The question of the political relevance of philosophy, and of the role which the philosopher should play in the government of his state, was often discussed in antiquity. Plato's ideal of the philosopher-king is well-known, but his failure to realize his political ideal in Syracuse was perhaps the best argument against the philosopher's political engagement. Nevertheless, Plato's ideal remained attractive for later Greek thinkers. This is illustrated, for instance, by one of Plutarch's short political works, in which he tries to demonstrate that the philosopher should especially associate...

Plutarch of Chaeronea, Platonist, polymath, and prolific writer, was by no means an armchair philosopher. He believed in the necessity for a philosopher to affect the lives of his fellow citizens. That urge inspired many of his writings to meet what he considered people's true needs. Although these writings on practical ethics illustrate in various ways Plutarch's authorial talents and raise many challenging questions (regarding their overall structure, content, purpose, and underlying philosophical and social presuppositions), they have attracted only limited scholarly attention.

Manual workers in Central and Eastern Europe are often perceived as disoriented victims of postsocialist transformation. But how can such assumptions by sociologists as well as the general public explain the diversity of the actual ways that workers cope with social change in the new capitalist reality?

To address this question Adam Mrozowicki turns to workers themselves, to their life strategies and personal experiences. He reconstructs the processes of adapting to and resisting structural changes in working-class milieus in Silesia, an industrial region of Poland. Through an...