Shaul Tor presents an illuminating and wide-ranging treatment of the relation between the epistemology and theology of Hesiod, Xenophanes, Parmenides, and, to a lesser extent, Empedocles.Footnote ¹ Over six detailed chapters, he combines philosophical innovation with philological and cultural sensitivity to offer new and fascinating insights on several widely discussed and difficult issues of early Greek philosophy. In his first chapter (‘Rationality and Irrationality, Philosophy and Religion’), Tor surveys the scholarly division between ‘rationalizing’ and ‘mysticizing’ readings of early Greek philosophers. His treatment is thorough and nuanced and helps to render with great clarity the assumptions underlying much modern analysis. Starting from the observation that reason and inspiration are generally treated as dichotomous, he begins with a consideration of some traditional ‘rationalizers’ (the Milesians, Hecataeus, the Hippocratics, etc.) and notes that none provide the sort of straightforward separation and rejection of the divine that standard accounts might lead one to assume. He provides a particularly useful critique of the distinction between the rational and irrational and the philosophical and the religious, arguing that the epistemological developments of early Greek philosophy are ‘an essentially theological enterprise’ (48).

Tor presents Hesiod as the ‘key initiator of philosophical epistemology’ (53), arguing in his second chapter (‘Hesiodic Epistemology’) that Hesiod deliberately problematizes the possibility of poetic understanding. Theogony 27–8 is, as is to be expected, a central text for Tor's account but he is determined to resist the scholarly tendency to treat it in isolation from the rest of Hesiod's poetry. Hesiod offers a ‘divine human-voice’ (80) that does not share the Muses’ authority and is epistemically dependent on them. The passage is thus presented as part of a general picture of epistemological ambivalence motivated by the problems of understanding the nature of mortal–divine interactions. Tor is particularly interesting in his suggestion that the male–female dynamic of the poet–muse relation informs the human–divine dichotomy in relation to questions of authority and truth. Tor's third chapter (‘Xenophanes on Divine Disclosure and Mortal Inquiry’) offers a new interpretation of Xenophanes B18 and B34 that allows room for divine activity in guiding mortal experience and belief formation. Reading Xenophanes as presenting a transformation, rather than a total rejection, of traditional notions of divine revelation, Tor presents a compelling analysis of the epistemic underpinnings of revelation in Greek thought generally. For him, B18 does not deny divine disclosure unilaterally, but serves to introduce a revised notion of disclosure as providing us with a basis for understanding that need not conflict with human inquiry. In fact, the divine is the source of our understanding: ‘everything we see, everything we experience has appeared to us (in part) for us to look upon and consider’ (139–40). It is not altogether clear what sort of cognitive engagement with the evidence Tor thinks Xenophanes is expecting here and it would be useful to have a more generous account of successful human cognition.

Two chapters are devoted to Parmenides, in what marks a further contribution to the recent trend of rehabilitating the Doxa. Tor approaches the question of the relation between the two parts of Parmenides’ poem in terms of the epistemic difference between mortals and the kouros. He is particularly careful to attempt a reading sensitive to the totality and nature of our evidence, insisting that both ‘argumentative reasoning and divine disclosure play complementary and equally indispensable roles in Parmenides’ thought’ (162). In Chapter 4 (‘Why Did Parmenides Write Doxa?’), Tor makes the case for reading the Doxa as presenting Parmenides’ own views and argues that the deceptiveness of the account lies in the way that mortals mistake it for something that describes the nature of reality. His innovative approach to the issue begins from a consideration of Parmenides’ description of mortal cognition, offering a plausible reading of B16 as identifying the nature of human thought, rather than perception. He argues that the mortal failure to discriminate between what-is and what-is-not is an essential feature of mortal cognition, which is necessarily dependent on perception. Since humans must think this way about what Tor calls ‘Doxastic things’, Parmenides cannot simply discard such an account and need not, since Doxastic things do, in fact, have being in the way that is appropriate for them. Having argued that the nature of mortal thought is what necessitates the Doxa, Tor turns in his fifth chapter (‘How Could Parmenides’ Have Written Alētheia?’) to the question of how a mortal thinking in such an essentially restricted way could get to grips with the nature of reality: ‘how can the goddess reveal to the mortals’ mind something which the mortal mind cannot cognise?’ (224). Tor suggests that the answer lies in the knower ‘becoming like god’. Via an analysis of the physical nature and possible transmigration of souls in Parmenides, he argues that, for Parmenides, mortal agents are complex entities comprising both a mortal and a divine, cognitively superior, part. He provides a particularly illuminating analysis of parallels between Parmenides’ use of the language of mystery initiations and the golden tablets of south Italy. He then turns to see what fruits his reading can bear for common questions about the ontological distinction between the objects described in the two parts of Parmenides’ poem, concluding that Doxastic things are not non-existent or illusory, but things that fall short of being real entities.

In his final chapter (‘Retrospect and Prospect’), Tor offers a useful summary and conclusion, as well as extending his analysis to consider the place of Empedocles within his narrative of the relation between religion and epistemology. Here he focuses on the apparent connection in Empedocles between reincarnation and wisdom, and revelation and reasoning. His final remarks provide a helpful retrospect which serves to emphasize the continuity between these poets and philosophers. The volume ends with a brief appendix on the topography and direction of the kouros’ journey in Parmenides. Overall the book provides a fascinating account of early Greek epistemology and will be essential reading for anyone with an interest in Xenophanes and Parmenides in particular.

Questions of continuity and rationality are also at the forefront of Claudia Zatta's discussion of the natural, specifically plants and animals, in early Greek philosophy.Footnote ² Zatta uses her introduction to consider the degree to which anthropocentricism has a legitimate place in assessing the notions of natural continuity at the heart of early Greek philosophy. As she persuasively demonstrates, there is good reason to think that philosophers prior to Plato and Aristotle were interested in the continuity of life in general, rather than of reason specifically.

Across six thematic chapters, supplemented by an extensive collection of texts and translations of relevant sources, Zatta's study concentrates on the thought of Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Democritus, and Diogenes of Apollonia, but makes room for Heraclitus and Parmenides along the way. In her first chapter (‘A Presocratic Trajectory from the Origin of the World to Animals and Plants’), Zatta considers the role of Aristotle in shaping our understanding of early Greek natural philosophy and argues that early Greek thought represented animals as a fundamental and integral part of the cosmos. She points to the fact that Empedocles does not seem to prioritize humans in his account of creation, but rather presents a zoogony with a common origin for humans and animals. Considering what such thinkers have to say about the relation between animals and their habitats, she notes the presence of assumptions of material continuity even here and emphasizes the central role that animals often take in the explanation of both human origins and cosmogonic alterations. Chapter 2 (‘Creatures of Chance and Logos’) resists teleological readings of Empedocles in particular to argue that the rationalizing of animal bodies and behaviour should be seen as an integral part of a broader project of establishing the regularity and predictability of a world that is not designed.

Zatta moves on to consider animal perception and thought in her third chapter (‘Animals’ Sensations and Thoughts’). She works backwards from thought to sensation to ‘material’ interaction to demonstrate physical continuity of animals and the cosmos. Sensation and perception are fundamental to what it means to be alive and are also explained in terms of material similarity and interaction with the cosmos. Zatta argues, particularly persuasively, that various philosophers make understanding the core of being alive without distinguishing between humans and animals. Her fourth chapter (‘Plants: Animals Upside Down’) offers a brief discussion of plants within this system of physical continuity. She notes that the suggestion that plants have thought is evidence of wider similarities. Zatta then turns to ‘Animals and the Soul’ in her fifth chapter, arguing for soul as unifying the cosmos, once more via material continuity. In fact, souls are a source of continuity not just across creatures, but in relation to the archē too. Noting that Democritus emphasized the soul as a source of physical continuity with the surrounding world, Zatta observes that he also based elements of his moral discourse on the idea of human/animal continuity via this emphasis on physicality. As one would expect, she finds the Pythagorean and Empedoclean idea of transmigration of souls across different species to provide particularly strong evidence of her thesis. In her final chapter (‘Plato's Timaeus: The World as a Living Animal and the Specializations of the Soul’), Zatta reads Plato as writing within the tradition of the early Greek philosophers but revising the overall approach of such accounts. Insofar as Plato introduces humans as the end point of his narrative of teleological creation, he shifts the focus to humans, leaving animals to be treated in terms of their differentiation rather than continuity. In fragmenting the soul, Plato also finds the space to prioritize reason over life and, consequently, to treat animals as embodying ‘the defeat of reason’ (109).

Zatta presents a plausible case based on careful discussion of a wide range of evidence. At times, her central thesis is difficult to distinguish beyond generalities and it would be useful to see more detailed discussion of the outliers and counter-examples upon which she occasionally touches. Nonetheless, this book provides a stimulating account of early Greek natural philosophy that, in emphasizing the continuity of nature as a whole, and resisting the privileging of humans, presents a useful reminder that not all philosophers have made rational humans the acme of creation.

This question of the relation between natural philosophy and ethics is a central concern of Dominic O'Meara's discussion of cosmology and politics in late Plato.Footnote ³ O'Meara is interested in what Plato has to say about the ‘good human community’ both in political terms and in relation to its position within the cosmos at large, and to see what sort of connections can be established between accounts of political and cosmic design, particularly as they are set out in the Timaeus, Statesman, and Laws. He thus revisits the familiar question of the political context and significance of Timaeus’ cosmology but his innovation is to focus on the ‘cultural, religious and technical contexts’ (viii) of the different accounts.

The book is divided into two parts, the first on the Timaeus and the second on the political theory of the Statesman and Laws. O'Meara begins with an intriguing ‘Prologue’ (‘The Future of the Past in Plato's Work’) which addresses the interesting question of the multiplicity of interpretations invited or demanded by Plato's dialogues. The focus here is on the way in which Plato's texts manipulate temporal relations (of authorship, dramatic date, etc.) to open up possibilities for interpretation and to present doctrine as always provisional in nature and inviting revision and improvement. Part 1 of the volume (‘The World of the Timaeus’) offers four relatively brief chapters on the cosmology of the Timaeus. The first provides a context, specifically a political context, for Timaeus’ cosmology by looking at the dialogue as a whole. O'Meara emphasizes the prominence of both Athens and Athena in the various speeches given within the dialogue and argues that praise of the Demiurge should be viewed as indirect praise of Athena: ‘the god who made such a world can be related to the goddess who founded such a city: his praise will contribute to hers’ (21). Here, as elsewhere, it is surprising that he does relatively little with either the Atlantis story or the Critias, since one might think that these provide key elements of political and ‘historical’ context for Timaeus’ speech. This is all the more striking when he declares his intention to treat the Statesman and Laws as providing a substitute for the missing speech of Hermocrates.

In his second chapter (‘The World Maker’), O'Meara discusses the appropriateness of identifying the Demiurge with Zeus, acknowledging points of similarity and difference between the two and concluding that, despite the fact that Zeus is included within the group of gods subordinate to the Demiurge, he represents a reformation of traditional religion and should be read as a ‘morally and metaphysically perfect Zeus’ (34). O'Meara seems to read the Demiurge not so much as a craftsman, but as a personification of the sort of craft (or ‘rational competence’) that can be manifested either in cosmogony or in producing a good political society. The third chapter (‘The Model of the World’) develops the question of the relation between cosmic and political craftsmanship by focusing on the role of the model in either process. O'Meara identifies the craft of the architect and builder as a point of triangulation with city planning and cosmic design. This analogy allows him to contemplate the kind of model that the Demiurge might use and he suggests that it is something closer to a preliminary sketch than a detailed scale model. The analogies that he draws are interesting, but it is not clear to what degree anything more is established here than that there are similarities between the ways in which different kinds of creators work. In his final chapter on the Timaeus (‘The Beauty of the World’), O'Meara turns to the presence of beauty and measure in the world and employs the Philebus to aid his consideration of the relation between the two. For him, goodness, beauty, and measure are instantiated in the cosmos primarily in the proportions by which it is structured. In creating the world, the Demiurge is considering the ‘functional requirements’ that dictate how it will best reflect his intentions as creator.

Part 2 comprises three chapters and the reader is left to do a fair amount of work in drawing connections with what has gone before. In Chapter 5 (‘The Statesman: A New Robe for the Goddess?’), O'Meara considers the connection between political science and weaving established in the Statesman to suggest that that dialogue's reference to woven cloth should be read as an allusion to the peplos woven for Athene and presented during the Panathenaia. This suggestion allows him to draw a connection between the Statesman and the Timaeus in that the ‘world built in Timaeus’ speech is a temple constructed in honour of Zeus, and the good city woven in the Statesman is a new robe for his daughter’ (94). Chapters 6 (‘The Legislators of the Laws’) and 7 (‘The Order of the City of the Laws and its Model’) deal with the Laws. O'Meara begins by considering the connection between cosmos and city in terms of the knowledge that legislators require, noting the significance in the Laws of astronomy for understanding the gods and their ordering of the universe. He suggests that there are echoes of the Athenian Dionysia in the paradigm state created in the Laws: ‘Dionysius is reformed in the Laws, as Zeus is in the Timaeus and Athena in the Statesman’ (114). O'Meara then turns his attention back to the role of the model and knowledge in designing the paradigm state, suggesting a continuity between the design processes of Demiurge and legislators. He points to the centrality of religious ritual for the ideal city to argue that the same goals of instantiating the goodness of divinity in mathematical structure are present in both cosmic and legislative creation. A brief ‘Epilogue’ highlights the importance of knowledge in all creation and acknowledges the resulting importance of forms as the objects of knowledge.

O'Meara's volume presents several highly original suggestions and a new approach to a relatively familiar question. It sometimes relies more on suggestion than detailed and sustained argument, but it will certainly be useful to anyone interested in the connection between cosmology and politics in Plato.

Two new books make a compelling case for rethinking the nature of Apuleius’ Platonism. In his original and challenging monograph, Richard Fletcher sets out to resist the dominance of the Metamorphoses in getting to grips with Apuleius, particularly in getting to grips with his engagement with Plato.Footnote ⁴ Fletcher presents an argument for reading Apuleius’ corpus as contributing in different ways within different genres to a broad project of the ‘impersonation of philosophy’. He takes the ‘impersonator’ of philosophy to be many things (actor, enactor, bodily or vocal impersonator, translator, impostor, etc.) and is particularly interested in Apuleius’ apparent impersonation (in all these ways) of Plato's own example and biography.

Following his introduction, Fletcher dedicates individual chapters to different texts or pairs of texts to demonstrate the ways in which they contribute to a project of Platonic impersonation across the corpus. His second chapter (‘Becoming Plato, Voicing Platonism’) deals with the De Platone and sets out to challenge its reputation as a dry handbook. Fletcher seeks to demonstrate the significance of the De Platone’s methodology as grounded in its opening biography of Plato to produce a work of ‘biodoxography’. The De Platone thus integrates the details of Plato's biography with his doctrinal commitments and allows Apuleius to present himself as impersonating Plato precisely by presenting a biographical exegesis of his philosophy. Fletcher is sometimes rather quick to assume that a connection between biography and doctrine is obvious and established but his central point about the need to consider the methodology of the text as well as its doctrinal detail is well made.

Fletcher turns to the De mundo and De deo Socratis in his third chapter (‘Universal Reading and Daemonic Interpretation’). Once again, his interest is in the methodology of these texts as works that move beyond the personal authority of Plato while still serving as works of Platonism. He presents an explanation of the exegetical differences between these texts as related to the particular strand of Platonism with which they deal and argues that Aristotle and Socrates are given authoritative roles as representatives of Platonism. He is particularly interesting in his discussion of Apuleius as adopting a Platonic role in dramatizing Socrates. The Apologia and Florida provide the focus for the fourth chapter (‘Platonism on Trial and Philosophy on Stage’). Fletcher is determined to make the case for reading these texts in connection with Apuleius’ philosophical works and argues that Apuleius is performing the role of ‘philosopher-speaker’ in a manner significantly connected to his interest in biographical philosophy elsewhere. In the Apologia in particular, Apuleius uses his own biography to shape the philosophical doctrine. The Platonic biography is again central to the ‘impersonation of philosophy’ in the Florida, via its combination of exempla. Fletcher presents an interesting discussion of the manner in which Apuleius employs and explores the opposition between philosopher and sophist. He argues that ‘Apuleius’ philosophical identity and philosophical discourse are constructed out of oppositions to rhetorical and poetic genres’ (247) in a way that fuses the oppositions by focusing on the performance of philosophy, particularly in relation to the audience.

In his conclusion, Fletcher turns finally to the Metamorphoses, to reiterate his claim that our reading of the corpus should turn around Apuleius’ Platonism, rather than this one entertaining text. In fact, he suggests, the narratological force of the Metamorphoses should be understood in the context of Apuleius’ Platonism as it is found in his other works. Fletcher's insistence that Apuleius’ texts present different methodologies of Platonic impersonation mapping generic variation is of real significance for the way that we think about the relation of form and content in philosophical writing and the tendency to classify texts as either and exclusively or primarily literary or philosophical.

Study of Apuleius’ Platonism is bound to be further invigorated by the publication of what may be ‘the lost third book of the De Platone’.Footnote ⁵ In 1949, Raymond Klibansky announced the discovery of a Summarium librorum Platonis in a thirteenth-century manuscript in the Vatican. Justin Stover makes this case that this text is actually Apuleius’ De Platonis pluribus libris compendiosa exposition and, in fact, formed an integral part of the third book of the De Platone. In an accessible and detailed introduction he sets out, among other issues, the case for Apuleian authorship. He also provides a tentative text, translation, and useful commentary. This edition is likely to stimulate and be a great aid to further work on this exciting new text.

A new edited volume sets its sights on the twin targets of ‘old chestnuts’ – passages about which one might think that everything has already been said – and ‘sacred cows’ – established orthodoxies in the reading of ancient philosophical texts.Footnote ⁶ It is an immensely provocative and enjoyable volume and serves as a fitting tribute to the anti-authoritarian, innovative, and encouraging example set by its dedicatee, M. M. McCabe. In a brief introduction, Harte and Woolf insist that ancient philosophy is far from ‘done and dusted’. They make the case that, ‘when looked at with fresh eyes, the most well-worn texts can yield new insights, and the hoariest received opinions about them can prove to be less of a solid edifice than may appear’ (1).

The book comprises thirteen chapters. In between one chapter on Heraclitus (Tor) and chapters on Aristotle (Aufderheide), Stoicism (Salles), Alexander of Aphrodisias (Sorabji), and Plotinus (Adamson) are eight chapters on central questions of Platonic philosophy. Appropriately for a volume in honour of McCabe, many of the chapters are usefully set in dialogue with one another. This is particularly true of two pairs, on the Symposium and Republic respectively. Raphael Woolf and Angie Hobbs both tackle the old chestnut of Diotima's speech in the Symposium. Woolf (‘Love and Knowledge’) takes as his focus the worry about the loss of the value of the individual in Diotima's account of love, whereby a lover is valued only for the small degree to which they may manifest some instance of the Beautiful itself, and is set aside once one has ascended to the Form. Woolf approaches the passage's account of the ‘relation between knowing an individual and loving them’ (80–1). Pointing to the individuality of the Forms themselves, Woolf argues that Diotima's problem is not with individuals as individuals per se, but with individuals as mutable, and thus unknowable and (since only what is knowable can be loved) unlovable. Angie Hobbs (‘Socrates, Eros and Magic’) considers Diotima's claim that Erōs (and by extension, since he is so closely identified with Erōs, Socrates) is both a philosopher and a magician (202d13–3a4). Noting that Platonic references to magic elsewhere in the corpus are generally disparaging, Hobbs asks what we are to make of this connection. She argues that Erōs is a magician because he can be seen to ‘effect transformations’ (116) in individuals and their understanding. Such transformations may appear to us, at least initially, as magical. Hobbs notes that philosophy works comparably and may thus appear very similar to Erōs and magic.

Verity Harte and Dominic Scott offer differing perspectives on aspects of the Republic’s distinction between knowledge and belief. Harte (‘Knowing and Believing in Republic 5’) focuses on ‘that most chestnut-y of old chestnuts’ (141), the distinction between knowledge and belief at the end of Republic 5. In particular, she considers the description of knowledge and belief as powers set over their objects, with a particular interest in what it means to be ‘set over’ something. Drawing on evidence from Book 1's discussion of skills, Harte argues that for power x to be ‘set over object y’ does not entail that power x can be exercised only in relation to object y. It implies only that the power is specially related to the object, with the possibility that it can still be exercised in some relation to other types of object. This means that knowledge may act in the domain of belief and belief in the domain of knowledge (even if, as Harte thinks, these domains are themselves distinct and non-overlapping), albeit in ways not typically tasked to knowledge and belief as powers. Dominic Scott discusses knowledge and true belief in the context of Republic 10's famous treatment of poetry. He focuses on the argument at 601c–602b that imitators lack even true belief about the object they imitate and the common worry that, in rendering imitators epistemically inferior both to the makers of originals and to those who make use of these originals, Plato is embracing empirical knowledge. Scott reads this argument against the background of Plato's classification of political users and makers (in both ideal and non-ideal cities) to situate the poetic imitators’ lack of even true belief within its political and metaphysical context. These chapters are representative of the volume as a whole in offering fresh and stimulating perspectives on questions central to Platonic philosophy and beyond. Many of its contributions are likely to become central points of reference for scholars of ancient philosophy.

Stoicism is currently the most fashionable branch of ancient philosophy ‘in the real world’ and popularizing works explaining how to live and benefit from a Stoic life continue to appear with great frequency. A. A. Long offers a neat new translation (with facing Greek text and useful introduction) of Epictetus’ practical guide to achieving mental freedom, the Encheiridion, along with some relevant excerpts from the Discourses.Footnote ⁷ The attractive volume provides a useful reminder that the original sources are very often the best place to find explanations of how to flourish as a Stoic.