This ground-breaking study offers the first full-length critical examination of H. Diel's Doxographi Graeci , focussing on the doxographer Aëtius, whose work Diels reconstructed from various later sources. Diel's theory is analysed, revised and improved at significant points.

R. J. Hankinson traces the history of ancient Greek thinking about causation and explanation, from its earliest beginnings through more than a thousand years to the middle of the first millennium of the Christian era. He examines ways in which the Ancient Greeks 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.

Mon but est d’examiner en détail les arguments avancés par Vernant au début des années soixante du siècle dernier, quand il a caractérisé, selon une formule célèbre, la philosophie comme « fille de la Cité » (fille de la polis). Mon argument principal est que le concept d’isonomia, qui n’est central dans le débat politique athénien que depuis les dernières décennies du vie siècle, ne peut être aussi facilement utilisé pour rendre compte de la nouvelle conception de l’espace physique, qui (...) émerge à Milet au début de ce siècle. En tout cas, l’utilisation de modèles politiques dans la science grecque ancienne de la nature est un procédé conscient, comme je tente de le montrer en analysant certains textes célèbres comme le fragment 4 d’Alcméon et le fragment 1 d’Anaximandre. De plus, dans le cas d’Anaximandre on peut se demander si l’explanandum dans l’analogie était l’ordre du monde ou plutôt celui de la polis. (shrink)

"The book's major parts, one on polarity and the other on analogy, introduce the reader to the patterns of thinking that are fundamental not only to Greek philosophy but also to classical civilization as a whole. As a leading classicist in his own right, Lloyd is an impeccable guide. His sophistication in adducing anthropological parallels to Greek models of polarity and analogy broadens his perspective, making him a forerunner in the study of what we are now used to calling semiotics. (...) A striking example of Lloyd's approach is his re-examination of the dichotomy of Olympian and chthonian gods in ancient Greek world view, which surpasses the reductionist and pseudo-historical models of sky-gods and earth-goddesses that are still commonly invoked to account for polarities in Greek pantheon. "In the second part, dealing with analogy, three crucial metaphorical models for the universe turn out to be basis for a dazzlingly wide variety of scientific and philosophical perspectives. Each model is tested in the whole spectrum of Greek artistic, philosophical and scientific thought. This work is a treasure-house of insights for experts and non experts alike." --Gregory Nagy, Harvard University. (shrink)

This essay considers the origins of the arithmological genre, the first specimen of which was an anonymous Neopythagorean treatise of the first century BCE. Arithmology as a special genre of philosophical writings dealing with the properties of the first ten numbers should be distinguished from number symbolism, which is a universal cultural phenomenon related to individual significant numbers. As our analysis shows, the philosophical foundations of arithmology were laid down in the treatise of Plato’s successor Speusippus On Pythagorean Numbers, who (...) relied on the Platonic doctrine of the ten ideal numbers, whereas in ancient Pythagoreanism arithmological notions, unlike number symbolism, are not attested. In the first century BCE, an epoch of revival of Platonism and Aristotelianism, Speusippus’ ideas received a second birth, thus marking the beginning of arithmology as a popular genre. (shrink)