Xenophon, the Philosopher

However, this scene has begun changing in dribs and drabs, and this book is proof of this turn. In the line of significant works in the area carried out in recent years, in December 2017 a conference was held at the University of Sao Paulo (Brazil), whose host was Daniel Rossi Nunes Lopes. In the framework of joint activities with the group of Buenos Aires led by Claudia Marsico and based on previous works with Rodrigo Illarraga, this meeting was dedicated to reviewing Xenophon’s role in the philosophy of the classical period. The activity reunited Louis-André Dorion, Mariana Gardella, Santiago Chame, Francisco Villar, Gabriel Danzig, Claudia Marsico, Rodrigo Illarraga, Lucia Sano, Breno Battistin Sebastiani and Roberto Bolzani Filho during two days of intense discussion about many passages of the works of this Socratic.

Many conversations dealt with the theoretical features of certain notions raised by Xenophon. They resulted in the project about “Xenophon, the philosopher”, oriented to examine the aspects that received more attention during the conference: argumentation and ethics. To complete this task it was necessary to join forces with top scholars in the area. Fortunately, the project touched a cord, and many outstanding colleagues contributed with their work.

Although it has not been that long since that moment, many things have happened. The world was shocked by a pandemic that has put our communities’ fragility and organizational logic at the forefront. This situation has promoted the attention to topics much discussed by the Socratic group in general and Xenophon in particular. Furthermore, in the middle of so many troubles, the map of the studies in this area has changed. The meeting at Sao Paulo was an opportunity to prepare the SOCRATICA IV conference, held in Buenos Aires in November 2018, when the International Society for Socratic Studies was created, with the active participation of several of the contributors to this book, in the framework of the encounter with scholars from more than twenty-five countries from all over the world. The Executive Committee includes Louis-André Dorion, Gabriel Danzig, Noreen Humble, Rodrigo Illarraga, and Claudia Marsico as its Founding President.

The relevance of the studies about Xenophon in this context is clear, and the impulse to strengthen the international dialogue led to a conference in Bar Ilan, Israel, in November 2019, organized by Gabriel Danzig. This meeting was the occasion to create the International Xenophon Society, with Christopher Tuplin as its first President, who then hosted the conference Xenophon 2021 at Liverpool, gathering dozens of scholars together to discuss Xenophon’s works from multiple angles. The future of these studies is promising and at the forefront of the overall reassessing of traditional views about ancient philosophy. We hope this book will contribute to this task.

An Overview of the Contributions

This book is divided into three sections, each of them gathering chapters with similar approach even if dealing with different Xenophotean works: 1. Explorations on akrasia and happiness; 2. Towards ethical models; and 3. Argumentation and philosophical method.

The first two chapters of the first section are concerned with the notion of akrasia (“Akrasia in Xenophon’s Socrates, in the light of the 5th and 4th century debate over akratic patterns of action”, by Alessandro Stavru; and “On akrasia and enkrateia in Xenophon”, by Olga Chernakhovskaya”). It is well known that in Xenophon’s works akrasia means in general the opposite condition of enkrateia –that is to say, the lack of self-control regarding bodily appetites and pleasures. But to what extent does Xenophon deal with the problem of akrasia understood in a strict sense as described in Plato’s Protagoras and Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics Book VII– namely, being forced by an irrational impulse to act contrarily to what one thinks the better course of action?