Proclus - or Proclus of Athens, as he is sometimes known - is widely and rightly considered to be one of the most significant later Neoplatonist philosophers. At age 40 (c.437 CE) or so, Proclus became head of the revived Plato’s Academy in Athens. In his role for the next 50 years, the unmarried Proclus worked hard, combining effectively the roles of administrator, teacher and writer. Astronomy, ethics, mathematics, physics, theology - Proclus tackled all of those topics that together fell under the umbrella of philosophy in his time.

Aristotle's Metaphysics was the first major study of the subject of metaphysics - in other words, an inquiry into 'first philosophy', or 'wisdom'. It differs from Physics which is concerned with the natural world: things which are subject to the laws of nature, things that move and change, are measurable. In Metaphysics, the study falls on 'being qua being' - being insofar as it is being; the causes and principles of being, the causes and principles of substances.

This small audiobook provides a biographical outline of Plotinus' life and work as described by Porphyry. Also included is an essay by Plotinus on beauty.

The Treatise on the Reintegration of Beings of Martinez de Pasqually (c.1727-1774) was partially finished at his death. It was intended to be a full commentary on the Pentateuch, and that which we have was composed during the period when Pierre Fournié and Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin were his personal secretaries.

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. His writings cover many subjects including physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, psychology, linguistics, economics, politics and government.

Man and His Symbols owes its existence to one of Jung's own dreams. The great psychologist dreamed that his work was understood by a wide public, rather than just by psychiatrists, and therefore he agreed to write and edit this fascinating book. Here, Jung examines the full world of the unconscious, whose language he believed to be the symbols constantly revealed in dreams.

Aristotle’s Organon comprises six key essays on logic, initially collected by Theophrastus, his successor as head of the Peripatetic school, and given its final form by Andronicus some three centuries later. The six essays are: Categories, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, Topics and On Sophistical Refutations. One of the principal topics of Aristotle’s focus is syllogism, in which two premises (one major, one minor) lead to a conclusion. This features in Prior Analytics and On Interpretation.

Philosophical Investigations was published in 1953, two years after the death of its author. In the preface written in Cambridge in 1945 where he was professor of philosophy he states: ‘Four years ago I had occasion to re-read my first book (the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus) and to explain its ideas to someone. It suddenly seemed to me that I should publish those old thoughts and the new ones together: that the latter could be seen in the right light only by contrast with and against the background of my old way of thinking.’

Among the many important historical documents from the Classical world of Greece and Rome The Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus is one of the most distinctive and characterful. Josephus (37-c100 CE) set out with the clear purpose of telling the history of the Jews from the creation in Genesis to the Jewish revolt against the Romans in 66 CE. Born in Jerusalem as Yosef ben Matityahu, he rose to become a leading participant in the First Jewish Revolt (66-73 CE).

Plutarch (c. AD 46-AD 120) was born to a prominent family in the small Greek town of Chaeronea, about 20 miles east of Delphi in the region known as Boeotia. His best known work is the Parallel Lives, a series of biographies of famous Greeks and Romans, arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues and vices. The surviving lives contain 23 pairs, each with one Greek life and one Roman life as well as four unpaired single lives.

The Consolation of Philosophy is one of the key works in the rich tradition of Western philosophy, partly because of the circumstances in which it was written. Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (c480-c524) was of aristocratic Roman birth and became consul and then master of offices at Ravenna, one of the highest posts under the Ostrogothic Roman ruler Theodoric. But Boethius was unjustly charged with treason in 524, and this led to house arrest, then torture and execution.

Xenophon was a friend of Socrates, and yet his concise memories of the iconic philosopher have lived under the shadow of the more voluminous accounts by Plato. Yet Xenophon’s two works are, in many ways, more entertaining and more accessible, and they present a different view of the man who embodies a clear mind, temperate, ethical living, sharp intellect and humour.

Perhaps one of the most revolutionary works of philosophy ever presented, The Phenomenology of Spirit is Hegel's 1807 work that is in numerous ways extraordinary. A myriad of topics are discussed, and explained in such a harmoniously complex way that the method has been termed Hegelian dialectic. Ultimately, the work as a whole is a remarkable study of the mind's growth from its direct awareness to scientific philosophy, proving to be a difficult yet highly influential and enduring work.

This recording contains four important and related works by Heidegger: 'What Is Philosophy', 'What Is Metaphysics', 'On the Essence of Truth' and 'The Question of Being'.

Although it was originally published in 1892, Early Greek Philosophy by John Burnet remains unquestionably one of the most respected and admired surveys of the pre-Socratics. It is an illuminating springboard into classical Greek philosophy.

Plotinus, born in Lycopolis, Egypt, when it was part of the Roman Empire, was a major figure in the philosophical school later called Neoplatonism. Neoplatonists viewed reality as deriving from a single force or figure expressed as 'the One'. Two further concepts from Plotinus, 'the Intellect' and 'the Soul', are also principal features of his philosophy. These proposals led to the work of Plotinus forming a bridge between Plato and the monotheistic religions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam as well as Gnosticism.

Proclus - or Proclus of Athens, as he is sometimes known - is widely and rightly considered to be one of the most significant later Neoplatonist philosophers. At age 40 (c.437 CE) or so, Proclus became head of the revived Plato’s Academy in Athens. In his role for the next 50 years, the unmarried Proclus worked hard, combining effectively the roles of administrator, teacher and writer. Astronomy, ethics, mathematics, physics, theology - Proclus tackled all of those topics that together fell under the umbrella of philosophy in his time.

Origen (c. 185-c. 253) was the most influential Christian theologian before Augustine, the founder of Biblical study as a serious discipline in the Christian tradition, and a figure with immense influence on the development of Christian spirituality. This volume presents a comprehensive and accessible insight into Origen's life and writings, written and compiled by Joseph W. Trigg, a leading Origen authority. An introduction analyzes the principal influences that formed him as a Christian and as a thinker.

The Consolation of Philosophy is one of the key works in the rich tradition of Western philosophy, partly because of the circumstances in which it was written. Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (c480-c524) was of aristocratic Roman birth and became consul and then master of offices at Ravenna, one of the highest posts under the Ostrogothic Roman ruler Theodoric. But Boethius was unjustly charged with treason in 524, and this led to house arrest, then torture and execution.

This small audiobook provides a biographical outline of Plotinus' life and work as described by Porphyry. Also included is an essay by Plotinus on beauty.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), 1st Viscount St Albans, Attorney General and then Lord Chancellor of England, was an immensely learned, clever and ambitious man, with considerable political influence. However, he was also a philosopher with a wide interest in science, medicine and the classification of knowledge. Throughout his life he wrote a series of essays - following the manner set particularly by Montaigne, though extending back to Aristotle and others - the first 10 of which appeared in 1597.

The influence of Plato, his Dialogues and his ‘Academy', cast a long shadow. Around 35 Dialogues, almost all featuring Socrates as the principal figure, are generally ascribed to Plato and form one of the most important threads in Western philosophy. These four Dialogues may fall into the ‘Attributed Texts' category, but they are of sufficient interest to warrant study in our time and when set against the principal canon.

On May 8, 1373, 30-year-old Julian of Norwich, sick and near death, had a series of visions of Christ. In these 16 visions she learnt about God's loving nature. God in Julian's visions was not angry and wrathful. Instead, the three properties of God were presented as life, love and light, and all of His creation was good, including his servant, man. In Julian's version, Man is not to blame for his sin; instead it is something that he must experience and overcome in his spiritual journey with God.

The rise of Rome is one of the great stories of world history and fortunately we have a reliable and at times an eyewitness account, from the Greek historian Polybius of Megalopolis. Polybius reports on the main confrontations with the authority of a man who was present at many events and also visited historic sites of importance to ensure his accounts of the past were accurate.

Beginning at the end of Augustus' reign, Tacitus's Annals examines the rules of the Roman emperors from Tiberius to Nero (though Caligula's books are lost to us). Their dramas and scandals are brought fully under the spotlight, as Tacitus presents a catalog of their murders, atrocities, sexual improprieties, and other vices in no unsparing terms. Debauched, cruel, and paranoid, they are portrayed as being on the verge of madness. Their wars and battles, such as the war with the Parthians, are also described with the same scrutinizing intensity.

First published in 1621, and hardly ever out of print since, it is a huge, varied, idiosyncratic, entertaining and learned survey of the experience of melancholy, seen from just about every possible angle that could be imagined. The Anatomy of Melancholy, presented here with all the original quotations in English, is, at last, available on audiobook in its entirety.

The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, which appeared first in 1901 and was then expanded in a series of subsequent editions, has proved to be one of Freud's most popular works, and one of his most influential during his lifetime. It was here that he proposed that many slips and errors of memory common to the average man in everyday life actually signals unconscious issues that beset the individual, and, if examined, can be extremely revealing.

Here, in this second collection of Socratic Dialogues from Plato's Early Period, read by David Rintoul as Socrates with a full cast, are contrasting six works. Often, as with Gorgias, which opens the recording, Socrates combats the popular subjects of sophistry and rhetoric, in direct conversation with Gorgias (a leading sophist teacher), and with one of his pupils, Callicles.

Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (46 ce - after 119) was born in Chaeronea, Boeotia, to a wealthy Greek family. He made the most of his varied background and experience as a philosopher, magistrate, ambassador and priest at the Delphic Temple of Apollo, to become one of the most important biographers and essayists of classical Greek and Roman times. Parallel Lives is his best-known text. But Moralia, his collection of essays on a rich variety of subjects, continues to fascinate and educate. Translations by Richard Shilleto.

Aristotle’s Organon comprises six key essays on logic, initially collected by Theophrastus, his successor as head of the Peripatetic school, and given its final form by Andronicus some three centuries later. The six essays are: Categories, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, Topics and On Sophistical Refutations. One of the principal topics of Aristotle’s focus is syllogism, in which two premises (one major, one minor) lead to a conclusion. This features in Prior Analytics and On Interpretation.