This book explores various connections of John Stuart Mill’s thought to ancient Greek philosophy primarily in relation to his conception of happiness. It argues that a better understanding of Mill’s background in ancient Greek thought and his reading(s) of Plato’s dialogues leads to innovative interpretations of his moral and political thought.

This edited collection highlights the inquisitive and synthetic aspects of John Stuart Mill's mode of philosophising while exploring various aspects of Mill's thought, intellectual development and influence. The contributors to this volume discuss a number of Mill's ideas including those on political participation, democracy, liberty and justice.

A comprehensive analysis of the international political pronouncements of John Stuart Mill: the pre-eminent thinker of the liberal tradition.

George Grote’s (1794-1871) extensive publications on ancient Greek history and philosophy remain landmarks in the history of classical scholarship. Since the late 20thcentury, lively interest in the works of Grote has seen his profile revived and his ongoing significance highlighted: he has taken up his rightful place among the most celebrated nineteenth-century classical intellectuals. Grote’s critical engagement with Greek historiography and philosophy revolutionized classical studies in his day – a revolution set against both long-established interpretations and prevailing trends in German Altertumswissenschaft. Twenty-first-century scholarship shows that Grote’s works remain lively, sparkling and relevant, as they offers valuable insights that cut across the intellectual borders of the Victorian age. His diligent scholarship, fascination with evidence and sound judgement, intertwined with intriguing and insightful narrative prose, continue to captivate the attention of modern readers. In Brill’s Companion to George Grote and the Classical Tradition Kyriakos N. Demetriou leads a team of prominent scholars to contextualize, unravel and explore Grote’s works as well as provide a critical assessment of his posthumous legacy.

This book characterizes Mill as a political instrumentalist and an epistemic democrat, analyzing the epistemic arguments he uses to support his political proposals. Exploring his endeavor to resolve the conflict between political and epistemic values, it sets the epistemic criteria as a basis for unifying Mill's political thought.

Happiness and Utility brings together experts on utilitarianism to explore the concept of happiness within the utilitarian tradition, situating it in earlier eighteenth-century thinkers and working through some of its developments at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. Drawing on a range of philosophical and historical approaches to the study of the central idea of utilitarianism, the chapters provide a rich set of insights into a founding component of ethics and modern political and economic thought, as well as political and economic practice. In doing so, the chapters examine the multiple dimensions of utilitarianism and the contested interpretations of this standard for judgement in morality and public policy.

Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Socrates, edited by Christopher Moore, provides almost unbroken coverage, across three-dozen studies, of 2450 years of philosophical and literary engagement with Socrates – the singular Athenian intellectual, paradigm of moral discipline, and inspiration for millennia of philosophical, rhetorical, and dramatic composition. Following an Introduction reflecting on the essentially “receptive” nature of Socrates’ influence (by contrast to Plato’s), chapters address the uptake of Socrates by authors in the Classical, Hellenistic, Roman, Late Antique (including Latin Christian, Syriac, and Arabic), Medieval (including Byzantine), Renaissance, Early Modern, Late Modern, and Twentieth-Century periods. Together they reveal the continuity of Socrates’ idiosyncratic, polyvalent, and deep imprint on the history of Western thought, and witness the value of further research in the reception of Socrates.

This Companion offers a state-of-the-art survey of the work of John Stuart Mill — one which covers the historical influences on Mill, his theoretical, moral and social philosophy, as well as his relation to contemporary movements. Its contributors include both senior scholars with established expertise in Mill's thought and new emerging interpreters. Each essay acts as a "go-to" resource for those seeking to understand an aspect of Mill's thought or to familiarise themselves with the contours of a debate within the scholarship. The Companion is a key reference on Mill's theory of liberty and utilitarianism, but also provides a valuable resource on lesser-known aspects of his work, including his epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of language. The volume is divided into six sections. Part I covers Mill's life, his immediate posthumous reputation, and his own telling of his life-story. Part II brings together an accessible and comprehensive summary of the various influences on Mill's thought. Part III offers an account of the foundations of Mill’s philosophy and his thought on key philosophic topics. Parts IV and V tackle issues from Mill's moral and social philosophy. Part VI concludes with a treatment of the broader aspects of Mill’s thought, tracing his relation to major movements in philosophy.

John Stuart Mill considered his A System of Logic, first published in 1843, the methodological foundation and intellectual groundwork of his later works in ethical, social, and political theory. Yet no book has attempted in the past to engage with the most important aspects of Mill's Logic. This volume brings together leading scholars to elucidate the key themes of this influential work, looking at such topics as his philosophy of language and mathematics, his view on logic, induction and deduction, free will, argumentation, ethology and psychology, as well as his account of normativity, kinds of pleasure, philosophical and political method and the "Art of Life."

Despite the increasing concern for the issue of respect for persons displayed over the last decades by political philosophers, human-right thinkers, social and ethical theorists, a comprehensive treatment of the problem at stake from a historical-philosophical perspective is conspicuously absent. The present collection of essays aims to contribute to the fulfillment of this gap by offering a reconstruction of the seminal passages in the history of philosophy which testify to the evolution of the idea of respect for persons and the rich array of conceptual specifications that such an idea acquires across the centuries. By analysis of pivotal texts of ancient and modern contemporary philosophy, the volume will try to offer an articulated account of respect which, starting from its primeval connection with the search for esteem and the pursuit of human excellence, gradually evolves towards the recognition of the political status of each citizen and culminates into a true politics of human rights. Bringing together the expertise of classicists and scholars specialized in modern and contemporary philosophy, the volume is especially intended for scholars working in the fields of the history of philosophy, ethical and political theory.