It was in ancient Greek philosophy where the idea arose that there is a supreme law before which any civil law created by human societies has to be justified. Since then the concept of natural law not only remained one of the paradigms of Western civilization but has shaped the development of [...]

In the Timaeus and Critias, Plato interweaves two narrative lines: the demiurge's making of the cosmos with the victory of archaic Athens against Atlantis. The aim of this book is to investigate the relationship between the narrative practice of both accounts and the theoretical analysis of the [...]

This book explores the intimate connections, conflicts and discontinuities between religion and philosophy in the Platonic and Neoplatonic traditions from Antiquity to the early Medieval period. It presents a broader comparative view of Platonism by examining the strong Platonist resonances among [...]

Vasilij V. Zen'kovskij (1881-1962) untersucht in seinem 1926 erschienenen Buch die Frage des Verhältnisses von Russland und Europa, wie es in der russischen Kritik der europäischen Kultur seit der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts gesehen wird. Zen'kovskijs Fazit ist angesichts der gegenwärtigen [...]

englischTheon was a teacher of Platonism and an exegete of Plato's text in the flourishing town of Smyrna during the first and second century of our age (fl. 125 a.D.). The Expositio is the only work of Theon that has been transmitted to us. It is an important witness in order to grasp not only the [...]

During the Sixties and Seventies of the last century, the word 'utopia' acquired a positive connotation spurred on by the sudden emergence of the third world, the Marxist liberation movements and the decolonization of Africa and Asia, in so far as these processes were interpreted in Marxist terms [...]

Is it possible for law to squeeze out values, since the nihilism towards values leads towards the rejection of the major role of the law, which is the protection and realization of values? Does the legal norm, as the part of law turned into the command, really have for its goal to establish the [...]

englischThe essays collected in this book approach the problem of the origins of human civilisation and of cultural forms, a largely discussed theme in the Ancient world, dealt with by many authors from Homer to Philo of Alexandria, through the Sophists, Plato, Aristotle, Posidonius, and Lucretius. [...]

Obwohl Wittgenstein nach eigenen Angaben vergleichsweise wenige Philosophen gelesen hat, lassen sich doch häufig Aufzeichnungen finden, die auf Ähnlichkeiten mit anderen Denkern hinweisen.Während diese Verbindungen zu zeitgenössischen Autoren in der Rezeption ausführlich erörtert werden, gibt es zu [...]

This book offers a distinctive interpretation of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. It suggests that Hegel's approach in the 1807 Phenomenology is akin to Socratic 'midwifery'. In Plato's Theaetetus Socrates (the midwife) elicits from Theaetetus his views on the nature of knowledge, without imposing [...]