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M M McCabe's Top Book Recommendations

Want to know what books M M McCabe recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of M M McCabe's favorite book recommendations of all time.

1
For much of its history, philosophy was not merely a theoretical discipline but a way of life, an "art of living." This practical aspect of philosophy has been much less dominant in modernity than it was in ancient Greece and Rome, when philosophers of all stripes kept returning to Socrates as a model for living. The idea of philosophy as an art of living has survived in the works of such major modern authors as Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Foucault. Each of these writers has used philosophical discussion as a means of establishing what a person is and how a worthwhile life is to be lived. In... more
Recommended by M M McCabe, and 1 others.

M M McCabeNehamas’s book is a tour de force, a book which uses the figure of Socrates as a way of thinking about ‘the art of living’ (Source)

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2
Vlastos's new book begins from the conviction that Socrates strangeness is the key to his philosophy. It is a marvelous book, in which no major aspect of Socrates career is eclipsed. The rigor of his arguments, the depth of his moral commitment and understanding, his complex relationship to Athenian ethical traditions, his rational religion: all this comes to life in writing whose vigor and lucidity put the challenge of Socrates squarely before the reader. less
Recommended by M M McCabe, and 1 others.

M M McCabeIt’s a wonderfully lucid book, a series of chapters that are well-demarcated, a lot of which had their antecedents in separate essays. (Source)

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3

Theaetetus

Set immediately prior to the trial and execution of Socrates in 399 BC, Theaetetus shows the great philosopher considering the nature of knowledge itself, in a debate with the geometrician Theodorus and his young follower Theaetetus. Their dialogue covers many questions, such as: is knowledge purely subjective, composed of the ever-changing flow of impressions we receive from the outside world? Is it better thought of as 'true belief'? Or is it, as many modern philosophers argue, 'justified true belief', in which the belief is supported by argument or evidence? With skill and eloquence,... more
Recommended by M M McCabe, Angela Hobbs, and 2 others.

M M McCabeThe great contemporary translation is by M J Levitt, with a magisterial introduction by Myles Burnyeat (Source)

Angela HobbsPlato’s Theaetetus asks what knowledge is, and several possible definitions are explored in depth. (Source)

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4

Clouds

Text with facing translation, commentary and notes. (Aris and Phillips 1982) less
Recommended by Paul McMullen, M M McCabe, and 2 others.

Paul McMullenIt is a comedy and quite vulgar, which I love. (Source)

M M McCabeIf you read The Clouds and the Apology side by side you get a snapshot of Athens at the end of the Fifth Century (Source)

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5

Five Dialogues

Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo

The second edition of Five Dialogues presents G. M. A. Grube's distinguished translations, as revised by John Cooper for Plato, Complete Works (Hacket, 1997). Cooper has also contributed a number of new or expanded footnotes and updated Suggestions for Further Reading. less

Kenan MalikUnlike earlier Greek philosophers, such as Diagoras and Democritus, Plato believed in the divine, and much of his philosophy flowed from his concept of a transcendental reality. He provided the resources for the later Christian view of goodness as a transcendental quality. But in his dialogue Euthyphro he also provides the classic argument against looking to God as the source of moral values, an... (Source)

Carlos FraenkelReading Plato can be a Socratic exercise because you’re reading a text that is part of the canon of philosophy but it advances views that are opposed to everything you believe in. (Source)

M M McCabeThe philosophical content creeps up on you when you think all this is merely a rhetorical flourish: it’s completely extraordinary. (Source)

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