Thucydides, early in his account of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, expresses his intention to write a book that will reveal the truth about “that which is human” and then remarks that his book will therefore be “a possession for all time.”1 Thucydides’ explicitly philosophic intention in writing this book in order to convey lasting truths about the character and condition of human beings suggests that his book is better understood as a work of philosophy than as a work of history. Yet, while the end of his book is philosophic–to teach the permanent and universal truth about human nature–the means is historical–to give an account of a particular conflict between the alliance of the Peloponnesians, led by the city of Sparta, and the city of Athens.

Even though Thucydides is the first character to appear in the book, he is extremely reticent in his account of himself in his book as a whole. Although he tells us how he felt at the beginning of the war, when he “hoped” that it would be a great war since Athens and Sparta were, he then believed, both at the peak of their greatness, Thucydides never tells us how he felt at any point later in the war, most notably, when he learned that he was afflicted with the deadly plague; when he failed to defend Amphipolis from Brasidas and was subsequently condemned to exile for twenty years by his fellow Athenians; or when, during his years of exile, his fellow Athenians set out to conquer Sicily.1 However, his book offers glimpses of his character through implicit contrasts with five other characters, all Athenian, whom he resembles: his fellow exile, Alcibiades; the three characters – or groups of characters – who share, in varying ways, his understanding of the fundamental character and condition of human beings – the Athenian ambassadors at Sparta and at Melos, and Diodotus; and the only character in the book who claims to be a lover of wisdom – that is, a philosopher – Pericles (2.40.1). By comparing and contrasting Thucydides with these figures, we may come to see his distinctive nature more clearly.2

At Phaedrus 261e6–262c3 Socrates is apparently criticizing a bad kind of rhetoric, namely one enacted by a rhetorician that has no knowledge on his own and eventually falls victim to his own deception. In this paper, however, it is argued that the passage also serves (though implicitly) the positive purpose of providing an account of good rhetoric. More specifically, by describing the bad rhetorician, Plato is also arguing that also the good rhetorician (that is, the Platonic philosopher and Plato himself) also exploits deception in a specific way, namely one based both on knowledge and on highest literary skills. This also has a wider impact on our understanding of Plato’s philosophical writing, which can be regarded as the practice of this good deception.

In Chapter 4, a history of the scientific method and the philosophies of science and technology are presented. The relationship between science, technology, and government indicate the impact of scientism and technological determinism on government policymaking, including a growing neglect of human well-being.

An overview of the topics addressed in fourteen original chapters investigating Leviathan’s relation to others of Hobbes’s works and its distinctive treatments of governance, law, liberty, motivation, and religion.

This chapter examines Plato's treatment of technē through an important arc of late dialogues: Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman. This chapter advances the argument that philosophy is expected to be a technē in this series, but in fact multiple forms of it emerge: the technē of the Socratic elenchus and the technē of the method of division (which is termed Platonic/Eleatic dialectic). Midwifery, sophistry, and statesmanship are analyzed as examples that throw light on what it means for philosophy to be a technē. This chapter includes substantial discussions of second-order technai; good-directedness; and specialization.

The Macedonian dynasty, wonderfully rooted in murder, having been renewed by violence as a peaceful, orderly, administration, a soldier-emperor is installed: Constantine IX, the main subject of the Chronographia, and its potential stumbling block. To deal with his own self-division towards Constantine, Psellos creates an elaborate structure of genres and disciplines – panegyric and history, rhetoric and philosophy – and conflicting roles for himself, to dramatize an odi et amo in which the comic and the tragic infuse each other in continuously changing ways. The effect is exhilating, shocking, and ingeniously balanced, as Psellos sets the failure of an indirect rule by a philosopher (Kaldellis) and his own moral degeneration against the expansive power of panegyric vested in this emperor. For good artistic reasons, Psellos omits the patriarch Keroularios and his attack on Psellos’ orthodoxy, projecting his own displacement onto a highly fictional portrayal of another character. The reign of Theodora, however, is vitiated by his repressed anger with Keroularios, ranting against his proxies in her government. The two reigns exemplify the work’s uneven quality.

The commentary on Republic is actually a collection of seventeen essays on various topics in Republic. Proclus addresses Plato’s critique of Homer, the tripartitioning of the soul, the nature of the philosopher and his radical distinction from the so-called lovers of sights and sounds, the structure of the divided line, the difference between the superordinate Good and a Form of the Good that is a genus of types of goods, and the taxonomy of decline from the aristocratic man and the aristocratic state, ultimately to the tyrannical man and the tyrannical state. His longest essay is an analysis and meditation on the myth of Er in Republic x, focusing on the nature of wrongdoing and the moral responsibility of the individual. Each of these topics is set within the framework of the Platonic system, at the apex of which is the Idea of the Good or the One whose causal scope is shown to encompass everything that exists, including matter. Thus, epistemological, psychological, and moral problems found in the dialogue need to adduce not only the Good but also the fundamental principles of the system in order to achieve a satisfactory resolution.

The chapter is a preface to an Arabic translation of Henry Corbin’s History of Islamic Philosophy, offering a critical perspective on Corbin’s interpretation of Shiʿism. Musa Sadr appreciates Corbin’s dedication to Islamic philosophy, particularly his work on thinkers like Suhrawardi and Mulla Sadra. However, Sadr expresses reservations about Corbin’s emphasis on the esoteric (batin) aspects of religious teachings and his understanding of walaya (guardianship), the Imamate and the Hidden Imam within Shiʿism.

Sadr argues that Corbin overgeneralizes the opinions of scholars and Sufis, cautioning against equating their views with core Shiʿi doctrine. He clarifies the Shiʿi perspective on Qur’anic interpretation. While the Qur’an has multiple layers of meaning, interpretation should remain within the bounds of the text and the Prophet Muhammad’s teachings. He also disagrees with Corbin’s view on the relationship between Shiʿism and Sufism, asserting that they are distinct and that Sufism lacks a foundation in Shiʿi thought. He reads Corbin’s walaya as a divine authority to enforce the law and build an Islamic society. He also addresses the concept of the Hidden Imam, stating that his role is to implement the message of the Prophet and maintain religious rules, not to reveal esoteric truths.

There are numerous factors which influence how inclusive an early childhood service is. While you can address curriculum considerations and environmental adaptations, for example, one crucial component that is often overlooked is self-reflection. Considering our own lens ensures we can reflect on our own personal philosophy and the factors that have contributed to it. Attitudes of educators cannot be underestimated, as they lay a foundation for practice. A literature review conducted in 2020 revealed research which found that attitudes held by educators has an impact on inclusive practices. When individuals see challenges as opportunities to grow and learn, the outcome for everyone is very different to when challenges are perceived as barriers that are insurmountable.

After making a few opening remarks about Berlin, the introduction will cover five topics, which are aimed especially at the general reader who may be unfamiliar with Berlin and his ideas. The first will provide a brief, descriptive account of Berlin’s life and times; the second will focus on (again briefly) his move from a rather narrowly focused Oxford academic philosopher to a wide-ranging historian of ideas and public intellectual (or, alternatively put, a far more capacious and historically inflected philosopher) keen to reach a readership beyond the academic groves; the third will discuss Berlin’s vision of philosophy as a fundamentally humanistic discipline; the fourth will explore his original and cogent pluralist defence of liberalism; and the fifth will consider some of the main criticisms that Berlin’s ideas have received both during and after his lifetime. The introduction will end with a brief rumination on his main legacy as a thinker.

This chapter will discuss Berlin’s account of the nature and purpose of philosophy in ‘The Purpose of Philosophy’. The first part will focus on his suggestion that philosophical questions cannot be answered inductively or deductively and that there are no experts who can be referred to as ‘possessing unquestionable authority or knowledge in these matters’. For Berlin, this is not to deny the existence of truth and knowledge in philosophy. This leads to a second question: What is Berlin’s philosophical methodology? The task of philosophy, he claims, is to ‘extricate and bring to light the hidden categories and models in terms of which human beings think’. This approach will be contrasted favourably with Kant’s philosophical methodology. The third and final question to be discussed is: What is the practical significance of Berlin’s idea that the goal of philosophy is ‘to assist men to understand themselves’? It will be suggested that the self-understanding that philosophy makes possible is philosophically and politically emancipatory and that Berlin’s philosophy is a form of what might be described as ‘liberation philosophy’.