Showing papers in "Phronesis in 1955"

Neoplatonic logic and Aristotelian logic-I

Abstract: IT is well known that Ennead VI contains an onslaught by Plotinus on Aristotle's Categories, but that his pupil, Porphyry, established both the Categories and Predicables as part of the Neoplatonic and eventually the Scholastic philosophical curriculum. So far as this situation has been studied, it has been for the most part from the standpoint of its extemal history. Philology has traced many of Plotinus's criticisms to the commentaries of the Middle Academy, and many of Porphyry's expressions to Stoic logicians; historical enquiry has found motives in the social position of the Schools for the Neoplatonic acceptance of Aristotle's logic. This valuable work, however, tends at best to ignore the philosophical understanding of both the criticism and the reinstatement of Aristotle, and at worst to give an erroneous account of the place of Neoplatonism in the history of logic. First, the criticism is of intrinsic philosophical interest, because it aims to shew that 'inseparable' universals, and the whole theory of genus and species, are unable to do the task required of them. Secondly, the logic which Porphyry and his successors reinstate resembles that of the Stoics in being stripped of certain metaphysical implications. The reason for this is not corruption of Platonism by the Stoa, but the inevitable effect of wanting Aristotle the elementary logician without Aristotle the metaphysician. And the result is that a good deal of credit has gone to the Stoics which was due to the Neoplatonists. Useful as it is, Prantl's work needs rewriting. This must not be misunderstood. In dealing with Neoplatonists we cannot be concerned, as we can in the case of Stoics, withformal logic. I doubt whether there is a single theorem whose discovery can be attributed to them." We are concerned with logic in a wide sense, which can for the present purposes be quite accurately defined as the sense in which the Categories and Predicables are logical doctrines. What Porphyry achieved what he was driven to achieve was a logic of this kind, which, merely because of its restricted metaphysical implications, was valuable to Boetius and the Schoolmen and important in the history of philosophy. It allowed Aristotelian logic to become an autonomous

Was Plotinus a Magician

Abstract: ISUPPOSE that most Plotinian scholars would agree with the judgement of Dodds 1 "The creator of Neoplatonism was neither a magician nor pace certain modern writers a theurgist .... . Not that he denied the efficacy of magic (could any man of the third century deny it?). But it did not interest him. He saw in it merely an application to mean personal ends of "the true magic which is the sum of love and hatred in the universe", the mysterious and truly admirable Oetax which makes the cosmos one; men marvel at human yoiltEa. more than at the magic of nature only because it is less familiar (Enneads 4. 4. 3 7-40) ". But Dodds's judgement has recently been challenged by Dr. P. Merlan in a most stimulating article2 entitled Plotinus and Magic, which might be described as an extremely able speech for the prosecution of Plotinus on the charge not only of being interested in magic but of actually practising it. I do not believe that Merlan proves his case, and I think it is worth trying to show in some detail why he does not, as his article provides a useful opportunity for a re-examination of the evidence which illuminates some important aspects of Plotinus's thought. Merlan's method is to relate three incidents recorded by Porphyry in the tenth chapter of his Life of Plotinus to cemin passages in the Enneads whose true meaning he thinks the incidents enable us to discern. He begins with the affair of Olympius, which he summarises as follows: "Olympius, a fellow-philosopher envious of Plotinus's intellectual superiority tried to harm him by magic spells. He did so by directing star-rays against him. But he had soon to give up, because he found that the soul of Plotinus was powerful enough not only to resist these spells but even to turn them back on his enemy so that they were harming him. A weird story. And as if he wanted to prove that it was not only a kind of legend about Plotinus, Porphyry adds: "Plotinus knew very well when Olympius was making his attempts. He used to tell that in such moments his intestines were violently contracting". Merlan's last sentence is an interpretation rather than a translation of Prophyry's picturesque phrase ?eycdv ocu'p -ro aM?cx 'r6Ocq 'ra arta VTLO &XeaOtt T&V tisX&V 0CU'T4A pO XX auv0XLob0kvdY)v. But I am prepared to agree that he is quite probably right in following Harder's reference

Gorgias on nature or that which is not

Abstract: T HE remains of Gorgias' treatise 7rtc? 'rou [0 6v?oc m1) 7rrpL CA)q have not received very much attention from scholars during the last fifty years. This is probably due mainly to two reasons the highly technical and indeed to many readers repulsive nature of its content, and the widely held view that it is not meant seriously but is simply a parody or joke against philosophers, or at best a purely rhetorical exercise. 1 The first of these views seems so obviously wrong that it is hardly necessary to devote much time to discussing it. The short answer must be that there is nothing humourous about the treatise and no indication that it was ever intended to be so. In this respect it is in exactly the same position as the second part of Plato's dialogue Parmenides. Its general thesis might conceivably amuse those to whom all attempts at philosophy are inherently absurd, but such persons could hardly be expected to work through the difficult arguments which make up the contents of the work. The view that it was purely a rhetorical exercise is no more plausible. But it is not intended to argue this question at length here. The final answer to both views must consist in showing just what is the content of the treatise and the serious purposes to which it is directed. There have indeed been those who have treated the work seriously. But its interpretation undoubtedly presents quite extraordinary difficulties, and those who have treated it seriously have arrived at very different views as to what Gorgias is saying.2 What follows is in part new, and as a consequence little space is devoted to previous interpretations, and where they are mentioned it is usually in disagreement. It is nonetheless the work of scholars in the past who have laid a foundation both in establishing the text and in interpreting it upon which all future studies must rest. Our information about the contents of the treatise comes from two separate accounts, the summnary in Sextus Empiricus, Adv. Math. vii. 65-87, and the third section of the work De Melisso Xenophane Gorgia I Cf. H. Gomperz, Sophistik und Rhetorik, Leipzig 191 2, I 8 2 ff., H. Maier, Sokrates, Tlubingen 1913, 2x9ff. For reflections of these views see e.g. K. Freeman, Companion to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers, 3 6 12, and E. Brihier, Histoire de la Philosophie, 1. i. 8 S. 2 Notably G. Calogero, Studi sull' Eleatismo, Roma 1932. M. Untersteiner, I Sofisti, Torino 1949 (English Translation, The Sophists, Oxford: Blackwell 19S4). 0. Gigon in Hermes, lxxi (1936) I86-213. E. Dupreel, Les Sophistes, Neuchatel 1948 [actualy 19491. 1 have not seen D. Viale (= Adolfo Levi), Studi su Gorgia in Logos xxiv (1941).

The Problem of the Genesis of Aristotle's Text

Abstract: W A rE are informed by Strabo XIII, I, g4 and by Plutarch (Sulla 26.) that the works of Aristotle disappeared for at least i so years and were, for the first time, edited in Rome by Andronicus of Rhodes, a peripatetic philosopher, of the second half of the first century B.C., i.e. approx. 27g years after the death of Aristotle. Strabo's and Plutarch's accounts are essentially identical and there is no doubt that Plutarch drew on Strabo; however, it is Plutarch who gives us the name of Andronicus, whereas Strabo only mentions Andronicus' predecessor, the grammarian Tyrannion of Amisus in Pontus, as an editor of Aristotle's manuscripts. Strabo's and Plutarch's accounts of the disappearance and re-discovery of the works of Aristotle have been variously interpreted believed and disbelieved in parts and it will be necessary for us to look at some of the details, especially in Strabo's account. Strabo reports that Theophrastus bequeathed his library which included Aristotle's 1 to Neleus, son of Coriscus, who took the books to his native Scepsis in the Troad. There, in the hands of Neleus' heirs, the books were neglected and later, to escape discovery by the kings of Pergamon, were buried in the ground where they lay hidden for i So years or more, suffering greatly through moisture and moths. About I 00 B.C. or shortly afterwards, the books were taken to Athens by Apellicon of Teos and from there, after the fall of Athens in 86 B.C., to Rome by Sulla. In Rome, the grammarian Tyrannion of Pontus, a friend of Cicero's and a great collector of books, obtained possession of the manuscripts and published them. But, Strabo says, Tyrannion's edition was full of grave errors, because Tyrannion himself filled the lacunae in the severely damaged texts, and also because he employed inferior copyists. Besides, the booksellers got hold of them and produced faulty editions. All the same, Strabo says, the publication of the manuscripts made possible a great advance over previous Aristotelian studies; for until then the works of Aristotle had not been known and, especially, the earlier peripatetics possessed the exoteric writings only, and hence could not philosophise soundly (7xpxy[toclr.xC-a) but were "spinning empty hypotheses." Finally and this is Plutarch's additional information Andronicus of Rhodes, an Aristotelian, and presumably disciple of Tyrannion,

The present state of the Socratic problem

Abstract: A few years ago Gigon's Sokrates 1 with its provocative thesis that of the son of Sophroniscus hardly anything can be known in any case not that he was a philosopher nor what kind of philosophy was his -, gave rise to various reactions. At Paris, E. Brehier in his Postwar Chronicle welcomed it as "a very important book".2 And when, at about the same time and in the same milieu, J. Patocka protested against Gigon's theory 8, remarking that, though a doctrine of Socrates may be unknown to us, yet we do know his philosophical attitude (which, in his opinion, is a far more important thing), he too seemed to be much impressed by Gigon's philological method and he supposed that others whose approach to the question was from this side would be similarly impressed. That in fact the method as employed by Gigon is liable to serious objections was shown by different critics 4, most thoroughly perhaps by myself.5 Meanwhile others attacked the problem almost simultaneously. Bruno Snell found a trace of Socrates' philosophical doctrine in Euripides' Hippolytus 6; Wolfgang Schmidt 7 (following A. E. Taylor, R. Philippson, E. Angelopoulos and myself8) reconsidered the portrait of Socrates in the Clouds and found confirmation in the words of Aristophanes of some essential characteristics of the Platonic Socrates. Finally E. de Strycker ' adduced three passages of unquestionable historical value by which Plato's testimony on Socrates in the Apology, Crito and Phaedo is confirmed. While this debate was in progress, an important new contribution to the problem was made by a scholar who had been working at it quite independently for several years: Mr. V. de Magalhaes-Vilhena, a Portugese member of the Paris Centre of Research. In I949, his

Neo-platonic logic and Aristotelian logic - II

Abstract: In Metaphysics A Aristotle distinguished two senses of auV but in the questions we are concerned with he made no further use of the active sense; at the end of the lectures on substance, Z-0, the subject of 8C'VOCLL4 and EvkpyELX falls into place without any suggestion that they are both ?VEpyCLaL. The active sense is historically the older one; and the conception of natural qualities as powers, common among the PreSocratics, was revived by the Stoa. Its use by the Neoplatonists owes more to Stoicism than to Platonism.I In place of the 86VOC[LL eVepyeLoX relation we tend to find Plato using that of appearance and reality. Plotinus's use of the 'power' and 'product' pair, while combined with the Platonic pair, is derived from two sources. The first is Plato's manner of speaking about the Soul, where, it may be added, Plato notoriously left unsolved the problem of the One and the Many. If the individuality of the world-soul and of human and divine souls is to be preserved, the One cannot stand to the Many as essence to its instances or appearances nor as a mass to its parts. The second source is theology. Aristotle had excluded all potentiality from God, and the Stoics and Neoplatonists were able to extend a second, quite other, notion of uau'vpt to God as though room had been left for this and so seem to make no absolute break with Aristotelianism. In the De Mundo (probably ist. century A.D.) we find the interesting distinction between God's 86va.uq and God's oCua(o 3, a distinction which opens the door, as Heinze pointed out ', to a theory of hypostases instead of pantheism. It is Plotinus who gives the notion a logical application, when he wants to explain the Platonic genus, which we have seen him restore against Aristotle's denial of it.

Plato on Ethical Disagreement

Abstract: S OME of the things Plato says in the Euthyphro and the Philebus can be described in terms of the above title. It seems to me that they have not been duly pressed. My purpose in this paper is to throw some new light on them and try to answer the question, What is their bearing on moral, esthetic or even logical appraisals, criticism, deliberation and choice-are they helpful or relevant to what we are doing today in theory and practice? Concerning Plato's ethics and esthetics, the official opinion is that he is an 'absolutist', 'objectivist' and the like, and though I do not deny that many of the things he says in this connection do lend themselves to such an interpretation, I also believe that some others lend themselves to an alternative interpretation which I am about to propose and which seems to me to make more sense or to be more pregnant than the official one. Let me stress, however, that my approach is not so much inspired by a desire to be textually faithful to Plato as by a desire to induce him to tell us a few more things than a purely textual approach allows him to tell us. In the Euthyphro (7b-d) Plato discusses the issues arising in value disputes and points to a programme for resolving them, and aspects or parts of the Philebus (e.g. 6Ea ff.) could be taken as an attempt on his part to put forward such a programme. My premise, which is not by any means an unfounded assumption, is that Plato's quest was the quest for standards whereby disputes and indecision could in practice be done away with. This paper is a sort of substantiation or illustration of Plato's craving for rationality.