Agonistes comprises a collection of essays presented by his friends and colleagues to Denis O'Brien, former Directeur de recherche at the Centre Nationale de Recherche Scientifique, representing the full range of his scholarly interests in the field of ancient philosophy, from the Presocratics, through Plato, Aristotle and Hellenistic philosophy, to Plotinus and later Neoplatonism. The honorand himself leads off with a stimulating Apologia, sketching the development of his scholarly interests and dwelling on the issues that have chiefly concerned him. The contributions then follow in...

This book uncovers in the works of Plato and Nietzsche, not some royal road to truth, but rather the intensity of their love and commitment to the life of thought, whatever it discovers and wherever it might lead. Plato explored this in his ubiquitous absence from the adventures of thought depicted in his Dialogues. Nietzsche followed suit with his unrelenting presence as the grim and forceful conscience behind all the masks through which he spoke in his chaotic oeuvre. It is not a matter of biography or of shared doctrine, some favourite thoughts by which their lesser exegetes can keep them...