Portrait of Angela Hobbs, philosopher
Reading List
Angela Hobbs
Philosopher
Angela Hobbs is a British philosopher and Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield. The post was created for her, and it was the first of its kind in the United Kingdom.
Her academic work is on ancient Greek thought, particularly moral psychology. Plato and the Hero (2000) examined courage, manliness and the idea of the heroic in Plato’s ethics and politics. She has written extensively on Plato, Aristotle and the Presocratics, and on what ancient philosophy has to say about anger, ambition and the good life.
She appears often on In Our Time and other broadcasts, and has worked to bring philosophy into schools and public debate rather than leaving it inside the university.
The Presocratic Philosophers
A Critical History with a Selection of Texts
by G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven & M. Schofield
“And it includes a number of interesting interpretations. They do give their own views, but they’re fair: they also allude to opposing views. So, it’s a very open-minded and balanced book, and it gives somebody new to the subject a lot of materials to go further. Obviously scholarship continues to move on, so if you want a more up- to-date work, James Warren’s book on the Presocratics is also very good.” — via Interview, October 2015
Ecce Homo
How One Becomes What One Is
by Friedrich Nietzsche
“Nietzsche wants a style, or rather styles, of becoming. So Nietzsche’s style is absolutely an intrinsic part of his meaning here. The form is part of the meaning in just the way it was for Heraclitus. Nietzsche is interested in other Presocratics too, but it is particularly Heraclitus who inspires him. To get a sense of how the Presocratics went on inspiring people, in both form and content, have a look at Ecce Homo.” — via Interview, October 2015
Theaetetus
by Plato
“The detailed linguistic similarities are very compelling. So, actually, we may not always know we’re studying the sophists, but if we read and study Plato’s Theaetetus, which a lot of people do since it’s one of the seminal works in western epistemology, we are actually engaging with some sophistic ideas. And if we read Nietzsche we certainly are. So they’re not exactly lost: they’re just a bit hidden.” — via Interview, October 2015
The Sophistic Movement
by G. B. Kerferd
“Their positions are very often just lumped together in the secondary literature as ‘might is right,’ but Kerferd distinguishes them beautifully. He shows that although both Callicles and Thrasymachus think that conventional morality is a hypocritical and cynical cover for self-interest and not to be trusted, there are nevertheless important differences in their positions about who’s exploiting whom.” — via Interview, October 2015
Early Greek Philosophy
by Jonathan Barnes
“He’s a fine writer as well, so it’s a very good way in. If people enjoy it, then I would recommend that at some point in their studies they go on and read Barnes’s magnum opus on the subject, The Presocratic Philosophers, which is a tougher read but hugely worthwhile. Early Greek Philosophy doesn’t include the sophists — we’ll come on to the sophists in a bit and I’ve got a different book recommendation for that.” — via Interview, October 2015