Showing papers in "Phronesis in 1997"

What is "the mean relative to us" in Aristotle's Ethics?

Abstract: Rejetant l'interpretation individualiste de la definition de l'excellence de caractere en terme de moyen relatif a nous dans l'«Ethique a Nicomaque» (II, 6), l'A. montre que l'expression d'Aristote, et l'exemple de l'entraineur athletique qui l'illustre, doivent etre compris dans le sens d'un moyen relatif a nous en tant qu'etres humains, c'est-a-dire comme definissant la notion normative de nature humaine

Aristotle, hos epi to polu relations, and a demonstrative science of ethics

Abstract: Etude de l'expression hos epi polu (pour la plus grande part) et de la notion de demonstrabilite chez Aristote, qui determinent le statut de son ethique comme science aristotelicienne. Examinant l'interpretation de C. D. C. Reeve, fondee sur la distinction entre science pure et science simple chez Aristote, et l'interpretation de G. Anagnostopoulos, fondee sur les notions d'inexactitude et de demonstration, l'A. propose une troisieme lecture des relations hos epi polu fondee sur le principe de non-inference et le degre de necessite des propositions

Greek Religion and Philosophy in the Sisyphus Fragment

Abstract: Lecture du fragment de Sisyphe (DK 88B.25), cite par Sextus Empiricus comme l'expression de l'atheisme du tyran Critias, en tant que document sur l'interaction de la raison et de la religion au V e siecle. Recherchant des elements de la philosophie ionienne de la nature dans le texte de Sisyphe, l'A. etudie les conditions theâtrales de l'emergence de l'atheisme theorique dans le contexte du cynisme moral propre a la tragedie d'Euripide, mais aussi aux theories de Democrite, Prodicos et Platon

Nonaggregatability, inclusiveness, and the theory of focal value : Nicomachean Ethics 1.7.1097b16-20

Abstract: Soulevant le probleme de la place du passage 1.7.1097b16-20 dans l'argument general de l'«Ethique a Nicomaque», d'une part, et celui de l'interpretation du terme agregatible dans la conception du bonheur qui y est developpee, d'autre part, l'A. examine les differentes interpretations externaliste vs. internaliste, moniste vs. inclusive, de la logique aristotelicienne du bien, fondee sur la double focalite de l'eudaimonia

Plato on Conventionalism

Abstract: L'A. defend la these selon laquelle le conventionnalisme defendu par Hermogene dans le «Cratyle» de Platon implique une approche conservatrice des noms et une legitimation des noms prives que Platon ne peut accepter dans sa recherche d'un critere pour l'exactitude des noms qui soit independant de toute convention. Examinant la fonction dialectique et les implications politiques de la position d'Hermogene, l'A. montre que le parallele entre le langage, l'ethique et le politique releve de la definition du droit et des constitutions en termes de constructions sociales

Between Religion and Philosophy: the Function of Allegory in the Derveni Papyrus

Abstract: Etude du commentaire allegorique de la theogonie orphique developpe dans le papyrus de Derveni, decouvert en 1962 dans la tombe d'un soldat macedonien de haut-rang. Soulevant la question du rapport entre la religion orphique et la cosmogonie de la physique presocratique, l'A. etudie le contexte textuel et le contexte rituel de l'allegorie physique du feu, s'inscrivant dans le cadre d'une approche ontologique, cosmogonique et theologique de la ceremonie funeraire (bucher)

The Stoics on Hypotheses and Hypothetical Arguments

Abstract: In the list of Chrysippus' logical writings in Diogenes Laertius, in its fourth section of works on arguments (X6yot), we find ten books on hypothetical arguments (Uno0euxro' X6byos, D.L. VII 196). The question I shall follow up in this paper is: what were these Stoic hypothetical arguments about which Chrysippus had so much to say? Little has been written on this issue, the situation of the sources being not exactly favourable. No example of an hypothetical argument assigned to Chrysippus or any other early Stoic has survived, nor do we have any Stoic definition. One way of approaching the issue is to look and see what arguments were called "hypothetical arguments" or "hypothetical syllogisms" after Chiysippus, and to examine whether these are the same kind of arguments Chrysippus wrote about. In later antiquity we find a classification of types of arguments which is presumably of Peripatetic origin: according to this classification, a first division is made into categorical syllogisms and hypothetical syllogisms, and in a second step, a distinction is drawn between wholly hypothetical syllogisms (oi. 8t' OiXo) inEO0EctKO; aukXoytoaoi, Alex. APr 326.20ff.; 330.28-30; Philop. APr 243.11-36; [Amm.] APr 67.24-30) and mixed hypothetical syllogisms (oi jiuco'l lYfolOttKOt (auXo'yiaotoi), [Amm.] APr 67.24-30).' The classification is based on a twofold distinction of the propositions from which the arguments are constructed. Categorical propositions are propositions that are simple in that they do not contain two or more propositions as components. Examples are "Socrates walks," ".Some stones are white," "All humans are animals" (ibid., 11.17-19). Hypothetical propositions are propositions that contain two or more propositions as components. They encompass at least conditional propositions (e.g. "If it is day, it is light"); various types of disjunctive propositions

Chaos and Control: Reading Plato's Politicus

Abstract: On first reading, the Politicus appears a dismal dialogue (compared, for example, to the immediacy of both the philosophy and the drama of the Theaetetus). This conversation between the Eleatic Stranger and the hopelessly complaisant Young Socrates seems unlikely to capture our imagination; the lengthy discussion of collection and division may do little for our understanding of dialectic; and even the joke (at 266c, a pun on being a pig and coming last which is marginally more amusing in Greek) will leave us cold. It may be hardly surprising that "this weary dialogue," as Gilbert Ryle called it, has been left alone by scholars. However a recent Symposium Platonicum has revived interest in the Politicus;2 this generated two volumes of papers given at the Symposium and, more importantly, a new translation with commentary by Christopher Rowe.3 The new OCT, moreover, gives a freshly edited text.4 This material makes it immediately clear that the Politicus should not be dismissed out of hand even although it stands revealed as an extremely complex composition, both from the literary and from the philosophical point of view.

Alexander of Aphrodisias on Celestial Motions

Abstract: Etude de la theorie des mouvements celestes developpee par Alexandre d'Aphrodise a partir de la notion de corps divin et de l'identification de la nature des spheres celestes avec leur âme Examinant l'interrelation des mouvements celestes dans le «De caelo» de Simplicius, l'A mesure la proximite de la theorie homocentrique d'Alexandre avec les principes aristoteliciens de la philosophie de la nature: celui d'un premier moteur immobile, d'une part, et celui d'une hierarchie des corps celestes selon leur perfection, d'autre part

Forms of Individuals in Plotinus: A Re-Examination

Abstract: For most modem readers of Plato the very idea of Forms of individuals would appear as being contradictory and incomprehensible. A Platonic Form is normally thought of as something represented by a term such as "Largeness" or "Justice" or, perhaps, "Fire" or "Tree", and supposed to be in some way responsible for the presence of the corresponding general properties of being "large" or "just", "a fire" or "a tree" in individual objects. It is considered as a basic aspect of both its ontological and its epistemological function that it provides a unitary and stable point of reference for all the various uses of these general terms and, therefore, a guarantee for their unambiguousness. Plato himself stresses this connection between Forms and generality while formulating his famous "rule" for introducing them:

How (not) to exempt Platonic Forms from Parmenides' Third Man

Abstract: Sous l'expression defense de l'exemption, l'A. soutient l'idee selon laquelle il existe de bonnes raisons pour affranchir l'argument du troisieme homme developpe dans le «Parmenide» de la doctrine des Formes platoniciennes. Si la defense de l'exemption constitue une reponse adequate a une importante critique de la theorie ds formes, l'A. montre que cette critique n'est pas l'objet du «Parmenide», mais la raison meme de l'argument cosmologique

The Role of the Affinity Argument in the Phaedo

Abstract: The affinity argument (78b4-84b8) stands out in the «Phaedo» as the weakest of all Socrates' arguments for the immortality of soul. Not only does Socrates recognize that it shows no more than the soul must be completely indissoluble, or something close to it (80b10) but, unlike his other arguments, it is thoroughly trounced by stinging and sarcastic replies from Simmias and Cebes. It is clear from the dialogue that Plato has gave doubts about the mode of argument employed in the affinity passages. But if Plato knows the argument is so bad, then why is it here, nestling amongst, by the usual count, three more reasonable arguments for immortality? My answer is that it is here precisely in order to illustrate how not to argue the case for immortality, and, more generally, how not to argue the case for any thesis. The affinity remarks, then, from part of an object lesson in how not to do good philosophy. - My strategy will be, first, to show that Plato (and his leading man) reject analogical forms of argument, and, secondly, to defend the stronger claim that the use of this argument forms part of an illustration of where the philosophy can go wrong

Frede and Patzig on Definition in Metaphysics Z.10 and 11

Abstract: Etude de la conception de la definition developpee par Aristote au livre Z, 10 et 11 de la «Metaphysique», a travers la critique du commentaire de M. Frede et G. Patzig qui commet une triple erreur: 1) Aristote ne dit pas que les definitions de formes font reference a la matiere de maniere indirecte, 2) Aristote distingue deux sortes de definitions: les defintions de formes et les definitions de composes de forme et de matiere, 3) Aristote pense que celles-ci font reference a la matiere des composes de facon explicite

What's Wrong with the Aristotelian Theory of Sensible Qualities?

Abstract: Soulevant la question de savoir pourquoi les defenseurs de la philosophie mecaniste du XVII e siecle (Galilee et Descartes) ont reussi a saper la theorie aristotelicienne du statut ontologique des qualites sensibles, l'A. examine l'opposition de Galilee a Aristote en ce qui concerne les proprietes fondamentales des corps materiels et leur role dans l'explication des phenomenes naturels, d'une part, et l'opposition de Descartes a Aristote en ce qui concerne la theorie causale de la perception des couleurs et des parfums, d'autre part

Aristotle as Modern Moral Philosopher

Abstract: We may distinguish two very different ways in which Aristotle figures in contemporary Anglo-American moral philosophizing. Some philosophers find in Aristotle an ethical theory that conceptualizes the subject matter of ethics, and the very questions an ethical theory should aim to answer, in ways that are crucially different from those characteristic of modem moral theories. Other philosophers view Aristotle as essentially toiling in the same philosophical fields as the modems, deploying essentially the same concepts and giving analyses of those concepts that can be compared with, and perhaps preferred to, modem analyses, without undue risk of comparing apples and oranges or of changing the subject. The title of Susan Sauve Meyer's Aristotle on Moral Responsibility' already suggests that she belongs to the second camp, and she makes it clear from the beginning of her work that she sees herself as opposing those who hold (Bernard Williams is foremost in her mind) that there is nothing in Aristotle's ethical theory corresponding to the modern notion of moral responsibility. She aims to show, on the contrary, that "Aristotle's concerns and aims in his various discussions of voluntariness are precisely those of a theorist of moral responsibility" (3). Nevertheless in the course of her masterly execution of this project M. takes care to point out that, on her reconstruction, Aristotle's theory of moral responsibility lacks at least one feature that is widely, if not universally, thought to belong to moral responsibility: what M. refers to as "responsibility for character." There is little to be gained by debating whether this feature, if it is indeed a central feature of most modem accounts of moral responsibility, is essential to the very concept of moral responsibility, or simply a feature of many modem conceptions of it (to use Rawls's distinction); we may be grateful to M. for undertaking to show that Aristotle has a notion bearing a strong family resemblance to that of moral responsibility in the modern sense. M. defends her thesis with a cogently-reasoned argument that draws not only on the three ethical treatises in the Aristotelian corpus (she rightly treats the Magna Moralia as a fairly reliable source of Aristotelian thought, th ough probably not by Aristotle's own hand) but also, and importantly, on discussions of efficient causation in Aristotle's theoretical works. On the basis of these texts M.

On David Charles's Account of Aristotle's Semantics for Simple Names

Abstract: Etude de l'interpretation de la semantique aristotelicienne des noms simples developpee par D. Charles dans son article intitule «Aristotle on names and their signification» (in « Language (Companions to ancient thought, 3», 1994, pp. 37-73). Critiquant l'approche generique de Charles, l'A. montre que les presupposes concernant la signification, d'une part, et ceux concernant la cause et les effets la pensee, d'autre part, ne sont pas ceux d'Aristote

La physiologie politique du Critias de Platon

Abstract: Au debut du «Timee», Socrate demande a ses hotes de mettre en mouvement la constitution dont il a lui-meme trace le dessin, l'immobile tableau. C'est la constitution excellente et les citoyens de la «Republique» qu'il s'agit ainsi de mouvoir et cela, conformement a ce que laisse prevoir leur constitution physique («Timee», 19b8-c1). Les corps des etres vivants que Critias doit evoquer sont donc aussi bien celui de la cite que ceux de ses citoyens, engages dans une guerre contre une autre cite. Le programme du «Timee» consacre le recit atlante comme une representation (apeikasia) del a nature et de la dynamique des corps politiques. L'etude qui suit n'a d'autre objet que de montrer comment cette determination physiologique et dynamique du domaine des affaires politiques definit effectivement le statut philosophique et politique du «Critias». Celui-ci, rapporte au «Timee» dont il est la suite indissociable, acheve donc l'expose tripartite sur la nature qui, apres avoir explique la nature du monde et celle de l'homme, repond enfin au voeu initial de Socrate. Ce-faisant et en depit de son inachevement, le «Critias» donne a la cite un statut inedit dans le corpus platonicien: elle est, comme le monde et comme l'homme, un vivant