John M. Rist

The Greeks and the Environment

Chapter 1 Foreword Part 2 Part I: Overview Chapter 3 Introduction Chapter 4 Some Ancient Ecological Myths and Metaphors Chapter 5 Why Greek Philosophers Might Have Been Concerned about the Environment Chapter 6 The Philosophical Genesis of Ecology and Environmentalism Part 7 Part II: Plato Chapter 8 Platonic Ecology Chapter 9 Environmental Ethics in Platos Timaeus Chapter 10 The Ecology of the Critias and Platonic metaphysics Part 11 Part III: Aristotle Chapter 12 Aristotelian Roots of Ecology: Causality, Complex Systems Theory, and Integrity Chapter 13 The Greening of Aristotle Chapter 14 Self-Love and the Virtue of Species Preservation in Aristotle Chapter 15 The Organic Unity of Aristotles World Part 16 Part IV: Greek Philosophy After Aristotle Chapter 17 Fortitude and Tragedy: The Prospects for a Stoic Environmentalism Chapter 18 Plotinus as Environmentalist? Chapter 19 Notes Chapter 20 Index

Plotinus and Christian philosophy

A study of the relationship between Plotinus and Christian philosophy is far less than an investigation of the overall influence of Platonism on Christianity. It treats of the effect on Christianity of a particular Platonist philosopher of the third century a.d. : A task at once more manageable in scope and more difficult to identify precisely. For Platonism had influenced Christian philosophers before Plotinus (particularly Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen) and it was to be influential over hundreds of years on later Christians, many of whom knew Plotinus as just a prominent name in the tradition. However, to discuss the influence of Plotinus on Christianity is not only to discuss those who knew Plotinus at first hand, and liked (or reacted against) what he taught; it is also to consider the thought of those whose understanding of Platonism was affected indirectly by the particular brand of Platonism established as dominant by Plotinus and which in modern times we have learned to call Neoplatonism.

Grace, politics and desire : essays on Augustine

Augustine makes his mark in many fields: as political philosopher, biblical exegete, theorist of culture and spiritual autobiographer. His phenomenal range is reflected in this collection of papers. Three essays deal with Augustines conversion; his account of the norms of authentic conversion, his psychological analysis of his own conversion, and his conversion as compared with that of Pascal. Others treat his concept of concupiscence, his theories of music, rhetoric and politics, his relation to the Roman Empire of his time, his changing stance towards Neoplatonism and his pluralism, his attitude to poetry, and the principles he employed for the interpretation of Scripture. Contents: Augustine and the Norms of Authentic Conversion; Memory and Scripture in the Conversion of Augustine; Two Converts: Augustine and Pascal; The Body and Human Values in Augustine of Hippo; Justice and Love in the Political Thought of St. Augustine; Augustine and Poetic Exegesis; Augustines Methods of Biblical Interpretation; Augustine on Music; Love as Rhetorical Principle: The Relationship Between Content and Style in the Rhetoric of St. Augustine; Religion and Society in the Age of Theodosius; The Background to Augustines Denial of Religious Plurality.

Parmenides and Plato's Parmenides

In two of his dialogues especially, the Sophist and the Parmenides , Plato concerns himself at length with problems presented by the Eleatics. Despite difficulties in the interpretation of individual passages, the Sophist has in general proved the less difficult to understand, and since some of the problems at issue in the two works indicate the same or similar preoccupations in Platos mind, it is worth considering how far an interpretation of the ‘easier’ dialogue can be used to forward an interpretation of the more difficult. First, therefore, we must identify problems common to the two works; then we must see whether we can understand what Plato understood Parmenides to have done—this may help towards an understanding of what he did in fact do; finally we can apply our findings to the Parmenides itself, particularly to the problem of the unity of the dialogue, in the hope that Platos intentions may become clearer.

Il Logos nella Tarda Antichità

This paper presents a synthetic narrative of different concepts of logos in Late Antiquity. The Stoic distinction between Logos prophorikos and Logos endiathetos, connected with the identification of logos with propositional thought, is contrasted with the more normal (and Neoplatonic) understanding which implies the inferiority of the logos itself to that of which it is the logos. This difference is important if we are to grasp the path Christian thought had to take to overcome subordinationism. A comparison with the logos in Philo is important in this regard since his version required modification to be applied by Christians to be Son of God. That modification had repercussions for ethics and cosmology. The problems discussed in this paper indicate the importance of Pope Benedicts comments in his Regensburg address and shed light on how they should be understood.

On the Independence of Matthew and Mark

Authors Note 1. Problems and assumptions 2. The literary hypothesis: some preliminary tests 3. Vocabulary and sequence: Matthews version of MK 2:23-6:13 4. More skimpings and bowdlerizings in Matthew 5. A turning point in the tradition 6. Some passages about Peter in Matthew 7. From Caesarea Philippi to the Burial of Jesus 8. The end of Mark 9. Summary and prospects Appendix Notes Index.

Demetrius the Stylist and Artemon the Compiler

whereas G. P. Goold holds2 that it was written in the Augustan Age. Such a discrepancy is disturbing; two hundred and fifty to three hundred years is a wide margin of error. This note therefore is intended to reduce the gap by an investigation of the Artemon who is described by Demetrius (223) as the editor of Aristotles Letters. It seems that some progress may be possible here, although the matter has been quickly passed over by both Grube3 and Goold.4 More in fact can be discovered about the date of Artemon than either of these scholars has indicated. To attain such knowledge, it is necessary to examine the traditional accounts of the contents of the Aristotelian corpus. There are three basic lists surviving of the Aristotelian writings. The first is that of Diogenes Laertius (3.22-27); the second is by an unknown hand and is often associated with Hesychius;5 the third, not preserved in Greek, derives from the list of a certain Ptolemy. Versions of this appear in the writings of two thirteenth-century Arabic scholars: al-Qifti and ibn abi Useibia.6 Of the general nature of these catalogues little need be said here. The information is readily available in the works of Moraux and Diiring.7 Well-grounded opinion exists that the list of Ptolemy, which differs considerably from the others, is the direct representative of a list