Showing papers in "Phronesis in 2006"

Patterns of Perfection in Damascius' Life of Isidore

Abstract: In this article, it is shown that, following the precedent set in particular by Marinus' Life of Proclus, Damascius, in his Life of Isidore, uses biography so as to illustrate philosophical progress through the Neoplatonic scale of virtues. Damascius applies this scale, however, to a wide range of figures belonging to pagan philosophical circles of the fifth century AD: they show different degrees and forms of progress in this scale and thus provide an edificatory panorama of patterns of philosophical perfection. Each level of the scale of virtues is shown to be exemplified in Damascius' biographies. It is suggested that few, in Damascius' opinion, reached the highest levels of virtue and that philosophical decline is intimated in his descriptions of his contemporaries.

Ethical Justice and Political Justice

Abstract: The purpose of Aristotle's discussion of political justice (τo πoλιτικoν δικαιoν) in EN V.6-7 has been a matter of dispute. Although the notion of political justice which Aristotle seeks to elucidate is relatively clear, namely the notion of justice which obtains between free and equal citizens living within a community aiming at self-sufficiency under the rule of law, confusion arises when one asks how political justice relates to the other kinds of justice examined in EN V. Is political justice a highly determinate subdivision of justice which Aristotle examines alongside the other varieties of particular justice analyzed in EN V.2-5? Or is political justice related to the analysis of ethical agency which follows in EN V.8-11? The question is complicated by the fact that the passage in question – EN V 1134a17-1135a15 – has occasioned much speculation about textual dislocations and has been incorporated into chapter divisions differently according to the two prevalent modern editorial divisions of the Ethics . To resolve these problems, I argue that Aristotle's account of political justice is situated within an extended aporetic analysis which begins in EN V.6 and extends through EN V.8. Aristotle introduces the notion of political justice within the extended analysis concerning the ascription of character states because calling someone just or unjust presupposes that the person is a fully mature ethical agent, but anyone capable of political justice possesses such agency. Once the extended argument in the second half of EN V is properly understood, it appears that the received text is not in need of emendation. To further support my claim that Aristotle's account of political justice introduces a new inquiry which is not analogous to the analyses of particular justice in the first half of EN V, I compare political justice to the other species of justice.

Positioning Heaven: The Infidelity of a Faithful Aristotelian

Abstract: Aristotle's account of place in terms of an innermost limit of a containing body was to generate serious discussion and controversy among Aristotle's later commentators, especially when it was applied to the cosmos as a whole. The problem was that since there is nothing outside of the cosmos that could contain it, the cosmos apparently could not have a place according to Aristotle's definition; however, if the cosmos does not have a place, then it is not clear that it could move, but it was thought to move, namely, in its daily revolution, which was viewed as a kind of natural locomotion and so required the cosmos to have a place. The study briefly outlines Aristotle's account of place and then considers its fate, particularly with respect to the cosmos and its motion, at the hands of later commentators. To this end, it begins with Theophrastus' puzzles concerning Aristotle's account of place, and how later Greek commentators, such as Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius and others, attempted to address these problems in what can only be described as ad hoc ways. It then considers Philoponus' exploitation of these problems as a means to replace Aristotle's account of place with his own account of place understood in terms of extension. The study concludes with the Arabic Neoplatonizing Aristotelian Avicenna and his novel introduction of a new category of motion, namely, motion in the category of position. Briefly, Avicenna denies that the cosmos has a place, and so claims that it moves not with respect to place, but with respect to position.

Akrasia in the Protagoras and the Republic

Abstract: Although it is a commonplace that the Protagoras and the Republic present different views of akrasia, the nature of the difference is not well understood. I argue that the logic of the famous argument in the Protagoras turns just on two crucial assumptions: that desiring is having evaluative beliefs (or that valuing is desiring), and that no one can have contradictory preferences at the same time; hedonism is not essential to the logic of the argument. And the logic of the argument for the division of the soul in the Republic requires the rejection of just the second of these assumptions, but not the evaluative conception of desire. I also maintain that Plato was aware, at the time of composition, of these features of the argumentation of his dialogues. Finally, I argue that there is reason to think that, even at the time of the Protagoras, Plato held the conception of the soul expressed in the Republic, and not anything like that expressed in the famous argument of the Protagoras. The Protagoras view, even without hedonism, is a poor expression of the thesis that virtue is knowledge

Sources of delusion in Analytica Posteriora 1.5

Abstract: Aristotle's philosophically most explicit and sophisticated account of the concept of a (primary-)universal proof is found, not in Analytica Posteriora 1.4, where he introduces the notion, but in 1.5. In 1.4 Aristotle merely says that a universal proof must be of something arbitrary as well as of something primary and seems to explain primacy in extensional terms, as concerning the largest possible domain. In 1.5 Aristotle improves upon this account after considering three ways in which we may delude ourselves into thinking we have a primary-universal proof. These three sources of delusion are shown to concern situations in which our arguments do establish the desired conclusion for the largest possible domain, but still fail to be real primary-universal proofs. Presupposing the concept of what may be called an immediate proof, in which something is proved of an arbitrary individual, Aristotle in response now demands that a proof be immediate of the primary thing itself and goes on to sketch a framework in which an intensional criterion for primacy can be formulated. For the most part this article is a comprehensive and detailed commentary on Aristotle's very concise exposition in 1.5. One important result is that the famous passage 74a17-25 referring to two ways of proving the alternation of proportions cannot be used as evidence for the development of pre-Euclidean mathematics.

Socrates' Therapeutic Use of Inconsistency in the Axiochus

Abstract: The pseudo-Platonic dialogue Axiochus seems irremediably confused. Its author tosses together Platonic, Epicurean and Cynic arguments against the fear of death, apparently with no regard for their consistency. Whereas in the Apology Socrates argues that death is either annihilation or a relocation of the soul, and is a blessing either way, in the Axiochus Socrates seems to assert that death is both annihilation and a release of the soul from the body into a better realm.I argue that we can acquit the Axiochus from the charge of confusion if we pay attention to its genre, a consolation letter cast in dialogue form. The dialogue dramatizes a distinctive type of consolatory argumentative practice. Socrates' use of arguments with inconsistent premises, presented in propria persona, is only one of many ways in which he is willing to sacrifice argumentative hygiene for the sake of therapeutic effectiveness. These include appealing to emotion, tailoring arguments to the audience, and presenting invalid arguments so as to induce unjustified but comforting beliefs. In these respects, I think that Socrates' argumentative practice is best compared to PH III 280-1, where Sextus Empiricus says that the skeptic will deliberately use logically weak arguments as long as they work.

Aristotle Physics I 8

Abstract: Aristotle's thesis in Physics I 8 is that a certain old and familiar problem about coming to be can only be solved with the help of the new account of the "principles" he has developed in Physics I 7. This is a strong thesis and the literature on the chapter does not quite do it justice; specifically, as things now stand we are left wondering why Aristotle should have found this problem so compelling in the first place. In this paper I develop an interpretation which (I hope) will help to remedy this.I believe that Aristotle's problem about coming to be depends on a certain principle to the effect that "nothing can become what it already is" (it is this that is supposed to explain why τo oν cannot come to be eξ Oντoς – cf. 191a30). The main innovation of the interpretation developed here is its suggestion that we understand this principle as a principle about kinds. So understood, the principle does not make the comparatively trivial point that nothing can become any individual it already is, but rather the more powerful and substantive point that nothing can become any kind of thing it already is. I argue that this is a point which Aristotle himself accepts and that this is why the problem about coming to be raises serious difficulties for him. I also discuss Aristotle's proposed solutions to this problem, explaining how each draws on his new account of the principles and why each is required for any full resolution of the difficulties the problem raises. In this way I hope to show how the interpretation developed here does justice to the very strong thesis with which Aristotle begins Physics I 8. I conclude brie fly and somewhat speculatively with a suggestion as to why Aristotle might accept the principle on which I have suggested the problem turns.

The Opening of On Interpretation: Toward a More Literal Reading

Abstract: Aristotle begins On Interpretation with an analysis of the existence of linguistic entities as both physical and meaningful. Two things have been lacking for a full appreciation of this analysis: a more literal translation of the passage and an ample understanding of the distinction between symbols and signs. In this article, therefore, I first offer a translation of this opening passage (16a1-9) that allows the import of Aristotle's thinking to strike the reader. Then I articulate the distinction between symbol and sign so crucial to understanding this passage. Aristotle employs this distinction, I argue, in order to show how the linguistic entities he defines later in On Interpretation (that is, name, verb, denial, affirmation, declaration, and articulation) are both conventional and natural, owing to their being both symbols and signs, respectively. Finally, I suggest why Aristotle's analysis of how linguistic entities exist as both physical and meaningful is fitting, since man himself, "the animal that has speech," lives at the boundary between nature and intelligence.

Potentiality and the Matter of Composite Substance

Abstract: The paper examines the connection between Aristotle's theory of generated substance and his notion of potentiality in Metaphysics Θ7 Aristotle insists that the matter of a substance is not what that substance is, against a competing view that was widely held both in his day and now He coined the term thaten (eκeiνινOν) in order to make this point The term highlights a systematic correspondence between the metaphysics of matter and of quality: the relationship between a thing and its matter is like the relationship between a quali fied thing and the relevant quality It is argued that Aristotle's view about the matter of particular substances is connected with his view about ultimate matter His conception of the matter of particular substances allows him to block an argument, from Plato's Timaeus, that ultimate matter must be something imperceptible and lacking all perceptible qualities Aristotle uses the term thaten to introduce an alternative conception of ultimate matter on which ultimate matter might well be an ordinary perceptible kind of thing

Epicureans and the Present Past

Abstract: This essay offers a reading of a difficult passage in the first book of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura in which the poet first explains the Epicurean account of time and then responds to a worry about the status of the past (1.459-82). It identifies two possible readings of the passage, one of which is compatible with the claim that the Epicureans were presentists about the past. Other evidence, particularly from Cicero De Fato, suggests that the Epicureans maintained that all true assertions must have a contemporaneous truth-maker and that no contingent future-tensed assertions are true. It appears, however, that they did not assert a symmetrical view of past-tensed assertions. There is no compelling reason, therefore, to think that the Epicureans were presentists about the past.

Reading the περιτρoπη: Theaetetus 170c-171c

Abstract: Two readings of the much-discussed πeριτρoπη argument of Theaetetus 170c-171c have dominated the literature. One I call "the relativity reading". On this reading, the argument fails by ignoratio elenchi because it "carelessly" omits "the qualifications 'true for so-and-so ' which [Protagoras'] theory insists on" (Bostock 1988: 90). The other reading I call "the many-worlds interpretation". On this view, Plato's argument succeeds in showing that "Protagoras' position becomes utterly self-contradictory" because "he claims that everyone lives in his own relativistic world, yet at the same time he is forced by that very claim to admit that no one does" (Burnyeat 1976b: 48). I discuss and criticise both readings, and present a third, according to which the point of the argument is, very roughly, that Protagoras is committed to equating truth and truth-for, and so, further, to their intersubstitutability . This further commitment proves fatal to his argument.

Euthyphro's Thesis Revisited

Abstract: It has been an interpretative dogma to condemn Euthyphro's attempt to account for piety in terms of the gods' wishes as one totally repudiated by Socrates, and in itself untenable. Still at 15c8-9 Socrates expresses some scepticism about whether his refutation of Euthyphro's original account of piety in terms of what the gods love has established that it must be abandoned altogether. He then goes on to say that he and Euthyphro ought to investigate again (παλιν σκeπτeoν), from the beginning (eξ αρχηζ), what piety is (15c11-12), which may be taken to imply that Euthyphro's original account should be revisited. Interpreting Socrates' refutation of that account as having shown that it is one he rejects completely implies that no weight should be attached to Socrates' later reservations, even though he exhibits considerable care in expressing them. Unfortunately, as I argue, this interpretative stand has not brought us any closer to understanding the conception of piety Plato may be attributing to Socrates. If only for the purpose of interpretative completeness, we owe it to Plato actually to do as Socrates suggests at the end of the dialogue that one ought to, and revisit Euthyphro's thesis. In this paper, I propose to break ranks with the dogma. Instead, I follow Socrates' recommendation at 15c11 that we should look into what piety is from the beginning, simply to examine whether there are any insights that might be uncovered by doing so.