This collection is inspired by Laurence Berns, 'scholar, friend, and teacher,' whose thoughtful and probing spirit is reflected in each essay and whose breadth of interests is exhibited by the range of the whole—from the Bible, Plato and Herodotus, Dante and Milton, Spinoza and Rousseau, to Darwin, Nietzsche, and Dostoevsky. In their illuminating introduction, Martin Yaffe and Joshua Parens show us how Laurence Berns was drawn, and drew others, into philosophical conversation with the great books. In continuing that conversation, the editors and authors of these essays pay a fitting tribute to him.
