Corrective intervention in Plato's metaphysics replacing the standard view of Plato as a metaphysical dualist with a novel and revolutionary paradigm of unitary pluralism in a single reality built on ontological diversity.

The debate over the value of pleasure among Eudoxus, Speusippus, and Aristotle is dramatically documented by the Nicomachean Ethics, particularly in the dialectical pros-and-cons concerning the so-called argument from contraries. Two similar versions of this argument are preserved at EN VII. 13, 1153b1–4, and X. 2, 1172b18–20. Many scholars believe that the argument at EN VII is either a report or an appropriation of the Eudoxean argument in EN X. This essay aims to revise this received view. It will explain (...) why these two arguments differ in premises, contents and purposes, and why these distinctions matter for a proper assessment of Aristotle’s understanding of pleasure and pain in general and his dialectical art in particular. (shrink)

This paper provides an original approach to research on the logical processes that determine how certain forms participate in others. By introducing the concept of relational participation, the problems of self-referentiality of the Platonic forms can be dealt with more effectively. Applying this to the forms of likeness and unlikeness in Parmenides 132d-133a reveals a possible way to resolve different versions of the Third Man Argument. The method of generating numbers from oddness and evenness may also be of interest; relational (...) participation in these forms clarifies the interpretation of Parmenides 143e-144a. (shrink)

There has been a long tradition of interpreting Plato as a rational egoist. Over the past few decades, however, some scholars have challenged this reading. While Rational Egoism appeals to many ordinary folk, in sophisticated philosophical circles it has fallen out of favor as a general and complete account of the nature of reasons for action. I argue that while the theory of practical rationality that is often equated with rational egoism—a view that I call ‘Simple-Minded Rational Egoism'—is neither plausible (...) nor endorsed by Plato in his Republic, there is a more complex version of Rational Egoism to which Plato is indeed committed. Moreover, such a conception of practical rationality is not vulnerable to the standard set of objections that contemporary philosophers have made against Rational Egoism. (shrink)

Republic 596a introduces a One over Many principle that has traditionally been considered as an argument for the existence of Forms, according to which, one Form should be posited for each like-named plurality. This interpretation was challenged by (Smith, J. A. 1917. “General Relative Clauses in Greek.” Classical Review 31: 69–71.), who interpreted it rather as a statement that each Form is unique and correlated to a plurality of things that have the same name as it. (Sedley, D. 2013. “Plato (...) and the One-over-Many Principle”, in Chiaradonna & Galluzzo 2013, 113–37.) has offered a forceful defence of Smith’s interpretation. I argue that Sedley’s defence fails and that the traditional interpretation should be preferred. (shrink)

The expression tode ti, commonly translated as ‘a this’, plays a key role in Aristotle’s metaphysics. Drawing lightly on theories of demonstratives in contemporary linguistics, I discuss the expres...

This is a study of the correspondence between Forms and particulars in Plato. The aim is to determine whether they exhibit an ontological symmetry, in other words, whether there is always one where there is the other. This points to two questions, one on the existence of things that do not have corresponding Forms, the other on the existence of Forms that do not have corresponding things. Both questions have come up before. But the answers have not been sufficiently sensitive (...) to the intricacies of the questions. Nor have they been adequately resourceful with what little evidence there is in the original sources. The intention here is to make up for that deficiency, not just with better answers but also with better insight into the questions. (shrink)

This book is a quest for the real Plato, forever hiding behind the veil of drama. The quest, as the subtitle indicates, is Cartesian in that it looks for Plato independently of the prevailing paradigms on where we are supposed to find him. The result of the quest is a complete pedagogical platform on Plato. This does not mean that the book leaves nothing out, covering all the dialogues and all the themes, but that it provides the full intellectual apparatus (...) for doing just that. It consists of two parts. The first is a general orientation in three chapters, one each pertaining to the life, thought, and works of Plato. The second is a dialogic companion covering the four dialogues built around the last days of Socrates, with a separate chapter devoted to each: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. (shrink)

Bobonich argues that, in the Laws, Plato is committed to the view that the goodness of all goods entirely distinct from virtue is dependent on the virtue of their possessor. He suggests further that Plato's commitment to this dependency thesis is best explained by Plato's commitment to two other theses: (1) that knowledge is sufficient for all virtue, and (2) that the goodness of goods entirely distinct from virtue depends on their possessor's knowledge of the nature of their goodness. While (...) I agree with Bobonich that Plato maintains his commitment to a strong relationship between virtue, knowledge, and happiness in the Laws, I disagree with the details of Bobonich's account of this relationship. (shrink)

Many of the concepts analysed by philosophers have their origin in ordinary – or at least extra-philosophical – language. Perception, knowledge, causation, and mind are examples. But the concept of substance is a philosophical term of art. Its uses in ordinary language tend to derive, often in a rather distorted way, from the philosophical senses. There is an ordinary concept in play when philosophers discuss “substance”, and this, as we shall see, is the concept of object, or thing when this (...) is contrasted with properties or events. But such “individual substances” are never termed “substances” outside philosophy. -/- There exist two rather different ways of characterising the philosophical concept of substance. The first is the more generic. The philosophical term “substance” comes from an early Latin translation of the Greek ousia. Ousia is a noun derived from the verb “einai” (to be) and is naturally translated “being”. According to the generic sense, substances are those things that best merit the title “beings”. This is usually interpreted to mean those things that are the foundational or fundamental entities of a given philosophical system. Thus, for an atomist, atoms are the substances, for they are the basic things from which everything is constructed. In David Hume’s system, impressions and ideas are the substances, for the same reason. In a slightly different way, Forms are Plato’s substances, for everything derives its existence from Forms. -/- The second use of the concept is more specific. According to this usage, substances are a particular kind of entity, and some philosophical theories acknowledge them and others do not. This conception of substance derives from the intuitive notion of individual thing or object, which contrasts mainly with properties and events. According to this usage, it is a live issue whether the fundamental entities are substances or something else, such as events, or properties located at space-times. The issue is how we are to understand the notion of an object, and whether, in the light of the correct understanding, it remains a basic notion, or one that must be characterised in more fundamental terms. Whether, for example, an object can be thought of as nothing more than a bundle of properties, or a series of events. -/- The reason “substance” has acquired these two usages is that the work that introduced the term to philosophy, Aristotle’s Categories, claims that the things that most merit the title “beings” (substances in the generic sense) are individual objects as opposed to properties or events (substances in the specific sense). (shrink)

According to the Categories, predicates can be ‘said of’ their subjects or they can be ‘present in’ their subjects. The said-of relation has received relatively little scholarly attention, and scholars disagree on the answers to four foundational questions about the relation. (i) What is it? (ii) Is it an essential relation? (iii) How is it related to predication? (iv) Is it primitive? I argue that A is said-of B just in case A is a formal part of B. On this (...) account, said-of is an essential relation and it is definable, but it is not defined in terms of predication. (shrink)

In the first book of the Prior Analytics, Aristotle sets out, for the first time in Greek philosophy, a logical system. It consists of a deductive system (I.4-22), meta-logical results (I.23-26), and a method for finding and giving deductions (I.27-29) that can apply in “any art or science whatsoever” (I.30). After this, Aristotle compares this method with Plato’s method of division, a procedure designed to find essences of natural kinds through systematic classification. This critical comparison in APr I.31 raises an (...) interpretive puzzle: how can Aristotle reasonably juxtapose two methods that differ so much in their aims and approach? What can be gained by doing so? Previous interpreters have failed to show how this comparison is legitimate or what important point Aristotle is making. The goal of this paper is to resolve the puzzle. In resolving this puzzle we not only learn more about the relationship be- tween division and the syllogistic in Aristotle. We will also learn something about the motivation for the syllogistic itself, by seeing the role that it plays in his philosophy of science. (shrink)

Aristotle formulates in _Metaphysics_ M.9 an aporia about Forms, according to which, those who introduce Forms make them universal substances and, at the same time, separate entities and, hence, particulars. But, he claims, it is not possible that both attributes, being a universal and being a particular, inhere in the same thing. The interpretation that scholars have offered of this objection is external, in that they hold that it derives from Aristotle’s own conception of separation: only what is particular is (...) separate. Here I defend an internal interpretation which claims that the objection derives from an assumption about the explanatory role of Forms that Aristotle attributes to the Platonists. (shrink)

The Eleatic Visitor speaks forcefully when he insists, ‘Necessarily, whenever there is speech, it is speech of something; it is impossible for it not to be of something’. For ‘if it were not of anything, it would not be speech at all; for we showed that it is impossible for there to be speech that is speech of nothing’. Presumably, at 263c10, when he claims to have ‘shown’ that it is impossible for speech to be of nothing, the Visitor is (...) referring back to the Parmenidean puzzles at Sophist 237ff. (shrink)

The opening chapters of Anselm's Monologion contain a ‘proof’ of a perfect being, which has received far less attention than the more famous Proslogion proof, and the ontological arguments derived from it. I wish to rectify this by developing an argument in defence of a crucial premise of the Monologion proof. This premise states that ‘the Good’, i.e. that in virtue of which numerically distinct things may all be good, must itself be a supremely good thing. I motivate the argument (...) before considering objections to both premises, as well as putative ‘parodies’ of my argument. Part of the motivation of my argument will involve the claim that the Good, if it is good at all, must be a paradigm good thing. I conclude that theists have a second kind of ontological argument at their disposal. (shrink)

One of the hardest questions to answer for a (Neo)platonist is to what extent and how the changing and unreliable world of sense perception can itself be an object of scientific knowledge. My dissertation is a study of the answer given to that question by the Neoplatonist Proclus (Athens, 411-485) in his Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus. I present a new explanation of Proclus’ concept of nature and show that philosophy of nature consists of several related subdisciplines matching the ontological stratification (...) of nature. Moreover, I demonstrate that for Proclus philosophy of nature is a science, albeit a hypothetical one, which takes geometry as its methodological paradigm. I also offer an explanation of Proclus’ view of what is later called the mathematization of physics, i.e. the role of the substance of mathematics, as opposed to its method, in explaining the natural world. Finally, I discuss Proclus’ views of the discourse of philosophy of nature and its iconic character. (shrink)

Urban void sometimes amplifies alienation within urban space, and thus leads the way to the human craving for authenticity. Juxtaposing urban void with the conventional notion of urban objects, furthermore, conforms to Nietzsche's distinction between Dionysian and Apollonian deportment. The Apollonian is at the founding of the Platonic myth of the Ideal City and its modern descendant, the myth of the Rational City. Modern urban planning has been object-directed and, consistent with the historical trend since the Renaissance, has become a (...) constituent of a Neo-Platonic mythology that insists on forging a city as an urban technological artifact. Most existing urban parks and squares, as well as suburban gardens, within this approach, only augment the subordinate standing of urban voids. Yet the significance of urban void, as the unplanned place that represents the pre-rational, the genuine and the unadulterated, ought to lead to its re-introduction into city-form as a conduit for self-reflection and authenticity. Recognizing urban void for its significance may reintroduce an important Dionysian feature into city-form, leading to deliberate carving of authentic urban spaces. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉLes tentatives existantes dans la littérature de réfuter l'argument de la plus grande difficulté dans leParménideont surtout entrepris de nier le parallélisme entre les relations de typeprosentre les Formes et celles entre les particuliers. Par contre, ces tentatives sont insatisfaisantes, parce que l'argument peut mener à sa conclusion selon laquelle on ne peut connaître les Formes sans s'appuyer sur ce parallélisme. Je soutiens qu'une stratégie plus efficace consiste à nier la prémisse plus essentielle selon laquelle la relation objet-connaissance est une (...) relation de typepros. Cette prémisse est fausse parce que les relations de typeprosrequièrent une codépendance définitionnelle et ontologique entre les relata, et la relation objet-connaissance ne satisfait pas à cette condition de réciprocité. (shrink)

In the first argument of Metaphysics Μ.2 against the Platonist introduction of separate mathematical objects, Aristotle purports to show that positing separate geometrical objects to explain geometrical facts generates an ‘absurd accumulation’ of geometrical objects. Interpretations of the argument have varied widely. I distinguish between two types of interpretation, corrective and non-corrective interpretations. Here I defend a new, and more systematic, non-corrective interpretation that takes the argument as a serious and very interesting challenge to the Platonist.

In this paper I use the traditional image of Plato as swan to suggest that interpreting Plato should not be a matter of getting to know what his doctrines are (a doctrinal approach), but rather a of getting to know Plato himself (a knowledge by acquaintance approach). I argue that the dialogues encourage the knowledge by acquaintance approach and discourage the doctrinal approach, through the use of Platonic anonymity, Platonic irony and Platonic self-effacement. I point out how the knowledge by (...) acquaintance approach values the rich diversity of historical opinions about Plato, whereas the doctrinal approach seeks to resolve such diversity once and for all. Even though the doctrinal approach has powerful tools at its disposal—such as the testimony of Aristotle, the principle that the main speaker in a dialogue is Plato’s mouthpiece, and stylometric analysis—the product of a doctrinal approach is a brand of Platonism that is weak, rigid, and ultimately dispensable. The philosophy of Plato is worthy of more respect than that, and it repays such respect with wider understanding. (shrink)

Some interpreters take the arguments at Cratylus 439D3–440C1 to argue for Forms. Some interpreters also believe that these arguments are elliptical or contain lacunae. I accept that the arguments are elliptical. However, I deny that they contain lacunae. I present the most natural construal of the text and argue that it neither trades on Forms nor postulates Forms. To make my case, I show that Cratylus 439D3–440C1 has a modest end, which is to refute a particular notion of flux.

Resumen En el presente artículo se explora la pertenencia de los libros M y N al programa general de la Metafísica de Aristóteles. Los libros XIII y XIV han quedado en el trasfondo de la Metafísica, como una suerte de agregado editorial, del cual se puede prescindir para la comprensión de la propuesta aristotélica. En el presente artículo, sin embargo, se asume un punto de partida diferente, que consiste en integrar estos libros al núcleo de la propuesta de la Metafísica, (...) enten diendo que ellos son claves para completar el panorama de la teoría general de la sustancia, o ousiología, que guía todos los libros metafísicos. De este modo, la discusión de M y N sobre números y principios viene a concluir la cuestión de la sustancia como causa y principio, anunciada desde el inicio de la Metafísica y desarrollada en sus libros centrales.This article explores the belonging of books M and N to the generalprogram of Aristotle's Metaphysics. Books XIII and XIV have remained in the background of Metaphysics, as a kind of editorial aggregate, which can be dispensed with for the understanding of the Aristotelian proposal. In this article, however, a different startingpoint is assumed, which consists in integrating these books into the core of the proposal of Metaphysics, understanding that they are key to completing the panorama of the general theory of substance, or ousiology, which guides all metaphysical books. Thus, the discussion of numbers and principles within M and N concludes the question of substance as cause and principle, announced from the beginning of Metaphysics and developed in its central books. (shrink)

I discuss Aristotle’s opening argument against Platonic Forms in _Metaphysics_ A.9, ‘the Razor’, which criticizes the introduction of Forms on the basis of an analogy with a hypothetical case of counting things. I argue for a new interpretation of this argument, and show that it involves two interesting objections against the introduction of Forms as formal causes: one concerns the completeness and the other the adequacy of such an explanatory project.

Aristotle thinks that the Platonic theory of Forms is vulnerable to the Third Man regress. According to Alexander of Aphrodisias, the regress arises from the conjunction of three Platonist claims, which I label ‘Exemplification’, ‘Similarity’, and ‘Distinctness’. It is clear why, taken together, these three claims generate an infinite regress of Forms. What is not clear is why Aristotle thinks that a Platonist should have to accept each of the claims. My answer begins from the fact that, in Metaphysics A (...) and M, Aristotle mentions the Third Man as a consequence, not of positing Forms, but of certain ways of arguing for Forms. By working out what these arguments are likely to have been, we can understand why he took the Platonist to have been committed to all three claims, and thus why he saw the Third Man as a serious difficulty. (shrink)

At Phaedo 74b–c an important argument is given for the non–identity of perceptible equals and equality. The argument is usually understood as an application of Leibniz’s Law in which the predicate appears unequal is affirmed of perceptible equals but not equality. But this reading requires explaining why the plural locution the equals themselves is initially used for equality, and why the additional predicate appears as inequality is denied of it. In this paper, an account of the equality premise is given (...) which allows for an initial grasp of equality as a plurality (suitably expressed by a plural locution), and introduces a generic predicate for appearance, appears its opposite (rightly denied of equality). The former ensures that the question of non–identity is not begged, while the latter secures a role for every element in the premise. So understood, the argument is both more robust and carefully formulated than is usually thought. (shrink)

This doctoral thesis addresses a group of conceptual instruments that are central to Aristotle's philosophy, namely, the concepts of pros hen, homonymy, synonymy and multivocity. These instruments are crucial to many of Aristotle's works as he devotes himself to analysing the key notions in each of his investigations using these instruments. Despite the undisputable importance of these instruments, they display severe interpretative problems, which this thesis critically evaluates. The currently established view on the relationship between homonymy and multivocity is discussed (...) and then reassessed in order to approach the definition of the so-called pros hen structure. This approach takes into account a so-far undescribed distinction of types of examples Aristotle uses and sheds new light on the assessments of the role of the pros hen structure in Aristotle’s philosophy and the theories on development in Aristotle’s thought. Niels Tolkiehn studied Philosophy and Systematic Musicology at the University of Hamburg. He continued his studies as a doctoral student at the Munich School of Ancient Philosophy, a graduate school of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Supervised by Prof. Dr. Christof Rapp, he was awarded his doctoral degree in 2019 with this dissertation. (shrink)