Showing papers in "Review of Metaphysics in 1977"

Aristotle on the Forms of Friendship

Abstract: 1 i either in the scholarly nor in the philosophical literature on Aristotle does his account of friendship ( ik?a) occupy a very promi nent place. I suppose this is partly, though certainly not wholly, to be explained by the fact that the modern ethical theories with which Aristotle's might demand comparison hardly make room for the discussion of any parallel phenomenon.1 Whatever else friendship is, it is, at least typically, a personal relationship freely, even spon taneously, entered into, and ethics, as modern theorists tend to con ceive it, deals rather with the ways in which people are required to regard, and behave toward, one another, than with the organiza tion of their private affairs. To the extent, then, that one shares this modern outlook one will tend to neglect, or treat merely as an historical curiosity, Aristotle's efforts to define friendship and to place it within the framework of human eudaimonia (flourishing), the theory of which is central to moral philosophy as he understands it. Yet in the Nicomachean Ethics the two books on ik?a make up nearly a fifth of the whole,2 and this seems to me a fair measure of the importance of this subject to the complete understanding both of Aristotle's overall moral theory and even of many of the more circumscribed topics (moral virtue and pleasure, for example) to which so much scholarly and philosophical attention has been devoted. If, as I suggest, the failure of commentators to appreciate its importance is partly the effect of distortions produced by the moral outlook that has predominated in modern moral philosophy, the careful study of these books may help to free us from constricting prejudices and perhaps even make it possible to discover in Aristotle a plausible

Neoplatonic Interpretations of Aristotle on Phantasia

Abstract: Les interpretations platonisantes d'Aristote par Simplicius et pseudo-Philipon: la discussion de l'imagination dans De Anima (III, 3).

5. Why Hegel Now

Abstract: -Louring the past decade there has been an explosion of interest in Hegel. One can barely keep up with the new editions, translations, commentaries, and articles that have been appearing throughout the world. The reasons for this burst of scholarly activity vary in differ ent cultural milieus, but the question is especially perplexing in the context of Anglo-American philosophy. If there is one philosopher who had been thought to be dead and buried, who embodied all the vices of the wrong way of philosophizing, who seemed to have been killed off by abuse and ridicule, it was Hegel. In order to begin to answer the question of why so many Anglo-American thinkers are finding Hegel so fascinating and worthy of careful study, it is necessary to review briefly the history of the influence of, and the fight against, Hegel in the English-speaking world.

Some Logical Aspects of the Concept of "Hypostasis" in Plotinus

Abstract: Examen du statut logique de certains enonces sur l'hypostase en ce qu'elle se rapporte a l'Un.

Plato on the Morality of Imagination

Abstract: X hat the arts can be deceptive, that poetry and painting can be sources of moral and intellectual error, is a criticism made long before Plato. We delight in these works of imitation, they fascinate and please us, as Aristotle remarks. But a certain danger lurks in this delight; "the devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape," as Hamlet warns. The great Gorgias commenting on the arts shows how subtle that devil could be: