Julia Annas

The Modes of Scepticism is one of the most important and influential of all ancient philosophical texts. The texts made an enormous impact on Western thought when they were rediscovered in the 16th century and they have shaped the whole future course of Western philosophy. Despite their importance, the Modes have been little discussed in recent times. This book translates the texts and supplies them with a discursive commentary, concentrating on philosophical issues but also including historical material. The book will be of interest to professional scholars and philosophers but its clear and non-technical style makes it intelligible to beginners and the interested layman.

This lively and accessible book focuses on the philosophy and argument of Plato's writings, drawing the reader into Plato's way of doing philosophy and the general themes of his thinking. It discusses Plato's style of writing: his use of the dialogue form, his use of what we today call fiction, and his philosophical transformation of myths. It also looks at his discussions of love and philosophy, his attitude towards women, and towards homosexual love. It explores Plato's claim that virtue is sufficient for happiness and touches on his arguments for the immorality of the soul and his ideas about the nature of the universe.

There is now, I think, widespread consensus that the field of ethical theory would benefit from taking more into account a tradition of ethical thinking which is best represented in ancient ethics: that of eudaimonism. These theories take the agent’s final end as primary, and hold that to be happiness. There has been a renewal of interest in Aristotle’s ethics, and a development of various forms of what is called ‘virtue ethics’. However, a true appraisal of the interest and importance for us of eudaimonistic theories needs a fuller study of the general structure of these theories than has been readily available. Too much focus on Aristotle, for example, can hide the extent to which some features of his theory are idiosyncratic to him, and not typical of eudaimonistic theory generally.

Outlines of Scepticism, by the Greek philosopher Sextus Empiricus, is a work of major importance for the history of Greek philosophy. It is the fullest extant account of ancient scepticism, and it is also one of our most copious sources of information about the other Hellenistic philosophies. Its first part contains an elaborate exposition of the Pyrrhonian variety of scepticism; its second and third parts are critical and destructive, arguing against 'dogmatism' in logic, epistemology, science and ethics - an approach that revolutionized the study of philosophy when Sextus' works were rediscovered and published in the sixteenth century. This volume presents the accurate and readable translation which was first published in 1994, together with a substantial new historical and philosophical introduction by Jonathan Barnes.

It is well-known that in recent years, alongside the familiar forms of modern ethical theory, such as consequentialism, deontology, and rights theory, there has been a resurgence of interest in what goes by the name of “virtue ethics” — forms of ethical theory which give a prominent status to the virtues, and to the idea that an agent has a “final end” which the virtues enable her to achieve. With this has come an increase of theoretical interest in ancient ethical theories, particularly Aristotle's, an interest which has made a marked difference in the way ethics is pursued in the Anglo-Saxon and European intellectual worlds. In this essay, I shall not be discussing modern virtue ethics, which is notably protean in form and difficult to pin down. I shall be focusing on ancient eudaimonistic ethical theories, for in their case we can achieve a clearer discussion of the problem I wish to discuss

Plato's Republic has proven to be of astounding influence and importance. Justly celebrated as Plato's central text, it brings together all of his prior works, unifying them into a comprehensive vision that is at once theological, philosophical, political and moral. The essays in this volume provide a picture of the most interesting aspects of the Republic, and address questions that continue to puzzle and provoke, such as: Does Plato succeed in his argument that the life of justice is the most attractive one? Is his tripartite analysis of the soul coherent and plausible? Why does Plato seem to have to force his philosopher-guardians to rule when they know this is something that they ought to do? What is the point of the strange and complicated closing Myth of Er? This volume will be essential to those looking for thoughtful and detailed excursions into the problems posed by Plato's text and ideas.

In the Republic, Socrates undertakes to defend justice as being in itself a benefit to its possessor. Does he do this, or does he change the subject? In a well-known article, David Sachs pointed out that there seems to be a shift in what Plato is defending. The challenge to Socrates is put by Thrasymachus, who admires the successful unjust man, and by Glaucon and Adeimantus, who do not, but are worried that justice has no adequate defence against Thrasymachus. In all these passages justice is discussed in terms of the non-performance of actions which are regarded as unjust according to common morality; Sachs calls this common concept of ordinary justice ‘vulgar justice’

Plato (c. 427-347 BC) was born into a wealthy and aristocratic Athenian family. He cherished the ambition of entering politics when he came of age, but was disillusioned first by the injustices of the oligarchic government in which his relatives Charmides and Critias were involved, and later by the action of the democracy which succeeded it, particularly the trial and execution of Socrates in 399 BC. In his best-known dialogue, The Republic, he sought to provide a theoretical foundation for a government which would embody the justice he had found to be lacking in the actual governments of his day. His only active intervention in politics, in the intended role of adviser, was an unsuccessful one in Syracuse, Sicily. Details of it are given in his Seventh Letter. Some time before his second visit to Sicily, in 367 BC, he founded the school known as ‘the Academy’. His career as a writer of dialogues may have begun before this. In his early dialogues, he memorialized Socrates and his method of philosophizing by making him chief participant and questioner. His teaching in the Academy was interrupted for a third visit to Sicily in 361-360 BC, when he was nearly seventy. He survived an illness caused by the hardships of the journey, and died aged about eighty-one.

Some years ago I started to write a book on virtue ethics, in which I tried to meet early criticisms of what was then a new way of doing ethics. The book continued to be unsatisfactory, and I finally abandoned it, realizing that I needed to get clear about virtue before producing a defence of virtue ethics. This need should have been obvious, especially since I frequently teach Platonic dialogues where Socrates gets people to see that they are doing what I was doing, namely developing ideas about something without first examining what it is. The need became even more obvious as the field rapidly expanded with the production of Humean, Nietschean, Kantian and consequentialist kinds of virtue ethics. Within the field of neo-Aristotelian ethics itself it became clear that different aspects can be stressed: the importance of practical wisdom can be developed, for example, without defending a naturalistic account of the relation of virtue to happiness.I finally wrote a book to explore and d ..