Plato’s Socrates is often thought to hold that wisdom or virtue is sufficient for happiness, and Euthydemus 278-282 is often taken to be the locus classicus for this sufficiency thesis in Plato’s dialogues. But this view is misguided: Not only does Socrates here fail to argue for, assert, or even implicitly assume the sufficiency thesis, but the thesis turns out to be hard to square with the argument he does give. I argue for an interpretation of the passage that explains (...) the central importance of wisdom for Socrates without committing him to the sufficiency thesis. The result is that the Euthydemus displays a plausible but distinctively Socratic argument for making the pursuit of wisdom the central concern of one’s life. (shrink)

In De Interpretatione 6-9, Aristotle considers three logical principles: the principle of bivalence, the law of excluded middle, and the rule of contradictory pairs (according to which of any contradictory pair of statements, exactly one is true and the other false). Surprisingly, Aristotle accepts none of these without qualification. I offer a coherent interpretation of these chapters as a whole, while focusing special attention on two sorts of statements that are of particular interest to Aristotle: universal statements not made universally (...) and future particular statements. With respect to the former, I argue that Aristotle takes them to be indeterminate and so to violate the rule of contradictory pairs. With respect to the latter, the subject of the much discussed ninth chapter, I argue that the rule of contradictory pairs, and not the principle of bivalence, is the focus of Aristotle's refutation. Nevertheless, Aristotle rejects bivalence for future particular statements. (shrink)

I argue that the problem of religious luck posed by Zagzebski poses a problem for the theory of hell proposed by Buckareff and Plug, according to which God adopts an open-door policy toward those in hell. Though escapism is not open to many of the criticisms Zagzebski raises against potential solutions to the problem of luck, escapism fails to solve the problem: it merely pushes luck forward into the afterlife. I suggest a hybrid solution to the problem which combines escapism (...) and the claim that God gives enough grace to those in hell to cancel out any bad moral luck. (shrink)

This is the inaugural volume of the Plato Dialogue Project: it offers the first collective study of the Philebus - a high point of philosophical ethics, containing some of Plato's most sophisticated discussions of human happiness. The contributors work through the text, discussing pleasure, knowledge, philosophical method, and the human good.

Russell's autobiography.--Descriptive and critical essays on the philosophy of Bertrand Russell.--The philosopher replies.--Bibliography of the writings of Bertrand Russell to 1951, compiled by L. E. Denonn (p. [743]-804).

Carl E. Braaten, No Other Gospel! Christianity among the World's Religions Minneapolis, USA: Fortress Press, 1992. Paperback: 146 pp. including endnotes and index.