The author argues that is not obvious what it means for our beliefs and assertions to be "truth-directed", and that we need to weaken our ordinary notion of a belief if we are to deal with radical scepticism without surrendering to idealism. Topics examined also include whether there could be alien conceptual schemes and what might happen to us if we abandoned genuine belief in place of mere pragmatic acceptance. A radically new "ecological" model of knowledge is defended.

The author deals with the lost works of Empedocles, an often neglected subject, in the frame of the discussion concerning the number of the poems and their main features. He reviews the traces of the Passage of Xerxes, of the Medical Discourse, and of the Proem to Apollo among the fragments and witnesses, taking his cue from textual aspects and dealing with the contents, the significance of each of these writings in Empedocles’ culture and thought and their multifarious relationships with (...) his times. As to the Passage, he tries to reconcile the contrasting interpretations so far proposed (historical or religious poem). Concerning B111, the only relic from the Medical Discourse, he explains why its contents are incompatible with the Physical Poem and the Purifications. He analyzes the Proem to Apollo in several perspectives (text, witnesses, contents also from the epistemological point of view, literary genre). He assigns fragments 131–134 and 142 to the Proem, drawing one of his arguments from the comparison with the third Homeric Hymn to Apollo, and also suggesting a relationship with an intellectual cult of the sun. Formal features help to ascribe each fragment to the relevant poem. Close similarities between fragments do not necessarily mean that they come from the same writing: Empedocles is wont to allude to one poem of his while composing another. The author concludes that the striving for a reductio ad unum of the Acragantine’s output, also evident in the attempt by a number of scholars to make only one poem out of the Περὶ φύσεως and the Καθαρμοί, has often led researchers to take for granted that none of the fragments preserved might belong to the lost works. (shrink)

The extraordinary overall textual situation of Parmenides’ B1,1-3, due to complex, variegate and polymorphous causes, entailed and still entails diverse sorts of problematic issues so to constitute a true labyrinth of philological, hermeneutical and theoretical instances interwoven each other in almost inextricable way. In this analysis, a first substantial knot of philological type resulted necessary to a preliminary discrimination for making sure the textual reconstruction in order to argue then its most literarily clear and specifiable meaning. In this way it (...) was also possible to make sure its semantic and theoretical relevancies. This research leaded to outline and, hopefully, to demonstrate no textual corruption and following misunderstanding happened before sec. XIII, namely corresponding to the lecture present in the first available manuscript, the so-called cod. N, universally excluded and entirely misevaluated, even discarded; instead it is not only the principle, but the unique reliable codex. The detailed analyse including the autoptic exam is the result of enlightening the absolute goodness of this version and the reasons both philological and hermeneutical comparations, which allow to achieve its complete textual rehabilitation and so to grasp its real conceptual content. (shrink)

Translation at this stage would be premature, but three variants in line 3 deserve notice, Bury writes Natorp , followed by Brochard , suggested , Wachsmuth prints a colon instead of a comma after It is not surprising that line 3 has attracted emendation. As it stands, it lacks a verb and has to modify an understood existential.

As a crucial source for Presocratic theories of sense perception, Theophrastus’ De sensibus deserves a closer scrutiny than the placement among A-fragments, as often suggested or instigated. This paper proposes to refine our terminology for labelling the varying quality of reporting within the A-fragments has. It supplements the existing criticism of Diels’ division by analysing neglected features. A reassessment of the assumptions underlying the terms ‘fragment’ and ‘paraphrase’ can contribute to dissolving the sharp distinction between A- and B-fragments in DK. (...) It advocates, not equality for A-fragments, but a more inclusive and accurate evaluation of the passages. (shrink)

Resumen: El presente trabajo esbozará ciertos elementos para una interpretación global del proemio de Parménides, a partir del análisis de uno de sus elementos centrales: las doncellas hijas del sol. Tras examinar las acciones que éstas realizan dentro de la narración, y con el objetivo de defender una interpretación alegórica, se definirá la actividad alegórica arcaica mediante algunos ejemplos. Finalmente, se trazarán los cimientos para una revalorización crítica de la interpretación de sexto Empírico y se argumentará que la alegoría platónica (...) del carro alado como símbolo de la se halla motivada por la ambigüedad intrínseca del relato, ambigüedad que tiene por objeto mostrar la unidad real de los contrarios aparentes a través del símbolo de las doncellas hijas del sol.: This paper will outline several guiding principles concerning a comprehensive interpretation of Parmenides' proem through the analysis of one of its essential elements: the daughters of the Sun. After examining the actions they perform throughout the narrative and in order to defend an allegorical interpretation of them, some features of the archaic allegorical activity will be defined by the analysis of some examples. Finally, we will trace the foundations for a critical reappraisal of Sextus Empiricus' interpretation and we will argue that Plato's allegory of the "winged chariot" as a symbol of the ψυχή in the Phaedrus could well be closely recreating and evoking the Parmenidean myth of the proem. The hermeneutic disjunction may be motivated by the intrinsic ambiguity of the narration, an ambiguity intended to show the real unity of apparent opposites by using the symbol of the daughters of the Sun. (shrink)