Showing papers in "Phronesis in 1975"

Aristotle's Analysis of Friendship: Function and Analogy, Resemblance, and Focal Meaning

Abstract: Both the Nicomachean Ethics and the Eudemian Ethics discuss friendship (philia) in detail and both recognize several kinds of friendship: the association of morally good men, the association of pleasure seekers and the association of men seeking their own advantage. Furthermore, both ethical treatises are quite clear that this difference in kind is not to be explained in terms of simple, unmitigated equivocity. Friendships are not like capes which may be quite unrelated items such as garments and points of land extending into the sea. But how are the several kinds of friendship related? The Eudemian Ethics answers this question by introducing the focal analysis of pros hen equivocals whose application to being is familiar to students of the Metaphysics. What the Nicomachean Ethics does is not immediately clear. Many scholars, both ancient and modern, have seen focal analysis in the Nicomachean discussion.' This seems to me a mistake which merits correction. For properly understood the Nicomachean treatment of friendship is a complex and sophisticated analysis of considerable independent interest. Two distinct modes of analysis are discernible, yet neither is a focal analysis. In Section

The Political Context of Aristotle's Categories of Justice

Abstract: A ristotle's account of justice in Book V of the Nicomachean Ethics has provided the starting point and basic categories for subsequent discussion to the present day.' In spite of the importance of Aristotle's discussion, it has remained in the background, and while at the foundation of contemporary work, it has ceased to provide a fundamental alternative as a theory of justice. One reason may be that in the contemporary use of Aristotle's categories, his argument has been abstracted from the political context in which it was advanced. The object of this paper is to attempt to recover this political "dimension" of Aristotle's analysis by emphasising the connection between his four main categories of justice (universal, distributive, corrective, and reciprocity) and important political themes in the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics.

Some Perils of Paulinity

Abstract: In his paper, 'The Unity of the Virtues in the Protagoras", Gregory Vlastos reverses his previous opinion that Protagoras 330 c-d yields a 'star instance of self-predication'. Although Plato does have Socrates say that justice is just and piety is pious, Professor Vlastos now believes that these assertions are examples of what he calls, following Professor Sandra Peterson Wallace, 'Pauline predication'. To say that Justice is just, on the Pauline reading, is simply to put forward 'the analytic truth that the eidos, Justice, is such that all of its instances are just'.2 We should not understand Socrates to be asserting that the eidos itself has the characteristic of being just; that would be an absurdity. To defend self-predication in Plato against Professor Vlastos is somewhat like shoring up Catholicism against the onslaughts of the Pope. I shall content myself with disputing Professor Vlastos' claim that Protagoras 330 c-d provides textual evidence for reading 'Justice is just' as Pauline and benign. I shall not argue that the passage must be read as self-predicative, although I shall hold that we have some indications in the text that it should be so read. My argument may seem quite abstract and far from the text; this is, I believe, a necessary evil in the present paper. For Professor Vlastos bases his position on a supposed point of logical correctness, not one of text: he claims that Plato could not legitimately have made a certain kind of inference. One cannot settle such a question on the basis of texts alone: whether Plato did or did not make the inference in question is tangential to the question of the legitimacy of the inference. The inference in question is that from saying that a Form has a given quality to saying that a given participant in the Form has that quality.

Aristotelian and Stoic Conceptions of Necessity in the De Fato of Alexander of Aphrodisias

Abstract: 1 Supplementum Aristotelicum II.ii 164-212, ed. I. Bruns, Berlin 1892; cf. also pp. 169-186 Bruns of the de anima libri mantissa, in Supplementum Aristotelicum II.i (1887). All references will be to these editions. On the interpretation of the de fato (as opposed to discussion primarily concerned with textual points) cf.: R. A. Pack, 'A Passage in Alexander of Aphrodisias relating to the theory of Tragedy', AJP 58 (1937) 418-436; E. Valgiglio, 'II Fato nel Pensiero Classico Antico', Riv. Stud. Class. 15 (1967) 305-330 and 16 (1968) 56-84 (pp. 309-319 are devoted to Alexander's de fato); G. Verbeke, 'Aristot,lisme et Stoicisme dans le de fato d'Alexandre d'Aphrodise', AGPh 50 (1968) 73-100; A. A. Long, 'Stoic Determinism and Alexander of Aphrodisias de fato (i-xiv)', AGPh 52 (1970) 247-268; P. L. Donini, Tre studi sull' aristotelismo nel II secolo d.C. (Torino, 1974) 127-185. There is one translation of the de fato into English, by A. FitzGerald (London, 1931), but this is in places rather inadequate; I hope myself to produce a translation at a later date. P. Thillet has indicated in the introduction to his edition of the medieval Latin translation attributed to William of Moerbeke (Attudes de Philosophie Medidvale 51, Paris, 1963, p. 61) that he intends to produce a new edition of the Greek text. Reference will be made in this article to passages from the mantissa and also to some from the Quaestiones attributed to Alexander (Supplementum Aristotelicum II.ii). It is very possible that not all the texts in these collections are by Alexander (cf. P. Moraux, Alexandre d'Aphrodise: Ex6gNte de la Noetique d'Aristote, (Liege-Paris 1942), 19-28; P. Merlan, 'Zwei Untersuchungen zu Alexander von Aphrodisias', Philologus 113 (1969) 85-88; R. B. Todd, 'Alexander of Aphrodisias and the Alexandrian Quaestiones 2.12', Philologus 116 (1972) 293305), but it seems generally agreed that they show his influence, and even texts which may not be by Alexander himself may serve to bring out tensions in the Peripatetic position on the issues to be discussed in this article. I am particularly grateful to Professor Todd for sending me a copy of a bibliography on Alexander that he has prepared.

Democritus on Visual Perception: Two Theories or One?

Abstract: The bulk of our information on Democritus' theory of visual perception comes from Theophrastus' De Sensibus. The claim is made that Theophrastus' account provides the grounds for attributing to Democritus a theory of visual perception which involves the following: a thin atomic 'image' leaves the physical object on its way toward the pet cipient; at the same time a 'visual ray' leaves the eye of the percipient toward the physical object; the 'image' and the 'ray' meet in midair, compress, and impress the air between them to form a new atomic entity which then travels to the eye of the pei cipient, and is thus seen by him. One might note that the presence of air midway between the object and the percipient is essential to the operation of this process. Ak problem arises from the fact that Aristotle cites Democritus as claiming that a person could see an insect on the vault of the heavens accurately, if there were void in between the insect and the viewer et ykvovto xevv o'0 s u'.' If we take the word xtv6v strictly and naturally to exclude air, then Aristotle's account quite clearly implies that air intervening between the physical object and the percipient is not required by Democritus' theory. Thus, an apparent contradiction arises between these reports: Theophrastus seems to say that such air is essential, while Aristotle implies that it is not. Various devices have been adopted to cope with this apparent contradiction. One such device is to ignore it, to cite both accounts without even noting the apparent contradiction or explaining what is involved.2 As far as I know, the only serious attempt to leconcile these differences is the positing of two theories of vision for Democritus

An Introduction to the First Five Chapters of Aristotle's Categories

Abstract: In an earlier paper' I have argued that a satisfactory account of Aristotle's postulation of individuals, both substantial and nonsubstantial, in the Categories can be achieved by taking seriously his characterization of these individuals as things that are 'one in number' and by interpreting this characterization as 'a unit in a possible act of enumeration'. This approach to the Categories has important consequences for the interpretation of the remainder of the work. In this essay I wish to present an account of the first five chapters (bar chapter 4 which lays out the categories themselves) based on the former paper. In particular, I wish to examine the four-fold division of 'the things that are' in chapter 2 alnd the two relations of 'being said of' and 'being in' (or, rather, 'existing in') that are used to construct this four-fold division, and the nature of 'primary substance' (or, rather, 'primary being') and the basis for its distinction from 'secondary substance' (or, rather, 'secondary being'). The account that will be developed here is substantially and importantly different from any other that I am aware of, and, even if it does not secure conviction, its publication will hopefully make the dogma that the Categories is a 'common-sensical' work less readily tenable and force a re-thinking of the usual account of the work. I wish to suggest that 'the things that are' are 'things that exist and in existing are something', that the two relations ('being said of' and 'being in') are existential, that 'primary substance' -Cpcrj oUaMx is the existentially primary mode of existence of individuals and that their separation from 'secondary substances' is due partly to a hypostatization of count-nouns in language, partly to a recognition that, to the extent that counting forms a basis of the work, to that extent an ability to use language is presupposed in the classification of 'the things that are', and, finally, that Aristotle cannot simply view 'secondary substances' as items of language because he recognizes

The Nomothetes of the Cratylus

Abstract: The Cratylus of Plato, like the bow of Heraclitus, displays in its very structure a 7raXEwpo7roq pptovL' (backward-turning construction, DK B51). The bow bears witness to its double nature in its very name: PL6q, the bow, the bringer of death, is also 3(og, life itself (DK B 48). The man who shoots the bow in his one action brings both death and life: death to his victim, an animal sought for food or an enemy himself intent upon inflicting death, and life to himself, in the form of life-sustaining food or the defeat of a mortal enemy. In the same way, in the Cratylus, the position at first upheld by Socrates, that names signify by nature (yac=L), both is and is not true (for though some words signify by nature, others signify only by convention, v6,up). This double, conflicting nature is found not only in the discussion itself, but also in a name which is central to this dialogue about names, the name "Nomothetes" (o vopoU&rvs). In the opening passage of the Cratylus, Hermogenes defines the question at issue, locating it in the context of the great debate over v6qos and <9Lcrtq:1

Die aristotelische Theorie der Syllogismen mit modal gemischten Prämissen

Abstract: In zwei bereits erschienenen Arbeiten' habe ich den Versuch unternommen, eine Deutung der aristotelischen Theorie der Notwendigkeitsschluisse und der der Moglichkeitsschlisse zu geben. Dabei wurden sowohl die Schliisse aus Kombinationen von zwei apodiktischen bzw. zwei problematischen Pramissen betrachtet als auch die Schlisse aus Kombinationen von je einer modalisierten (apodiktischen oder problematischen) und einer nicht modalisierten, assertorischen Pramisse. Das Ergebnis dieser Untersuchungen legte die Vermutung nahe, daB problematische, assertorische und apodiktische Aussagen in der aristotelischen Modallogik auch hinsichtlich ihrer Struktur und nicht nur hinsichtlich Existenz oder Art eines Modaloperators unterschieden sind. Dafiir spricht vor allem der aristotelische Grundsatz der Positivitat aller M6glichkeitsaussagen, dem nichts auf der Seite der Notwendigkeitsaussagen entspricht. Nun zeigt sich auf der Grundlage der durch die moderne Pradikatenlogik bereitgestellten Hilfsmittel keine M6glichkeit einer kalkiflmadfigen Darstellung der von Aristoteles intendierten modalen Syllogistik. Bei der uiblichen Darstellung quantifizierter Aussagen mfif3te der Modaloperator den Quantor oder/und die durch den Quantor bestimmte Elementaraussage oder/und einen Pradikator im Bereich der Elementaraussage bestimmen. Wie man aber auch kombinieren mag man findet keine Losung, die mit allen aristotelischen Behauptungen uiber die Guiltigkeit von Modalsyllogismen, einschlieBlich der Behauptungen fiber die Gfiltigkeit von Konversionsregeln, vertraglich ware. So empfahl es sich, die Frage nach der Mikrostruktur modalisierter Aussagen auf sich beruhen zu lassen und zunachst die Regeln zu rekonstruieren, auf Grund derer sich aus Paaren solcher Aussagen Syllogismen bilden lassen, wie immer auch die Modalaussagen als solche strukturiert sein mogen. Da nun Gruinde fiur die Annahme einer unterschiedlichen

Welches sind die materiellen Elemente bei Anaxagoras

Abstract: U* ber die Elementenlehre des Anaxagoras wobei der vo3ausgeklammert bleibt und nur die materiellen Elemente in Frage stehen haben wir von Aristoteles die folgende grundsatzliche Nachricht: ... ' OLOLO~Lepj =otxam rtrjaw, "... er (Anaxagoras) setzt die homoiomeren Substanzen als Elemente an."2 Diese Nachricht, mit der auch das Zeugnis der spateren antiken Doxographie v6llig iubereinstimmt, wird in der modernen Forschung seit einer Arbeit P. Tann6rys (1887) entweder ganz zuruickgewiesen oder nur noch sehr eingeschrankt gelten gelassen. Statt der "gleichteiligen" Substanzen, zu denen Aristoteles bekanntlich die Metalle und die organischen Gewebe zahlt,3 sollen das eine Mal nur die gegensatzlichen auvoiuLeL ('L6 krpuo6v, t6 +uXpo6v u. dgl.), das andere Mal die 6OioLo[Lepj und diese Gegensatze die materiellen Elemente bei Anaxagoras sein. Das sind freilich Anderungen von groBer Tragweite, wobei die Begrundung keineswegs immer iiberzeugt. Solange aber dieses Problem nicht verlaBlich gel6st ist, kann man von der ganzen Philosophie des Anaxagoras kein sicheres Bild bekommen. Wir referieren deshalb im folgenden, so kurz wie moglich, den Gang der Forschung und setzen uns dann mit dem gegenwartigen Stand auseinander.