Metaphysics and the Modern World makes the abiding questions of the nature of the self, world, and God available for the modern reader. Donald Phillip Verene presents these questions in both their systematic and historical dimensions, beginning with Aristotle's claim in his Metaphysics that philosophy begins in wonder. The first three chapters concern the origin of metaphysics as the transformation of the conception of reality in ancient Greek mythology, the ontological argument as the...
The Science of Cookery and the Art of Eating Well is a philosophical and historical reflection on food and dining in human culture. It includes discussions of the nature of the first meals as found in Greek literature and the philosophy of history of Giambattista Vico, the Roman cookbook of Apicius (the first known cookbook), the cookbook of Artusi (the seminal cookbook of Italian cooking), Brillat-Savarin’s Physiology of Taste, Plutarch’s “Dinner of the Seven Wise Men,” and Athenaeus’ work on...
Philosophical Ideas: A Historical Study invites the reader to consider central ideas from Plato, Hegel, Vico, and Cassirer from points of view that have not been fully articulated in the most frequently encountered interpretations of their works. It is an examination of the ideas of poetics, dialectics, science, and symbol as they function in their works with focus on the problem of knowledge as present in each of them. The history of philosophy, approached in this way, is a treasure house...
