Classical Philosophy is the first of a series of books in which Peter Adamson aims ultimately to present a complete history of philosophy, more thoroughly but also more enjoyably than ever before. In short, lively chapters, based on the popular History of Philosophy podcast, he offers an accessible, humorous, and detailed look at the emergence of philosophy with the Presocratics, the probing questions of Socrates, and the first full flowering of philosophy with the dialogues of Plato and the treatises of Aristotle. The story is told without any gaps, discussing not only such major figures but also less commonly discussed topics like the Hippocratic Corpus, the Platonic Academy, and the role of women in ancient philosophy. Within the thought of Plato and Aristotle, the reader will find in-depth introductions to major works, such as the Republic and the Nicomachean Ethics, which are treated in detail that is unusual in an introduction to ancient philosophy. Adamson looks at fascinating but less frequently read Platonic dialogues like the Charmides and Cratylus, and Aristotle's ideas in zoology and poetics. This full coverage allows him to tackle ancient discussions in all areas of philosophy, including epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, ethics and politics. Attention is also given to the historical and literary context of classical philosophy, with exploration of how early Greek cosmology responded to the poets Homer and Hesiod, how Socrates was presented by the comic playwright Aristophanes and the historian Xenophon, and how events in Greek history may have influenced Plato's thought. This is a new kind of history which will bring philosophy to life for all readers, including those coming to the subject for the first time.

Peter Adamson and Jonardon Ganeri present a lively introduction to one of the world's richest intellectual traditions: the philosophy of classical India. They begin with the earliest extant literature, the Vedas, and the explanatory works that these inspired, known as Upaniṣads. They also discuss other famous texts of classical Vedic culture, especially the Mahābhārata and its most notable section, the Bhagavad-Gīta, alongside the rise of Buddhism and Jainism. In this opening section, Adamson and Ganeri emphasize the way that philosophy was practiced as a form of life in search of liberation from suffering.

Next, the pair move on to the explosion of philosophical speculation devoted to foundational texts called 'sutras, ' discussing such traditions as the logical and epistemological Ny d=aya school, the monism of Advaita Vedānta, and the spiritual discipline of Yoga.

In the final section of the book, they chart further developments within Buddhism, highlighting Nagārjuna's radical critique of 'non-dependent' concepts and the no-self philosophy of mind found in authors like Dignāga, and within Jainism, focusing especially on its 'standpoint' epistemology. Unlike other introductions that cover the main schools and positions in classical Indian philosophy, Adamson and Ganeri's lively guide also pays attention to philosophical themes such as non-violence, political authority, and the status of women, while considering textual traditions typically left out of overviews of Indian thought, like the Cārvāka school, Tantra, and aesthetic theory as well.

Adamson and Ganeri conclude by focusing on the much-debated question of whether Indian philosophy may have influenced ancient Greek philosophy and, from there, evaluate the impact that this area of philosophy had on later Western thought.

Peter Adamson presents a lively introduction to six hundred years of European philosophy, from the beginning of the ninth century to the end of the fourteenth century. The medieval period is one of the richest in the history of philosophy, yet one of the least widely known. Adamson introduces us to some of the greatest thinkers of the Western intellectual tradition, including Peter Abelard, Anselm of Canterbury, Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and Roger Bacon. And the medieval period was notable for the emergence of great women thinkers, including Hildegard of Bingen, Marguerite Porete, and Julian of Norwich. Original ideas and arguments were developed in every branch of philosophy during this period - not just philosophy of religion and theology, but metaphysics, philosophy of logic and language, moral and political theory, psychology, and the foundations of mathematics and natural science.

Peter Adamson presents a lively introduction to six hundred years of European philosophy, from the beginning of the ninth century to the end of the fourteenth century. The medieval period is one of the richest in the history of philosophy, yet one of the least widely known. Adamson introduces us to some of the greatest thinkers of the Western intellectual tradition, including Peter Abelard, Anselm of Canterbury, Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and Roger Bacon. And the medieval period was notable for the emergence of great women thinkers, including Hildegard of Bingen, Marguerite Porete, and Julian of Norwich. Original ideas and arguments were developed in every branch of philosophy during this period - not just philosophy of religion and theology, but metaphysics, philosophy of logic and language, moral and political theory, psychology, and the foundations of mathematics and natural science.

Peter Adamson's History of Philosophy without any gaps series of podcasts is one of the most ambitious educational works on the web. It aims to do nothing less than take listeners through the entire history of philosophy 'without any gaps'. It assumes no prior knowledge making it ideal for beginners. This is the second volume to make these witty, and highly accessible, podcasts available in book form. Philosophy in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds offers a tour through a period of eight hundred years when some of the most influential of all schools of thought were formed. From the counter-cultural witticisms of Diogenes the Cynic to the political philosophy of Augustine, the book gathers together all aspects of later ancient thought in a way that is a pleasure to read.

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring

This book provides an introduction to the most important philosopher of the Islamic world, Ibn Sīnā, often known in English by his Latinized name Avicenna. After introducing the man and his works, with an overview of the historical context in which he lived, the book devotes chapters to the different areas of Ibn Sīnā's thought. Among the topics covered are his innovations in logic, his theory of the human soul and its powers, the relation between his medical writings and his philosophy, and his metaphysics of existence. Particular attention is given to two famous arguments: his flying man thought experiment and the so-called demonstration of the truthful, a proof for the existence of God as the Necessary Existent. A distinctive feature of the book is its attention to the relationship between Ibn Sīnā and Islamic rational theology (kalām): in which we see how Ibn Sīnā responded to this tradition in many areas of his thought. A final chapter looks at Ibn Sīnā's legacy in both the Islamic world and in Latin Christendom. Here Adamson focuses on the critical responses to Ibn Sīnā in subsequent generations by such figures as al-Ghazālī, al-Suhrawardī, and Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī.

ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Representing one of the great traditions of Western philosophy, philosophy written in Arabic and in the Islamic world was inspired by Greek philosophical works and the indigenous ideas of Islamic theology. This collection of essays, by some of the leading scholars in Arabic philosophy, provides an introduction to the field by way of chapters devoted to individual thinkers (such as al-Farabi, Avicenna and Averroes) or groups, especially during the 'classical' period from the ninth to the twelfth centuries.

Peter Adamson and Jonardon Ganeri present a lively introduction to one of the world's richest intellectual traditions: the philosophy of classical India. They begin with the earliest extant literature, the Vedas, and the explanatory works that these inspired, known as Upaniṣads. They also discuss other famous texts of classical Vedic culture, especially the Mahābhārata and its most notable section, the Bhagavad-Gīta, alongside the rise of Buddhism and Jainism. In this opening section, Adamson and Ganeri emphasize the way that philosophy was practiced as a form of life in search of liberation from suffering.

Next, the pair move on to the explosion of philosophical speculation devoted to foundational texts called 'sutras, ' discussing such traditions as the logical and epistemological Ny d=aya school, the monism of Advaita Vedānta, and the spiritual discipline of Yoga.

In the final section of the book, they chart further developments within Buddhism, highlighting Nagārjuna's radical critique of 'non-dependent' concepts and the no-self philosophy of mind found in authors like Dignāga, and within Jainism, focusing especially on its 'standpoint' epistemology. Unlike other introductions that cover the main schools and positions in classical Indian philosophy, Adamson and Ganeri's lively guide also pays attention to philosophical themes such as non-violence, political authority, and the status of women, while considering textual traditions typically left out of overviews of Indian thought, like the Cārvāka school, Tantra, and aesthetic theory as well.

Adamson and Ganeri conclude by focusing on the much-debated question of whether Indian philosophy may have influenced ancient Greek philosophy and, from there, evaluate the impact that this area of philosophy had on later Western thought.

How do we judge whether we should be willing to follow the views of experts or whether we ought to try to come to our own, independent views? This book seeks the answer in medieval philosophical thought.

In this engaging study into the history of philosophy and epistemology, Peter Adamson provides an answer to a question as relevant today as it was in the medieval period: how and when should we turn to the authoritative expertise of other people in forming our own beliefs? He challenges us to reconsider our approach to this question through a constructive recovery of the intellectual and cultural traditions of the Islamic world, the Byzantine Empire, and Latin Christendom.

Adamson begins by foregrounding the distinction in Islamic philosophy between taqlīd, or the uncritical acceptance of authority, and ijtihād, or judgment based on independent effort, the latter of which was particularly prized in Islamic law, theology, and philosophy during the medieval period. He then demonstrates how the Islamic tradition paves the way for the development of what he calls a justified taqlīd, according to which one develops the skills necessary to critically and selectively follow an authority based on their reliability. The book proceeds to reconfigure our understanding of the relation between authority and independent thought in the medieval world by illuminating how women found spaces to assert their own intellectual authority, how medieval writers evaluated the authoritative status of Plato and Aristotle, and how independent reasoning was deployed to defend one Abrahamic faith against the other. This clear and eloquently written book will interest scholars in and enthusiasts of medieval philosophy, Islamic studies, Byzantine studies, and the history of thought.

Peter Adamson's History of Philosophy without any gaps series of podcasts is one of the most ambitious educational works on the web. It aims to do nothing less than take listeners through the entire history of philosophy 'without any gaps'. It assumes no prior knowledge making it ideal for beginners. This is the second volume to make these witty, and highly accessible, podcasts available in book form. Philosophy in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds offers a tour through a period of eight hundred years when some of the most influential of all schools of thought were formed. From the counter-cultural witticisms of Diogenes the Cynic to the political philosophy of Augustine, the book gathers together all aspects of later ancient thought in a way that is a pleasure to read.

Classical Philosophy is the first of a series of books in which Peter Adamson aims ultimately to present a complete history of philosophy, more thoroughly but also more enjoyably than ever before. In short, lively chapters, based on the popular History of Philosophy podcast, he offers an accessible, humorous, and detailed look at the emergence of philosophy with the Presocratics, the probing questions of Socrates, and the first full flowering of philosophy with the dialogues of Plato and the treatises of Aristotle. The story is told without any gaps, discussing not only such major figures but also less commonly discussed topics like the Hippocratic Corpus, the Platonic Academy, and the role of women in ancient philosophy. Within the thought of Plato and Aristotle, the reader will find in-depth introductions to major works, such as the Republic and the Nicomachean Ethics, which are treated in detail that is unusual in an introduction to ancient philosophy. Adamson looks at fascinating but less frequently read Platonic dialogues like the Charmides and Cratylus, and Aristotle's ideas in zoology and poetics. This full coverage allows him to tackle ancient discussions in all areas of philosophy, including epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, ethics and politics. Attention is also given to the historical and literary context of classical philosophy, with exploration of how early Greek cosmology responded to the poets Homer and Hesiod, how Socrates was presented by the comic playwright Aristophanes and the historian Xenophon, and how events in Greek history may have influenced Plato's thought. This is a new kind of history which will bring philosophy to life for all readers, including those coming to the subject for the first time.

bPeter Adamson explores the rich intellectual history of the Byzantine Empire and the Italian Renaissance./b

Peter Adamson presents an engaging and wide-ranging introduction to the thinkers and movements of two great intellectual cultures: Byzantium and the Italian Renaissance. First he traces the development of philosophy in the Eastern Christian world, from such early figures as John of Damascus in the eighth century to the late Byzantine scholars of the fifteenth century. He introduces major figures like Michael Psellos, Anna Komnene, and Gregory Palamas, and examines the philosophical significance of such cultural phenomena as iconoclasm and conceptions of gender. We discover the little-known traditions of philosophy in Syriac, Armenian, and Georgian. These chapters also explore the scientific, political, and historical literature of Byzantium. There is a close connection to the second half of the book, since thinkers of the Greek East helped to spark the humanist movement in Italy. Adamson tells the story of the rebirth of philosophy in Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. We encounter such famous names as Christine de Pizan, Niccolò Machiavelli, Giordano Bruno, and Galileo, but as always in this book series such major figures are read alongside contemporaries who are not so well known, including such fascinating figures as Lorenzo Valla, Girolamo Savonarola, and Bernardino Telesio. Major historical themes include the humanist engagement with ancient literature, the emergence of women humanists, the flowering of Republican government in Renaissance Italy, the continuation of Aristotelian and scholastic philosophy alongside humanism, and breakthroughs in science. All areas of philosophy, from theories of economics and aesthetics to accounts of the human mind, are featured. This is the sixth volume of Adamson's History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, taking us to the threshold of the early modern era.

From antiquity to the early modern period, many philosophers also studied anatomy and medicine, or were medical doctors themselves -- yet the history of philosophy and of medicine are pursued as separate disciplines. This book departs from that practice, gathering contributions by both historians of philosophy and of medicine to trace the concept of health from ancient Greece and China, through the Islamic world and to modern thinkers such as Descartes and Freud. Through this interdisciplinary approach, Health demonstrates the synchronicity and overlapping histories of these two disciplines.

From antiquity to the Renaissance, contributors explore the Chinese idea of qi or circulating vital breath, ideas about medical methodology in antiquity and the middle ages, and the rise and long-lasting influence of Galenic medicine, with its insistence that health consists in a balance of four humors and the proper use of six non-naturals including diet, exercise, and sex. In the early modern period, mechanistic theories of the body made it more difficult to explain what health is and why it is more valuable than other physical states. However, philosophers and doctors maintained an interest in the interaction between the good condition of the mind and that of the body, with Descartes and his followers exploring in depth the idea of medicine for the mind despite their notorious mind-body dualism. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, scientific improvements in public health emerged along with new ideas about the psychology of health, notably with the concept of sensibility and Freud's psychoanalytic theory. The volume concludes with a critical survey of recent philosophical attempts to define health, showing that both descriptive, or naturalistic, and normativist approaches have fallen prey to objections and counterexamples. As a whole, Health: A History shows that notions of both physical and mental health have long been integral to philosophy and a powerful link between philosophy and the sciences.

This book introduces readers to Abu Bakr al-Razi (known in Latin as Rhazes), one of the most innovative and divisive figures of the early philosophical tradition in the Islamic world. Drawing on his extant works on ethics and a range of quotations and testimony from often hostile medieval
authors, Adamson reconstructs Razi's cosmological system, which posits four principles alongside God for the making of the universe: Soul, Matter, Time, and Place. Adamson argues that this system is fundamentally based on Plato, while it accepts Aristotle's physics as a relative or superficial
description of the universe. This notorious theory of the five eternals led to charges of heresy. But through an examination of his debates with contemporary Islamic theologians and representatives of Ismaili Shiism, Adamson shows that Razi's ideas about religion and prophecy may have been
distorted by intellectual opponents. Razi's scientific contributions are also considered in depth. One chapter is devoted to the philosophically rewarding aspects of Razi's extensive writings on medicine. His ideas about alchemy are also discussed along with his atomist account of matter. The final
chapter looks at Razi's views on ethics, and argues against a prominent interpretation of him as a hedonist inspired by Epicureanism. The book presupposes no prior knowledge of Razi or specialist knowledge of this period in the history of philosophy. It will be rewarding for anyone with an interest
in the reception of Greek philosophy, especially Plato, in the history of medicine, or of medieval philosophy more generally.

A much-maligned feature of ancient and medieval political thought is its tendency to appeal to nature to establish norms for human communities. From Aristotle's claim that humans are political animals to Aquinas' invocation of natural law, it may seem that pre-modern philosophers were all too ready to assume that whatever is natural is good, and that just political arrangements must somehow be natural. The papers in this collection show that this assumption is, at best, too crude. From very early, for instance in the ancient sophists' contrast between nomos and physis, there was recognition that political arrangements may be precisely artificial, not natural, and it may be questioned whether even such supposed naturalists as Aristotle in fact adopt the quick inference from natural to good. The papers in this volume trace the complex interrelations between nature and such concepts as law, legitimacy, and justice, covering a wide historical range stretching from Plato and the Sophists to Aristotle, Hellenistic philosophy, Cicero, the Neoplatonists Plotinus and Porphyry, ancient Christian thinkers, and philosophers of both the Islamic and Christian Middle Ages.

Patty loves playing with her pals. But now, the bad bug is trying to make them sick How will Patty fight back to save her friends and herself from the bad bug? Join Patty as she learns all about the bad bug's tricks, and makes some tricks of her own that you and the rest of her friends can use to defeat the bad bug Written by medical student, Nicole Crimi, and peer reviewed by public health specialist Dr. Joanne Kearon, and Dr. Peter Adamson, Patty and the Pandemic aims to educate and empower children 3-8 years old about COVID-19 in a fun and relatable way. Full of fun, rhyming verses and original watercolour paintings, children can giggle as they learn all about what COVID-19 is, how it is spread, what to expect if they are sick and the key tricks to staying safe. 100% of profits from book sales are being donated to Face the Future Foundation - so with the purchase of this book, you are supporting the health of children in your community, as well as those around the world.

Much as a previous volume published by the Warburg explored the full range of philosophical developments in the 10th century CE, so this collection of 13 papers by leading scholars looks at philosophical literature of the 12th century. Several contributors discuss the most famous thinker of the period, the great commentator Averroes. But the volume casts a wide net, taking in theologians, philosophical mystics, and scientists as well as philosophers, and Jewish philosophy as well as Islamic thought. Apart from Averroes, figures emphasized in the volume include al-Ghazali, Ibn Tufayl, 'Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, Abu l-Barakat al-Baghdadi and Suhrawardi.

In this latest instalment of the series A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Peter Adamson and Chike Jeffers delve into the fascinating world of Africana Philosophy.

Africana Philosophy from Ancient Egypt to the Nineteenth Century is the first of two volumes in the History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps series to bring readers the story of Africana philosophy. This diverse topic is defined as philosophy emerging from and distinctively related to Africa or the African diaspora. The story starts at the very beginning by asking what it would mean to engage philosophically with evidence left by prehistoric peoples of Africa, and proceeds to discuss the philosophical traditions of ancient Egypt, late ancient and early modern Ethopia, and Islamic philosophy in West Africa. A number of chapters then explore the idea of philosophy in African oral traditions, considering the methodological debates that have raged between African philosophers like John Mbiti, Paulin Hountondji, and Henry Odera Oruka.

Peter Adamson and Chike Jeffers also consider philosophical responses to the situation brought about by the transatlantic slave trade and the early colonization of Africa. Starting from early figures like Anton Wilhelm Amo and Phillis Wheatley, and the ideas that drove the Haitian Revolution, extensive discussion is then given to Africana philosophy of the nineteenth century. The incendiary ideas of David Walker, the nuanced rhetoric of Frederick Douglass, and the clashing approaches of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois are among the highlights here. Significant attention is given to female thinkers like Maria W. Stewart, Sojourner Truth, Anna Julia Cooper, and Ida B. Wells. The coverage is also geographically diverse, with chapters on figures who worked not only in Africa and the United States, but also Brazil, Canada, Britain, France, and the Caribbean.