Showing papers in "Phronesis in 1985"

Kingship and Philosophy in Aristotle's Best Regime

Abstract: 'Eav u', iv ' Eyb, Q oi qLA)6oopol panAev)coawtv E'V Tal gr6Eatv if of faalAi ; TE vVV f)vy6/Evot xatai 6vvaorat qhAoaoUocp?/rUCO yv?lr(o? TE xai ixav6!;, xai roiVro el' raVrTOV aV0Uar, 6V"Vi TE 37OAcLTVr(? xai' cpLoaooL'a, TWV & YVV .7rOQ,VO,uEVWv X(eiQ bp' txareQov at roA)pat' qm)uc iE a vady%s &7roxA,)taO6auv, o01X EoTl xaxi5v 7rafi)a, di q(lA,E F,1aVtxwv, Ta.ir)OAEort, 6OKJi 6' oVi5 T6cZ avOeorivcp yEVIEl

The Scala Naturae and the Continuity of Kinds

Abstract: Aristotle's theories of essentialism and classification of his logic and metaphysics demand that substantial kinds be completely distinct or discrete kinds. In his biology Aristotle adopts as a classificatory scheme the scala naturae, which, according to some of his expounders, is incompatible with the theories of essentialism and classification of the logic and metaphysics. According to their interpretation, kinds in the scal form a continuous series in which they overlap one another, and thus it is impossible for them to be completely distinct from one another or to be discrete kinds. Arthur 0. Lovejoy argues for this interpretation of the scala in The Great Chain of Being,' and several other more recent scholars adopt or argue for much the same interpretation.2 I shall argue that this interpretation is wrong. I shall first consider what the "continuity of kinds" might mean, and what sort of threat continuity might level against Aristotle's

Rumpelstiltskin's Pleasures: True and False Pleasures in Plato's "Philebus"

Abstract: Everyone who is moderately familiar with Plato's dialogues will have the impression that pleasure according to Plato is a mixed blessing; often enough he refuses to regard it as a good let alone the good for mankind. It is easy to see the reason for this critical attitude: Pleasure (often paired with desire "hdone kai epithymia" cf. Phdr.273d; Rep. 328d; 429d; 555d; 574a; Gorg.484d et pass.) is what lures the soul away from the straight and narrow path of virtue and entwines it with all sorts of conflicts and confusions. Pleasure is therefore often treated by Plato as a necessary evil; necessary because of our vegetative and material needs (cf. Tim.62-64; Rep.581e), an evil because it opens the soul to all sorts of dangerous and uncontrollable desires (I may merely refer to the unruly horse in Phdr.253c-255a, the anarchy of desires in the Rep.438dff; 562aff; 58le, and the discussion of the mortal part of the human soul at the beginning of the Phdo.64cff).

Form, Reproduction, and Inherited Characteristics in Aristotle's Generation of Animals

Abstract: In this paper I discuss a problem of interpretation in the Generation of Animals (abbreviated G.A.), and propose a resolution of it. The difficulty is how to understand Aristotle's explanation of inherited resemblances, which seems to suggest a surprising notion of form at work in reproduction.' Although there is a wide variety of possible views on Aristotelian form, one point of almost universal agreement is that the form or essence2 does not include accidental, material features of the object.3 According to David Balme's interpretation of Aristotle's account of inherited likenesses, however, the form transmitted in reproduction does includes such features. Balme's interpretation of form has serious implications for our understanding not only of the biological writings but of other texts as well in particular the Metaphysics. It is possible, of course, to avoid these implications by reading Aristotle's biological works totally independently of his metaphysical writings and vice versa. In this paper I shall consider it desirable to find, at minimum, a consistent account of form in both contexts.4

On the Terminology of 'Abstraction'in Aristotle

Abstract: This chapter makes a fresh analysis of the terminology of 'abstraction' as it is used in the Aristotelian corpus. Significantly, such an analysis has not been done recently in the literature on Aristotle, presumably because the question has been taken as settled. The chapter begins with a passage from the Posterior Analytics where the terminology of abstraction appears side by side with terms like 'induction' and 'demonstration'. It embarks upon a brief philological excursus for the purpose of digging beneath the technical surface and exposing the mundane roots of the abstraction terminology. The chapter investigates both how the terminology of abstraction comes to have a narrower technical function and what other technical terms are linked with it. The chapter concentrates on showing that it is the logical method of subtraction which makes the so-called 'abstract objects' available for scientific study. Keywords:abstraction; Aristotle; philological excursus; terminology

Freedom, Causality, Fatalism and Early Stoic Philosophy

Abstract: The philosophy of the early Stoics is all too often interpreted in modern terms: their determinism has been compared to Laplace's,' their views on causality represented as Humean2 and their account of freedom and responsibility characterized as soft determinist.3 This tendency may seem innocuous enough, even if one judges as misguided attempts at giving ancient thinkers a coat of modern analytic varnish. But, as we shall see, analytic respectability is only purchased at a price and much that is bizarrely original in the Stoic theories is lost as a consequence. I am not however suggesting any radical revision of recent interpretations of the Stoic account of causality, in discussing which I merely aim to provide the necessary background for the subsequent discussion of Stoic freedom which is my main concern. On the latter issue, misunderstanding of the Stoic texts is acute and extensive. Remarkably, there is an almost total failure (apparently stretching back to the ancient commentators) to recognize that philosophers who were concerned with both determinism and freedom could treat these topics in virtual isolation from each other. Consequently, interpretations almost invariably reflect some kind of sensed conflict between the two ideas. Some commentators (amongst

Lo Stoicismo di Erillo

Abstract: La dottrina di Erillo di Calcedonia stoico "eterodosso", discepolo di Zenone, ha dato luogo ad interpretazioni controverse, non ancora sufficientemente chiarite.1 Alcune difficoltA interpretative, tuttavia, possono essere risolte, a mio avviso, se si considera la dottrina di Erillo sia alla luce dell dibattito svoltosi tra i discepoli di Zenone per una corretta interpretazione della filosofia del maestro, sia in relazione alla polemica gnoseologica, intercorsa tra Zenone ed Arcesilao, a cui tutti gli Stoici antichi presero parte. La posizione assunta dallo stesso Crisippo nel dibattito all'interno della scuola e nella polemica contro Arcesilao e di fondamentale importanza per capire ci6 che avvenne nella scuola stoica immediatamente dopo la morte di Zenone. Le fonti antiche parlano di abbandono degliscuola stoica da parte di Aristone, il quale avrebbe fondato una nuova scuola, e ritengono Erillo il fondatore di una setta, chiamata appunto degli Erillei.2 Ma mentre Cleante era ancora vivo, Crisippo and6 ad insegnare nel Liceo, senza essere accusato, per questo, di aver abbandonato la scuola stoica.3 Inoltre egli era in dissenso su moltissimi punti della dottrina di Zenone e di quella di Cleante.4 E poich6 egli era dotato di grandi capacita dialettiche, riusci non soltanto a trovare le dimonstrazioni capaci di sostenere le proprie tesi, ma anche le argomentazioni in grado di controbattere le obiezioni che Arcesilao aveva rivolta alla gnoseologia stoica. Da quel

The Figure of Euthyphro in Plato's Dialogue

Abstract: Probably the most influential, or at least most widely consulted, English language commentary on the Euthyphro, that of Burnet in 1924, has some very odd things to say about Euthyphro, which need correcting, in my opinion. Bumet argues against the traditional view that Euthyphro is a kind of "docteur en thdologie traditionelle" (M. Croiset'), in favour of an interpretation which sees Euthyphro as a "sectary of some kind" (p. 5), someone on the fringe of conventional Athenian society, parallel to the Pythagorean Telauges with whom Socrates converses in a dialogue of Aeschines, someone who receives ridicule for his religious position at the hands of the Athenians (p. 5), in short as a "kindred spirit" (p. 6) to Socrates in the matter of the latter's alleged invention of new gods. Clearly this view has far-reaching implications for the way we read the dialogue, if true.2 In particular, it bears on two questions: (1) One main charge against Socrates was 'inventing new gods'; how far are we to see Euthyphro as a defender of the old? (2) Connected with this, Plato introduces what looks like a precursor of the fullyfledged theory of Forms as an argumentative strategy when Euthyphro talks of many holy things instead of The Holy (6 D 9-10: ?XE7LVO OtVT TO E18os, ibid. JLia LbiE? T& TE V if he is a religious innovator himself, as Bumet and others seem to think, then the theory of Forms is demoted to the position of one among other equally new-fangled alternatives. History does not help us a great deal in identifying Euthyphro's position in the religious spectrum current at Athens. Plato appears to mean the same Euthyphro in

Aristotle on Red Mirrors (On Dreams II 459b24 - 460a23)

Abstract: This passage in Aristotle's treatise On Dreams was for a considerable time regarded as too indelicate for the English reader, and thus languished in the decent obscurity of a dead language: both Beare in the Oxford translation and Hett in the original Loeb edition preferred a Latin version. It may be for this reason that somewhat scant attention has been paid to Aristotle's disquisition on menstruating women and their effect upon mirrors. I In offering some comments on the passage, I bypass the question of Aristotle's credulity and focus on a different question: what interested Aristotle in the supposed "fact" that the gaze of a menstruating woman has the power to redden the mirror into which she looks? The passage occurs in the context of Aristotle's explanation of the phenomenon of dreams, an explanation that relies chiefly on the notion of residual sense impressions. Although sense perception as normally understood is not operative in dreams 458b8, it is not true that the sense organ is unaffected 459a6, 10. Dreams belong, he says, to the sensitive faculty, but qua imaginative 459a21. The images involved "persist in the sense organs not only while the sensations are active but also after they have gone" 459a27-28.2 After enunciating this general principle, Aristotle proceeds to illustration. He begins with the case of projectiles: they continue to move even after they have broken contact with the moving agent 459a28-30. This illustration from the category of place is by way of introduction to illustrations from the category of quality, qualitative change or change of state being the type of change most relevant to sensation. Again he emphasizes the factor of persistence, adding that change of state may persist "deep down" (bathu 459b7) as well as on the surface. Examples are drawn from smell and hearing 459b21, but mainly from vision. The act of looking at a green object for a considerable time may, for instance, produce such a strong effect upon the eye that "any object to which we shift our gaze appears to be that colour" 459b12-14.3

Ignorance, Involuntariness, and Innocence: A Reply to McTighe

Abstract: In a most valuable recent article, "Socrates on Desire for the Good and the Involuntariness of Wrongdoing: Gorgias 466a-468e,"' Kevin McTighe challenges a misguided but widely accepted interpretation of the Socratic paradox 'No one does wrong voluntarily'. According to McTighe, this interpretation has the paradox rely on the blatantly counterintuitive notion that what one desires is distinct from what seems good to one (when that is not in fact good). McTighe dubs this notion 'DG'.2 The interpretation, by assuming DG, disallows the possibility of desiring what is not in fact good here, injustice thereby rendering all wrongdoing involuntary. Whereas there can be no doubt that Socrates does conclude from his discussion with Polus that ul&Eva Pouko6REvov &6tXEiV (Gorg. 509e6), McTighe contends convincingly that Socrates' argument with Polus is to be understood ad hominem, as purgative in the sense elaborated in the Sophist,3 and therefore not as expressive of the Socratic position.4 McTighe's own view, which I share, is that the paradox 'No one does wrong voluntarily' does not assume DG. On the contrary, the paradox accepts that people desire what seems good to them and that what seems good to them is sometimes unjust. The task at hand, then, is to interpret the paradox without recourse to DG, i.e., to give content to involuntary wrongdoing that is nevertheless desired wrongdoing. McTighe takes up this task in Section VI of his paper.5 It is with the claims of this section that I wish to take issue, in particular with the claims (a) that 'involuntary' wrongdoing means wrongdoing that is exempt from blame,6 and (b) that Socrates (Plato) in fact regards all wrongdoing as exempt from blame. For McTighe, claims (a) and (b) are linked: the Socratic paradox states that wrongdoers are blameless, Socrates is committed to the paradox, hence Socrates is committed to wrongdoers' blamelessness. By challenging McTighe's interpretation of the paradox, however, I simultaneously challenge the

Vlastos on Pauline Predication

Abstract: In the period following his epoch-making attention to the Third Man Argument' Gregory Viastos was converted to the cause of what he has termed Pauline Predication.2 Sentences such as "Justice is pious" or "Fire is hot" seem, on the surface, to be attributing a characteristic to a Form a situation labelled by Vlastos "ordinary predication" (A S,3 p. 273). But, Viastos suggests, such cases are really to be read as assigning this property to instances of the Form. As applied to putative cases of self-predication,4 "F-ness is F" becomes, from the Pauline perspective, equivalent to "Necessarily, for all x, if x partakes of F-ness, x is F" (AS, p. 273; U VP, p. 235). In UVP (pp. 257-8) Vlastos urges that two notorious candidates for self-predication, "Justice is just" and "Piety is pious," at Prot. 330c and d respectively, must be read in the Pauline fashion. We may or may not agree with him here,5 but Vlastos proceeds to reject his former thesis that, for Plato, all Forms are self-predicative. He will grant (pp. 259-63)

Heraclitus fr. 10: A Musical Interpretation

Abstract: Fr. 10 is very obscure, even by Heraclitus' standards. There is no general agreement on the text itself, and very different interpretations of the fragment have been proposed. Is the first word uvXXO'*Es or o'14ALes?l What do the succeeding pairs of opposites2 mean? How does the final phrase (E'x uarv-r&v x.-r.X.) fit in with these "opposites"3? More generally what is the fragment as a whole about? Formally, fr. 10 most closely resembles those fragments which describe an initial subject in terms of a series of opposed predicates. But the interpretations advanced so far do not treat fr. 10 as analogous to these apparent parallels. Instead, it is suggested

Socrates' Last Argument

Abstract: The last argument of Plato's Phaedo has always fascinated philosophers. Though speciously smooth, it is naggingly hard to understand, and persistent failure provokes persistent interest. But the real importance of the argument lies in what it reveals about Plato's metaphysical theory, and about his view of the nature of metaphysical enquiry. If we are to see exactly what is going on, we need a formal analysis of the argument, a precise location of its errors, and some explanation of how Plato came to make them. To be at all plausible an interpretation must be charitable both to Plato and to his commentators. We should show Plato's reasoning to be as systematic as it seems to be, and make his mistakes intelligible; and we should be able to understand the repeated failure of commentators to explain what Plato is doing. I shall argue that the argument is formally valid and displays the systematic application of fundamental principles. Its faults are not logical in a narrow sense, but rest on what seems to us a gross metaphysical confusion. Attribution of such confusion to Plato is not new; but one of the significant features of this argument is that it can be used to justify that attribution beyond reasonable doubt. This ascription of error would nevertheless seem a lapse from charity in interpretation, if we could not make the confusion seem a natural one for Plato to make. Another striking point about this passage is that it actually provides materials for an explanation of the confusion. The source of the difficulty is Plato's mistaken semantic theory, which is all but spelled out here. On the basis of this passage, we can see that the theory of Forms is largely motivated by a concern to make sense of certain semantic assumptions, and many of its faults are traceable to faults in the semantic theory.