What is rhetoric?
Is it the capacity to persuade? Or is it 'mere' rhetoric: the ability to get others to do what the speaker wants, regardless of what they want? This is the rhetoric of ideological manipulation and political seduction. Rhetoric is for some a distinctive mode of communication; for others, whenever someone speaks, rhetoric is present.
This book is devoted to helping readers understand these rival accounts, by showing how it has happened that there are so many conceptions of rhetoric. Any such approach must be rooted in classical antiquity, since our ideas of rhetoric are...

"Doing Greek Philosophy" conveys a vivid sense of dynamism and continuity of the Greek philosophical tradition and illustrates how interaction between Greek philosophers creates and sustains that tradition. It concentrates on a set of inter-related challenges and problems that emerged early in the tradition and moves on to the subsequent reactions to them.

This lively and original guidebook offers an invitation to the study of Greek philosophy and signposts to lead the student deeper. The reader is drawn in to the questions the philosophers posed.

Doing Greek Philosophy conveys a vital sense of the dynamism and continuity in the Greek philosophical tradition, and shows how interaction between the philosophers creates and sustains that tradition. It concentrates on a set of interrelated concepts and problems - contradiction, relativism, refutation and consistency - which appear in the tradition, and show how philosophers...

This book considers the relation between language and thought. Robert Wardy explores this huge topic by analyzing linguistic relativism with reference to a Chinese translation of Aristotle's Categories. He addresses some key questions, such as, do the basic structures of language shape the major thought patterns of its native speakers? Could philosophy be guided and constrained by the language in which it is done? And does Aristotle survive rendition into Chinese intact? Wardy's answers will fascinate philosophers, Sinologists, classicists, linguists and anthropologists, and make a major...

The Chain of Change is the first full-scale philosophical commentary devoted to Aristotle's Physics VII, in which Aristotle argues for the existence of a first, unmoved cosmic mover. This study systematically considers the major issues of the book, and argues for the fundamental importance of Physics VII in our understanding of Aristotelian cosmology and natural science. Physics VII is extant in two versions, and therefore poses special editorial problems. For this reason one of the features of Dr. Wardy's study is the provision of an improved text and translation in both versions. The...

The Chain of Change is the first full-scale philosophical commentary devoted to Aristotle's Physics VII, in which Aristotle argues for the existence of a first, unmoved cosmic mover. This study systematically considers the major issues of the book, and argues for the fundamental importance of Physics VII in our understanding of Aristotelian cosmology and natural science. Physics VII is extant in two versions, and therefore poses special editorial problems. For this reason one of the features of Dr. Wardy's study is the provision of an improved text and translation in both versions. The...

What is rhetoric?
Is it the capacity to persuade? Or is it 'mere' rhetoric: the ability to get others to do what the speaker wants, regardless of what they want? This is the rhetoric of ideological manipulation and political seduction. Rhetoric is for some a distinctive mode of communication; for others, whenever someone speaks, rhetoric is present.
This book is devoted to helping readers understand these rival accounts, by showing how it has happened that there are so many conceptions of rhetoric. Any such approach must be rooted in classical antiquity, since our ideas of rhetoric are...

Offers a collection of essays exploring notions of authority and authorship through ancient Greek and Roman philosophy.