Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the revised edition
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Chapter 1 Luck and ethics
- Part I Tragedy: fragility and ambition
- Part II Plato: goodness without fragility?
- Part III Aristotle: the fragility of the good human life
- Notes
- Bibliography
- General index
- Index of passages
Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the revised edition
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Chapter 1 Luck and ethics
- Part I Tragedy: fragility and ambition
- Part II Plato: goodness without fragility?
- Part III Aristotle: the fragility of the good human life
- Notes
- Bibliography
- General index
- Index of passages
Summary
This book can be read in two ways. Except in the case of Aristotle, I have made each chapter an essay on a single work, in order to respect the complex philosophical/literary structure of each. This means that I have given readings of single tragedies (in the case of Chapter 2, of significant portions of two related tragedies), rather than a systematic account of fifth-century moral thinking. It also means, in the case of Plato, that I have made overarching systematic claims only with caution (as in Chapter 5), trying for overall connectedness across chapters only insofar as this accords with the requirements of the philosophical/literary interpretation of particular dialogues. I believe that this way of proceeding is more adequate to the complexity of the material than a topic-by-topic systematic approach. Each chapter is, then, relatively self-sufficient; each sheds its own light on the problems that I identify in Chapter 1. Readers can, then, feel free to turn directly to the chapter or chapters that seem most pertinent to their own concerns. But there is also an overall historical argument, concerning the development of Greek thought on our questions; this is closely linked to an overall philosophical argument about the merits of various proposals for self-sufficient life.
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- Information
- The Fragility of GoodnessLuck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy, pp. xliPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001
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