J. O. Urmson

J.O. Urmson's The Greek Philosophical Vocabulary contains some five hundred alphabetically arranged entries, each aiming to provide useful information on a particular word used by Greek philosophers. The book includes a wealth of quotations ranging from the fifth century BC to the sixth century AD. Western thought derives principally from the Greeks, but few people now are able to read Greek philosophy in the original. This book helps remedy the defect. It consists of about 600 entries, in alphabetical order, on the most important Greek philosophical terms. Quotations, all with translations, are designed to illustrate the meaning of the terms and the philosophical settings in which they occur. Plato and Aristotle receive most attention, but quotations range from Anaximenes in the fifth century BC to Simplicius in the sixth century AD. The book includes the sources of all quotations, and any necessary explanatory matter. The book is intended primarily for students of philosophy with no, or only a limited, knowledge of Greek; but - because it reflects a lifetime's reading of ancient philosophy by a distinguished professional philosopher - it will be of considerable interest also to specialists.

"On the General Science of Mathematics is the third of four surviving works out of ten by Iamblichus ( c . 245 CE?early 320s) on the Pythagoreans. He thought the Pythagoreans had treated mathematics as essential for drawing the human soul upwards to higher realms described by Plato, and downwards to understand the physical cosmos, the products of arts and crafts and the order required for an ethical life. His Pythagorean treatises use edited quotation to re-tell the history of philosophy, presenting Plato and Aristotle as passing on the ideas invented by Pythagoras and his early followers. Although his quotations tend to come instead from Plato and later Pythagoreanising Platonists, this re-interpretation had a huge impact on the Neoplatonist commentators in Athens. Iamblichus' cleverness, if not to the same extent his re-interpretation, was appreciated by the commentators in Alexandria."--