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These forty-eight biographies by the ancient Greek scholar demonstrate the parallel lives of famous rulers such as Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar.
A Greek priest of Delphi who acquired Roman citizenship later in life, Plutarch undertook his Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans to demonstrate the influence of character on the fates of famous men. He also wished to show that the legacy and achievements of his native Greece were no less impressive...
2) The Republic
Author
Series
Loeb classical library volume 237
The World's great classics
Hero classics
Vintage book volume V-128
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The World's great classics
Hero classics
Vintage book volume V-128
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English
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"I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing." The Republic, a pioneering work of political philosophy, is a dialogue that does not feature Plato directly as at the heart is Socrates - his teacher. Even though the conversations between Socrates and Athenians as well as foreigners take place thousands of years ago, the questions Plato addresses in the volume are far from archaic. Should men and women have equal...
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English
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First published posthumously in 1779, "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion" is Scottish philosopher David Hume's classic work of religious philosophy. This detailed and exhaustive examination of the nature and existence of God was begun by Hume in 1750, but not completed until shortly before his death in 1776. Hume was an important and influential English Empiricist, along with other English philosophers such as Francis Bacon, John Locke, and Thomas...
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English
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First published in 1653, Izaak Walton's "The Compleat Angler" is a classic and much-loved treatise on the art of fishing. Immediately popular after its publication, "The Compleat Angler" was reprinted and updated numerous times by Walton. Written as a conversation between the fictional characters of the experienced angler Piscator and his student Viator, which was changed to a hunter named Venator in later editions, the treatise is part an instructional...
5) Utopia
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English
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First published in 1516, Saint Thomas More's Utopia is one of the most important works of European humanism. Through the voice of the mysterious traveler Raphael Hythloday, More describes a pagan, communist city-state governed by reason. Addressing such issues as religious pluralism, women's rights, state-sponsored education, colonialism, and justified warfare, Utopia seems remarkably contemporary nearly five centuries after it was written, and it...
6) The politics
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English
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Similar to Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle explores another facet of good living by outlining the best governing practices that benefit the majority, and not the minority. In The Politics, he defines various institutions and how they should operate within an established system.
The Politics provides an analysis of contemporary government as it relates to all people. Aristotle discusses the positive and negative qualities of authority and how they affect...
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English
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"What does it mean to be a good person? Aristotle's famous series of lectures on ethical topics ranges over fundamental questions about good and bad character; pleasure and self-control; moral wisdom and the foundations of right and wrong; friendship and love in all their forms - all set against a rich and humane conception of what makes for a flourishing life. Adam Beresford's freshly researched translation presents many of Aristotle's key terms...
8) Gorgias
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Series
Little library of liberal arts volume no. 20
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English
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"Taking the form of a dialogue between Socrates, Gorgias, Polus and Callicles, the Gorgias debates crucial questions about the nature of government. While the aspiring politician Callicles propounds the view that might is right, and the rhetorician Gorgias argues that oratory and the power to persuade represent 'the greatest good', Socrates insists on the duty of politicians to consider the welfare of their citizens--a duty he believed had been dishonoured...
9) The poetics
Author
Series
Ann Arbor paperbacks volume AA166
Great books in philosophy
Dramabook volume D27
Loeb classical library volume no. 199
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Great books in philosophy
Dramabook volume D27
Loeb classical library volume no. 199
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English
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Greek philosopher and scientist, Aristotle, lived in the 4th century B.C. and is thought of as one of the most important figures from classical antiquity. Aristotle was probably the most famous member of Plato's Academy in Athens, whose writings would ultimately form the first comprehensive system of Western philosophy. His writings were not constrained to simply one field of inquiry but covered such various subjects as physics, biology, metaphysics,...
10) Leviathan
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English
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The renowned work by the English political philosopher examines the structure of society and legitimate government, arguing for a social contract and rule by an absolute sovereign.
""During the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called Warre." Written during the turmoil of the English Civil War, Leviathan is an ambitious and highly original work of political philosophy. Claiming that...
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English
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Thomas Paine, a seminal figure in American History, was an Englishman by birth who immigrated to America in 1774, where he quickly took up the cause of the independence of the American colonies from England. His famous work "Common Sense", published in 1776, helped to gain public support for the American Revolution and established him as a central figure among the founding fathers. Later, while living in France during the French Revolution, Paine...
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English
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Disappointed by the public reception to "A Treatise of Human Nature", published anonymously between 1739 and 1740, David Hume decided to produce a shorter more polemic version of that work nearly ten years later. That revision, which was published in 1748, would be entitled "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding". Dispensing with much of the extraneous material from the "Treatise", Hume focuses on his more vital propositions in the "Enquiry"....
13) The Art of War
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English
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The Art of War is a Chinese military treatise that was written during the 6th century BC by Sun Tzu. Composed of 13 chapters, each of which is devoted to one aspect of warfare, it has long been praised as the definitive work on military strategies and tactics of its time. The Art of War is one of the oldest books on military strategy in the world. It is the first and one of the most successful works on strategy and has had a huge influence on Eastern...
14) Emile
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English
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This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's thesis that children are naturally good at birth violated the traditional Christian doctrine of origin sin. His argument that education should arise from children's natural instincts and impulses rather than trying to civilize and socialize them challenged traditional schooling. Rousseau's defenders see him as a pioneering thinker whose revolutionary...
15) Rhetoric
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English
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Written sometime in the 4th Century BC, Aristotle's "Rhetoric" is the definitive treatise on the art of persuasive public speaking. The art of oratorical persuasion was an essential skill for the successful politician during the days of ancient Greece and Aristotle's "Rhetoric" is considered one of the greatest works from antiquity on the subject. Like many of the surviving works attributable to Aristotle, "Rhetoric" was not intended for public dissemination,...
16) Pensées
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Everyman's library. Theology and philosophy volume no. 874
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English
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Description
"Blaise Pascal, the precociously brilliant contemporary of Descartes, was a gifted mathematician and physicist, but it is his unfinished apologia for the Christian religion upon which his reputation now rests. The Pensees is a collection of philosophical fragments, notes and essays in which he explores the contradictions of human nature in psychological, social, metaphysical and, above all, theological terms. Mankind emerges from Pascal's analysis...
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English Enlightenment philosopher John Locke has been called the "Father of Liberalism". Following in the tradition of Sir Francis Bacon, he is one of the first British empiricists, which emphasizes the role of empirical evidence in the formation of ideas. His work would greatly influence other prominent political and literary figures including Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and the founding fathers of the United States of America. Contained here...
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In Critique of judgment (1790), Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) seeks to establish the a priori principles underlying the faculty of judgement, just as he did in his previous critiques of pure and practical reason. The first part deals with the subject of our aesthetic sensibility; we respond to certain natural phenomena as beautiful, says Kant, when we recognise in nature a harmonious order that satisfies the mind's own need for order. The second half...
19) The symposium
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English
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In his celebrated masterpiece, Symposium, Plato imagines a high-society dinner-party in Athens in 416 BC. The guests--including the comic poet Aristophanes and Plato's mentor Socrates--each deliver a short speech in praise of love. The sequence of dazzling speeches culminates in Socrates' famous account of the views of Diotima, a prophetess who taught him that love is our means of trying to attain goodness, and a brilliant sketch of Socrates himself...
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English
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First published in 1689, "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" is British philosopher John Locke's important and influential exposition on the foundation of human knowledge and understanding. Arranged into four books, the first book begins by rejecting the notion of innate ideas proposed by Descartes and proposes instead that humans are born as blank slates. Book two argues that all knowledge is derived from experience and reflection. Locke also...
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