Early Greek Ethics

Early Greek Ethics is devoted to Greek philosophical ethics in its formative period, from the last decades of the sixth century BCE to the beginning of the fourth century BCE. It begins with the inception of Greek philosophical ethics and ends immediately before the composition of Plato's and Aristotle's mature ethical works Republic and Nicomachean Ethics. The ancient contributors include Presocratics such as Heraclitus, Democritus, and figures of the early Pythagorean tradition such as Empedocles and Archytas of Tarentum, who have previously been studied principally for their metaphysical, cosmological, and natural philosophical ideas. Socrates and his lesser known associates such as Antisthenes of Athens and Aristippus of Cyrene also feature, as well as sophists such as Gorgias of Leontini, Antiphon of Athens, and Prodicus of Ceos, and anonymous texts such as the Pythagorean Acusmata, Dissoi Logoi, Anonymus Iamblichi, and On Law and Justice.

In addition to chapters on these individuals and texts, the volume explores select fields and topics especially influential to ethical philosophical thought in the formative period and later, such as early Greek medicine, music, friendship, justice and the afterlife, and early Greek ethnography. Consisting of thirty chapters composed by an international team of leading philosophers and classicists, Early Greek Ethics is the first volume in any language devoted to philosophical ethics in the formative period.

David Conan Wolfsdorf, Temple University

David Conan Wolfsdorf is Professor of Philosophy at Temple University in Philadelphia. Previously he taught at Fairfield University in Connecticut. He is the author of On Goodness (Oxford, 2019), Pleasure in Ancient Greek Philosophy (Cambridge, 2012), and Trials of Reason (Oxford, 2008).

Introduction, David Conan Wolfsdorf
INDIVIDUALS AND TEXTS
1. The Pythagorean Acusmata, Johan C. Thom
2. Xenophanes on the Ethics and Epistemology of Arrogance, Shaul Tor
3. On the Ethical Dimension of Heraclitus' Thought, Mark A. Johnstone
4. Ethics and Natural Philosophy in Empedocles, John Palmer
5. The Ethical Life of a Fragment: Three Readings of Protagoras' Man Measure Statement, Tazuko A. van Berkel
6. The Logos of Ethics in Gorgias' Palamedes, On What is Not, and Helen, Kurt Lampe
7. Responsibility Rationalized: Action and Pollution in Antiphon's Tetralogies, Joel E. Mann
8. Ethical and Political Thought in Antiphon's Truth and Concord, Mauro Bonazzi
9. The Ethical Philosophy of the Historical Socrates, David Conan Wolfsdorf
10. Prodicus on the Choice of Heracles, Language, and Religion, Richard Bett
11. The Ethical Maxims of Democritus of Abdera, Monte Ransome Johnson
12. The Sōphrosynē of Critias: Aristocratic Ethics after the Thirty Tyrants, Alex Gottesman
13. Anonymus Iamblichi, On Excellence: A Lost Defense of Democracy, Phillip Sidney Horky
14. On the Unity of the Dissoi Logoi, David Conan Wolfsdorf
15. Antisthenes' Ethics, Susan Prince
16. Antisthenes and Allegoresis, Mikolaj Domaradzki
17. Aristippus of Cyrene, Voula Tsouna
18. Self-Mastery, Piety, and Reciprocity in Xenophon's Ethics, David M. Johnson
19. Ethics in Plato's Early Dialogues, Nicholas D. Smith
20. On Law and Justice Attributed to Archytas of Tarentum, Phillip Sidney Horky and Monte Ransome Johnson
TOPICS AND FIELDS
21. Early Greek Ethnography and Human Values, Joseph Skinner
22. Ethics in Early Greek Medicine, Paul Demont
23. The Ethics of Afterlife in Classical Greek Thought, Radcliffe Edmonds III
24. Friendship in Early Greek Ethics, Dimitri El Murr
25. Justice and the Afterlife, Svavar Hrafn Svavarsson
26. Music and the Soul, Eleonora Rocconi
27. The Teachability of Aretē among the Socratics, Christopher Rowe
CODA
28. Diogenes of Sinope, Will Desmond
29. Anaxarchus on Indifference, Happiness, and Convention, Tim O'Keefe
30. Aristoxenus' Pythagorean Precepts: A Rational Pythagorean Ethics, Carl A. Huffman