Ancient Philosophy - A Very Short Introduction

A very short introduction should have modest aims. It is also, however, an
opportunity to give the reader direct ways into the subject, and lead him or her
straight off to what is most important about the subject. In this book I have
tried to engage the reader with ancient philosophy in the way that matters, as
a tradition of discussion and engagement, a conversation which I hope will
continue after the reader has finished this book.
Because I have focused on important and revealing features of ancient
philosophy, I have not tried to work through a standard chronological account
of the tradition. Not only does the very short nature of this book make that a
bad idea (since the tradition is too rich to cram into a very short account), but
there is no shortage of books available that will help the beginner deepen his
or her interest in ancient philosophy. The list of Further Reading indicates
good places to start; beginners have never been better served with reference
books, translations and companions than they are today.
I start by introducing the reader, in Chapter 1 (‘Humans and beasts:
understanding ourselves’) to an issue in ancient philosophy, about
understanding the conflict of reason and emotion within ourselves, an issue
which is readily understandable and one that a modern reader can engage
with before knowing much about the background of the theories involved. I
am hoping to get across the centrality to the ancient tradition of argument,
and also of practical engagement with issues important to our lives. In the
second chapter (‘Why do we read Plato’s Republic?’) I focus, by contrast, on
factors that distance us from the ancient philosophical writers. One is the
literal distance of time and the loss of much evidence. Another is the
influence of other factors, which we should be aware of, which make our
concern with the ancients a selective and changeable one, so that a text
like Plato’s Republic is read very differently at different times. Both the
immediacy and the distance are things we should be aware of. In Chapters
3 and 4 (‘The happy life, ancient and modern’ and ‘Reason, knowledge and
scepticism’) I show how we can understand and engage with the ancient
variety of views on ethics and on knowledge – how we can come to engage
with the ancients in a respectful but critical way, both disagreeing with
them and learning from them. Chapter 5 (‘Logic and reality’) takes up the
rest of the ancient philosophy syllabus, focusing on one particular
metaphysical debate, namely whether there are purposes in nature or not,
and if so what they are. Chapter 6 (‘When did it all begin, and what it is
anyway?’) raises the issue of what, if anything, unites the ancient
philosophical tradition. This is a question better asked at the end than at
the beginning of an account of it, since I hope that the reader will agree
that the main lines of what I say have emerged from the previous chapters.
(And if she disagrees, this will, I hope, be in the spirit of the debates which
have been covered.)

List of Illustrations viii
Introduction ix
1 Humans and beasts: understanding ourselves 1
2 Why do we read Plato’s Republic? 18
3 The happy life, ancient and modern 36
4 Reason, knowledge and scepticism 55
5 Logic and reality 75
6 When did it all begin? (and what is it anyway?) 94
Timeline 113
Further Reading 115
Notes 117
Index 121