For the first time, this volume presents a series of critical and constructive studies in the philosophy of J. N. Findlay.

This magisterial volume achieves a remarkable new synthesis of work on the deep roots of the Homeric poems in Indo-European antiquity with fine-grained historical analyses of the period when the text was crystallizing. Frame’s unmatched range of learning in specialized subjects from Vedic meter and Greek noun morphology to the tangled web of Ionian inter-state relations in the archaic era enables him to buttress a massive structure of argumentation arrayed with architectural artistry over five large parts. The result should change (...) views not just of the underlying poetic structure of the Iliad and Odyssey but also of the place, date, and circumstances of their composition. Few Classics books containing 782 pages of text can be said to reward reading of every paragraph; this one does. (shrink)

We may paraphrase Charles Péguy by noting that the philosophical classics are new every morning and nothing is as old as today’s latest philosophical fad. Even fads are not without their value, however, if some new approach or method is introduced and shown to be really contributory to “progress in clarification” in either historical understanding or in the pursuit of new knowledge. In any case, the great enduring philosophical views present a continual challenge to be updated in the light of (...) new knowledge. We know much more now about individuals, classes, relations, predication, identity, and the like, than was known in the days of Peirce and Bradley. It may be helpful to examine the views of these writers on these topics, especially as concerns continuous relations, in the light of what we now know. The result will be not only an updating but to some extent a defense and rational reconstruction of some views which have long been in disrepute among writers who pride themselves upon logical clarity. (shrink)