Ideas about relativity underlie much ancient Greek philosophy, from Protagorean relativism, to Plato's theory of Forms, Aristotle's category scheme, and relational logic. In Ancient Relativity Matthew Duncombe explores how ancient philosophers, particularly Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and Sextus Empiricus, understood the phenomenon and how their theories of relativity affected, and were affected by, their broader philosophical outlooks. He argues that ancient philosophers shared a close-knit family of views referred to as 'constitutive relativity', whereby a relative is not simply linked by a relation but is constituted by it. Plato exploits this view in some key arguments concerning the Forms and the partition of the soul. Aristotle adopts the constitutive view in his discussions of relativity in Categories 7 and the Topics and retains it in Metaphysics Delta 15. Duncombe goes on to examine the role relativity plays in Stoic philosophy, especially Stoic physics and metaphysics, and the way Sextus Empiricus thinks about relativity, which does not appeal to the nature of relatives but rather to how we conceive of things as correlative.

About the Author
Matthew Duncombe is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Nottingham. He held a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at Durham University and was a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Groningen. He studied philosophy and Classics at the University of Cambridge. His research interests focus on ancient Greek philosophy, particularly logic, metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics.

Reviews
This book is a rare kind of achievement in ancient scholarship, dealing as it does with a subject that is understudied and yet, as Duncombe convincingly shows, indispensable for properly understanding ancient philosophical thought on many key topics. Given the range of problems on which the book makes new progress, it will be a rewarding read for just about anyone working on Greek philosophy. * Ian J. Campbell, Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, Journal of the History of Philosophy *



Book Information
ISBN 9780198846185
Author Matthew Duncombe
Format Hardback
Page Count 306
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 602g
Dimensions(mm) 240mm * 158mm * 20mm