Love	218	(10)
Background	219	(2)
Jesus	221	(4)
The Meaning of Jesus	225	(3)
Augustine: God and the Soul	228	(39)
Wisdom, Happiness, and God	234	(4)
The Interior Teacher	238	(2)
God and the World	240	(8)
The Great Chain of Being	241	(3)
Evil	244	(1)
Time	245	(3)
Human Nature and Its Corruption	248	(6)
Human Nature and Its Restoration	254	(3)
Augustine on Relativism	257	(2)
The Two Cities	259	(3)
Christians and Philosophers	262	(5)
Reason and Authority	262	(1)
Intellect and Will	263	(1)
Augustine on Epicureans and Stoics	263	(4)
Anselm and Aquinas: Existence and Essence in God and the World	267	(32)
Anselm: On That, Than Which No Greater Can Be Conceived	267	(5)
Thomas Aquinas: Rethinking Aristotle	272	(21)
Philosophy and Theology	273	(1)
Existence and Essence	274	(2)
From Creation to God	276	(6)
The Nature of God	282	(2)
Humans: Their Souls	284	(2)
Humans: Their Knowledge	286	(2)
Humans: Their Good	288	(5)
Ockham and Skeptical Doubts---Again	293	(6)
Moving from Medieval to Modern	299	(23)
The World God Made for Man	300	(4)
The Humanists	304	(2)
Reforming the Church	306	(5)
Skeptical Thoughts Revived	311	(3)
Copernicus to Kepler to Galileo: The Great Triple Play	314	(8)
Rene Descartes: Doubting Our Way to Certainty	322
The Method	325	(2)
Meditations: Commentary and Questions	327	(12)
Meditations on First Philosophy	339	(21)
Meditation I	339	(2)
Meditation II	341	(3)
Meditation III	344	(5)
Meditation IV	349	(3)
Meditation V	352	(2)
Meditation VI	354	(6)
What Has Descartes Done?	360
A New Ideal for Knowledge	360	(1)
A New Vision of Reality	361	(1)
Problems	361	(1)
The Preeminence of Epistemology	362
Glossary	1	(1)
Credits	1	(1)
Index	1