Showing papers in "Phronesis in 2003"

Ancient Automata and Mechanical Explanation

Abstract: Many twentieth century scholars describe ancient natural philosophy in terms of a dichotomy between so-called 'mechanistic' and teleological approaches to explanation. The atomists in particular are taken as representative of the former. However, scholars have pointed to some difficulties with this practice;' and different things are meant by the claim that there are 'mechanistic conceptions' or 'mechanical explanations' of the natural world in early natural philosophy. Often the term is taken to refer to the presence of some specific feature in an ancient account, such as explanation by material properties alone, rejection of teleological explanation, or the view that causation should be restricted to contact action. The characterizations of mechanistic thought typically offered can be quite diverse perhaps more so than is commonly recognized and it is not clear that any one definition or subset of necessary and sufficient characteristics would encompass the different ways the term is used. While there surely are similiarities between ancient atomism and later corpuscularian philosophies, care must be taken with the use of an omnibus term like 'mechanistic' to describe these similarities, lest it obscure as much as it reveals. Here I do not attempt an analysis of the manifold ways the terms 'mechanical' or 'mechanistic' are used.2 Rather, I intend to focus attention on only one possible meaning, one that identifies a method of investigation rather than some substantive feature of a natural philosophy. The term 'mechanistic' can be taken to refer to a method of investigating the natural world through terms and principles drawn from the discipline called 'mechanics'. So understood, it is only to be expected that the characteristics associated with the term should be diverse and open-ended and vary through time, as the understanding of mechanics has evolved. This is not the way the term is most commonly used; nonetheless, I suggest that this sense of

False Pleasures, Appearance and Imagination in the Philebus

Abstract: This paper examines the discussion about false pleasures in the Philebus (36 c3-44 a11). After stressing the crucial importance of this discussion in the economy of the dialogue, it attempts to identify the problematic locus of the possibility of true or false pleasures. Socrates points to it by means of an analogy between pleasure and doxa. Against traditional interpretations, which reduce the distinction drawn in this passage to a distinction between doxa and pleasure on the one hand and their object on the other, it is argued that, rather, Socrates distinguishes between the mere fact of having a doxa or a pleasure, on the one hand, and the content of these acts, on the other hand. Consequently, the possibility for a pleasure to be false does not concern its relation to an object, but the affective content which defines it. In order to show how the affective content of a pleasure can be false, it is necessary to examine the three species of false pleasures described by Socrates in their relation to appearance and imagination. Appearance is not identical with perception for Plato: it consists in a mixture of perception and doxa. As for imagination, it consists in "illustrating" a doxa present in the soul by means of a "quasi-perception". It is the presence of a doxa in each of these processes which makes it possible for them to be true or false, while mere perception cannot be either true or false. It is then argued that according to the Philebus pleasure can be false precisely because its affective content is not a mere perception, but either an appearance or an imagination.

Socrates' Pursuit of Definitions

Abstract: "Socrates' Pursuit of Definitions" examines the manner in which Socrates pursues definitions in Plato's early definitional dialogues and advances the following claims. Socrates evaluates definitions (proposed by his interlocutors or himself ) by considering their consistency with conditions of the identity of F (F-conditions) to which he is committed. In evaluating proposed definitions, Socrates seeks to determine their truth-value. Socrates evaluates the truth-value of a proposed definition by considering the consistency of the proposed definition with F-conditions that F he believes to be true. (For instance, a proposed definition's inconsistency with one of these gives Socrates reason to believe that the definition is false.) Socrates' belief in the truth of a given F-condition to which he is committed may be based on self-evidence, its endoxic status, experience, or deduction from premises to which he is committed on the basis of any of the previous three. However, Socrates does not consider the epistemological grounds of his commitments to his F -conditions. This is part of a general avoidance of metaethical and ethical epistemological issues. Due to his avoidance of these, Socrates' pursuit of true definitions is theoretically naive. However, Socrates recognizes a certain limitation to his manner of pursuing definitions. These results are applied to advancing the following further points. (1) Although Socrates has a distinctive manner or style of pursuing definitions, it is inappropriate to ascribe to him a method of doing so in the following sense. The concept of method implies a certain theoretical conception of procedure that Socrates lacks. Moreover, according to Socrates' own conceptual framework, only one who possessed the relevant τeχνη would have a method. (2) Furthermore, Socrates' manner of pursuing definitions is not elenctic just insofar as the word "elenchus" is interpreted to have adversarial connotations; that is inconsistent with Socrates' motives and interests. (3) Socrates' manner of pursuing definitions is consistent among the early definitional dialogues. More specifically, there is no "demise of the elenchus" in a set of transitional dialogues, as Vlastos describes it. First, Socrates' manner of pursuing definitions is not "elenctic" (in the sense described). And, second, the fact that Socrates himself proposes definitions in allegedly post-elenctic dialogues (that is, Lysis and Hippias Major) is consistent with his manner of pursuing definitions. (4) In the early definitional dialogues, Socrates does not have a theory of definition. In particular, he lacks a general theoretical ontology. Moreover, while his comments and implicit commitments entail beliefs about some conditions for a satisfactory definition (for example, that the definiens must be a uniquely identifying true verbal description), such conditions do not constitute a theory. (5) Although in other early dialogues and in other parts of the definitional dialogues Socrates may express concern over the psychological states and well-being of his interlocutors, in the process of pursuing definitions, Socrates' principal concern is the evaluation of definitions, not the psychologies or lives of his interlocutors. (6) Finally, Socrates is committed to the epistemological priority of definitional knowledge for pertinent nondefinitional knowledge. This does present a methodological problem of the kind to which Geach first drew attention. Specifically, according to the manner in which Socrates pursues definitions, it is unclear how he can get from belief that p to knowledge that p. Although this problem is genuine, Socrates himself is not unaware of such limits of his approach.

Numenian Psychology in Calcidius

Abstract: The 1962 publication of J. H. Waszink's edition of Calcidius' commentary on Plato's Timaeus focussed attention on the question of Calcidius' source for a group of chapters where he presents an interpretation of Plato's account of the creation of soul. I discuss three attempts to answer this question: that of Waszink himself, who argues that the source is Porphyry who was here influenced by the Neopythagorean/Platonist Numenius, that of J. M. Van Winden, who claims Numenius as the direct source, and that of Werner Deuse, who offers reasons for excluding Numenius as either directly or indirectly responsible. I show the weakness of Deuse's critique, but then argue that neither Waszink nor Van Winden has given sufficient consideration to the possibility that Plotinus, either alone or through Porphyry as intermediary, is behind Calcidius' interpretation, where the doctrines of the unity of the soul and of a higher soul that does not descend, both characteristic of Plotinus' psychology, are prominent. However, there is an important but uniformly overlooked feature of this exegesis that rules out both Plotinus and Porphyry as possible sources. This leaves Numenius as the only serious candidate. If, then, the origin of the doctrines of the unity of the soul and of the undescended higher soul can be traced to the work of Numenius, there is the strong possibility that in his formulation of these same doctrines Plotinus was indebted to Numenius.

Degrees of Separation in the Phaedo

Abstract: It can be shown that, if we assume 'substance dualism', or the real distinctness of the soul from the body, then the standard objections to the Cyclical Argument in the Phaedo fail. So charity would presumably require that we take substance dualism to be presupposed by that argument. To do so would not beg any question, since substance dualism is a significantly weaker thesis than the immortality of the soul. Moreover, there is good textual evidence in favor of this presumption. A closer look at the immediately preceding passage, viz. "Socrates' Defense", reveals an argument for a real distinction between soul and body, not unlike Descartes' famous argument, based on the identification of an activity in which the soul can in principle engage on its own, without assistance from the body. The argumentative project of the Phaedo , on this reading, becomes: given that the soul is really distinct, show that it is immortal. And Plato aims to do this in two stages. The three initial arguments are meant to establish merely the minimal claim that the continued existence of the soul across cycles of reincarnation is the most plausible view to take, given substance dualism; and it is left to the Final Argument to argue for something that we might regard as immortality, that is, the imperishability of the soul, come what may.

Sextus empiricus and the tripartition of time

Abstract: A discussion of the arguments against the existence of time based upon its tripartition into past, present, and future found in SE M 10.197-202. It uncovers Sextus' major premises and assumptions for these arguments and, in particular, criticises his argument that the past and future do not exist because the former is no longer and the latter is not yet. It also places these arguments within the larger structure of Sextus' arguments on time in SE M 10 and considers these arguments as an example of his general strategy for producing ataraxia by assembling opposing sets of argument on a given question.

The Craft of Ruling in Plato's Euthydemus and Republic

Abstract: We will investigate the relation between the notion of the craft of ruling in the Euthydemus and in the Republic. In the Euthydemus, Socrates' search for an account of wisdom leads to his identifying it as the craft of ruling in the city. In the Republic, the craft of ruling in the city is the virtue of wisdom in the city and the analogue of wisdom in the soul. Still, the craft of ruling leads to aporia in the former dialogue while in the latter it is a central feature of Socrates' account of justice - both in the city and in the soul. Some commentators hold that the aporia at the end of the second protreptic interlude of the Euthydemus shows that Socrates' account of wisdom is fatally flawed and must be rejected. However, the difficulty for this position is that the craft of ruling from the Euthydemus is a hardy notion that plays an extremely important role in the Republic. Indeed, reflecting this fact, other commentators hold that the aporia is solved in the Republic. Still, what is so far missing is an analysis that clearly shows the way to this solution in the Republic. In what follows, we will analyze the two protreptic interludes in the Euthydemus in order to see how the aporia arises. As we shall see, Socrates presents the aporia as a labyrinth. Indeed, it is a labyrinth with a little noticed step that - once it is noticed - shows the way out. The result will be that the aporia of the Euthydemus points to a solution in which ruling in the soul implies a command of one's appetites and emotions.

Recollecting Forms in the Phaedo

Abstract: According to an interpretation that has dominated the literature, the traditional interpretation as I call it, the recollection argument aims at establishing the thesis that our learning in this life consists in recollecting knowledge the soul acquired before being born into a body, or thesis R, by using the thesis that there exist forms, thesis F, as a premise. These entities, the forms, are incorporeal, immutable, and transcendent in the sense that they exist separately from material perceptibles, which in turn are related to them through participation and by being caused by them in some sense. But the properties of transcendence, immutability and incorporeality are sufficient to signal forms, and so the thesis that there exist forms claims that there exists entities with at least these three properties. In the first section of this paper, I argue that strong textual and more general exegetical reasons suggest that the traditional interpretation is mistaken. Furthermore, this interpretation, as I argue in the second section, fails to credit Plato with a proper argument for recollection. In section III, I present an alternative account of the argument for R in the Phaedo . At the same time I defend a more general interpretation according to which the metaphysical doctrine Plato offers in the Phaedo represents a natural continuation of the philosophical position that stands at the centre of the dialectical conversations we find in the shorter Socratic dialogues.

The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought.

Abstract: Die hier anzuzeigende Geschichte des politischen Denkens im antiken Griechenland und Rom gehort in den grossangelegten Plan der Cambridger Universitaitspresse, die Tradition der europaischen politischen Ideen in einer Reihe darzustellen. Mit dem Band History of Greek and Roman Political Thought liegt nunmehr, nach den BBanden zum Mittelalter und zur friihen Neuzeit,' eine kontinuierliche Geschichte des politischen Denkens Europas vor, soweit es zwischen dem archaischen Griechenland und dem Ende der fruhen Neuzeit (A.D. 1700) in Erscheinung getreten ist. In seiner Anlage unterscheidet sich der Band von den schon vorliegenden Teilen der Reihe dadurch, dass er, seinem erklarten Ziel nach, weniger eine Geschichte der Ideen als der Denker prasentieren will (<

Zeno on the Unity of Philosophy

Abstract: The formula 'the elements of logos' in the Zeno quotation by Epictetus at Arrian, Diss 4812 need not, pace eg von Arnim, pertain to the parts of speech, but more probably means the elements ie primary theorems of philosophical theory, or doctrine Theory moreover should become internalized to the soul and 'lived': philosophy is also the so-called 'art of life' These theorems are to be distinguished but should reciprocally entail each other Philosophy according to Zeno is both tripartite and one, and tripartite especially in that its parts (and subparts) cannot be transferred simultaneously: of necessity these have to taught and learned one after the other

Du vin pour le Collège de veille? Mise en lumière d'un lien occulté entre le Choeur de Dionysos et le νυκτερινος συλλογος dans les Lois de Platon

Abstract: Ce texte cherche a montrer que plusieurs allusions textuelles indiquent l'existence d'un lien significatif entre le Choeur de Dionysos et le νυκτeρινος συλλογος dans les Lois de Platon. Cette hypothese inedite se trouve confirmee par un examen attentif des diverses correspondances entre les deux instances, examen qui permet en outre de preciser la nature de leur lien. Il semble d'abord que le Choeur de Dionysos ait pour role d'apporter un complement pedagogique de «musique appliquee» a l'elite politique et scientifique de la cite. Plus important encore, le Choeur Dionysien parait etre l'organe ideologique privilegie par lequel les gouvernants du College de veille peuvent donner une forme persuasive a leur science et exercer une influence civique puissante sur l'ensemble de la population.

Tóπoι e i'δια nella Retorica di Aristotele

Abstract: Il passo della Retorica (1358 a 10-21) dove e introdotta la distinzione τoπoι e i'δια e uno dei piu controversi dell'opera aristotelica. Il presente lavoro propone un chiarimento della natura e del ruolo di τoπoι e i'δια nella costruzione di un'argomentazione dialettico-retorica. Tale chiarimento viene presentato attraverso un confronto tra Topici e Retorica che, se pur espressamente evidenziato da Aristotele stesso, sembra essere stato trascurato da quanti si sono occupati dell'esegesi di tale sezione della Retorica .