Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought by R J Hankinson

Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought by R J Hankinson

R. J. Hankinson traces the history of ancient Greek thinking about causation and explanation, from its earliest beginnings around 600 BC through to the middle of the first millennium of the Christian era. The ancient Greeks were the first Western civilization to subject the ideas of cause and explanation to rigorous and detailed analysis, and to attempt to construct theories about them on the basis of logic and experience. Hankinson examines the ways in which they dealt with questions about how and why things happen as and when they do, about the basic constitution and structure of things, about function and purpose, laws of nature, chance, coincidence, and responsibility. Such diverse questions are unified by the fact that they are all demands for an account of the world that will render it amenable to prediction and control; they are therefore at the root of both philosophical and scientific enquiry. Hankinson draws on a wide range of original sources, in philosophy, natural sciences, medicine, history, and the law, in order to create a synoptic picture of the growth and development of these central concepts in the Graeco-Roman world.

A fascinating bookIt contains a sweeping survey of approaches to causation and explanation from the Presocratic philosophers (sixth century BC) to the Neo-platonist philosophers (third century AD). Hankinson pays a visit to every major figure and movement in between: the sophists, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, the Sceptics, the Epicureans and a variety of medical writers, early and late ... impressive ... Hankinson's observations are regularly intriguing, at times refreshingly trenchant, and in some cases straightforwardly arresting ... the history itself is excellent: clear, intelligently conceived and executed, and broadly accessible. Those in search of a philosophically astute history of clasical philosophy given in terms of one of its own central unifying obsessions will delight in reading R. J. Hankinson's work. * Christopher Sheilds, Times Literary Supplement *

R. J. Hankinson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas, Austin.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780199246564
ISBN 10	0199246564
Title	Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought
Author	R J Hankinson
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Oxford University Press
Year published	2001-10-18
Number of pages	516
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.