In the course of discussing the nature of justice in the first book of the Republic, a number of claims are made concerning the nature of technê and what it is to be skilful or to have an ability. Nawar shows how three of these claims, which do significant conceptual work in both Plato and Aristotle, can be explained and defended. The first claim, by Socrates, concerns the ‘two-way’ nature of certain skills. For instance, the person who is skilful at hitting is not only proficient at hitting well, but also proficient at avoiding being hit. The second claim, by Thrasymachus, is that the practitioner of a technê is, in a certain way, infallible and cannot fail to bring about what they intend. The third claim, made by Socrates, is that technai are not value-neutral, but rather are directed at the good of their object. Namar examines these claims, clarifies them, and attempts to explain them (so far as possible). Furthermore, he shows that these claims play an important role in Aristotle’s thought and examines how Aristotle aims to incorporate or adapt these claims in his own discussion of the modal and teleological aspects of skills and rational capacities.

How far is it possible to reconstruct the content of the ‘art of citizenship’ (politikê technê) professed by Protagoras in the dialogue Protagoras? Some commentators have claimed that Protagoras’ statements about the technê are incoherent. Examining this claim, Hussey argues that, while Protagoras can be defended on the charge of incoherence, his exposition of the nature and content of the technê he professes to possess and teach is radically incomplete in several ways. The question then arises whether the Theaetetus can be used to fill in the gaps that Protagoras of the Protagoras left for good practical reasons. If Protagoras’ remarks on truth and wisdom and the ‘changing of perceptions’ in the Theaetetus are taken in a pragmatist way, they imply a conception of a ‘technê of citizenship’ that is capable of improving/transforming human nature, and creating a public political consensus and a stable democratic society. There are many illuminating parallels to be drawn throughout, between the claims of Plato’s Protagoras for his ‘political art’ and the description of the medical art given in the pseudo-Hippocratic essay On Ancient Medicine. (It is assumed, but not argued, that Plato’s Protagoras is a substantially faithful portrait of the historical Protagoras.)

The conclusion sums up the work, indicating the core elements shared by (Hellenic) theories of daimonification along with (Jewish and Christian) theories of angelification. One common element is the link of virtue (ethical transformation) with physical and cognitive transformation. It is this persistent link that allows ancient theories of posthuman transformation to serve as correctives for current Transhumanist visions of posthuman enhancement. Transhumanists often speak of cognitive and physical improvements with no robust reflection on ethical or moral improvement. Posthuman enhancement must never be defined apart from morality, but in terms of it. Morality cannot simply be programmed from without, nor can it be governed by the overall value of personal autonomy.

Philo of Alexandria (about 20 BCE–50 CE) applied the logic of Platonic daimonification to the Jewish lawgiver Moses. Philo is important for three reasons: he did theoretical work identifying angels, daimones, and pure human souls. He also discussed why an angelic soul such as the pre-incarnate Moses would arrive on earth in flesh. Finally, Philo’s depiction of Moses as a living law in complete control of his emotions reinforced the ethical emphasis of the tradition. Philo's portrayal of Moses as a king descended from heaven best resembles the thought of the Hermetic Kore Kosmou.

One of Plato’s successors, Xenocrates (395–314 BCE), envisioned the human soul as daimonic after death but still subject to fluctuating emotions. He proposed a kind of purgatory in the region below the moon. Daimones who became pure from negative affections traveled from moon to sun to become daimonic minds, ideas more fully developed by Plutarch, Apuleius of Madauros (about 124–190 CE), and Maximus of Tyre (about 180 CE).

This chapter concerns the Aristotelian Feelings. Aristotle provides a list of the feelings in Nicomachean Ethics II 5, but he fails to give any analysis of their inner workings. For that we need to turn to Aristotle’s Rhetoric II 1-11 and passages from his de Anima. While it is a controversial matter to appeal to texts outside the Nicomachean Ethics, I argue that it is possible to draw important lessons from these texts for the interpretation of the Ethics while keeping sight of the major differences between the scope and often of the content of these different works. Two important features of the feelings that emerge from such an examination are: (1) that the feelings provide indexical insight – information about the immediate context of choice and action; and (2) that the feelings, while motivational, only get their direction from a person’s character and the particular circumstances that person is in. For example, sympathy (eleos) may motivate one to help someone in need if one is a good person, or it may motivate one to turn away, if one is a bad person.

Chapter 8 presents angelification in the Christian apocalypse Zostrianos. Zostrianos is the mysterious reputed author of the longest tractate in the Nag Hammadi library (NHC VIII,8.1). The first known reception of this text was by Christians, one-time friends of Plotinus who tried to fit into his philosophical circle at Rome. Zostrianos ascends into four extra-cosmic dimensions in which he experiences successively higher forms of angelification. The text of Zostrianos is designed to lead its readers into contemplative ascent prefaced by a life of purifying virtues. These virtues completely cut one off from the structures of civic society in an effort to generate an angelic subjectivity on earth.

Chapter 7 concerns to kalon and music. According to Aristotle, virtue of character and happiness are examples of to kalon, and the good person, who acts and feels correctly, does so for the sake of to kalon. While to kalon clearly means “the beautiful” in certain other contexts, there is a major debate in Aristotelian scholarship about whether to kalon has an aesthetic aspect in Aristotle’s ethics. I briefly discuss some aesthetic ideas in Aristotle’s Metaphysics, biological works, and Poetics, showing how they carry over into his ethics. I then raise some objections to the structural view of to kalon in Aristotle’s ethics. Next I discuss the ethical dimension to music – the importance of music for moral education, including a discussion of fear and sympathy and a reprise of the Philoctetes. This is followed by a discussion of the musical dimension to ethics, with music providing the best metaphor for describing the interdependence of the good person’s thought and feelings. Finally, I address the question what it means for the good person to act for the sake of to kalon, and I provide some reflections on music, contemplation, and the happy life.