Showing papers in "Phronesis in 1980"
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TL;DR: Socrate n'est pas lui-meme tenant de la hedoniste qui fonde son argument contre l'akrasia as mentioned in this paper, i.e.
Abstract: Socrate n'est pas lui-meme tenant de la these hedoniste qui fonde son argument contre l'akrasia.
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TL;DR: The question of "wherein lies the correctness of onomata?" was first raised in the Cratylus dialogue as discussed by the authors, where the participants were asked to identify the most basic hook between an individual term and its referent.
Abstract: We have to start much much further back than the beginning. Over and over again, before as well as after the Cratylus, Plato takes up various problems of Words and the World, questions we would now dub "semantic". What type of hook is the hook between an individual term like "Socrates" and the person it refers to? Between a general word like "just" and each of the many sensibles it refers to? Between "just" and the single Form it refers to? Between a sentence like "Socrates is just"' and the state of affairs it refers to? The announced topic, "Wherein lies the correctness of onomata?", whatever it is, is plainly some problem of Words and the World like these, a semantic question. But what exactly are the semantic stakes? At stake, I think, is deciding what to count as the most basic, the most primitive, the most fundamental type of Words-to-World hook. Both candidates canvassed in the dialogue give answers to this question. On the one hand, the correctness of onomata being a matter of "nature" (q
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TL;DR: The notion of intelligible matter was first introduced by the author of this paper as mentioned in this paper, who pointed out that there can be only one kind of matter that he has in mind here: intelligible noetic or noetic matter.
Abstract: In Metaphysics K, Aristotle talks of mathematical objects having matter: 'ows oG & &op7JueLe -Ls av rrOLctS ETLV E'nLaT?LRS To &avopTatX spi TIjS TWV aOLvrrxZv 'Xils (l059b14-16). There can be only one kind of matter that he has in mind here. Sensible matter is ruled out because this is the proper object of physics whereas, as he points out (1059b20-21), the matter of mathematical objects is the proper subject of first philosophy. Nor can prime matter be at issue here, since this is a purely limiting notion introduced to account for changes between contraries in sensible matter, such as generation and corruption. This leaves us with what Aristotle calls iSX'q voyrr noetic or 'intelligible' matter and in Metaphysics Z we are told explicitly that intelligible matter is present in the objects of mathematics: vih 8E' &' [v auOLL'r EaTLV i' b vorip", O1NTiq pV OtOV XtXXos xai ivXov xvi ani XI q V, VOi 8' ' 'V TOtLS OdToZS i'VrTpXovaa R I xLcI&1a, OLOV T'a ,LCtO7hLatXTLXa (1036a9-12). Insofar as this claim relates to geometry it has occasionally caused puzzlement, but there is a relatively straightforward solution to the puzzle. Insofar as it relates to arithmetic it is acutely problematic, but Aristotle nowhere even suggests that it does not cover the whole of mathematics. My main concern in this paper is to make sense of the idea of numbers having intelligible matter but, for reasons that I shall mention below, this requires that we first make clear what is involved in the doctrine that geometrical figures have intelligible matter.
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TL;DR: Aristotle's formal definition of the notion of a soul, reached through a series of approximations, is translated by D. W. Hamlyn as discussed by the authors as follows:
Abstract: At the beginning of the De A nima, having observed that it is difficult to say even how we should set about enquiring into the soul, Aristotle lists a number of questions: (1) To what logical kind of thing does soul belong? Does 'soul' signify a particular individual and a substance, or does it rather express a quality amount or the like? (402 a 24-5). (2) Is a soul a thing which exists in dunamis or rather a kind of entelecheia words usually translated 'potentiality' and 'actuality'? (402 a 25-6). (3) Is a soul a thing with parts? (402 b 1). (4) Is all soul the same in kind or are there different souls, the soul of a horse, the soul of a dog, the soul of a man, and so on? (402 b 1-8). These questions are not answered in Book I, which consists mainly of an examination of the views of other thinkers. (1) and (2), however, are tackled in De An. II. 1, and (4) in II. 3. Aristotle decides that the notion of a soul is, in a way, the notion of a particular individual and a substance; that it is the notion of an entelecheia; and that there are as many different souls as there are kinds of living thing. This paper will be concerned chiefly with the second point, which is, I think, at once the obscurest and the most important. Aristotle's formal definition of soul, reached through a series of approximations, is translated by D. W. Hamlyn (Aristotle's De Anima, Books II and III, p. 9) as follows:
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TL;DR: In this article, van der Ben's arguments about the existence of a Third Book of the Proem of the Fifth Book of 7npiL wVws have been examined, and it is shown that they do not conflict with any item of ancient evidence, such as Tzetzes' attribution.
Abstract: Although ancient testimonies credit Empedocles with a larger number of works,1 editors and other scholars have been unanimous in dividing the preserved fragments between two, the physical poem and the Katharmoi. Diels' decisions in particular have enjoyed great authority; for while on the sequence of fragments within each of these two works debate was bound to continue, his distribution of the material between the two poems has by and large gone unchallenged. The main exception is B 131-134 which Diels placed in the Katharmoi, even though B 134 is definitely attested for Book III of 7npiL wVws. Actually of the forty-two fragments which Diels assigned to the Katharmoi only one (B 112) is explicitly identified (by Diogenes Laertius, 8.62) as a passage of this work, and it must be admitted that the revolutionary efforts of N. van der Ben2 who proposes to shift more than two-thirds of these fragments to the proem of nrrpi c'aews do not conflict with any item of ancient evidence. The very limited objective which I am pursuing excludes a scrutiny of van der Ben's arguments. I must content myself with expressing my conviction that the great majority of the fragments in question have found their rightful home in the Katharmoi. Yet B131-134, the passages bearing on the true nature of the deity, continue to present a serious problem or, to put it more precisely, two problems. For Tzetzes quotes B134 from the Third Book of nTpi CaEWS,3 which means that if we accept his testimony we must not only transfer B 134 and the three other fragments to the physical poem but must admit for this work the existence of a Third Book in opposition to Diels who was adamant about limiting it to two. The arguments which Diels4 used to discredit Tzetzes' attribution are rather subjective. After the well reasoned protests of Bignone, Kahn and Zuntz5 we may as well admit the existence of a Third Book of wEpl pVtUEWS; but it is essential to realize what this amounts to. For regardless of what view we take of the original "publication" and later transmission of Empedocles' poems subjects on which we might as well confess our abysmal ignorance6 no author of the fifth century B.C., whether man or god (see B23. 11; 111.4), produced an authoritative or standard edition of his own works and settled once for all their division into Books. Generally speaking, such divisions were fixed by the Alexandrians.7 Whether
TL;DR: Aristotle finally struck upon the discovery that the verb "to be" itself was a case of systematic ambiguity (of a sort which Owen labels focal meaning ambiguity) and this discovery influenced him to reverse his previous estimation of the prospects for a universal science, and even to resurrect in the Metaphysics the Platonic program.
Abstract: (111) In Metaphysics r2, which reports his mature views on this subject, Aristotle finally struck upon the discovery that the verb "to be" itself was a case of systematic ambiguity (of a sort which Owen labels focal meaning ambiguity). Moreover, this discovery influenced him to reverse his previous estimation of the prospects for a universal science, and even to resurrect in the Metaphysics the Platonic program that he himself had dismissed as futile in his earlier works.
TL;DR: A survey of the most important interpretative proposals which have been submitted so far one excepted are to be found in the recent literature; there is no need to summarize them here in a systematic way as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Vorsokr. Fr. 59 B 4 (11 p. 34, 8-16) describes a world just like our own world, with men and other living beings, with cities and tilled fields, just as with us, with a sun and a moon and other heavenly bodies, just as with us. Surveys of the most important interpretative proposals which have been submitted so far one excepted are to be found in the recent literature1; there is no need to summarize them here in a systematic way. Simplicius ad loc. (In Phys. p. 34, 26-35, 21, more of which should have been printed by Diels-Kranz; p. 157, 9-24) pointed out, correctly, as I believe, that another world must be meant which is contemporary with our own world and which has its own set of heavenly bodies. Thus another part of our earth, or our moon, are ruled out. Simplicius does not discuss an infinity of worldsystems of which our own world would be one. At p. 157, 24, he refrains from submitting a solution, saying merely that that it would be interesting to investigate whether he meant another world in one of the rejected senses or another one in another sense. At p. 34, 27-8, however, he suggests that Anaxagoras spoke of the intelligible prototype of our world a Platonist way out which, today, no one, presumably, would adopt. All the same, what we need is a solution which both meets Simplicius' objections and satisfies his conditions. Such a solution was proposed by H. Frankel2: Anaxagoras formulates a 'Gedankenexperiment'. If, given the same initial conditions, a world other than ours would have come into being, it would have been an exact duplicate of our own. Hence things in our world are as they have to be. Frankel leans rather heavily upon the opt. + av used in the final clause of this section of Fr. 59 B 4, op'x av -rrap' AIilv [L6vov &'roxpLO6 , Vorsokr. II p. 34, 15-63. He adduces, from other authors, parallels for 'Gedankenexperimente' expressed in this way. "Auf die sonstigen Beispiele des sog. Potentialis bei Anaxagoras braucht hier nicht eingegangen zu werden"4. A parallel from Anaxagoras himself, however, would be more conclusive (or so I believe). In Fr. 59 B 6, two instances of opt. + v it is not better than his first. The 8oxetv also
TL;DR: Kirwan as mentioned in this paper showed that the argument is vulnerable in that it relies on a dubious theory of predication, according to which the two sorts of predicate just mentioned differ as follows:
Abstract: Commenting on the passage 1007a20-33 in Metaph. F 4, where Aristotle argues against the opponents of the principle of non-contradiction that they "eliminate essential being and what it is [for a thing] to be" (&vXtpoiaLtv * . . oi,akv xaL To Tr fjv ?ivol: 1007a20-2 1)' C. Kirwan has tried to show that Aristotle's argument is "vulnerable" in that it "relies on a dubious theory of predication," according to which the two sorts of predicate just mentioned differ as follows: