In fragments from the Protrepticus, Aristotle offers three linked arguments for the view that philosophy is easy. According to an obvious normative worry, however, Aristotle also seems to think that the easiness of many activities has little to do with their choiceworthiness. Hence, if the Protrepticus seeks to exhort its audience to philosophize on the basis of philosophy’s easiness, then perhaps the Protrepticus provides the wrong sort of hortatory appeal. In response, I briefly situate Aristotle’s arguments in their dialectical context. (...) On this basis, I elucidate what sort of easiness Aristotle attributes to philosophy, and what difference Aristotle thinks philosophy’s easiness makes to its choiceworthiness. (shrink)

RESUMEN Sobre la filosofía es una obra exotérica que se conserva de forma fragmentaria. Se cree que tenía tres libros. En los dos primeros Aristóteles habría realizado un compendio sobre las diferentes concepciones de la filosofía y su respectivo objeto; en el tercero habría presentado sus propias concepciones sobre los temas abordados en los libros precedentes. Los escasos fragmentos conservados y la disparidad de las fuentes por las cuales estos son transmitidos representan una dificultad para establecer cuáles son esas concepciones. (...) En este sentido, en este trabajo intentaremos demostrar que en Sobre la filosofía Aristóteles presentaba muchas de las tesis vinculadas con la concepción de la filosofía primera como el estudio de los primeros principios y causas. Para ello nos centraremos en el análisis de los fragmentos 8b, 16, 17, 27a y27b. El examen de estos fragmentos a la luz del resto del corpus nos permitirá demostrar que en Sobre la filosofía Aristóteles identifica la sabiduría con el conocimiento, los principios y las causas. ABSTRACT On Philosophy is an exoteric work that is preserved in a fragmentary mode. It is assumed that it had three books. In the first two, Aristotle would have made a compendium of the different conceptions of philosophy and its respective object. In the third book he would have presented his own conceptions on the topics approached in the previous books. The few preserved fragments and the disparity of the sources by which they are transmitted represent a difficulty for establishing which would have been these conceptions. In this sense, in this paper we will try to demonstrate that in On philosophy Aristotle presented many of the theses related to the conception of the first philosophy as the study of the first principles and causes. With this end, we will focus on the analysis of the fragments 8b, 16, 17, 27a y27b. The examination of these fragments in light of the rest of the corpus will allow us to demonstrate that in On philosophy Aristotle have identified wisdom with the knowledge of these principles and causes. (shrink)

This paper explores Lucian's presentation of the philosopher as a creator of discourse. In particular, the paper argues that the lack of control over the discourse, once it is passed on, is at the core of Lucian's treatment of philosophers. An analysis of this eminently Platonic problem allows the interpretation both to go beyond the simplistic view that Lucian has no real philosophical interest at all but merely follows the Second Sophistic trend of subordinating philosophy to rhetoric, and to qualify (...) the idea that the dissolution of the authorial voice represents a sense of rupture experienced on the margins of the Roman empire. More importantly, this approach opens up new possibilities to understand two portraits of philosophers in Lucian's oeuvre that stand out for their positive character, Nigrinus and Demonax. While the latter work depicts a philosopher who uses words sparingly, but ideally enables a cognitive progress in the interlocutor, the former—a portrait of a “Platonist”—stages the breakdown of philosophical teaching by focusing on the impact of the philosopher's discourse on an underprepared student. The paper argues that Lucian, while posing as a reader of Plato in shaping his characters, raises the question of whether Plato himself succeeded as a philosophical writer, or whether in Lucian's eyes Plato's success as a writer was perhaps also his failure as a philosopher. But rather than shaping his own texts in opposition to philosophy, Lucian, like Plato, explores untrodden literary ways of addressing the most fundamental of philosophical problems, namely philosophy's expression in language. (shrink)

In Nicomachean Ethics 1.6, Aristotle directs his criticism not only against the Platonic Idea of the Good but also against the notion of a universal Good. In this paper, I also examine some of the most interesting aspects of his criticism of the Platonic Good and the universal Good in Eudemian Ethics 1.8. In the EN, after using a series of disputable ontological arguments, Aristotle’s criticism culminates in a strong ethical or rather practical and, simultaneously, epistemological argument, from which a (...) dialectical postulatum emerges. This argument aims to show that we have to discover the dialectical stages or grades which constitute the relation between the ultimate End, i.e., the Good simpliciter or the absolute Good, and the relational goods till the last prakton good in which each specific praxis ends. According to the present reading, Aristotle sets out to establish a kind of Dialectic of the ends or Dialectic of the goods, which puts emphasis on the descent to the specific good, which is appropriate to and cognate with each individual, be that a person, praxis, science or craft. It is also suggested that this might be relevant to Aristotle’s tendency to establish a separation of phronēsis, i.e., practical wisdom, from sophia, i.e., wisdom, in the Nicomachean Ethics. (shrink)

Mitä oleva on? Omaisuus ja elämä pureutuu tähän filosofian peruskysymykseen seuraten kahta länsimaisen filosofian jättiläistä, Aristotelestä ja Heideggeria. Siinä missä Aristoteles kysyy olevaa substantiivina ja tilana, etsii Heidegger olemisen mieltä verbinä ja tapahtumana. Nämä kaksi merkitystä löytyvät myös suomen olla-verbistä: "omistaa jotakin" ja "olla olemassa, elossa". Omaisuus ja elämä antavat peruslähtökohdat olevan tulkitsemiselle. Kirja vie lukijansa filosofian kreikkalaisille juurille ja sen uusimpiin, Heideggerin avaamiin mahdollisuuksiin.

A new translation and edition of Aristotle's Protrepticus (with critical comments on the fragments) -/- Welcome -/- The Protrepticus was an early work of Aristotle, written while he was still a member of Plato's Academy, but it soon became one of the most famous works in the whole history of philosophy. Unfortunately it was not directly copied in the middle ages and so did not survive in its own manuscript tradition. But substantial fragments of it have been preserved in several (...) works by Iamblichus of Chalcis, a third century A.D. neo-Pythagorean philosopher and educator. On the basis of a close study of Iamblichus' extensive use and excerption of Aristotle's Protrepticus, it is possible to reconstruct the backbone of the lost work, and then to flesh it out with the other surviving reports about the work from antiquity (for example in Alexander of Aphrodisias and other ancient commentators on Aristotle). It is also possible to identify several papyrus fragments of the work, and many references and literary allusions in later authors, especially Cicero, whose own lost dialogue Hortensius was a defense of philosophy modeleld on Aristotle's. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo nos proponemos analizar el uso que Aristóteles hace en el Protréptico de la analogía entre phýsis y téchne centrándonos para ello en su concepción de la naturaleza como principio de movimiento presentada en la Física. La tesis que intentaremos defender es que el uso de la analogía obedece a la metodología aristotélica de ir de lo más conocido para nosotros a lo más conocido en sí y, por lo tanto, al intento de develar a través de (...) los procesos técnicos cómo llegan a ser los procesos de generación en el caso de los entes naturales. Para probar nuestra tesis, dividiremos el trabajo en dos secciones. En la primera, nos centraremos en el análisis del uso de la analogía y en los supuestos conceptuales que implica. En la segunda parte, nos detendremos en la limitación que esta analogía presenta y, por lo tanto, en la restricción explicativa que supone. (shrink)