Traces the history of ancient Greek thinking about causation and explanation. This book examines how the 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.

A fascinating book. It 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.

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

Klappentext

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.

Inhalt
Introduction; 1. The Presocratics; 2. Science and Sophistry; 3. Plato; 4. Aristotle: Explanation and Nature; 5. Aristotle: Explanation and the World; 6. The Atomists; 7. The Stoics; 8. The Sceptics; 9. Explanation in the Medical Schools; 10. The Age of Synthesis; 11. Science and Explanation; 12. The Neoplatonists; Appendix; Bibliography; Index