Greece Books

This is excellent for those who have travelled to Greece and wish to learn more about the people & the culture through interaction. It goes beyond a traditional phrase book, and contains very useful phases that other phrase books do not include. Most concern real personal issues that people really want to talk about such as family, beliefs, social issues. The translation of each phrase is phonetic, and is ideal for those who struggle with the Greek alphabet & pronunciation. The author also includes comments concerning culture next to the relevant phrase. A section on cultural subjects at the end of the book is helpful to explain the gestures, comments, & activities that a non-Greek traveller might find strange. I believe it is helpful for anyone interested in interacting with the local people when they travel. for someone interested in learning the language, I woould consider this as a necessary suppliment to a formal language course.

'All of Western philosophy is a footnote to Plato' said Whitehead, and in some sense 'all of Plato is a footnote to Socrates'. The hero of Plato's early dialogues the inventor of the famous dialectic, the teacher of the importance of questioning all our assumptions and of knowing what we cannot ultimately know, produced a pupil as great as himself who immortalized him in great dialogues. But he also produced a pupil who had a tendency to System, and gave us his own idea of the Idea- and his own prescription for how Justice must be attained in an Ideal state. Justly or unjustly the Platonic Republic is seen as forerunner of the totalitarian nightmare states of the twentieth century.
In this small work there is much concentration on Plato's somewhat incoherent life of wanderings that had its greatest moments in the Academy that he founded in Athens. .There the attaining of Knowledge was made the heart of the human enterprise.
Strathern is an outstanding narrator, and a wonderful expositor of philosophical ideas. So it is possible to learn basic Plato from this work. However the complications and contradictions of the work are not really elaborated here. I would have preferred that he tell the story of the development of the Dialogues rather than of Plato's meanderings to Syracause and back. Nonetheless this is like all the works of the series a highly informative and entertaining work.

I read this book for a graduate seminar on Aristotle. I think Aristotle's ethics is his most seminal work in philosophy. In the early 1960's virtue ethics came to fore. It is a retrieval of Aristotle. It has very close parallels to the ancient Chinese philosophy of Confucius and the modern philosophy espoused in the 1970's called Communitarianism.

For Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics, (EN) is about human life in an embodied state. Area of inquirery for EN is "good" this is his phenomenology. What does "good" mean? He suggests good means "a desired end." Something desirable. Means towards these ends. Such as money is good, so one can buy food to eat because "eating is good." In moral philosophy distinction between "intrinsic good" vs. "instrumental good." Instrumental good towards a desire is "instrumental good" like money. Thus, money is an "instrumental good" for another purpose because it produces something beyond itself. Instrumental good means because it further produces a good, "intrinsic good" is a good for itself, "for the sake of" an object like money. "Intrinsic good" for him is "Eudemonia=happiness." This is what ethics and virtues are for the sake of the organizing principle. Eudemonia=happiness. Today we think of happiness as a feeling. It is not a feeling for Aristotle. Best translation for eudaimonia is "flourishing" or "living well." It is an active term and way of living for him thus, "excellence." Ultimate "intrinsic good" of "for the sake of." Eudaimonia is the last word for Aristotle. Can also mean fulfillment. Idea of nature was thought to be fixed in Greece convention is a variation. What he means is ethics is loose like "wealth is good but some people are ruined by wealth." EN isn't formula but a rough outline. Ethics is not precise; the nature of subject won't allow it. When you become a "good person" you don't think it out, you just do it out of habit!

You can have ethics without religion for Aristotle. Nothing in his EN is about the afterlife. He doesn't believe in the universal good for all people at all times like Plato and Socrates. The way he thought about character of agent, "thinking about the good." In addition, Aristotle talked about character traits. Good qualities of a person who would act well. Difference between benevolent acts and a benevolent person. If you have good character, you don't need to follow rules. Aretç=virtue, in Greek not religious connotation but anything across the board meaning "excellence" high level of functioning, a peak. Like a musical virtuoso. Ethical virtue is ethical excellence, which is the "good like." In Plato, ethics has to do with quality of soul defining what to do instead of body like desires and reason. For Aristotle these are not two separate entities.

To be good is how we live with other people, not just focus on one individual. Virtue can't be a separate or individual trait. Socrates said same the thing. Important concept for Aristotle, good upbringing for children is paramount if you don't have it, you are a lost cause. Being raised well is "good fortune" a child can't choose their upbringing. Happenstance is a matter of chance.

Pleasure cannot be an ultimate good. Part of the "good life" involves external goods like money, one can't attain "good life" if one is poor and always working. Socrates said material goods don't matter, then he always mooched off of his friends! Aristotle surmises that the highest form of happiness is contemplation. In Aristotle's Rhetoric, he lists several ingredients for attaining eudaimonia. Prosperity, self-sufficiency, etc., is important, thus, if you are not subject to other, competing needs. A long interesting list. It is common for the hoi polloi to say pleasure=happiness. Aristotle does not deny pleasure is good; however, it is part of a package of goods. Pleasure is a condition of the soul. In the animal world, biological beings react to pleasure and pain as usual. Humans as reasoning beings must pursue knowledge to fulfill human nature. It must be pleasurable to seek knowledge and other virtues and if it is not there is something wrong according to Aristotle. These are the higher pleasures and so you may have to put off lower pleasures for the sake of attaining "higher pleasures."

Phronçsis= "intelligence," really better to say "practical wisdom." The word practical helps here because the word Phronçsis for Aristotle is a term having to do with ethics, the choices that are made for the good. As a human being, you have to face choices about what to do and not to do. Phronçsis is going to be that capacity that power of the soul that when it is operating well will enable us to turn out well and that is why it is called practical wisdom. The practically wise person is somebody who knows how to live in such a way so that their life will turn out well, in a full package of "goods." For Aristotle, Phronçsis is not deductive or inductive knowledge like episteme; Phronçsis is not a kind of rational knowledge where you operate in either deduction or induction, you don't go thru "steps" to arrive at the conclusion. Therefore, Phronçsis is a special kind of capacity that Aristotle thinks operates in ethics. Only if you understand what Aristotle means by phronesis do you get a hold on the concept. My way of organizing it, it is Phronçsis that is a capacity that enables the virtues to manifest themselves.

What are the virtues? Phronçsis is the capacity of the soul that will enable the virtues to fulfill themselves. Virtue ethics is the characteristics of a person that will bring about a certain kind of moral living, and that is exactly what the virtues are. The virtues are capacities of a person to act well. All of the virtues can be organized by way of this basic power of the soul called Phronçsis. There are different virtues, but it is the capacity of Phronçsis that enables these virtues to become activated. Basic issue is to find the "mean" between extremes; this is how Aristotle defines virtues.

Humans are not born with the virtues; we learn them and practice them habitually. "We reach our complete perfection through habit." Aristotle says we have a natural potential to be virtuous and through learning and habit, we attain them. Learn by doing according to Aristotle and John Dewey. Then it becomes habitual like playing a harp. Learning by doing is important for Aristotle. Hexis= "state," "having possession." Theoria= "study." The idea is not to know what virtue is but to become "good." Emphasis on finding the balance of the mean. Each virtue involves four basic points.

1. Action or circumstance. Such as risk of losing one's life.
2. Relevant emotion or capacity. Such as fear and pain.
3. Vices of excess and vices of deficiency in the emotions or the capacities. Such as cowardice is the excess vice of fear, recklessness is the excess deficiency.
4. Virtue as a "mean" between the vices and deficiencies. Such as courage as the "mean."

No formal rule or "mean" it depends on the situation and is different for different people as well. For example--one should eat 3,000 calories a day. Well depends on the health and girth of the person, and what activity they are engaged in. It is relative to us individually.
All Aristotle's qualifications are based on individual situations and done with knowledge of experience. Some things are not able to have a "mean" like murder and adultery because these are not "goods."
Akrasia= "incontinence" really "weakness of the will. Socrates thought that all virtues are instances of intelligence or Phronçsis. Aristotle criticizes Socrates idea of virtue, virtue is not caused by state of knowledge it is more complicated. Aristotle does not think you have to have a reasoned principle in the mind and then do what is right, they go together.

The distinctions between continent and incontinent persons, and moderate (virtue) and immoderate (not virtuous) persons is as follows:

1. Virtue. Truly virtuous people do not struggle to be virtuous, they do it effortlessly, very few people in this category, and most are in #2 and #3.
2. Ethical strength. Continence. We know what is right thing to do but struggle with our desires.
3. Ethical weakness. This is akrasia incontinence. Happens in real life.
4. Vice. The person acts without regret of his bad actions.

What does Aristotle mean by "fully virtuous"? Ethical strength is not virtue in the full sense of the term. Ethical weakness is not a full vice either. This is the critique against Socrates idea that "Knowledge equals virtue." No one can knowingly do the wrong thing. Thus, Socrates denies appetites and desires. Aristotle understands that people do things that they know are wrong, Socrates denies this. Socrates says if you know the right thing you will do it, Aristotle disagrees. The law is the social mechanism for numbers 2, 3, 4. A truly virtuous person is their own moral compass.

I recommend Aristotle's works to anyone interested in obtaining a classical education, and those interested in philosophy. Aristotle is one of the most important philosophers and the standard that all others must be judged by.

This is a truly excellent study of Etruscan religion. I have read several other books on the subject and have always been rather disappointed by them. This is the first one which adopts a sensible methodology for recovering what we can and cannot surmise about Etruscan mythology given the preservation of art and the paucity of texts. I read each page with great interest and came out feeling that I had actually learned something about the subject, whereas previous books had seemed to get lost in a maze of Greek sources, and missed or even avoided material which seemed to contradict these Greek sources. This author, on the other hand, is interested precisely in what is different from the Greek versions of the iconography, and is able to deduce many salient features of Etruscan religion in doing so. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to gain a deeper knowledge of Etruscan culture.

I read this book for a graduate seminar on Aristotle.

Aristotle's further elaboration in the Eudemian Ethics, (EE) from his Nicomachean Ethics, (EN) on friendship is very intuitive when it comes to understanding the human ego in particular and human relationships in general. This is the most important aspect of the EE for serious students of Aristotle and virtue ethics. It is here in the EE that Aristotle further develops the theory of activity, proposing a way of viewing human life that reveals the most fundamental way in which logos ["reason"] enters into human life. Since Aristotle believes that humans by nature are social and political animals, it should come as no surprise that he believes humans need friendship to live a complete and happy life. "However, friendship is not only necessary, but also fine. For we praise lovers of friends, and having many friends seems to be a fine thing."

Aristotle notes that there are three types of friendship. First is the friendship of utility. In modern times, this type of friendship is more similar to a friendly acquaintance at work or with people one has a business relationship with--a it is not an emotional relationship between people. Second, is the friendship of pleasure. This is a mutual relationship between people who share pleasures, such as enjoying each other's company, and friends who are fun to be with. The third and highest form of friendship is that of goodness. This is the type of friendship where the ethical welfare of the other person is as important as one's own well being. In modern times, this is friendship that is usually defined as a best friend or even a soul mate. Friendship of goodness, as Aristotle defines it, is that between people "who wish goods to their friend for the friend's own sake are friends most of all; for they have this attitude because of the friend himself, not coincidentally." Aristotle understood that the friendship of goodness depends on love, on likeness, on recognition, on reciprocity, on activity, on quality of characters, and ultimately (and from a different viewpoint) on sharing of life.

I recommend Aristotle's works to anyone interested in obtaining a classical education, and those interested in philosophy. Aristotle is one of the most important philosophers and the standard that all others must be judged by.

Definitely, one of the most underrated commanders of the Ancient world, responsible for the defeat & death of Craterus. Cunning, innovative & brilliant; considering the circumstances of Eumenes' command he performed miracles on the battlefield. Being plagued with desertions & treasonous allies, whose combined efforts will eventually bring his downfall. Otherwise, who knows how far he could have gone had all chips fallen into place?

This volume in the Loeb Classical Library brings together four of the ninteen tragedies by the tragic playwright Euripides that have survived from the 92 plays he was known to have written: "Children of Hercales" (produced 430 B.C.), "Hippolytus" (428 B.C.), "Andromache" (circa 426 B.C.), and "Hecuba" (circa 425 B.C.). Only the second tragedy could be considered a classic, but the other three have their points of interest.

"Children of Heracles" ("Heracledidae") has usually been considered a minor political play by Euripides. It tells how the children of Hecules were exiled by from their home by the murderous King Eurystheus of Argos (the one who imposed the famous Twelve Labors on the demi-god) after their father's death. The children and their mother fled from country to country in search of sanctuary until, of course, they came to Athens. At first, the Athenians are reluctant to grant asylum, since Eurystheus might bring political and military strife on the city. But Demophon, King of Athens, agrees to admit them. Indeed, the army of Eurystheus surrounds the city and the oracles declares that the safety of Athens depends on the sacrifice of a virgin. Macaria, one of the daughters of Hercules, offers herself as the sacrificial victim. The play has usually been considered to be nothing more than a glorification of Athens, but, of course, in more contemporary terms it is worth reconsidering this Greek tragedy as a look at the problem of political refugees.

"Hippolytus" opens with Aphrodite declaring her power over all mankind and her intention to ruin Hippolytus, the son of Theseus because he alone has had the audacity to scorn love. Instead, the young prince has devoted himself to hunting and Artemis, the chaste goddess of the hunt. As the instrument of Hippolytus' downfall, Aphrodite selects his stepmother Phaedra, by making her fall in love with him. What becomes interesting in Euripides' telling of the tale is how Phaedra resists the will of Aphrodite, having resolved to starve herself to death rather than ever reveal her infatuation. However, Phaedra's secret is revealed and Hippolytus is horrified that his stepmother wants him as her lover. Mortified that her secret is now known, Phaedra hangs herself, but trying to spare the reputation of her children she leaves a note accusing Hippolytus of having tried to rape her. When Theseus returns to find his wife dead at her own hand and his son implicated in her suicide, the king pronounces a deadly curse upon Hippolytus. Ironically, despite the tragic fate that awaits him, Hippolytus is not a sympathetic figure since his devotion to Artemis does not require him to spurn the ways of love and an Athenian audience would not look kindly upon him as a martyr to the idea of chastity. Phaedra becomes the truly tragic character in the tale, who has her dignity taken away from her by a vengeful goddess and a friend with the best of intentions, surely as potent a combination of dangerous characters as you can find in literature.

"Andromache," set in the aftermath of the Trojan War and focusing on the widow of Hector, is one of the weakest of the extant plays of Euripides, a work better considered as anti-Spartan propaganda. The scenes are more episodic than we usually find in Euripides with the first part essentially a supplicant play. The play has one of Euripides' strongest beginnings, with its attacks on Sparta, represented by Menelaus. But even as propaganda Euripides elevates his subject for what he sees is not merely a war between two cities, but rather a clash between two completely different ways of life. Andromache, the widow of Hector, is the slave of Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, who is married to Hermione, the daughter of Menelaus and Helen. Andromache has born Neoptolemus a son, and the barren Hermione accuses the Trojan woman of having used witchcraft and seeks her death. Andromache has taken refuge as this temple where Hermione and Menelaus try to get her to come out by threatening to kill her son. However, the title character disappears from the play and everybody from Peleus, the father of Achilles, to Orestes, the cousin of Hermione, shows up, mainly to talk about Neoptolemus, who is at Delphi. Thetis shows up as the deus-ex-machina and the play ends rather abruptly. As a tragedy there is little her beyond a progression of characters who all talk about doing something they end up not doing and if there is supposed to be a series of object lessons offered by each of these characters, then that idea is pretty much lost on contemporary audiences.

In "Hecuba" the queen of fallend Troy has become the slave of Odysseus, who takes away her daughter Polyxena to be slain on the grave of Achilles. However, in this drama it is the earlier death of another child, Polydorus that provides the motivation for what comes to pass. This was a child who had been sent (according to Homer, there are various versions of this tale) for safety to the Thracian Chersonese. But now, after Hecuba hears of the death of Polyxena, the body of Polydorus washes up on shore. Apparently Hecuba's son-in-law Polymnester murdered the boy for the gold, which King Priam had sent to pay for his education. Agamemnon hears Hecuba's pleas, and Polymnester is allowed to visit the queen before she is taken away into captivity. The most fascinating aspect of "Hecuba" is that it gives us an opportunity to contrast the character of the queen of fallen Troy here with that in his more famous work, "The Trojan Women." This play was performed ten years earlier and its events take place right before the other play as well, although there is some overlap when Talthybius informs Hecuba of the death of Polyxena. In both dramas Hecuba is a woman driven by a brutal and remorseless desire for vengeance; however she proves much more successful in this drama than she does in "The Trojan Women."

"Ion" is one of many plays by Euripides in which he tried to show his Athenian audience that when judged by ordinary human standards the gods themselves would fall short. In this play, Apollo, the god of truth, brutally rapes a helpless young girl, Creusa, and then abandons her, which is not exactly something new for one of the Olympian deities. Creusa has a son (Ion), whom she abandons in a cave; when she goes back to find the child, he is gone. Years later she marries Xuthus, a solider of fortune who becomes king of Athens, which is where Euripides picks up the story.

At the start of the play Xuthus and Creusa are childless and go to Delphi for aid. There they are told that Ion, a young temple servant who has been raised from infancy, is the son of Xuthus. Creusa, outraged that Apollo let their own son die but preserved the life of a child begotten by Xuthus on some Delphian woman, tries to have Ion killed. Of course, in reality, Ion is her own child, abandoned in that cave. Condemned to death by the Delphians, Creusa escapes Ion's vengeance by taking refuge at Apollo's altar. There the priestess presents the tokens that allow Creusa to recognize Ion as her own son. Telling him the truth about his father, Ion tries to enter the temple to demand of Apollo the truth.

There is some academic debate over how much "Ion" reflects the noted religious skepticism of Euripides. After all, we can certainly believe that Creusa was raped by a human and that he child died in that cave and that the priestess who bore Ion was simply setting up a convenient fiction that would make her son the prince of Athens. Apollo is the subject of the indictment, but the gods who introduce and end the play are Hermes and Athena. However, I do consider "Ion" to be one of the best examples of Euripides's cynical view of the gods the Greeks were supposed to be worshipping. Athena forestalls a confrontation between Ion and Apollo, but this particular example of deus ex machina certainly rings hollow. After all, Delphi is Apollo's holy place and if Athena's words are true, he should be there to reveal the truth to his son instead. Ultimately, "Ion" is one of the more provocative of the extant plays of Euripides.

I had Dr. KArydas as a teacher. She KNOWS what she's talking about belive me.. We had to study this book in class, because she wrote it. She loves those Greek people alot. I can't belive she's on the internet. Anyway, the book talks about the many themes that involve women in greek society. She does an excellent and very thorough job of paralleling the stories to make them applicable the the modern day woman. She graduated Harvard too, you know she's smart.

This translation of Plato's Euthyphro was undertaken in the Spring and Summer of 2007 by myself and a (now former) student, Ryan Pack.

Also available, individually, are Socrates' Defense (The Apology), and Crito and the Death Scene from Phaedo.
A "combination" file is also available, Socrates of Athens: Euthyphro, Socrates' Defense, Crito and the Death Scene from Phaedo which contains all four pieces along with a brief introduction and bibliography which is not included in any of the individual files.

Each dialogue (whether individually or in the combo file) includes the page numbers (Stephanus numbers) which have become the standard way to refer to Plato's texts.

Each dialogue is also accompanied by brief notes explaining references to Classical geography, political process, and culture.


We undertook these translations in order to replace the versions available on-line, of Jowett (from roughly 1871) and the Loeb translation (from the nineteen-teens). (Free .pdf versions of these translations are available at the Social Science Research network, via http://ssrn.com/author=849922. Proceeds from these Amazon versions will go towards undergraduate research at Virginia Wesleyan College.) The very age of the translations makes them difficult for modern readers, and so we aspired to make our translations accessible. Here is Jowett's rendering of Apology/Socrates' Defense, 18c1-8.

"These are the accusers whom I dread; for they are the circulators of this rumor, and their hearers are too apt to fancy that speculators of this sort do not believe in the gods. And they are many, and their charges against me are of ancient date, and they made them in days when you were impressible - in childhood, or perhaps in youth - and the cause when heard went by default, for there was none to answer."

Jowett's translation is also very loose. He frequently leaves out words and whole clauses, which our translations do not.

We also tried to give the translations as much liveliness as we could given our other goals. Please see the introduction (in the combo file) for more on this.

You can view a PowerPoint presentation about the project (along with the accompanying notes) at the following page: http://facultystaff.vwc.edu/~rwoods/thinking.htm .

Finally, we would be glad to receive any corrections or suggestions for improvement you might have. These can be e-mailed to cathalwoods at gmail dot com and will be acknowledged in future editions.