Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought

Name: Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought
SKU: 9780199246564
Price: 1679 SEK
Availability: InStock
Author: R. J. Hankinson
ISBN: 9780199246564

Häftad, Engelska, 2001

AvR. J. Hankinson

1 679 kr

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R. J. Hankinson traces the history of ancient Greek thinking about causation and explanation, from its earliest beginnings around 600 BC through to the middle of the first millennium of the Christian era. The ancient Greeks were the first Western civilization to subject the ideas of cause and explanation to rigorous and detailed analysis, and to attempt to construct theories about them on the basis of logic and experience. Hankinson examines the ways in which they dealt with questions about how and why things happen as and when they do, about the basic constitution and structure of things, about function and purpose, laws of nature, chance, coincidence, and responsibility. Such diverse questions are unified by the fact that they are all demands for an account of the world that will render it amenable to prediction and control; they are therefore at the root of both philosophical and scientific enquiry. Hankinson draws on a wide range of original sources, in philosophy, natural sciences, medicine, history, and the law, in order to create a synoptic picture of the growth and development of these central concepts in the Graeco-Roman world.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2001-10-18
Mått157 x 235 x 28 mm
Vikt768 g
FormatHäftad
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor516
FörlagOUP OXFORD
ISBN9780199246564

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A fascinating book. It contains a sweeping survey of approaches to causation and explanation from the Presocratic philosophers (sixth century BC) to the Neo-platonist philosophers (third century AD). Hankinson pays a visit to every major figure and movement in between: the sophists, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, the Sceptics, the Epicureans and a variety of medical writers, early and late ... impressive ... Hankinson's observations are regularly intriguing, at times refreshingly trenchant, and in some cases straightforwardly arresting ... the history itself is excellent: clear, intelligently conceived and executed, and broadly accessible. Those in search of a philosophically astute history of clasical philosophy given in terms of one of its own central unifying obsessions will delight in reading R. J. Hankinson's work.