Man, Soul and Body: Essays in Ancient Thought from Plato to Dionysius

Comprising 17 articles, this collection focuses on the attempts of (mostly) pagan thinkers in Greco-Roman antiquity to understand the nature of morality against a background of wide-ranging debate about the relationship between soul and body, and the necessity for a correct psychology and physiology if the ''good life for man'' is to be revealed. Three papers look at Plato, whose elaborate mix of ethics, psychology and metaphysics sets the stage for most of the debate; one study is on Aristotle; five examine the stoics and five deal with Plotinus. There is one further article on the general problem of the relationship between ethics, cosmology and biology and the volume concludes with the crisis among both pagans and Christians in late antiquity over whether man is naturally good enough to correct his own moral weakness.