The Phaedo is acknowledged to be one of Plato's masterpieces, showing him both as a philosopher and as a dramatist at the height of his powers. For its moving account of the execution of Socrates, the Phaedo ranks among the supreme literary achievements of antiquity. It is also a documentcrucial to the understanding of many ideas deeply ingrained in western culture, and provides one of the best introductions to Plato's thought. This new edition is eminently suitable for readers new to (...) Plato, offering a readable translation which is accessible without the aid of a commentary andassumes no prior knowledge of the ancient Greek world or language. (shrink)

The “Scientific Revolution” of the seventeenth century cannot adequately be assessed without an appreciation of the achievements and limitations of those, whether giants or dwarfs, on whose shoulders Galileo and his contemporaries stood. And since for many historians Galileo's main contribution lies in the mathematization of the natural world and especially of time and motion, particular interest attaches to medieval treatises dealing with these questions, above all to those which were in widespread demand early in the sixteenth century.