The Sense of the Past: Essays in the History of Philosophy

by Williams, Bernard; Burnyeat, Myles

• ISBN13: 9781400827107
• ISBN10: 1400827108
• Copyright: 2008-09-02
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

Before his death in 2003, Bernard Williams planned to publish a collection of historical essays, focusing primarily on the ancient world. This posthumous volume brings together a much wider selection, written over some forty years. His legacy lives on in this masterful work, the first collection ever published of Williams's essays on the history of philosophy. The subjects range from the sixth century B.C. to the twentieth A.D., from Homer to Wittgenstein by way of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Sidgwick, Collingwood, and Nietzsche. Often one would be hard put to say which part is history, which philosophy. Both are involved throughout, because this is the history of philosophy written philosophically. Historical exposition goes hand in hand with philosophical scrutiny. Insights into the past counteract blind acceptance of present assumptions. In his touching and illuminating introduction, Myles Burnyeat writes of these essays: "They show a depth of commitment to the history of philosophy seldom to be found nowadays in a thinker so prominent on the contemporary philosophical scene." The result celebrates the interest and importance to philosophy today of its near and distant past. The Sense of the Pastis one of three collections of essays by Bernard Williams published by Princeton University Press since his death.In the Beginning Was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument, selected, edited, and with an introduction by Geoffrey Hawthorn, andPhilosophy as a Humanistic Discipline, selected, edited, and with an introduction by A. W. Moore, make up the trio.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Introduction	p. xiii
Greek: General
The Legacy of Greek Philosophy	p. 3
The Women of Trachis: Fictions, Pessimism, Ethics	p. 49
Understanding Homer: Literature, History and Ideal Anthropology	p. 60
Socrates and Plato
Pagan Justice and Christian Love	p. 71
Introduction to Plato's Theaetetus	p. 83
Plato against the Immoralist	p. 97
The Analogy of City and Soul in Plato's Republic	p. 108
Plato's Construction of Intrinsic Goodness	p. 118
Cratylus' Theory of Names and Its Refutation	p. 138
Plato: The Invention of Philosophy	p. 148
Aristotle
Acting as the Virtuous Person Acts	p. 189
Aristotle on the Good: A Formal Sketch	p. 198
Justice as a Virtue	p. 207
Hylomorphism	p. 218
Descartes
Descartes' Use of Scepticism	p. 231
Introductory Essay on Descartes' Meditations	p. 246
Descartes and the Historiography of Philosophy	p. 257
Hume
Hume on Religion	p. 267
Sidgwick
The Point of View of the Universe: Sidgwick and the Ambitions of Ethics	p. 277
Nietzsche
Nietzsche's Minimalist Moral Psychology	p. 299
Introduction to The Gay Science	p. 311
"There are many kinds of eyes"	p. 325
Unbearable Suffering	p. 331
R. G. Collingwood
An Essay on Collingwood	p. 341
Wittgenstein
Wittgenstein and Idealism	p. 361
Complete Philosophical Publications	p. 381
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