This edition is not an OCR or a photocopy. It is a new edition.

It is a pleasure to all of us to hold forth upon subjects about which we know very little. It is particularly a temptation to university professors to get away from the subjects of their own chairs and lecture as dogmatically as their nature demands on subjects of other people's chairs. That is why I am speaking to-night about Psychology. As to Vice, the case is a little different. Even if my own experience is regrettably limited, I have for some (...) years studied the Chairman, and I bring my observations before a society full of persons whose range and profundity of knowledge will be sufficient to correct any hasty generalizations on my part. (shrink)

First published in 1964, this is a short collection of both literary and philosophical essays. Whilst two essays consider Greek literature written at the point at which the Athenian empire was breaking apart, another group explore the background from which Christianity arose, considering Paganism and the religious philosophy at the time of Christ. These, in particular, display Gilbert Murray’s ‘profound belief in ethics and disbelief in all revelational religions’ as well as his conviction that the roots of our (...) society lie within Greek civilization. Finally, there is an interesting discussion of Order and the motives of those who seek to overthrow it. (shrink)

First published in 1938, these lectures argue that liberality is the foundation of civilization. According to Gilbert Murray, civilization provides the surplus of security, leisure and wealth that makes liberality possible; a failure of liberality is the surest test of the failure of a civilization. This is a fascinating reissue that will be of great value to students with an interest in political philosophy and the foundations of liberal society.

First published in 1938, these lectures argue that liberality is the foundation of civilization. According to Gilbert Murray, civilization provides the surplus of security, leisure and wealth that makes liberality possible; a failure of liberality is the surest test of the failure of a civilization. This is a fascinating reissue that will be of great value to students with an interest in political philosophy and the foundations of liberal society.

First published in 1938, these lectures argue that liberality is the foundation of civilization. According to Gilbert Murray, civilization provides the surplus of security, leisure and wealth that makes liberality possible; a failure of liberality is the surest test of the failure of a civilization. This is a fascinating reissue that will be of great value to students with an interest in political philosophy and the foundations of liberal society.

This book collects together four essays by the very well-known academic Gilbert Murray that were first presented between 1914 and 1939. The author seeks to present a statement of his profound belief in ethics and disbelief in revelational religions. The philosophy of this great thinker is accessibly written while it addresses deep questions of the nature of morality and the basis of religions. This collection was first published in 1940.

This book collects together four essays by the very well-known academic Gilbert Murray that were first presented between 1914 and 1939. The author seeks to present a statement of his profound belief in ethics and disbelief in revelational religions. The philosophy of this great thinker is accessibly written while it addresses deep questions of the nature of morality and the basis of religions. This collection was first published in 1940.

It is a pleasure to all of us to hold forth upon subjects about which we know very little. It is particularly a temptation to university professors to get away from the subjects of their own chairs and lecture as dogmatically as their nature demands on subjects of other people's chairs. That is why I am speaking to-night about Psychology. As to Vice, the case is a little different. Even if my own experience is regrettably limited, I have for some (...) years studied the Chairman, and I bring my observations before a society full of persons whose range and profundity of knowledge will be sufficient to correct any hasty generalizations on my part. (shrink)

The New Comedy as an art form is descended both from the Old Comedy and from fifth-century Tragedy. It is a middle style of the sort that Diderot called le genre sérieux. On the one side it made an expurgation of the Old Comedy by dropping the gross elements of the primitive ritual έσεωςκμος which still survived in Aristophanes, the phallic dress, the ευρομός in language, and the reckless personal satire, while it kept and emphasized the final Gamos, or union (...) of lovers, and developed a more elaborate plot. On the other side it reformed Tragedy by getting rid of the supernatural stories and the stiff conventions. To quote some words of my own written in 1912, it ‘introduced all the simplifications and improvements which seem to a modern’—I meant a modern philistine—‘so obviously desirable. It developed an easy colloquial language, a flexible and unexacting metre. It left the Chorus quite outside the play, a kind of entr'acte, not worth writing down. It frankly abandoned religious ritual’—please observe that statement, which I now wish to correct—‘and heroic saga. It drew its material from the adventures and emotions of contemporary middle class life, and boldly invented its own plots.’ Menander in particular was considered in antiquity to have held a mirror up to life; a verse by Aristophanes of Byzantium asks. (shrink)

The first sustained exploration of Simondon's work to be published in English. This collection of essays, including one by Simondon himself, outlines the central tenets of Simondon's thought, the implication of his thought for numerous disciplines and his relationship to other thinkers such as Heidegger, Deleuze and Canguilhem.Complete with a contextualising introduction and a glossary of technical terms, it offers an entry point to this important thinker and will appeal to people working in philosophy, philosophy of science, media studies, social (...) theory and political philosophy.Gilbert Simondon's work has recently come to prominence in America and around the Anglophone world, having been of great importance in France for many years. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:September 27, 2008 (1:09 pm) G:\WPData\TYPE2801\russell 28,1 048RED.wpd 76 Reviews REAPPRAISING GILBERT MURRAY Louis Greenspan Religious Studies / McMaster U. Hamilton, on, Canada l8s 4k1 [email protected] ChristopherStray,ed.GilbertMurrayReassessed: Hellenism, Theatre, and International Politics. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 2007. Pp. xii, 400. £65; £27.50 (pb). Cdn. $156 (hb). us$55 (pb). isbn 978-0-19-920879-1 (hb). For much of the Wrst half of the twentieth century Gilbert Murray was a (...) leading Wgure in British academia, in British theatre, on the British and American lecture circuits and even in British politics. He was admired by the community of scholars as Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford, the most prestigious position in classical scholarship in the English-speaking world. He was also esteemed by a wider reading public as the champion of a magisterial liberalism rooted in classical Greek culture. Finally he was respected by the world at large as a liberal activist who, during World War 1, wrote well-argued pamphlets in support of the war and who later became co-chairman of the League of Nations Union, an organization that in the ’20s and ’30s attracted 400,000 members. Among his companions were George Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell, both of whom remained his friends for life. As chief editor of the Home University Library he commissioned Russell’s The Problems of Philosophyz, which is still unsurpassed as an introduction to this subject. Today he is forgotten. Younger classical scholars would endorse the statement by Fowler (quoted in this volume): “in spite of his great fame when he was alive, he might never have written, so far as most scholars are concerned today” (p. 58). His role as the public intellectual who connected modern liberalism with Hellenism has been taken over by the followers of Leo Strauss who view this connection rather diTerently than Murray did. As for his liberal activism, when he died in 1957 Murray was regarded aTectionately as a noble ghost of Victorian liberalism past, whose passionate advocacy of the League of Nations was seen as well meaning and futile as the organization he had championed. In the ’60s and ’70s his words and deeds were swept away in the tides of anti-liberal fervour that inspired the newly emerging leftist revolutionaries and neo-conservatives. At Wrst perusal Gilbert Murray Reassessed zhas the format of festschrifts and other scholarly reviews of the accomplishments of a particular writer. There are articles on every aspect of Murray’s activities: his translations of Greek drama, his critical editions of Euripides, his views of Hellenism, his post-World War 1 September 27, 2008 (1:09 pm) G:\WPData\TYPE2801\russell 28,1 048RED.wpd Reviews 77 internationalism and even his lectures on the bbc, all by specialists in these topics. But this volume is more than a summing up of Murray’s contributions to scholarship. The aim of the volume is to revive Murray the public intellectual, a voice of liberalism that deserves a new hearing. The book could have been entitled Gilbert Murray Retrieved for Our Timesz: a contribution to the struggle to Wnd a liberalism that addresses the anti-liberal, anti-intellectual forces that threaten us today. In this spirit the volume is dedicated to those who died in the London terrorist attack of July 2005. The volume opens with two sets of memoirs, one by Murray’s grandchildren Ann Pauladan and Alexander Murray, the other Francis West’s account of Murray ’s reXections on an Australian childhood. The memoirs of his grandchildren, aTectionate and charming, seem less interested in refashioning Gilbert Murray for our time. They still portray Murray as one who inhabited a world that is no more, the proponent of a liberalism that was naively optimistic and top heavy with reason at the expense of the emotions. Murray’s optimism is evident in their anecdote about an encounter between Murray and Sir Edward Grey, during a summer walk in 1914. Murray opened the conversation by scoUng at rumours of impending war in Europe, for him impossible between civilized powers. Grey closed it by assuring him that war was certain, thus causing the speechless and horriWed Murray... (shrink)