The original Harvard Classics Collection contains 51 volumes of the essential works of world literature, showing the progress of man from antics to modern age. In this edition, the original collection is supplemented with the 20 volume Harvard Shelf of Fiction, a selection of the greatest works of fiction.Content:The Harvard Classics:V. 1: Franklin, Woolman & PennV. 2: Plato, Epictetus & Marcus AureliusV. 3: Bacon, Milton, BrowneV. 4: John Milton

* Book : Parmenides* Biography* BibliographyThe awe with which Plato regarded the character of 'the great' Parmenides has extended to the dialogue which he calls by his name. None of the writings of Plato have been more copiously illustrated, both in ancient and modern times, and in none of them have the interpreters been more at variance with one another. Nor is this surprising. For the Parmenides is more fragmentary and isolated than any other dialogue, and the desi...

* Book : Charmides* Biography* BibliographyPERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Socrates, who is the narrator, Charmides, Chaerephon, Critias.SCENE: The Palaestra of Taureas, which is near the Porch of the King Archon.Yesterday evening I returned from the army at Potidaea, and having been a good while away, I thought that I should like to go and look at my old haunts. So I went into the palaestra of Taureas, which is over against the temple adjoining the porch of ...

* Book : Euthydemus* Biography* BibliographyThe Euthydemus, though apt to be regarded by us only as an elaborate jest, has also a very serious purpose. It may fairly claim to be the oldest treatise on logic; for that science originates in the misunderstandings which necessarily accompany the first efforts of speculation. Several of the fallacies which are satirized in it reappear in the Sophistici Elenchi of Aristotle and are retained at the end of our manuals of logi...

* Book : Theaetetus* Biography* BibliographyPersons of the dialogue: Socrates; Theodorus; TheaetetusScene: Euclid and Terpsion meet in front of Euclid's house in Megara; they enter the house, and the dialogue is read to them by a servant.Euclid. Have you only just arrived from the country, Terpsion?Terpsion. No, I came some time ago: and I have been in the Agora looking for you, and wondering that I could not find you.Euc. But I was not...

* Book : Ion* Biography* BibliographyPERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Socrates, Ion.Socrates: Welcome, Ion. Are you from your native city of Ephesus?Ion: No, Socrates; but from Epidaurus, where I attended the festival of Asclepius.Soc.: And do the Epidaurians have contests of rhapsodes at the festival?Ion: O yes; and of all sorts of musical performers.Soc.: And were you one of the competitors and did you succeed?Ion: I obtained ...

* Book : Statesman* Biography* BibliographyIn the Phaedrus, the Republic, the Philebus, the Parmenides, and the Sophist, we may observe the tendency of Plato to combine two or more subjects or different aspects of the same subject in a single dialogue. In the Sophist and Statesman especially we note that the discussion is partly regarded as an illustration of method, and that analogies are brought from afar which throw light on the main subject. And in his later writi...

* Book : Critias* Biography* BibliographyTimaeus: How thankful I am, Socrates, that I have arrived at last, and, like a weary traveller after a long journey, may be at rest! And I pray the being who always was of old, and has now been by me revealed, to grant that my words may endure in so far as they have been spoken truly and acceptably to him; but if unintentionally I have said anything wrong, I pray that he will impose upon me a just retribution, and the just retr...

Apologie de Socrate est un livre du philosophe grec Platon, qui rapporte le discours de défense de son maître Socrate, lors de son procès en 399 av. J.-C. Socrate est accusé d'impiété et de corruption de la jeunesse, et il tente de réfuter ces accusations en exposant sa conception de la philosophie et de la vertu. Il est finalement condamné à mort et accepte son sort avec sérénité. Le livre est considéré comme un chef-d'œuvre de la littérature et de la pensée antique, et comme un témoignag...

Partout en Europe, et indépendamment des scandales qui les traversent, les Églises chrétiennes font face à des difficultés majeures et voient de plus en plus de fidèles déserter leurs rangs. On pourrait sans doute s'en réjouir. Après tout, la religion peut être perçue comme une force obscurantiste et réactionnaire, voire archaïque, un obstacle dressé face aux choix rationnels et aux élans émancipateurs de la modernité.Le célèbre sociologue Hartmut Rosa, lui, suggère une tout autre a...

Cette maudite race humaine regroupe cinq textes d’un recueil de courts essais de Mark Twain, écrits à la fin de sa vie, publiés de manière posthume en anglais et encore jamais traduits en français. Tendre satire sur « le complexe de supériorité » de l’homme, cette volée de flèches désopilante sur la tendance anthropo-centrée de l’homme, révèle - s’il en était encore besoin - la causticité irrévérencieuse de cet auteur culte. Avec une préface de Nancy Huston.

Avec une nouvelle préface inédite de l'auteur.« Un prodige. » Le Monde des LivresIl y a 100 000 ans, la Terre était habitée par au moins six espèces différentes d'hominidés. Une seule a survécu. Nous, les Homo Sapiens.Comment notre espèce a-t-elle réussi à dominer la planète ? Pourquoi nos ancêtres ont-ils uni leurs forces pour créer villes et royaumes ? Comment en sommes-nous arri...