About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherCambridge University Press

ISBN-101107050499

ISBN-139781107050495

eBay Product ID (ePID)177427725

Product Key Features

Number of Pages305 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication NameProbabilities, Hypotheticals, and Counterfactuals in Ancient Greek Thought

Publication Year2014

SubjectAncient / Greece, Probability & Statistics / General, History & Surveys / Ancient & Classical, General, Logic

TypeTextbook

AuthorVictoria Wohl

Subject AreaMathematics, Philosophy, History

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height0.9 in

Item Weight20.5 Oz

Item Length9.2 in

Item Width6.2 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceScholarly & Professional

LCCN2014-002500

Dewey Edition23

IllustratedYes

Dewey Decimal180

Table Of ContentIntroduction: eikos in ancient Greek thought Victoria Wohl; 1. Eikos arguments in Athenian forensic oratory Michael Gagarin; 2. Eikos in Plato's Phaedrus Jenny Bryan; 3. Aristotle on the value of 'probability', persuasiveness, and verisimilitude in rhetorical argument James Allen; 4. 'Likely stories' and the political art in Plato's Laws Ryan K. Balot; 5. Open and speak your mind: citizen agency, the likelihood of truth, and democratic knowledge in archaic and classical Greece Vincent Farenga; 6. Counterfactual history and Thucydides Robert Tordoff; 7. Homer's Achaean wall and the hypothetical past Karen Bassi; 8. Play of the improbable: Euripides' unlikely Helen Victoria Wohl; 9. Revision in Greek literary papyri Sean Gurd; 10. Likeness and likelihood in classical Greek art Verity Platt; 11. Why doesn't my baby look like me? Likeness and likelihood in ancient theories of reproduction Daryn Lehoux; 12. Galen on the chances of life Brooke Holmes; 13. Afterword Catherine Gallagher.

SynopsisThis book explores the conceptual terrain defined by the Greek word eikos: the probable, likely, or reasonable. Ranges from the plausible arguments of courtroom speakers to verisimilitude in art and literature, the likelihood of resemblance in human reproduction, the limits of human knowledge and the possibilities of ethical and political agency., This volume explores the conceptual terrain defined by the Greek word eikos: the probable, likely, or reasonable. A term of art in Greek rhetoric, a defining feature of literary fiction, a seminal mode of historical, scientific, and philosophical inquiry, eikos was a way of thinking about the probable and improbable, the factual and counterfactual, the hypothetical and the real. These thirteen original and provocative essays examine the plausible arguments of courtroom speakers and the 'likely stories' of philosophers, verisimilitude in art and literature, the likelihood of resemblance in human reproduction, the limits of human knowledge and the possibilities of ethical and political agency. The first synthetic study of probabilistic thinking in ancient Greece, the volume illuminates a fascinating chapter in the history of Western thought.

LC Classification NumberB187.R35 P76 2014