The Great Conversation: Volume I Pre-Socratics through Descartes

Ideal for courses in ancient philosophy or ancient and medieval philosophy, The Great Conversation: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy, Volume I: Pre-Socratics through Descartes, Seventh Edition, covers the same material as the first half (chapters 1-13) of author Norman Melchert's longer volume, The Great Conversation. Tracing the exchange of ideas between history's key philosophers, it demonstrates that while constructing an argument or making a claim, one philosopher almost always has others in mind. It addresses the fundamental questions of human life: Who are we? What can we know? How should we live? and What sort of reality do we inhabit?

Author Norman Melchert provides a generous selection of excerpts from major philosophical works and makes them more easily understandable to students with his lucid and engaging explanations. Extensive cross-referencing shows students how philosophers respond appreciatively or critically to the thoughts of other philosophers. The text is enhanced by two types of exercises--"Basic Questions" and "For Further Thought"--and numerous illustrations.


Also available to suit your course needs: The seventh editions of The Great Conversation: Volume II: Descartes through Derrida and Quine and the entire book, The Great Conversation: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy, which begins with the Pre-Socratics and ends with David Chalmers

Norman Melchert is Selfridge Professor of Philosophy Emeritus and a former Acting Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Lehigh University.

*=New to this Edition
A Word to Instructors
A Word to Students
Acknowledgments
Timeline
1. Before Philosophy: Myth in Hesiod and Homer
Hesiod: War among the Gods
Homer: Heroes, Gods, and Excellence
2. Philosophy before Socrates
Thales: The One as Water
Anaximander: The One as the Boundless
Xenophanes: The Gods as Fictions
Sketch: Pythagoras
Heraclitus: Oneness in the Logos
Profile: The Tao
Parmenides: Only the One
Zeno: The Paradoxes of Common Sense
Atomism: The One and the Many Reconciled
The Key: An Ambiguity
The World
The Soul
How to Live
3. The Sophists: Rhetoric and Relativism in Athens
Democracy
The Persian Wars
The Sophists
Rhetoric
Relativism
Physis and Nomos
Athens and Sparta at War
Aristophanes and Reaction
4. Socrates: To Know Oneself
Character
Is Socrates a Sophist?
What Socrates "Knows"
We Ought to Search for Truth
Human Excellence Is Knowledge
All Wrongdoing Is Due to Ignorance
The Most Important Thing of All is to Care for Your Soul
5. The Trial and Death of Socrates
Euthyphro
Translator's Introduction
The Dialogue
Commentary and Questions
Apology
Translator's Introduction
The Dialogue
Commentary and Questions
Crito
Translator's Introduction
The Dialogue
Commentary and Questions
Phaedo (Death Scene)
Translator's Introduction
The Dialogue
Commentary and Questions
6. Plato: Knowing the Real and the Good
Knowledge and Opinion
Making the Distinction
We Do Know Certain Truths
The Objects of Knowledge
The Reality of the Forms
The World and the Forms
How Forms Are Related to the World
Lower and Higher Forms
The Form of the Good
The Love of Wisdom
What Wisdom Is
Love and Wisdom
The Soul
The Immortality of the Soul
The Structure of the Soul
Morality
The State
Problems with the Forms
7. Aristotle: The Reality of the World
Aristotle and Plato
Otherworldliness
The Objects of Knowledge
Human Nature
Relativism and Skepticism
Ethics
Logic and Knowledge
Terms and Statements
Truth
Reasons Why: The Syllogism
Knowing First Principles
The World
Nature
The Four "Becauses"
Is There Purpose in Nature?
Teleology
First Philosophy
Not Plato's Forms
What of Mathematics?
Substance and Form
Pure Actualities
God
The Soul
Levels of Soul
Soul and Body
Nous
The Good Life
Happiness
Virtue or Excellence (Areté)
The Role of Reason
Responsibility
The Highest Good
8. Epicureans, Stoics, and Skeptics: Happiness for the Many
The Epicureans
The Stoics
*Profile: Marcus Aurelius
The Skeptics
9. Jews and Christians: Sin, Salvation, and Love
Background
Jesus
The Meaning of Jesus
10. Augustine: God and the Soul
Wisdom, Happiness, and God
God and the World
The Great Chain of Being
Evil
Time
Human Nature and Its Corruption
Human Nature and Its Restoration
Augustine on Relativism
The Two Cities
Augustine and the Philosophers
Reason and Authority
Intellect and Will
Epicureans and Stoices
11. Anselm and Aquinas: Existence and Essence in God and the World
Anselm: On That, Than Which No Greater Can Be Conceived
Thomas Aquinas: Rethinking Aristotle
Sketch: Avicenna (Ibn Sina)
Philosophy and Theology
Existence and Essence
Sketch: Averro:es (Ibn Rushd)
From Creation to God
The Nature of God
Sketch: Maimonides (Moses Ben Maimon)
Humans: Their Souls
Humans; Their Knowledge
Humans: Their Good
Ockham and Skeptical Doubts--Again
12. Moving from Medieval to Modern
The World God Made for Us
The Humanists
Reforming the Church
Skeptical Thoughts Revived
Copernicus to Kepler to Galileo: The Great Triple Play
13. René Descartes: Doubting Our Way to Certainty
The Method
Meditations on First Philosophy
Meditation I
Meditation II
Meditation III
Meditation IV
Meditation V
Meditation VI
What Has Descartes Done?
A New Ideal for Knowledge
A New Vision of Reality
Problems
The Preeminence of Epistemology
Afterword
Appendix: Writing a Philosophy Paper
Credits
Glossary
Index