Gerson, Lloyd P.

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Gerson, Lloyd P.

(L.P. Gerson)

PERSONAL: Male. Education: Grinnell College, B.A.; University of Toronto, M.A., Ph.D.

ADDRESSES: Office—Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto, 81 Saint Mary St., Toronto, Ontario M5S 1J4, Canada; fax: 416-926-2070. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Writer, philosopher, and educator. University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, professor of philosophy.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

(As L.P. Gerson) God and Greek Philosophy: Studies in the Early History of Natural Theology, Routledge (New York, NY), 1990.

Plotinus ("Arguments of the Philosophers" series), Routledge (New York, NY), 1994.

(Author of foreword) R.T. Wallis, Neoplatonism, 2nd edition, Hackett (Indianapolis, IN), 1995.

Knowing Persons: A Study in Plato, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2003.

Aristotle and Other Platonists, Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY), 2005.

TRANSLATOR

(And editor, with Hippocrates G. Apostle) Aristotle, Selected Works, Peripatetic Press (Grinnell, IA), 1982, 3rd edition, 1991.

(And author of commentaries, with Hippocrates G. Apostle) Aristotle's Politics, Peripatetic Press (Grinnell, IA), 1986.

(And author of introduction and notes, with Brad Inwood; as L.P. Gerson) Hellenistic Philosophy: Introductory Readings, Hackett (Indianapolis, IN), 1988, 2nd edition 1997.

(And editor and author of notes, with Brad Inwood; as L.P. Gerson) The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia, Hackett (Indianapolis, IN), 1994.

EDITOR

Graceful Reason: Essays in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy Presented to Joseph Owens, on the Occasion of his Seventy-fifth Birthday and the Fiftieth Anniversary of his Ordination, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1983.

(With others) Hamartia, Edwin Mellen Press (Lewiston, NY), 1983.

The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1996.

Aristotle: Critical Assessments, four volumes, Routledge (New York, NY), 1999.

(With John Dillon) Neoplatonic Philosophy: Introductory Readings, Hackett (Indianapolis, IN), 2004.

(And author of preface) Joseph Owens, Aristotle's Gradations of Being in Metaphysics E-Z, St. Augustine's Press (South Bend, IN), 2005.

Contributor to many books, including Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy, edited by J. Cleary, University Press of America (Washington, DC), 1988; Encyclopedia of Classical Philosophy, edited by Donald J. Zeyl, Greenwood (Westport, CT), 1997; Who Speaks for Plato?, edited by Gerald Press, Rowman & Littlefield (Lanham, MD), 2000; Plato's Forms: Varieties of Interpretation, edited by William Welton, Lexington Books (Lanham, MD), 2003; Plato Ethicus, edited by Maurizio Migliori, Academica Verlag (Sankt Augustin, Germany), 2004.

Contributor to scholarly journals, including the Bryn Mawr Classical Review, Journal of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas, Ancient Philosophy, Journal of the History of Philosophy, Religious Studies, Canadian Philosophical Reviews, and Philosophical Quarterly.

WORK IN PROGRESS: The Morality of Nations: An Aristotelian Approach; editing, with N.D. Smith, Blackwell's Readings in Ancient Philosophy.

SIDELIGHTS: Lloyd P. Gerson is a professor of philosophy who has written, translated, and edited many books on philosophical topics. He has analyzed the works of great philosophers such as Plotinus, Plato, and Aristotle. One such work, published in 1994, is Plotinus, the first book in the Routledge "Arguments of the Philosophers" series. In the book Gerson writes about and analyzes a variety of Plotinus's arguments while emphasizing their importance in relation to Aristotle. This approach is "the most original and valuable aspect of the book," according to Eric D. Perl in the Review of Metaphysics. Perl further commented: "The book is thus of value principally to those who have sufficient familiarity with Plotinus' thought to be able to read it critically, making the most of Gerson's insightful explanations of many individual issues."

In 1996 Gerson edited The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, which M.G.J. Beets, writing in the Review of Metaphysics, called an "attractive, well-produced book." The volume is a collection of scholarly contributions which serves as a research guide to Plotinus's philosophy. Beets also acknowledged that "the reader is provided with all the information he needs to proceed by himself, making it an efficient companion." In addition, Beets noted, "there is no treatise and no facet of Plotinus' philosophy that is not given adequate and expert attention."

Gerson later authored Aristotle and Other Platonists. The book introduces the unconventional idea that the central philosophies of Aristotle and Plato complement each other rather than conflict with one another. Leon H. Brody, writing in Library Journal, felt that the text is "a scholarly, highly technical treatise." Other critics were equally impressed; Michael Ewbank, writing in the Review of Metaphysics, called Aristotle and Other Platonists "remarkable" and thought that "Gerson's thorough reflections … clarify enduring philosophical problems" and "encourage more exacting comprehension of subsequent renown speculators."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Library Journal, December 1, 2004, Leon H. Brody, review of Aristotle and Other Platonists, p. 121.

Review of Metaphysics, December, 1996, Eric D. Perl, review of Plotinus, p. 399; March, 1998, M.G.J. Beets, review of The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, p. 685; September, 2005, Michael Ew-bank, review of Aristotle and Other Platonists, p. 175.