Thomas Blackson

This book may well become the definitive work on Philo of Larissa. It is comprehensive, and the knowledge of the texts and their historical contexts is impressive. My only concern is with the philosophical exposition. Philo is an important figure in the history of epistemology, and it seems to me that his contribution should have been specified more clearly. This of course is a tall order. Ancient epistemology is a difficult subject, and my desire for a clearer exposition is more of a wish than a criticism. Philo of Larissa is a very good book.

This book offers a sympathetic explanation of the origin of the Theory of Forms that is true both to the dialogues and to Plato's place in history. The author's explanation makes the development of Plato's thought part of an intellectual and philosophical history that begins in the pre-Socratic period, extends through Socrates and the Sophists, and continues into the twentieth century. The explanation provides a unified reading of three passages that scholars have long recognized as keys to Plato's thought about the Forms, but which have proved stubbornly resistant to interpretation, both individually and as a group: (i) the intellectual autobiography in the Phaedo; (ii) the discussion of the philosopher and the lover of spectacles in the Republic; and (iii) the discussion of starting points, the Receptacle, and the four kinds of stuff in the Timaeus. The book will be of special interest to scholars of ancient philosophy, it will also be of interest to philosophers in general, graduate students, and advanced undergraduate students.

IN POSTERIOR ANALYTICS 2.19 AND METAPHYSICS 1.1, Aristotle describes the natural process by which man acquires reason and the knowledge that belongs to reason. He says that from perception comes memory, from memory comes experience, and from experience comes reason and the knowledge that belongs to reason. This is the sequence in induction, and it is common to the description in both passages. In the Metaphysics, however, unlike in the Posterior Analytics, Aristotle goes on to explain how the expertise gained in experience is different from but easily mistaken for the knowledge that belongs to reason. He says that men of experience know that the thing is so, but not the why and the cause, and this can be perplexing because it can seem to conflict with his epistemology and ontology of reason. As I understand Aristotle, he thought that wisdom, not the knowledge that belongs to reason, varies among men, and that every adult who is not defective acquires the knowledge why in the course of his natural development. It thus follows that the experience that men of experience possess cannot be the experience in induction, for otherwise reason and its knowledge would come to man late in life, if at all, and would come to only those who had acquired the expertise that belongs to men of experience.

This book is a collection of twenty-three of Professor Cooper’s essays on ancient moral philosophy and ethical theory. Two essays are published here for the first time. Three essays are “somewhat revised” versions of essays first prepared for other collections that were in press during the time in which Cooper wrote the preface. Three essays are “reworkings” of previously published review essays, and the remaining fifteen essays are reprints with editorial alterations of essays Cooper first published between 1973 and 1996. Cooper offers these twenty-three essays to “a wider readership” in the “hope [that] they present a unified way of reading and reflecting on some of the most significant texts and issues in ancient moral philosophy from Socrates to Epicurus and the Stoic philosophers Chrysippus and Posidonius, and beyond”.

Keith DeRose gives an invalid argument for contextualism in “Assertion, Knowledge, and Context.” In section 2.4, entitled “The Argument for Contextualism,” DeRose makes the following remarks. “The knowledge account of assertion provides a powerful argument for contextualism: If the standards for when one is in a position to warrantedly assert that P are the same as those that comprise a truth-condition for ‘I know P,’ then if the former vary with context, so do the latter. In short: The knowledge account of assertion together with the context-sensitivity of assertability yields contextualism about knowledge”.