This ground-breaking volume explores, for the first time, how ancient philosophers engaged with the phenomenon of indeterminacy. Structured chronologically in 4 clear parts, it charts the development of indeterminate thinking in the pre-Socratics to the Socratics, Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic schools.
Indeterminacy is the theory that our knowledge about things in the world, or the way we speak and think about them, cannot be determined in any reliable or philosophically satisfactory way. An increasingly popular theme in contemporary analytic philosophy, it is a theory that dates back almost three thousand years. Spanning epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of language and more, this collection examines the ancient roots of indeterminacy and showcases the varied perspectives of a wide range of thinkers and texts, from Protagoras and Plato's Theaetetus to Aristotle, the Cryenaics, and the Skeptics. Featuring 22 chapters from an international team of emerging and leading scholars, including Richard Bett, Katja Maria Vogt, and Claudia Mársico, Indeterminacy in Ancient Philosophy is an indispensable research tool. Further enhanced by an Editors' Introduction, providing key theoretical context to indeterminacy and its continued relevance today, this is the place to start for anyone looking to antiquity for new ways to approach the unnerving idea that nothing we know is certain.