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Philosophy Graduate Student Portfolio Papers Guide

Guide for portfolio papers

Items in Bold are available via online access from Emory's collections.

Last Updated: February 2022 by Kyle Tanaka

Presocratics

Editions

The above volume is the one specified by the graduate student handbook. No edition is specified, and the list of figures differs slightly from the first to the second edition. The figures and texts included in the second edition are as follows:

  • The Milesians
    • Thales
    • Anaximander
    • Anaximenes
  • Pythagoras (and early Pythagoreanism)
  • Xenophanes
  • Heraclitus
  • Parmenides
  • Zeno
  • Empedocles
  • Anaxagoras
  • Leucippus and Democritus
  • Melissus
  • Philolaus
  • Diogenes
  • The Sophists
    • Protagoras
    • Gorgias
    • Prodicus
    • Hippias
    • Antiphon
  • The Derveni Papyrus

 

For alternate translations, it may also be helpful to consult the following editions:

For the Greek, consult the following volumes:

 

Resources:

Online Resources:

Bibliographies:

Works on the Presocratics:

Plato

Editions

The above volume, Cooper's Complete Works, is generally regarded as the standard English translation of Plato's works. Individual dialogues within this volume are not all translated by the same translator(s). The table of contents, which specifies which translator worked on each dialogue, can be found at Hackett's site here: https://www.hackettpublishing.com/philosophy/complete-works.

For those who do not understand Ancient Greek, the Clarendon series of translations may be helpful.  These volumes, in addition to offering translations of the dialogues, are accompanied by extensive commentary from a scholar well-versed in the subtleties of the Ancient Greek language. Click here to see which of these volumes are available in Emory's collection.

For the original Greek, there are multiple options available.

  1. The Oxford Classical Texts Plato Opera (Works). Published by Oxford University Press, these are generally considered to be the standard editions of Plato's works in Greek.
  2. The Perseus Digital Library at Tufts. The Perseus Library houses an extensive collection of historical texts, including Greco-Roman authors. The full list of Greco-Roman authors (including Plato) can be found here: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/collection?collection=Perseus:collection:Greco-Roman. Helpfully, Perseus also includes a search engine, various historical out-of-copyright translations, and a vocabulary tool. You can also click on individual words in the Greek to bring up options to find that term elsewhere and to see its definitions in dictionaries like the Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek-English Lexicon.
  3. The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG). The TLG is digital collection focused specifically on Greek works, from Homer onwards.
  4. The Loeb Classical Library Collection. The Loeb editions helpfully have the English translation with the Greek en face. Loeb editions are not all shelved together in the collection, but can nevertheless (usually) be easily spotted by their signature green covers. Click here to see the list of Loeb Plato titles in Emory's collection.

 

Resources:

Online Resources:

Bibliographies:

Works on Plato:

Aristotle

Editions

The above volume, Barnes' Complete Works, is generally regarded as the standard English translation of Aristotle's works. Individual books within this volume are not all translated by the same translator(s).

For the original Greek, the safe choice for the standard edition is Bekker:

You can also view scans of the original 1831 Bekker edition online here:

Because the manuscripts of Aristotle's works went through so many historical editorships, organizations, editions, etc., other editions besides Bekker's are sometimes used, although all should have reference to the standard "Bekker numbers." The standard editions for the portfolio texts are as follows (click the links to see the item in Emory's collection):

You may also find it helpful to consult the Aristoteles Latinus database, which includes the complete corpus of medieval Greek-Latin translations of Aristotle's works.

Other options for reading Aristotle's works in Greek include:

  1. The Perseus Digital Library at Tufts. The Perseus Library houses an extensive collection of historical texts, including Greco-Roman authors. The full list of Greco-Roman authors (including Aristotle) can be found here: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/collection?collection=Perseus:collection:Greco-Roman. Helpfully, Perseus also includes a search engine, various historical out-of-copyright translations, and a vocabulary tool. You can also click on individual words in the Greek to bring up options to find that term elsewhere and to see its definitions in dictionaries like the Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek-English Lexicon.
  2. The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG). The TLG is digital collection focused specifically on Greek works, from Homer onwards.
  3. The Loeb Classical Library Collection. The Loeb editions helpfully have the English translation with the Greek en face. Loeb editions are not all shelved together in the collection, but can nevertheless (usually) be easily spotted by their signature green covers. Click here to see the list of Loeb Aristotle titles in Emory's collection.

 

Resources:

Online Resources:

Bibliographies:

General Works on Aristotle:

Items in Bold are available via online access from Emory's collections.

Literature on Specific Works

 

The Cambridge Critical Guide series has a number of volumes on works by Aristotle. You can see which of these guides are available in Emory's collection by clicking here.

Marcus Aurelius

Editions

Although there is no universally-accepted standard translation of the Meditations into English, Farquharson's translation is commonly cited, although it is a slightly older translation (originally 1944). More recent translations that are also used by scholars include the Hammond (2006) and Hard (2011).

Because of the unusual history of the Meditations (it was not published until 1558, despite being written probably in the last years of Aurelius' life, from roughly 161-180 CE), even "standard editions" of the Meditations in the original Greek are disputed. Nevertheless, the following texts are helpful to consult when considering what Aurelius wrote:

 

Online Resources:

Bibliographies:

Secondary Literature:

Sextus Empiricus

Editions

(*Note: some editions render the title as "Outlines of Pyrrhonism," or "Pyrrhonian Outlines" (PH) rather than "Outlines of Skepticism")

The Bury translation, above, is generally taken as the standard translation of Sextus's works. However, the translation is quite old (1933), a bit dated, and contains a few inaccuracies in its translation. As a result, occasionally the following more recent translations are used:

For the original Greek, Mutschmann is the standard edition:

Resources:

Online Resources:

Bibliographies:

Works on Sextus & Skepticism:

Plotinus

Editions

The above translation by Armstrong is generally considered to be the best available English translation; older translations of Plotinus suffer from not having access to the complete critical edition, which was not published until 1973. MacKenna's translation is one such case (translated in 1969), although it contains numerous notes on translation and correction that may be helpful to consult:

The standard edition of the Greek is the Henry and Schwyzer volumes:

Resources:

Online Resources:

Bibliographies:

Works on Plotinus and Neoplatonism:

Laozi (Lao-Tzu)

Editions

The above edition, Lau's translation, is commonly used, but there is no commonly-accepted, standard translation of the Tao te ching; this is in part because the primary text itself comes in multiple forms: Heshang Gong (河上公), Wang Bi (王弼), Fu Yi (傅奕), Mawangdui (Ma-wang-tui), and Guodian, and in part because the text has been translated so many times. The most traditional of the original texts are the Heshang Gong and Wang Bi as they are the earliest, most complete versions. The Mawangdui version was not discovered until the 1970s and the Guodian not until 1993. Accordingly, the reader may wish to consult other editions and translations of the text. These include:

As mentioned above, multiple versions of the Tao te ching exist in Chinese. There are, accordingly, several resources worth consulting:

  • Liu Xiaogan 劉笑敢. Laozi gujin (老子古今). 2 vols. Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui kexue chubanshe, 2006.
    • Compares and interprets five different versions of the Tao te ching
  • Tao Te Ching (Wang Bi version)
    • An online version of the Wang Bi version
  • Tao Te Ching (Heshang Gong version)
    • An online version of the Heshang Gong version

An extremely thorough list of translations and versions of the Tao te ching can be found here: https://terebess.hu/english/tao/_index.html

 

Resources:

Online Resources:

Bibliographies:

Works on Laozi and Taoism:

Items in Bold are available via online access from Emory's collections.

Confucius

Editions

The difficulty of translating the Analects (Lun Yu) into English manifests itself in the lack of consensus of a standard English translation. Still, the above translations by Lau and Slingerland are commonly used. Other translations of the Analects the reader may wish to consult include:

Several resources online are helpful when considering the Analects in Chinese:

 

Resources:

Online Resources:

Bibliographies:

Works on Confucius and Confucianism:

Items in Bold are available via online access from Emory's collections.

Zhuangzi (Chuang-Tzu)

Editions

The above edition is the one specified by the portfolio guide. However, if publication is the ultimate intent of the paper, the following editions should also be consulted:

The Zhuangzi, like many ancient texts, has a complicated history. The "Inner Chapters" are generally thought to be the oldest part of the text, and perhaps the only part written by Zhuangzi himself. The "Outer" and "Miscellaneous" chapters, by contrast, are often thought to be additions by later schools. Exactly which parts of the text were written when and should be ascribed to whom is a matter of ongoing debate. In any case, one may consult the original text in the following sources:

 

  • Zhuangzi Yinde (A Concordance to Chuang Tzu), Harvard-Yenching Institute Sinological Index Series, Supplement no. 20, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1956.
    • The standard source for the original text of the Zhuangzi.
  • The Chinese Text Project
    • Includes the full Chinese text of the Zhuangzi alongside the Legge translation.

 

Resources:

Online Resources:

Bibliographies:

Works on Zhuangzi and Daoism:

Items in Bold are available via online access from Emory's collections.

The Upanishads (Vedānta)

Editions

The Olivelle translation of the Upanishads, above, is generally taken to be the standard English translation of the work. However, it may also be worth consulting the following editions:

The standard edition of the original Sanskrit text is as follows:

Resources:

Online Resources:

Bibliographies:

Works on the Upanishads and Vedānta Hinduism

Items in Bold are available via online access from Emory's collections.