Early Greek Ethics

Edited by David Conan Wolfsdorf

The first volume to offer a full systematic account of early Greek ethics
Explores the neglected formative period of Western ethics, from the last decades of archaic Greece through the first century or so of classical Greece
An authoritative guide to key texts and philosophers
Considers ethics in the context of other aspects of Greek culture, such as medicine, music, friendship, and justice
Will be an invaluable resource as the standard point of reference for future work in this area

Early Greek Ethics

Edited by David Conan Wolfsdorf

Description

Early Greek Ethics is devoted to Greek philosophical ethics in its formative period, from the last decades of the sixth century BCE to the beginning of the fourth century BCE. It begins with the inception of Greek philosophical ethics and ends immediately before the composition of Plato's and Aristotle's mature ethical works Republic and Nicomachean Ethics. The ancient contributors include Presocratics such as Heraclitus, Democritus, and figures of the early Pythagorean tradition such as Empedocles and Archytas of Tarentum, who have previously been studied principally for their metaphysical, cosmological, and natural philosophical ideas. Socrates and his lesser known associates such as Antisthenes of Athens and Aristippus of Cyrene also feature, as well as sophists such as Gorgias of Leontini, Antiphon of Athens, and Prodicus of Ceos, and anonymous texts such as the Pythagorean Acusmata, Dissoi Logoi, Anonymus Iamblichi, and On Law and Justice.

In addition to chapters on these individuals and texts, the volume explores select fields and topics especially influential to ethical philosophical thought in the formative period and later, such as early Greek medicine, music, friendship, justice and the afterlife, and early Greek ethnography. Consisting of thirty chapters composed by an international team of leading philosophers and classicists, Early Greek Ethics is the first volume in any language devoted to philosophical ethics in the formative period.

Early Greek Ethics

Edited by David Conan Wolfsdorf

Introduction, David Conan Wolfsdorf
INDIVIDUALS AND TEXTS
1:The Pythagorean Acusmata, Johan C. Thom
2:Xenophanes on the Ethics and Epistemology of Arrogance, Shaul Tor
3:On the Ethical Dimension of Heraclitus' Thought, Mark A. Johnstone
4:Ethics and Natural Philosophy in Empedocles, John Palmer
5:The Ethical Life of a Fragment: Three Readings of Protagoras' Man Measure Statement, Tazuko A. van Berkel
6:The Logos of Ethics in Gorgias' Palamedes, On What is Not, and Helen, Kurt Lampe
7:Responsibility Rationalized: Action and Pollution in Antiphon's Tetralogies, Joel E. Mann
8:Ethical and Political Thought in Antiphon's Truth and Concord, Mauro Bonazzi
9:The Ethical Philosophy of the Historical Socrates, David Conan Wolfsdorf
10:Prodicus on the Choice of Heracles, Language, and Religion, Richard Bett
11:The Ethical Maxims of Democritus of Abdera, Monte Ransome Johnson
12:The Sōphrosynē of Critias: Aristocratic Ethics after the Thirty Tyrants, Alex Gottesman
13:Anonymus Iamblichi, On Excellence: A Lost Defense of Democracy, Phillip Sidney Horky
14:On the Unity of the Dissoi Logoi, David Conan Wolfsdorf
15:Antisthenes' Ethics, Susan Prince
16:Antisthenes and Allegoresis, Mikolaj Domaradzki
17:Aristippus of Cyrene, Voula Tsouna
18:Self-Mastery, Piety, and Reciprocity in Xenophon's Ethics, David M. Johnson
19:Ethics in Plato's Early Dialogues, Nicholas D. Smith
20:On Law and Justice Attributed to Archytas of Tarentum, Phillip Sidney Horky and Monte Ransome Johnson
TOPICS AND FIELDS
21:Early Greek Ethnography and Human Values, Joseph Skinner
22:Ethics in Early Greek Medicine, Paul Demont
23:The Ethics of Afterlife in Classical Greek Thought, Radcliffe Edmonds III
24:Friendship in Early Greek Ethics, Dimitri El Murr
25:Justice and the Afterlife, Svavar Hrafn Svavarsson
26:Music and the Soul, Eleonora Rocconi
27:The Teachability of Aretē among the Socratics, Christopher Rowe
CODA
28:Diogenes of Sinope, Will Desmond
29:Anaxarchus on Indifference, Happiness, and Convention, Tim O'Keefe
30:Aristoxenus' Pythagorean Precepts: A Rational Pythagorean Ethics, Carl A. Huffman

Early Greek Ethics

Edited by David Conan Wolfsdorf

Author Information

Edited by David Conan Wolfsdorf, Professor of Philosophy, Temple University

David Conan Wolfsdorf is Professor of Philosophy at Temple University in Philadelphia. Previously he taught at Fairfield University in Connecticut. He is the author of On Goodness (Oxford, 2019), Pleasure in Ancient Greek Philosophy (Cambridge, 2012), and Trials of Reason (Oxford, 2008).

Contributors:

Richard Bett, Johns Hopkins University
Mauro Bonazzi, Utrecht University
Mikolaj Domaradzki, Adam Mickiewicz University
Paul Demont, Sorbonne University
William Desmond, Maynooth University
Radcliffe G. Edmonds III, Bryn Mawr College
Alex Gottesman, Temple University
Philip Sidney Horky, Durham University
Carl A. Huffman, DePauw University
David M. Johnson, Southern Illinois University
Monte Ransome Johnson, University of California, San Diego
Mark A. Johnstone, McMaster University
Kurt Lampe, University of Bristol
Joel Mann, St. Norbert College
Dimitri El Murr, Ecole Normale Supérieure - Université PSL
Tim O'Keefe, Georgia State University
John Palmer, University of Florida
Susan Prince, University of Cincinnati
Eleonora Rocconi, University of Pavia
Christopher Rowe, Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow
Joseph Skinner, Newcastle University
Nicholas D. Smith, Lewis & Clark College
Svavar Hrafn Svavarsson, University of Iceland
Johan Thom, Stellenbosch University
Shaul Tor, King's College, London
Voula Tsouna, University of California, Santa Barbara
Tazuko A. Van Berkel, Leiden University
David Conan Wolfsdorf, Temple University

Early Greek Ethics

Edited by David Conan Wolfsdorf

Reviews and Awards

"David Conan Wolfsdorf has done a great service in putting together the thirty chapters ... that make up the new collection Early Greek Ethics ... Many of the chapters provide useful introductions and thus fill a notable gap in the literature ... One notable and welcome feature of the volume is the variety of approaches to early Greek ethics that it offers, from close study of individual texts to broad summary. It is to be hoped that this book serves to stimulate more interest in this area and, indeed, more awareness of its existence." - Jenny Bryan, Greece & Rome

"Early Greek Ethics provides a comprehensive account of Greek philosophical ethics, focusing on both notable and less-known thinkers ... Each entry is substantial, and the contributors ground their scholarship firmly in primary texts and the secondary literature. Wolfsdorf has delivered a splendid resource: broad in scope yet inclusive and impeccably researched. Those specializing in Greek ethical thought will find it an indispensable reference text." - F. A. Grabowski, CHOICE

"In summary, everyone who works in early Greek philosophy cannot but welcome this volume. It is a well structured, carefully organized, scholarly, informative, and original work on the early history and philosophy of ethics ... The volume inspires us to reconsider early Greek philosophers not merely as pre-Socratics, pre-Platonists, or even pre-Aristotelians, but as individual thinkers in their own right who contributed in the development, the formation, and the continuation of the Greek philosophical tradition." - Giannis Stamatellos, Bryn Mawr Classical Review