In the beginning was the word... And the word was eschatology Words, according to the late, great novelist, Evelyn Waugh, "should be an intense pleasure, just as leather should be to a shoemaker". Like the apocrj^hal author whose lifetime ambition was to write a book that ended with the word "mayonnaise", or H.L. Mencken's famous contention that the words "cellar door" comprise the most euphoni...

An abiding puzzle in the Phaedo is transition text from initial pessimism about possibility of wisdom during human life to a more optimistic view. Prominent interpretations posit different kinds or degrees at issue two sets passages. By contrast, I argue that pessimistic view rests on implicit premise soul cannot be completely purified life—a which arises an conception impurity and its cause. I...