Explorations in Ancient and Modern Philosophy: Volume 4

Myles Burnyeat was formerly Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and a Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. Carol Atack is a Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge. She is the author of The Discourse of Kingship in Classical Greece (2020) and an associate editor of Polis. She previously worked with Myles Burnyeat in the preparation of The Pseudo-Platonic Seventh Letter (2015). Malcolm Schofield is Emeritus Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St John's College. He was co-editor with Myles Burnyeat and Jonathan Barnes of Doubt and Dogmatism (1980), the first volume of the published proceedings of a series of triennial conferences on Hellenistic philosophy that continues to the present. His most recent book is a survey of Cicero's political thought (2021). David Sedley is Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Christ's College. He was an editor of Classical Quarterly and Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy. His books include (with A.A. Long) The Hellenistic Philosophers (Cambridge, 1987) and Creationism and its Critics in Antiquity (2007).

• Introduction; Part I. Ontology and Epistemology: 1a. Apology 30b2-4: Socrates, money, and the grammar of γίγνεσθαι; 1b. On the source of Burnet's construal of Apology 30b2-4: a correction; 2. Plato on how not to speak of what is not: Euthydemus 283a-288a; 3. Platonism in the Bible: Numenius of Apamea on Exodus and eternity; 4. Kinêsis vs. energeia: a much-read passage in (but not of) Aristotle's Metaphysics; 5. De Anima II.5; 6. Aquinas on 'spiritual change' in perception; 7. Epistêmê; Part II. Physics and Optics: 8. ΕΙΚΩΣ ΜΥΘΟΣ; 9. Aristotle on the foundations of sublunary physics; 10. Archytas and optics; 11. 'All the world's a stage-painting'.

'Burnyeat's articles are, each in their own way, unique achievements. Most of them start with simple-looking questions concerning a particular piece of text that then turn out to be of great importance … They are models of philosophical analysis and philological accuracy. Even where one may disagree with Burnyeat's results, he certainly makes the alternatives very clear and thereby does a great service to his readers … Burnyeat's admirable thoroughness and patience have made him a hard task-master but also a model one, both from a philosophical and from a philological point of view.' Dorothea Frede, GNOMON