This paper brings Calcidius' 4th. c. AD Latin commentary on Plato's Timaeus into the fold of research on the methodological assumptions and hermeneutical practices of the ancient commentary tradition. The first part deals with the question of how Calcidius sets his role as a commentator in relation to the original text, to his audience, and to the Platonist tradition. The second part examines the organizing principles and structuring devices of the commentary, and what these can tell us about connections between (...) exegesis and worldview. As with many other commentaries, Calcidius' purpose becomes clearer if we approach him from a pedagogical angle. His practice, like most of the content of his commentary, appears to connect him to older layers of Platonism, pre-dating so-called Neoplatonism. It reveals a distinct authorial voice, of someone who is very conscious of his role as a cultural mediator and who has a philosophical line to pursue. (shrink)

Las Confesiones de San Agustín son una obra muy peculiar. Lectores e investigadores convienen en ello. No es fácil ‘definir’ ni comprender ese escrito. El presente estudio intenta una aproximación a su contenido mediante un examen de ciertos rasgos característicos de la obra que derivan de su propia singularidad. Y denunciamos también algunos impedimentos de comprensión y lectura. Confiemos en que esta mirada pueda ofrecer una guía inicial, pero orientadora, a la misma. Además, el estudio formal y temático revela una (...) dinámica interna, de su estructura misma, que va del relato autobiográfico a la reflexión , de lo narrativo al pensamiento. Este avance tendencial culmina al concluir el libro IX, donde la dimensión narrativa de la obra termina. Razón por la cual los libros X-XI alcanzan el vértice teorético de las Confesiones, con su investigación de la memoria y del tiempo. El presente estudio concluye con una breve exposición del problema agustiniano de la subjetividad o el yo, en la base de esos dos libros.t. Augustine’s Confessions is a very particular work. Readers and Scholarsagree upon it. Therefore, it’s ‘definition’ and understanding are not so easy. These paper tries to provide an approach to the contents of this difficult writing, by means of an examination of some main special traits, arising from the particular work’s kind. And we betray also some new difficulties for it’s reading and understanding. It is hoped that these brief look to the famous Augustinian writing could offer an initial but adviser guide to it. Moreover, the formal and thematic inquiry reveal an internal dynamics of it’s structure, which moves from the autobiographycal account to the reflection , from the story to the thinking. This aimed advance culminates at the end of the book IX, where the work’s narrative side concludes. That’s why the books X and XI reach the theoretical summit of the Confessions through their search for memory and time. Our paper ends with an exposition of the Augustinian inquiry on the human subiectivity, underlying both these books. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine Sextus Empiricus' treatise Against the geometers . We first set this treatise in the overall context of the sceptic's polemics against the liberal arts. After a discussion of Sextus' attitude to the quadrivium , we discuss the structure, the sources and the target of the Against the geometers . It appears that Euclid is not Sextus' source, and neither he, nor the professional geometers, seem to be Sextus' main targets. Of course, Sextus never really makes (...) clear his precise target, but his attacks are rather directed against geometry as a means of modelling the physical world, thus ruining the support geometry was intended to bring to the physical part of dogmatic philosophy. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to reveal the anthropologization of Dasein-psyche’s being by methods of neurophilosophy. The anthropologization of Dasein-psyche’s being by methods of neurophilosophy allows considering the noogenesis from the perspective of philosophical traditions, which is much richer in comparison with the history of scientific knowledge about the psychology of meanings. The being of Dasein-psyche in the meaning of "philosopher’s soul" was firstly mentioned by Plato in "Phaedo". The anthropologization of Dasein-psyche’s being reveals the ontological orientation and limits (...) of the being of Dasein-psyche within the being of Dasein-the-One, as well as the intellect, knowledge and techne, as the arete existentials. Theoretical basis of the study is built on Heidegger’s fundamental ontology and methods of neurophilosophy. Originality lies in exploring Dasein-psyche through the neurophilosophical approach. In the context, Dasein-psyche is revealed as a part of the whole or the image, created from Dasein-Y-Matter as a paradigm. It is formed by the factors and causes of complication, as well as by the experience of being of the previous states of matter. Conclusions. In conclusion, the anthropologization of Dasein-psyche’s being by methods of neurophilosophy allows considering the noogenesis from the perspective of philosophical traditions. The essence of a person is revealed as the arete existentials, which require further rethinking and clarification. (shrink)

Christianity stands out among the three great Abrahamic religions in its willingness to make extremely precise dogmatic statements about God. The Christians who make these statements have generally regarded them as universally and absolutely true, since they are divinely revealed, or divinely guaranteed interpretations of revealed texts. Of course from the beginning there has not been universal agreement (to put it mildly) among Christians about what statements should be so regarded and how they should be worded: and the seriousness with (...) which this need for dogmatic precision has been taken is shown by the way in which the inevitable disputes did not only involve theologians but the general body of Christians, and have led to divisions of churches, long continuing and flourishing mutual hatreds, and an overwhelming amount of theoretical and, where opportunity offered (i.e. where a Church party could get a secular power on its side), practical intolerance. Two areas of Church history which seem to me to provide particularly clear evidence of the incompatible verbal precisions demanded in dogmatic statements and the serious consequences of these demands are the Christological controversies of the fifth and sixth centuries and the Filioque dispute between East and West (though there is plenty of choice, and others may have other preferences). In both of these, theologians with a real and deep sense of the mystery of God often seem to an outside observer, in spite of their passionate assertions that this is not at all what they are doing and the rhetorical reverence of their language, to be arguing as if the God-Man or the Trinity were small finite objects which they had pinned down firmly in their theological laboratories and were examining under the microscope. (shrink)