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

by John M. Rist

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.

298 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1996

About the author

John Michael Rist is a British scholar of ancient philosophy, classics, and early Christian philosophy and theology, known mainly for his contributions to the history of metaphysics and ethics. He is the author of monographs on Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Epicurus, Plotinus, the dating of the Gospels, and Augustine of Hippo. Rist is Professor of Classics Emeritus at the University of Toronto and part-time Visiting Professor at the Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum in Rome, held the Father Kurt Pritzl, O.P., Chair in Philosophy at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. (from 2011 to 2017), and is a life member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University. During his lengthy academic career he has been Regius Professor of Classics at the University of Aberdeen (1980-1983), Professor of Classics and Philosophy at the University of Toronto (1983–1996), and the Lady Davis Visiting Professor in Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1995).
His work focuses in the fields of ancient philosophy and historical theology.