Gerasimos Santas

Goodness and Justice

Plato, Aristotle and the Moderns

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

This volume explores Plato's and Aristotle's theories about good things, goodness, and the best life for human beings, and draws comparisons between ancient and modern theories of good and justice. Goodness and Justice argues that goodness was the most fundamental normative concept in the ethics of Plato and Aristotle, and illustrates how they used their functional and formal theories of good to build their theories of virtue, justice, and happiness. It also shows that they fought subjective theories of good as desire satisfaction and good as pleasure, in favor of what they thought was a more objective concept of good found in form and function. The comparisons with the moderns illuminate the merits and limits of ancient and modern ethical theories and place them within a broad philosophical and historical context.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Wiley
• Seitenzahl: 320
• Erscheinungstermin: 8. Oktober 2001
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 236mm x 157mm x 28mm
• Gewicht: 572g
• ISBN-13: 9780631172598
• ISBN-10: 0631172599
• Artikelnr.: 21675820

Autorenporträt

Gerasimos Santas is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California at Irvine. He is author of Socrates: Philosophy in Plato's Early Dialogues (1979), and Plato and Freud: Two Theories of Love (Blackwell 1988).

Inhaltsangabe

Preface.
Part I: Introduction.
1 The Role of the Good in the Ancients and the Moderns.
2 Science and Ultimate Good.
3 Disputes and Questions about Good.
4 The Aims and Limits of this Study.
Notes.
Part II: The Socratic Good of Knowledge.
Introduction.
1 All Goods and their Socratic Rankings.
2 The Dispute with Gorgias: Is Rhetoric the Greatest Good?.
3 The Dispute with Polus about Power, Desire, and Good.
4 The Dispute with Polus about Justice and Happiness.
5 The Dispute with Callicles about Good and Pleasure.
6 Conditional and Unconditional Goods.
7 Socrates and Kant: Wisdom or the Good Will?.
8 The Conditional Value of all Goods on Virtue in the Meno.
9 Socrates and G.E. Moore on the Value of Knowledge.
10 Goods, Wisdom, and Happiness.
Notes.
Part III: The Good of Platonic Social Justice.
1 The Great Questions of the Republic.
2 The Functional Perfectionist Theory of Good.
3 The Application of the Functional Theory of Good to the City.
4 The Definitions of the Social Virtues.
5 The Role and Scope of Platonic Social Justice.
6 The Good of Platonic Social Justice.
7 The Application of Platonic Social Justice to Gender.
8 Conclusion.
Notes.
Part IV: The Good of Justice in Our Souls.
1 The Isomorphism between Social and Psychic Justice.
2 Plato's Pioneering Analysis of the Psyche.
3 Psychic Justice and the Good of It.
4 Plato and Hume on Reason or Passion as the Rule of Life.
5 The Defence of Psychic Justice as Analogous to Health.
6 The Criticism of the Democratic Individual.
7 Which is Prior, Social or Psychic Justice?.
8 The Structure of Plato's Ethical Theory.
Notes.
Part V: Plato's Metaphysical Theory of the Form of the Good.
1 Opinion, Knowledge, and Platonic Forms.
2 The Imperfections of the Sensible World.
3 Forms as the Best Objects of their Kind to Know.
4 Forms as the Best Objects of their Kind and the Form of the Good as their
Essence.
5 Function, Form, and Goodness.
Notes.
Part VI: Aristotle's Criticism of Plato's Form of the Good: The Breakup of
Goodness.
1 Aristotle's Arguments from Priority.
2 Breaking up Goodness: Aristotle's Argument from Homonymy.
3 Aristotle's Argument from Final and Instrumental Goods.
4 The Attack on the Ideality of the Form of the Platonic Good.
5 The Attack on the Practicability and Usefulness of Plato's Good.
6 Putting the Fragments of Goodness Back Together: Focal Meaning.
Notes.
Part VII: The Good of Desire, the Good of Function, and the Good of
Pleasure.
1 The Concept of the Good.
2 Different Orectic Conceptions of the Good.
3 Aristotle's Functional Perfectionist Theory of Good.
4 Objections to Aristotle's Functional Theory of Good.
5 Orectic, Hedonic, and Perfectionist Good.
Notes.
Part VIII: The Good of Character and the Good of Justice.
1 Is Aristotle's Ethical Theory Circular?.
2 Did Aristotle have a Virtue Ethics?.
3 Aristotle's General Analysis of Virtue and Functional Good.
4 Can Moral Virtue be Explicated by Functioning Well?.
5 States of Character and Practical Wisdom.
6 Aristotle's Analysis of Justice: Not a Virtue Ethics.
7 Paucity of Practical Content: Justice and the other Virtues.
8 Summary and Conclusion.
Notes.
Bibliography.
Index.

Rezensionen

"Santas's book is a major contribution to the study of ancientGreek ethics. His discussion of the theoretical structure ofPlatonic and Aristotelian ethics and the comparisons he drawsbetween the ethical views of the ancient Greek philosophers andthose of the moderns, especially of John Rawls, have no equal inthe existing literature. This is essential reading for anyoneinterested in Greek ethics or ethical theory in general."
Georgios Anagnostopoulos, University of California at SanDiego

"One of the very greatest Socrates scholars of the twentiethcentury - here in finer form than ever - now brings usthe fruits of decades of reading and teaching the ethics and socialphilosophy of Plato and Aristotle viewed in the light of JohnRawls's theory of justice. The two chapters on Justice in theRepublic are not only refreshing but also as illuminating asanything ever written on that topic. For everyone, from thegreatest scholar to the beginning student, this book is a lessonboth in how to do philosophy and how to read texts." TerryPenner, University of Wisconsin

"This wonderful book on the fundamental concept of goodness isthe harvest of a lifetime's reflection on ancient and modernethics. Its bounty includes the isolation of two theories of goodin Plato's Republic - a functional theory and ametaphysical theory - an account of the Form of the Good thatrescues the pinnacle of Plato's philosophy from the charge ofvacuity, and a discussion of Aristotle's rejection of themetaphysical theory and his embrace of the functional. It is avirtual commentary on both the Republic and theNicomachean Ethics. Truly a masterwork." David Keyt,University of Washington

"This is the most insightful overarching analysis of the good inPlato and Aristotle of recent decades. Santas offers acomprehensive framework for the classification, and detaileddiscussion, of Plato's and Aristotle's theories of good, withvaluable comparisons to positions in the history of philosophy andcontemporary debates. A very wise investment for moral and ancientphilosophers." Theodore Scaltsas, University ofEdinburgh

"Acute, close analysis characterizes Santas's bookthroughout...beautifully clear, a joy to read." MF Burnyeat,TLS, 14th June 2002

"... This book offers a capacious, clear and careful explorationof the centrality of concepts of the good to these two ancientphilosophers (Plato, Aristotle), showing how ethics and politicsdrive epistemology and metaphysics and ... comparing the resultingstructures with those of John Rawls and other modern theorists. Theresult is an impressive achievement..." Polis, Vol. 20,2003