The Sense of the Past

Bernard WilliamsEdited and with an introduction by Myles Burnyeat

Before his death in 2003, Bernard Williams planned to publish a collection of historical essays, focusing primarily on the ancient world. This posthumous volume brings together a much wider selection, written over some forty years. His legacy lives on in this masterful work, the first collection ever published of Williams's essays on the history of philosophy. The subjects range from the sixth century B.C. to the twentieth A.D., from Homer to Wittgenstein by way of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Sidgwick, Collingwood, and Nietzsche. Often one would be hard put to say which part is history, which philosophy. Both are involved throughout, because this is the history of philosophy written philosophically. Historical exposition goes hand in hand with philosophical scrutiny. Insights into the past counteract blind acceptance of present assumptions.In his touching and illuminating introduction, Myles Burnyeat writes of these essays: "They show a depth of commitment to the history of philosophy seldom to be found nowadays in a thinker so prominent on the contemporary philosophical scene."The result celebrates the interest and importance to philosophy today of its near and distant past.The Sense of the Past is one of three collections of essays by Bernard Williams published by Princeton University Press since his death. In the Beginning Was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument, selected, edited, and with an introduction by Geoffrey Hawthorn, and Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline, selected, edited, and with an introduction by A. W. Moore, make up the trio.

Preface by Patricia Williams ix Introduction by Myles Burnyeat xiii Greek: General Chapter One: The Legacy of Greek Philosophy 3 Chapter Two: The Women of Trachis: Fictions, Pessimism, Ethics 49 Chapter Three: Understanding Homer: Literature, History and Ideal Anthropology 60 Socrates and Plato Chapter Four: Pagan Justice and Christian Love 71 Chapter Five: Introduction to Plato's Theaetetus 83 Chapter Six: Plato against the Immoralist 97 Chapter Seven: The Analogy of City and Soul in Plato's Republic 108 Chapter Eight: Plato's Construction of Intrinsic Goodness 118 Chapter Nine: Cratylus' Theory of Names and Its Refutation 138 Chapter Ten: Plato: The Invention of Philosophy 148 Aristotle Chapter Eleven: Acting as the Virtuous Person Acts 189 Chapter Twelve: Aristotle on the Good: A Formal Sketch 198 Chapter Thirteen: Justice as a Virtue 207 Chapter Fourteen: Hylomorphism 218 Descartes Chapter Fifteen: Descartes' Use of Scepticism 231 Chapter Sixteen: Introductory Essay on Descartes' Meditations 246 Chapter Seventeen: Descartes and the Historiography of Philosophy 257 Hume Chapter Eighteen: Hume on Religion 267 Sidgwick Chapter Nineteen: The Point of View of the Universe: Sidgwick and the Ambitions of Ethics 277 Nietzsche Chapter Twenty: Nietzsche's Minimalist Moral Psychology 299 Chapter Twenty-One: Introduction to The Gay Science 311 Chapter Twenty-Two: "There are many kinds of eyes" 325 Chapter Twenty-Three: Unbearable Suffering 331 R. G. Collingwood Chapter Twenty-Four: An Essay on Collingwood 341 Wittgenstein Chapter Twenty-Five: Wittgenstein and Idealism 361 Bernard Williams: Complete Philosophical Publications 381