First published in 1982. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This collection of papers focuses on Philosophy as Metanoetics, the seminal work of the celebrated Japanese philosopher Tanabe Hajime (1885-1962).

In his celebrated masterpiece, Symposium, Plato imagines a high-society dinner-party in Athens in 416 BC at which the guests - including the comic poet Aristophanes and, of course, Plato's mentor Socrates - each deliver a short speech in praise of love. The sequence of dazzling speeches culminates in Socrates' famous account of the views of Diotima, a prophetess who taught him that love is our means of trying to attain goodness. And then into the party bursts the drunken Alcibiades, (...) the most popular and notorious Athenian of the time, who insists on praising Socrates himself rather than love, and gives us a brilliant sketch of this enigmatic character. The power, humour, and pathos of Plato's creation engages the reader on every page. This new translation is complemented by full explanatory notes and an illuminating introduction. (shrink)

A superb example of the bookmaker's and translator's art, this new edition of Plato's "Symposium" exhibits aesthetic, literary, and intellectual excellences rarely found together in a single volume.Tom Griffith's translation of this foundation work of Western culture is unsurpassed for the balance it achieves between readability and fidelity to Plato's Greek. For felicity of phrasing, freshness, care to match the sense of the Greek rather than its wording, and for its idiomatic rendering of the spoken word, it has no (...) peer.Originally published in a limited edition with facing Greek and color wood engravings, Griffith's translation is here presented in reduced format that retains the aesthetic quality of the original version at an affordable price. (shrink)

Bernard Suits’ groundbreaking work, The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia, has profoundly shaped the philosophy of sport. Its sequel, Return of the Grasshopper: Games, Leisure, and the Good Life in the Third Millennium, released in October 2022, enriches scholarly understandings of Suits’ views on games, emphasizing the normative aspects of gameplay and its impact on people’s pursuit of the good life. In this book symposium, world-leading Suits scholars analyze the Suitsian conception of gameplay and its relevance to his views (...) on Utopia outlined in the sequel, covering a wide range of topics. Filip Kobiela explores counterfactual situations in Suits’ oeuvre. Christopher Bartel and Gwen Bradford scrutinize the ethical nature and ramifications of Suits’ claim that life is an unconscious game. R. Scott Kretchmar and John S. Russell present thoughtful critiques of Suits’ musing on Utopia. William J. Morgan’s contribution integrates contemporary work studies to illuminate Suits’ utopia. The symposium concludes with the editors, Francisco Javier Lopez Frias and Christopher Yorke, offering their perspectives on Suitsian Utopia, ethics, and metaethics. (shrink)

Can we meet intolerance with tolerance? Illiberalism with liberalism? Political ruthlessness with a certain temperament? This is the ‘liberal predicament’ that Joshua Cherniss, in his thought-provo...

This is a book symposium on Steffen Borge’s The Philosophy of Football. It has contributions from William Morgan, Murray Smith and Brian Weatherson with replies from Borge.

The "Introduction" to "Symposium: Beauty Matters" in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 57, No. 1 (Winter 1999), pages 1-10, is presented here. Abstract: The point of this symposium is to locate one trajectory of the new wave of discussions about beauty beyond the customary confines of analytic aesthetics and to situate it at the intersection of aesthetics, ethics, social-political philosophy, and cultural criticism. The three essays that follow, authored by Marcia Muelder Eaton, Paul C. Taylor, (...) and Susan Bordo, represent a conjoined effort to move "beauty" beyond the traditional parameters of past contextual theories of art--theories which in their own right (only decades ago and analogous to art criticism itself) opened up rich philosophical terrain beyond the confines of formalism. This introductory essay offer some guidance as to why a symposium on beauty merits attention. Exploring the ways artists and critics have revived the concept of beauty will provide a point of comparison between artworld practices and recent philosophical literature. Most importantly, a new approach to philosophical theorizing will be recommended: one that places questions of gender, race, and sexuality at the forefront of analyzing our experiences of beauty in nature, the human body, and art. Curiously, this new approach is not so much a radical departure from traditional philosophical aesthetics as it is a return to questions basic to the field since the time of Plato: questions about the types of qualities that inhere in objects of beauty, the kinds of experiences they provoke, and the ways we come to value both. (shrink)

"Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are. Plato's retelling of the discourses between Socrates and his friends on such subjects (...) as love and desire, truth and illusion, spiritual transcendence and the qualities of a good ruler, profoundly affected the ways in which we view human relationships, society and leadership - and shaped the whole tradition of Western philosophy."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

Symposium on Christopher Bennet's The Apology Ritual. A Philosophical Theory of Punishment [Cambridge University Press, 2008].

The fundamental problem of Christology is the apparent contradiction of Christ as recorded at Chalcedon. Christ is human and Christ is divine. Being divine entails being immutable. Being human entails being mutable. Were Christ two different persons there’d be no apparent contradiction. But Chalcedon rules as much out. Were Christ only partly human or only partly divine there’d be no apparent contradiction. But Chalcedon rules as much out. Were the very meaning of ‘mutable’ and/or ‘immutable’ other than what they are, (...) there’d be no apparent contradiction. But the meaning is what it is, and changing the meaning of our terms to avoid the apparent contradiction of Christ is an apparent flight from reality. What, in the end, is the explanation of the apparent contradiction of Christ? Theologians and philosophers have long advanced many consistency-seeking answers, all of which increase the metaphysical or semantical complexity of the otherwise strikingly simple but radical core of Christianity’s GodMan. In this paper, I put the simplest explanation on the theological table: namely, Christ appears to be contradictory because Christ is contradictory. This explanation may sound complicated to the many who are steeped in the mainstream account of logic according to which logic precludes the possibility of true contradictions. But the mainstream account of logic can and should be rejected. Ridding theology of the dogma of mainstream logic illuminates the simple though striking explanation of the apparent contradiction of Christ — namely, that Christ is a contradictory being. Just as the simplest explanation to the apparent roundness of the earth has earned due acceptance, so too should the simplest explanation of the apparent contradiction of Christ. (shrink)

This symposium comprises five papers on Locke's theory of sense perception. The authors are John Rogers, Gideon Yaffe, Lex Newman, Tom Lennon, and Martha Bolton. There are also comments on the papers, both individually and as a group, by Vere Chappell. In addition to Locke's view of perception, the papers deal with the nature of Lockean ideas and with the question whether Locke is committed to skepticism regarding the external world. The authors (and the commentator) disagree in their readings (...) of Locke on these issues, but most maintain--and some argue--that he holds a representative theory of perception, and that he is not an external-world skeptic. (shrink)

The Symposium and the Phaedrus are combined here because of their shared theme: a reflection on the nature of erotic love, the love that begins with sexual desire but can transcend that origin and reach even the heights of religious ecstasy. This reflection is carried out explicitly in the speeches and conversations in the dialogues, and implicitly in the dramatic depiction of actions and characters. Thus, the two dialogues deal with a theme of enduring interest and are interesting for (...) both their literary and their philosophical character. In addition to the introduction, the book contains substantial commentaries and thorough endnotes. Key Greek terms are discussed for readers who are unfamiliar with the language. A special feature is a discussion on the importance of the dramatic and literary aspects of the dialogues for interpreting their philosophical content. The introductions deal with the nature of the dialogues themselves as philosophical texts and with Plato’s philosophical assumptions and key concepts, as well as with the necessary background of Athenian society. The endnotes clarify any ambiguities and obscurities in the original text, identifying all references to people, places, gods, et cetera. The commentaries are designed to open up the dialogues for the reader, showing the issues that have been debated by commentators and considering some of the responses to them. They are designed to stimulate further reflection. (shrink)

The Symposium that Xenophon wrote has lived in the shadow of the more famous one by Plato, so much so that it has not received a full commentary in English for well over a hundred years. Yet it is a work as useful for its Greek as it is precious for its content. Socrates is the hero of each Symposium, but most of our understanding of him is usually owed to Plato; we risk assuming that his portrait of (...) Socrates is right. Xenophon saw the man differently: his picture is independent, and it is the only significant surviving alternative view. Moreover, the scene that Xenophon paints in his Symposium has a vigour and wit of its own. The work is a document of prime importance for the classical Greek society which we study most and know best: it is set at the male heart of it. Thirdly, Xenophon's Greek is lucid and unforced. The editor has been using the text for a number of years to help students bridge the gap between what they learn from their beginners' courses and the richer Greek of more fashionable texts. Hence an unprecedented amount of help with the language, and a large vocabulary, as well as the notes usual in this series on the content. (shrink)

This is a book symposium on Kevin Krein’s Philosophy and Nature Sports. Gunnar Breivik, Jim Parry and Irena Martínková, and Rebekah Humphreys provide critical commentary on the text. The critical comments are followed by a response from Krein. The discussion covers a broad range of topics. These include the definition of “sport,” comparisons between nature sports and friluftsliv, the role of risk in nature sports, the experience of flow and the sublime in nature sports, and the understanding of nature. (...) Krein argues, as he does in the book and elsewhere, that nature sports provide a framework that facilitates intimate and meaningful interactions with nature. He argues further that the discussion included here shows how deeply our understanding of nature, and our understanding of nature sports, influence both our experiences within those sports and our broader experience of the world. (shrink)

Symposium on Nietzsche's Constructivism (Routledge, 2018), replies to Adler, Cabrera, Doyle, Migotti, Sinhababu, Pedersen.

This is a symposium on my book, Writing the Book of the World, containing a precis from me, criticisms from Contessa, Merricks, and Schaffer, and replies by me.

"Symposium" gives an account of the sparkling society that was Athens at the height of her empire. The other dialogues collected here under the title "The Death of Socrates" tell the tale of how Socrates was put on trial for impiety, found guilty and sentenced to death.

The symposium »Does the Concept of ›Truth‹ Have Value in the Pursuit of Cross-Cultural Philosophy?« hones on a methodological question which has deep implications on doing philosophy cross-culturally. Drawing on early Confucian writers, the anchor, Henry Rosemont, Jr., attempts to explain why he is skeptical of pat, affirmative answers to this question. His co-symposiasts James Maffie, John Maraldo, and Sonam Thakchoe follow his trail in working out multi-faceted views on truth from Mexican, Japanese Confucian, and Tibetan Buddhist perspectives respectively. (...) As these positions substantiate, the aforementioned non-Anglo-European traditions seem to draw on an integrated view of thinking, feeling, and living a human life. For their practitioners, truth is less of a correspondence with a given external reality. In fact, it enables human beings to strike the right path in living good, social lives. (shrink)

The point of this symposium is to locate one trajectory of the new wave of discussions about beauty beyond the customary confines of analytic aesthetics and to situate it at the intersection of aesthetics, ethics, social-political philosophy, and cultural criticism. Three essays follow this introduction authored by Marica Muelder Eaton, Paul C. Taylor, and Susan Bordo. They represent a conjoined effort to move 'beauty' beyond the traditional parameters of past contextual theories of art. This introductory essay offers some guidance (...) as to why a symposium on beauty merits attention in 1999. (shrink)

This paper introduces a symposium on Equality versus Priority. It explains how cases involving risk are key to distinguishing these views and discusses a 'social egalitarian' critique of both 'telic egalitarians' and 'telic prioritarians'.

Abstract Scholarship on the Symposium is dominated by a debate on interpersonal love started by Gregory Vlastos in his article, `The Individual as an Object of Love in Plato.' This paper argues that this debate is a misguided one, because it is not reflective of the central concerns of this text. Attention needs to be turned to the broader ethical questions posed about the ends of life, the nature of human happiness, and contemplation. Failure to do so will mean (...) that the Symposium continues to be eclipsed as a key resource in central debates in Platonic ethics. (shrink)

Virtue ethics is widely recognized as one of three major approaches in contemporary moral philosophy and arguably the most influential normative theory in business ethics. Despite its rich pedigree in Western and Eastern philosophy, most work in contemporary virtue ethics is part of the Western tradition. The purpose of this Thematic Symposium is to foster dialogue between Western and Eastern conceptions of virtue in business and engage them with questions about the nature, justification, and content of the virtues in (...) each tradition. This Editorial offers a brief introduction to the problem, a summary of Western and Eastern varieties of virtue ethics, an overview of the six articles included in this Thematic Symposium, and a section with five common themes for further exploration and future collaborative research. (shrink)

This is a collection of papers presented at the Symposium "Are There are Laws of Biology?", in the 1996 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. It includes four separate papers: "Why Do Biologists Argue Like They Do?" by John Beatty, "Does Biology Have Laws? The Experimental Evidence" by Robert Brandon, "Two Outbreaks of Lawlessness in Recent Philosophy of Biology" by Elliott Sober, and "Pragmatic Laws" by Sandra D. Mitchell.

The concept of preference dominates economic theory today. It performs a triple duty for economists, grounding their theories of individual behavior, welfare, and rationality. Microeconomic theory assumes that individuals act so as to maximize their utility – that is, to maximize the degree to which their preferences are satisfied. Welfare economics defines individual welfare in terms of preference satisfaction or utility, and social welfare as a function of individual preferences. Finally, economists assume that the rational act is the act that (...) maximally satisfies an individual's preferences. The habit of framing problems in terms of the concept of preference is now so entrenched that economists rarely entertain alternatives. (shrink)

This symposium includes a selection of articles on the origins and evolution of language. These are extended version of selected papers presented at “EVOLANG6: The Sixth International Conference on the Evolution of Language” that was held in Rome in April 2006. This selection of papers provides a multi-methodological view of different approaches to, and theoretical explanations of, the evolution of language.

Book Symposium on Andrew Feenberg’s Between Reason and Experience: Essays in Technology and Modernity Content Type Journal Article Pages 203-226 DOI 10.1007/s13347-011-0017-8 Authors Inmaculada de Melo-Martín, Division of Medical Ethics, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY 10065, USA David B. Ingram, Loyola University Chicago, 6525 North Sheridan Road, Chicago, IL 60626, USA Sally Wyatt, e-Humanities Group, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) & Maastricht University, Cruquiusweg 31, 1019 AT Amsterdam, The Netherlands Yoko Arisaka, Forschungsinstitut für Philosophie (...) Hannover, Gerberstrasse 26, 30169 Hannover, Germany Andrew Feenberg, School of Communication, Simon Fraser University at Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, BC V6B 5K3, Canada Journal Philosophy & Technology Online ISSN 2210-5441 Print ISSN 2210-5433 Journal Volume Volume 24 Journal Issue Volume 24, Number 2. (shrink)

This symposium on Monique Deveaux’s Poverty, Solidarity, and Poor-Led Social Movements includes commentaries by Sally Matthews, Renante D. Pilapil, Violetta Igneski, and Wouter Peeters, with a reply from Deveaux. The book makes the case that normative thinking about poverty should engage closely with the aims, insights, and actions of poor-led organizations and social movements. Challenging conventional framings of poverty by moral philosophers, Deveaux argues that chronic poverty is centrally about the subordination and dispossession of the poor – not mere (...) needs scarcity. To exclude people living in poverty from shaping antipoverty solutions is therefore to perpetuate their social-political domination and epistemic oppression. Deveaux’s book explains what a political reframing of poverty looks like from the vantage point of several poor-led organizations and social movements, using concrete examples from across the globe, and argues for political responsibility for solidarity with those movements. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This book symposium features three critical pieces dealing with Duncan Pritchard's book, 'Epistemic Angst'; the symposium also contains Pritchard's replies to his critics.

ABSTRACTThis symposium brings together normative and empirical scholars in dialogue on Brooke Ackerly’s innovative and compelling recent monograph, Just Responsibility. Contributors discuss the book’s distinctive grounded normative theory methodology, its arguments for how individuals can take appropriate responsibility for global structural injustices, and its potential for practical impact.

This new edition of Plato's_ Symposium_ provides beginning readers and scholars alike with a solid, reliable translation that is both faithful to the original text and accessible to contemporary readers. In addition, the volume offers a number of aids to help the reader make his or her way through this remarkable work: A concise introduction sets the scene, conveys the tenor of the dialogue, and introduces the reader to the main characters with a gloss on their backgrounds and a comment (...) on their roles in the dialogue. It also provides a list of basic points for readers to keep in mind as they read the work. A thought-provoking interpretive essay offers reflections on the themes of the dialogue, focusing especially on the dialogue as drama. A select bibliography points to works, both classic and contemporary, that are especially relevant to readers of the Symposium. Two appendices consist of a line drawing that depicts the spacial layout and positioning of characters in the Symposium, and a chart that shows the relation of the first six speeches to number, age, parentage and the function of Eros. (shrink)

Does cross-cultural philosophy stand in need of a hermeneutical expansion? In engaging with this question, the symposium focuses upon methodological issues salient to cross-cultural inquiry. Douglas L. Berger lays out the ground for the debate by arguing for a methodological approach, which is able to rectify the discipline’s colonial legacies and bridge the hermeneutical distance with its objects of study. From their own perspectives, Hans-Georg Moeller, Paul Roth and A. Raghuramaraju analyze whether such a processual and hermeneutically-sensitive approach can (...) indeed open up new hermeneutic horizons. Their responses shed light upon cross-cultural philosophy’s continued embedment in Euroamerican professional philosophy and how the locality of its knowledge-seeking endeavors may indeed have repercussions on attempts to bridge temporal and spatial distances. (shrink)