Forgotten Debates

This book is not for beginners. Throughout I assume a knowledge of not just the presocratics, Plato, and to a lesser extent, Aristotle, but also of the scholarly disputes that have been waged in recent years concerning these philosophers. Accordingly, if you think that the Third Man refers to a movie starring Orson Welles or to a field position in the sport of cricket, then this book is not for you. You need to hie yourself to the nearest library to read a beginning text or to the nearest college to take an introductory course in the subject.

            With that said, let me proceed to the acknowledgments. A great many people helped me to achieve the understanding needed to write this book. At the University of Minnesota where I did my graduate work, I want to thank Sandra Peterson (my advisor), Norman Dahl, Vicki Harper, and Elizabeth Belfiore. At an NEH Summer Seminar for College Teachers I attended in the summer of 1988, I owe thanks to the director of the seminar, Gregory Vlastos, to Terence Irwin (who was a guest lecturer), and to the seminar participants, particularly William J. Prior, Hugh Benson, and Roslyn Weiss. I also want to thank three scholars who replied to long letters I sent them, even though I had never met them: Leonard Brandwood, Rosamond Kent Sprague, and Richard Kraut. Another scholar I''ve never met who I want to thank is Alice Riginos, whose book Platonica: The Anecdotes Concerning the Life and Writings of Plato pointed me to some interesting and valuable passages in other authors.

            I here list some of the other people who helped me in one way or another: David Apolloni, William Barry, Jennifer Dellner, Stanley Lombardo, David Lupher, William McCulloh, Daniel Menken, Jorge Nobo, Del Reed, Robin Smith, MacNair Swanson, Cliff Weber, Joel Wilcox, and last but certainly not least, my wife Sarah Blick.

            I owe special thanks to Andreas Graeser and Alain Metry for the encouragement they offered after having read my web site. I also owe thanks to the members of the committee of the American Philosophical Association’s Rockefeller Prize for 1995 for having awarded me that year’s prize.  Chapter 6 is an expansion of that paper.

            Finally, I want to thank Kenyon College for making me an honorary member of the Classics and Philosophy Departments, thus allowing me library and computer privileges.