Preface by Patricia Williams ix
Introduction by Myles Burnyeat xiii
Greek: General
Chapter One: The Legacy of Greek Philosophy 3
Chapter Two: The Women of Trachis: Fictions, Pessimism, Ethics 49
Chapter Three: Understanding Homer: Literature, History and Ideal Anthropology 60
Socrates and Plato
Chapter Four: Pagan Justice and Christian Love 71
Chapter Five: Introduction to Plato's Theaetetus 83
Chapter Six: Plato against the Immoralist 97
Chapter Seven: The Analogy of City and Soul in Plato's Republic 108
Chapter Eight: Plato's Construction of Intrinsic Goodness 118
Chapter Nine: Cratylus' Theory of Names and Its Refutation 138
Chapter Ten: Plato: The Invention of Philosophy 148
Aristotle
Chapter Eleven: Acting as the Virtuous Person Acts 189
Chapter Twelve: Aristotle on the Good: A Formal Sketch 198
Chapter Thirteen: Justice as a Virtue 207
Chapter Fourteen: Hylomorphism 218
Descartes
Chapter Fifteen: Descartes' Use of Scepticism 231
Chapter Sixteen: Introductory Essay on Descartes' Meditations 246
Chapter Seventeen: Descartes and the Historiography of Philosophy 257
Hume
Chapter Eighteen: Hume on Religion 267
Sidgwick
Chapter Nineteen: The Point of View of the Universe: Sidgwick and the Ambitions of Ethics 277
Nietzsche
Chapter Twenty: Nietzsche's Minimalist Moral Psychology 299
Chapter Twenty-One: Introduction to The Gay Science 311
Chapter Twenty-Two: "There are many kinds of eyes" 325
Chapter Twenty-Three: Unbearable Suffering 331
R. G. Collingwood
Chapter Twenty-Four: An Essay on Collingwood 341
Wittgenstein
Chapter Twenty-Five: Wittgenstein and Idealism 361
Bernard Williams: Complete Philosophical Publications 381

Before his death in 2003, Bernard Williams planned to publish a collection of historical essays, focusing primarily on the ancient world. This posthumous volume brings together a much wider selection, written over some forty years. His legacy lives on in this masterful work, the first collection ever published of Williams's essays on the history of philosophy. The subjects range from the sixth century B.C. to the twentieth A.D., from Homer to Wittgenstein by way of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Sidgwick, Collingwood, and Nietzsche. Often one would be hard put to say which part is history, which philosophy. Both are involved throughout, because this is the history of philosophy written philosophically. Historical exposition goes hand in hand with philosophical scrutiny. Insights into the past counteract blind acceptance of present assumptions.
In his touching and illuminating introduction, Myles Burnyeat writes of these essays: "They show a depth of commitment to the history of philosophy seldom to be found nowadays in a thinker so prominent on the contemporary philosophical scene."
The result celebrates the interest and importance to philosophy today of its near and distant past.
The Sense of the Past is one of three collections of essays by Bernard Williams published by Princeton University Press since his death. In the Beginning Was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument, selected, edited, and with an introduction by Geoffrey Hawthorn, and Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline, selected, edited, and with an introduction by A. W. Moore, make up the trio.

Bernard Williams was Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge (1967-1979) and Provost of King's College. He held the Monroe Deutsch Professorship of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley (1998-2000) and was White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford (1990-2003). He was Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford until his death in 2003. Myles Burnyeat is Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy, All Souls College, Oxford. His books include The 'Theaetetus' of Plato (Hackett, 1990) and A Map of Metaphysics Zeta (Mathesis Publications, 2001).