"These essays advance a reinterpretation of pivotal categories such as self-knowing, moral agency, and altruism.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Platonic Ethics: Old and NewEve Browning ColeJulia Annas. Platonic Ethics: Old and New. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999. Pp. vii + 196. Cloth, $35.00Readers of Plato's dialogues in our time are almost unanimously affected by what Annas here calls "the developmental thesis." We bring to Plato's texts as a dogma the [End Page 114] view that his doctrines evolved over time, that later dialogues return to problems (...) unsuccessfully addressed in earlier dialogues, and in short that the Platonic corpus as a whole should be arranged as a kind of intellectual "Bildungsroman." The early and inconclusive explorations of Socrates give way to mature and expansive metaphysical doctrines, which in turn are tested and revised in subsequent works.This developmentalist dogma has dominated interpretations of Plato, with few exceptions (notably Paul Shorey), for a century and more. Yet this makes it a rather young dogma after all. Annas argues that it is a product of Victorian scholars, and especially targets the highly influential work of Benjamin Jowett (95 n.56). Jowett placed the Republic at the center of Plato's works and interpreted others backward and forward from it. The influence of this developmental thesis has been sweeping and, Annas argues, unfortunate. Armed with it, we are reluctant to consider the doctrines of the dialogues on their own terms; we make problems for one dialogue with concerns expressed in quite another; we tend to force our readings to fit the progressive picture and distort the works in the process.To achieve some distance from developmentalism and other modern preconceptions and dogma, Annas proposes listening with an open mind to ancient readings of Plato, especially those of the so-called Middle Platonists. Most modern students of ancient philosophy have been accustomed to discount these ancients as either too marginal to deserve a hearing or too biased to be fair readers. (In addition, access to their works in reliable texts and translations has been impossible until quite recently.)But such ancient readers as Albinus, Alcinous, Arius Didymus, Philo, and Numenius have (Annas argues) much to offer.First, they are active participants in an ongoing intellectual conversation about "eudaimonism," or the sufficiency of virtue for happiness. They comfortably engage Plato in this conversation as a proponent of eudaimonism. This is as true for the Plato of Republic and Laws as for the earlier dialogues. These older readers of Platonic ethics demonstrate that it is indeed possible to discern a unified view of the relation between goodness and happiness, without violence to the texts. While Plato may speak with "many voices," as Arius Didymus averred, this does not entail that he held "many doctrines" (9).Another modern shibboleth which the older readers can help us dislodge concerns the proper understanding of the Republic. We have tended to classify it as political theory (and in this are supported by the Library of Congress, as Annas points out). While recognizing the hefty core of more individual ethical thinking which goes into the definition of justice in the soul, we have insisted that the "Fairest City" is a serious utopian project description and should shape and contain the Republic's ethical teachings. Here too the ancients were much less inhibited than we; most of them cheerfully ignore the city-building and attend mainly to the implications for moral life. Annas finds this not only salubrious and unity-supporting but more faithful to the text, whose political content she finds "brief and underdeveloped" (82).Many readers will find the treatment of Republic's political significance (or lack thereof) objectionable. Many readers will also find the idea of relinquishing developmentalism to be unappealing or even frightening. But Annas makes a strong case for [End Page 115] seriously consulting the ancient readers if only for their medicinal value; they can "... wake us from our developmental slumbers" (165). Moreover, she provides a friendly and accessible entree to their world, one which will be of value to many modern readers who have been mystified by them heretofore.All texts quoted are in translation, and the occasional bits of original texts are transliterated. An extremely helpful "cast of characters" (which everyone will be tempted to xerox and... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Reason and Emotion. Essays in Ancient Moral Psychology and Ethical TheoryEve Browning ColeJohn M. Cooper, Reason and Emotion. Essays in Ancient Moral Psychology and Ethical Theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Pp. xiii + 605. Cloth, $75.00.This collection of essays spans 27 years of John Cooper's career as an interpreter of ancient philosophy. Its earliest essay, "The Magna Moralia and Aristotle's Moral Philosophy," already shows Cooper's distinctive approach; (...) he seeks to discover "a simpler and more natural way" (200) to understand the discrepancies between this small treatise and Aristotle's major ethical works than by the comparatively convoluted theory of Dirlmeier. In seeking this simpler and more natural interpretive route, Cooper attends to "the philosophical content of the work" (202), rather than considerations of style and linguistic usage. He concludes with frank discussion of the problems which his interpretation cannot solve; these are dismissed with characteristic exasperation-italics: "... one must not expect to explain everything..." (210). He confines his rougher polemical points to footnotes (Dirlmeier "doesn't even face the question squarely" in note 19, hence he is "wildly off" in note 28). [End Page 430]These characteristics run through all the essays here collected. Only two of the 23 essays are previously unpublished: a reconsideration of Xenophon as a source on Socrates, and a treatment of pleasure and desire in Epicurus. Other essays take up moral problems examined by Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and several Hellenistic philosophers or schools. A theme running through most if not all the discussions is the desire (shared by the ancient philosophers and by Cooper equally, it would seem) to develop and defend a viable eudaimonism. The relation between human goodness and human happiness must be shown to be one of extremely close affinity, such that the virtuous are also the happy, even in adversity. Thus though no attempt is made to connect the essays into a coherent argument leading to a global thesis about ancient moral philosophy, the book nevertheless contains the ingredients for such an argument and thesis. The book presenting such an argument and thesis could in some ways be both more elegant and more helpful than this collection; it could spend fewer of its pages in arguing against other interpreters over minor differences (the standard journal-article format for our time), more of its pages awakening the texts, eliciting their message, and presenting it in a form useful for guiding life. Perhaps Cooper will write such a book soon.But the present volume will certainly be of interest to scholars and students, who will find in it much to enjoy and ponder. Generally what is striking about Cooper's interpretations is their freshness. He is at his best when dislodging some stale orthodoxy. The essay on Xenophon's Socrates is a case in point. The portrait of Socrates which emerges in Xenophon's Memorabilia is usually taken to be far less accurate than that presented in Plato's earlier dialogues. The Memorabilia seldom appear on the required reading lists of Greek philosophy courses, nor does Xenophon's version of Socrates' approach to moral questions receive even a fraction of the scholarly attention devoted to Plato's early work. Cooper convincingly shows this neglect to rest on a prejudice. The Socrates of Xenophon's portrait addresses a different kind of audience than that of Plato; the difference in the style of questioning and in the topics discussed reflects the historical Socrates' sensitivity to his partners in conversation. He addresses them where they live (so to speak), and this makes him "all the more remarkable a person" (14).Two other strengths run throughout the essays here collected. No matter how intense the exegetical quibble may have become on any given page, Cooper is able to make a sudden soaring flight upward and provide a synoptic view of the broader philosophical terrain, both for any given philosopher and for that philosopher's contemporaries, predecessors, and successors. These flights are sometimes dizzying and often unpredictable, but always refreshing.In addition, Cooper is able to make connections with large issues in contemporary moral philosophy, relating the ancient controversies to their modern versions (John Rawls, Bernard Williams, Leo Strauss... (shrink)