Both of the two main Hellenistic philosophical schools, the Epicureans and the Stoics, can be said to have an explicit theory of concepts that is broadly speaking empiricist. For both of them assume that all concepts originate in experience and that none are innate. But while their respective accounts appear similar, they arise from contrasting worldviews: atomist materialism for the Epicureans, and corporealism and a belief in providence and the all-pervading logos of God for the Stoics. Our chapter aims to piece together these two accounts of concepts and interpret them afresh. We will explore their commonalities and differences, show how they are impacted by the respective philosophical frameworks to which each of them belongs, and highlight their philosophical value.

The rights of the insane, it is usually assumed, were not a prominent concern in early modern Europe, and they have rarely attracted the attention of scholars. However, the social and legal significance of mental disease in various times and places is well known, so it should be no surprise to find that the persons of the insane, and their attendant capacities, obligations and rights, were matters of substance in early modern jurisprudence. This essay shows how in this era the European legal understanding of insanity developed, and how the insane were deprived of many of their rights; but also how some of these were preserved. In the first part, I outline the conceptions of insanity, derived from Roman civil law, that were applied by jurists. We shall see that there were broadly two ways of thinking about madness in legal contexts. The first, which had wide acceptance from antiquity to the sixteenth century, treated all kinds of insanity as legally equivalent forms of irrationality.

The manipulation of risk and uncertainty by decision makers who are more or less rational and are experiencing more or less fear offers a first cut of the crisis (section 1). A second cut enriches the individual-level analysis by attending to organizational malfunctioning as a potential cause of inadvertent nuclear war. In this analysis political agency is widely dispersed across many layers of the American and Russian militaries (section 2). A symposium on nuclear politics refers briefly to “very innovative” work on nuclear issues without engaging with work in science and technology studies (STS) (section 3). Exemplifying large world thinking, it does away with dualities such as rational and irrational, politics and technology, risk and uncertainty. It integrates human agency, organizational functioning and malfunctioning, and politics across all levels. And embedding the observer fully in a world that does not exist “out there,” it acknowledges the importance of the risk-uncertainty conundrum. In the politics of the crisis, its meaning for different actors, and its effect on shaping the complementarity of risk and uncertainty language matters hugely (section 4). The analysis of nuclear politics has shaped profoundly a widely accepted rational model of war (section 5). And the conclusion illustrates the evolution of a crazy nuclear politics (section 6).

The concern of this chapter is with varieties of philosophical humanism and their own conceptions of the nature and significance of science. After an initial characterization of major themes in Renaissance humanism, it describes three main varieties that are evident in twentieth-century European philosophy – humanism as essentialism, humanism as rational subjectivity, and existential humanism. Different varieties of humanism are associated with different conceptions of science, some allied to the sciences, others antipathetic to them, while yet others offer subtler positions. The upshot is that there are different tales to tell about the relationship of (varieties of) philosophical humanism to (conceptions of) science, only some of which fit popular modern celebratory claims about a necessary alliance of humanism and science. If we take a wider look at the history of philosophy, we find ongoing experimentation with forms of humanism and explorations of diverse ways of understanding and evaluating scientific knowledge and ambitions. What we find is what we ought to expect of social, creative, epistemically sophisticated, self-expressive creatures: endless variety.

Chapter 7 offers a culminating test for competing rationalities, given how thoroughly Julian’s and Cyril’s texts are focused on re-narrating episodes from their rival. It returns to three specific arguments to consider if MacIntyre’s further claim about incommensurable forms of reasoning obtains in Julian’s and Cyril’s engagement. Three case studies in rationality, focusing on words (genētos, pronoia, and pistis) used by Julian and Cyril at crucial points in their reasoning, provide occasion to query whether non-intersecting forms of reasoning are at play in these specific arguments. Intellectual impasses on particular topics can suggest, after all, that the traditions inhabited by individuals engaged in intellectual conflict are more broadly incommensurable.

To clarify further the dynamics of the inter-tradition conflict between Cyril and Julian, Chapter 8 turns from Against Julian to Cyril’s similarly named Against Nestorius. These two texts are strikingly similar, almost as if Cyril followed a formal rubric by which to write polemical treatises. Yet Julian was a Hellene, and Nestorius (notwithstanding some of Cyril’s snide intimations) a Christian. Juxtaposing Cyril’s two polemical treatises allows us to see more clearly the inter-tradition narrative conflict with Julian in contrast with the intra-tradition conflict with Nestorius. Cyril and Nestorius presume the same narrative framework, and vis-à-vis the out-narrating dynamic of Cyril’s and Julian’s engagement, the course of their arguments and shape of their rationality show it, even as they reach diametrically opposed conclusions on a question central to their tradition. The chapter concludes with a list of likely features that will mark texts advancing narrative conflict.

Chapter 1 begins with a selective history of Christian–Hellenic intellectual engagement (including a detailed introduction to Julian and Cyril) in order to show simultaneously (1) the historical uniqueness (thus significance) of Julian’s and Cyril’s polemical projects and (2) the fitness of Alasdair MacIntyre’s insights for making sense of their engagement. The second half of the chapter presents MacIntyre’s analysis of the dynamics when “two large-scale systems of thought and practice are in radical disagreement,” with Julian and Cyril in mind. What I call “narrative conflict” is only one part of the theory that emerges from his argument, the complete scope of which pushes us also to consider whether traditions so engaged might have non-intersecting forms of reasoning. The chapter concludes with a brief consideration of what Julian’s and Cyril’s “narrative conflict” might contribute to how we think about religious and philosophical argument in late antiquity.

Temperance is a condition of a person’s physical appetites (for food, drink, and sexual contact) in which those appetites themselves conform to a rational standard. Temperance is possible for human beings because of the sophistication with which we can conceptualize the objects of our appetites and because an appetite’s object is internal to the appetite’s identity. A salmon steak construed as poisoned appeals to our appetite (and thus affects the pleasure of satisfying it) differently than one construed as healthful. Temperance differs from self-control, which doesn’t involve a conformity of the appetites themselves, but imposes rational control on unmodified appetites. The rational standard for temperance is the human good, which is the object of the virtues of caring. Thus, the temperate person’s physical appetites are such that, without being controlled, they fit the person to participate in an order of peace.

Practical wisdom is caring understanding of the good in the situations of a human life. Our emotions are rational to the extent that we care about the real good and are truthful about the facts. The two main kinds of virtues – the virtues of caring and the enkratic virtues – embody different aspects of practical wisdom. On the one side, in compassion, generosity, justice, and sense of duty, we care about and understand our good in its varieties and aspects. On the other side, we know about and know our practical way around ourselves, our shortcomings and the ways they may be mitigated and repaired by use of courage, patience, perseverance, and self-control. The virtues of caring form a coherent ensemble and overall picture of the good, a practical wisdom by which we see our situations in the perspective of a whole life.

This chapter analyzes the Republic’s theory of the tripartite soul regarding the question of self-rule and autonomy. Only when the soul is in the ideal position of having reason positioned as sovereign ruler can a person be seen as acting autonomously. But it is not clear that when reason rules, it also motivates actions. Christine M. Korsgaard has argued that personal decision-making should be seen as analogous to political decision-making. She conceives of political decisions as a process where requests for action spring from the people, while rulers suffice to say yes or no. This chapter claims that this analysis is inadequate as a theory of how Plato portrays the relationship between the parts of the soul and of decision-making in general, and offers an alterantive interpreation in terms of what is called the Complex Model of Decision-Making.

In the Republic, Socrates sets up rational self-rule, archein hautou, as the ideal state, with what we might call rational other-rule as second best (590d3-5). This paper will focus on the role of dialectic in the process of establishing self-rule from two perspectives: an agent having been raised by an educational program under ideal political conditions, focusing on the Republic; and an agent trying to engage in philosophical self-improvement under non-ideal political conditions, focusing on the Hippias Major. This may be seen as a contrast between a top-down and a bottom-up approach to establishing rational self-rule. My thesis is that, in both cases, an intermediate or provisional form of rational self-rule needs to be established in order to achieve full self-rule, and that, in both approaches, the provisional state of rational self-rule shares some important features of the final state of rational self-rule, what we might call wisdom, but these are different features in the two cases.