The Bloomsbury Handbook of Socrates - (Bloomsbury Handbooks) by Russell E Jones & Ravi Sharma & Nicholas D Smith (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This handbook provides detailed philosophical analysis of the life and thought of Socrates across fifteen in-depth chapters. Each chapter engages with a central aspect of the rich tradition of Socratic studies and, after surveying the state of scholarship, points the way forward to new directions of interpretation.

A leading team of scholars present dynamic readings of Socrates, extracted from the historical context of Plato's dialogues, covering elenchus, irony, ignorance, definitions, pedagogy, friendship, politics and the daemon. Building on these core Socratic topics, this edition includes new accounts of Socrates in the work of philosopher and historian, Xenophon, the comic playwright, Aristophanes, as well as important scholarship on topics such as emotions, the afterlife, motivational intellectualism and virtue intellectualism.

Fully revised and updated, the Bloomsbury Handbook of Socrates elucidates the complex landscape of Socratic thought and interpretation.

Review Quotes

(From the first edition) Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates through graduate students; general readers.

(From the first edition)This new companion to Socrates will be very welcome to scholars. The book aims "to assemble a comprehensive guide to the main issues engaged in the philosophy of Socrates". These essays fulfill that aim admirably.

Socrates wrote nothing, but the impact (both of his person and of his thought) was decisive already in antiquity and not least in the history of later philosophy (even up to the present day). This book, which brings together fifteen contributions from leading Socratic scholars, offers a helpful mapping to reconstruct Socrates' thought, his argumentative strategies, and the main problems he addresses.
Marcelo D. Boeri, Professor of Philosophy, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Chile

About the Author

Russell E. Jones is Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Oklahoma, USA.

Ravi Sharma is Associate Professor of Philosophy, Clark University, USA.

Nicholas D. Smith is James F. Miller Professor of Humanities at Lewis and Clark College, USA.