This paper argues for the presence in Plato’s work of a conception of thinking central to which is what I call the Transparency View. According to this view, in order for a subject to think of a given object, the subject must represent that object just as it is, without inaccuracy or distortion. I examine the ways in which this conception influences Plato’s epistemology and metaphysics and explore some ramifications for contemporary views about mental content.

At 47e–53c of the Timaeus Plato presents his most detailed metaphysical analysis of particulars. We are told about the construction of the physical universe, the ways we can and cannot talk about the phenomena produced, and about the two causes – Necessity and Intelligence – which govern the processes and results of production. It seems to me that we are told too much and too little: too much, because we have two accounts of the generation of phenomenal particulars – one, (...) the ‘formal account’, which makes use of the receptacle, Forms and form-copies, and a second, the ‘geometrical account’, which appeals to geometrical shapes, the Demiurge and, apparently, matter; too little, because there is insufficient guidance as to how to relate the two accounts. (shrink)

This paper reads Republic 583b-608b as a single, continuous line of argument. First, Socrates distinguishes real from apparent pleasure and argues that justice is more pleasant than injustice. Next, he describes how pleasures nourish the soul. This line of argument continues into the second discussion of poetry: tragic pleasures are mixed pleasures in the soul that seem greater than they are; indulging them nourishes appetite and corrupts the soul. The paper argues that Plato has a novel account of the ‘paradox (...) of tragedy’, and that the Republic and Philebus contain complementary discussions of tragic and comic pleasure. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to examine heraclitean fragments evoking the metaphor of rivers and waters flowing, usually associated by tradition to the image of reality in becoming and the conception of nature as a more or less disordered streaming. These fragments are certainly among the most celebrated and lucky fragments of the philosopher of Ephesus, which can be explained by the fact that they have been used since Plato and Aristotle, to represent in an exemplary way the philosophical (...) perspective of Heraclitus. These are the three fragments which appear in the collection of Diels and Kranz under the numbers 12, 49a and 91, and correspond, in the edition of Marcovich to the numbers 40, 40c2 and 40c3. This mere indication brings out the problem that should be given priority review with regard to the three mentioned fragments, this is the one of their authenticity. Admitted by Diels and Kranz and by a certain number of scholars, among which stands out Mouraviev, it is rejected, with respect fragments 49a and 91 DK [40c2 and 40c3 Marcovich] by other commentators, and primarily by Marcovich for whom, as suggested by the numbering that adopted itself, should be considered as mere reminiscences of the fragments 12 DK [40 Marcovich], the only authentic. (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.

Critical social ontology is any study of social ontology that is done in order to critique ideology or end social injustice. The goal of this paper is to outline what I call the fundamentality approach to critical social ontology. On the fundamentality approach, social ontologists are in the business of distinguishing between appearances and (fundamental) reality. Social reality is often obscured by the acceptance of ideology, where an ideology is a distorted system of beliefs that leads people to promote or (...) accept widespread social injustices. Social reality is also obscured in cases where ordinary thought and language simply is not perspicuous enough to represent the social objects, kinds, and structures that are central to understanding social injustice. In both cases, I argue that the critical social ontologist will benefit from using the tools and concepts of fundamental metaphysics. (shrink)

This paper aims to clarify Plato’s notions of the natural and the neutral state in relation to hedonic properties. Contra two extreme trends among scholars—people either conflate one state with the other, or keep them apart as to establish an unsurmount- able gap between both states, I argue that neither view accurately reflects Plato’s position because the natural state is real and can coincide with the neutral state in part, whereas the latter, as an umbrella term, can also be realized (...) in a non-natural condition. The clarification of the relation between the two states will shed light on the degree to which Plato admits and constrains the hedonic value for a good human life; further, this will call attention to some (not well explored) parallel thoughts in the medical tradition to which Plato is indebted. (shrink)

This article provides a defence of B112, arguing that, far from being a weak paraphrase, the fragment is a genuine piece of Heraclitean art packing into a few, carefully organized words Heraclitus’ original view on human life and ethos, deeply integrated with the whole of his thought. In so doing, it counters the ‘deflationary reading’ of Heraclitus’ moral philosophy and, connecting B112 to other fragments, attributes him a robust and original ethical framework, pivoting on the idea that grasping the harmony (...) of opposites as the all-pervasive, world-sustaining pattern unavoidably and instantly transforms the way one lives, causing ‘to act and speak the truth’. It offers an interpretation of this puzzling phrase, suggesting that, as the world-unifying pattern of opposites applies also to the objects of human pursuits and avoidances, this is the ἀληθέα Heraclitus’ wise man signifies in words and actions; it concludes providing examples. (shrink)

There is a tension in Santayana's ontological system, one that is generated by the interactions of his doctrine of existence, doctrine of systematization, and critical agnosticism on the infinity of material substance. From and, in conjunction with what will be called the expansionist postulate, an infinite material expansion is generated, one that is in conflict with. This tension is remediated by a coherentist proposal regarding Santayanan existence, the relevant feature of which is that existents at distinct orders of organization are (...) in symmetrical dependence relations. "Metaphysical coherentism," which has recently been described as "one of the least explored areas in contemporary... (shrink)

The standard interpretation of "Theaetetus" 152-160 has Plato attribute to Protagoras a relativistic theory of truth and existence. It is argued here that in fact the individuals of Protagorean worlds are inter-Personal. (thus the Protagorean theory has public objects, but private truth). Also, a new interpretation is offered of Plato's use of heraclitean flux to model relativism. The philosophical and semantic consequences of the interpretation are explored.

Este artigo, partindo da leitura da primeira parte do Teeteto e de passagens do Banquete e do Sofista, busca examinar de que forma Platão interpretou e transpôs o pensamento de Heráclito. O texto sustenta que Platão não transmitiu de Heráclito a imagem de um mobilista radical, nem dissociou a tese do fluxo de outras teses do Efésio, como a tese da unidade dos opostos, mas, ao contrário, distinguiu as teses de Heráclito das opiniões extremadas de seus adeptos e apresentou uma (...) imagem bastante rica, complexa e multifacetada de seu pensamento. (shrink)

This essay explores a curious point of intersection in the historical pairing of becoming and negation, between two thinkers and two traditions: the Sophist Protagoras of fifth-century BCE Greece and the second-century CE South Asian Buddhist thinker Nāgārjuna. I offer a speculative account of how becoming and negation are linked in Protagoras—speculative because only so much can be deduced from the extant fragments and testimony. I compare that account to the more coherent picture offered by Nāgārjuna—more coherent because a complete (...) account of the logic that links becoming and negation is carefully preserved in the works attributed to Nāgārjuna. While no specific conclusions regarding the bridge that linked India and Greece may be reached, the similarities between these thinkers and the greater coherence of the Buddhist tradition nevertheless offer hypothetical possibilities for reconstructing the larger architecture of the world of sophistic thought that is now lost to us. (shrink)

In this article I try to solve an hermeneutical problem concerning some lines (2,7–24) of the Commentary to the Categories of John Philoponus. There, the commentator would seem committing an error, stating that Heraclitus was a disciple of Pyrrho by the expression «ὁ δὲ μαθητὴς αὐτοῦ Ἡράκλειτος (2,15)». I will present the edition of the text made by Busse with its translation and exegesis and, then, I will compare the passage in Philoponus with similar ones in other Neoplatonic commentators to (...) the Categories. Hence, I will show how the speech of Philoponus is, contrary to what was previously thought, complete and efficient and I will try to propose possible solutions for the text. (shrink)

In the last century, philosophers turned their attention to language. One place they have looked for clues about its nature is Plato’s Cratylus, which considers whether names are naturally or conventionally correct. The dialogue is a source of annoyance to many commentators because it does not take a clear position on the central question. At times, it argues that language is conventional, and, at other times, defends the view that language is natural. This lack of commitment has led to a (...) longstanding dispute over the outcome of the dialogue. I argue that the Cratylus provides no clear resolution to this problem because it presupposes certain unexamined metaphysical commitments about the nature of reality, which are in need of thorough investigation. (shrink)

The name tells the thing if it's a name. If it doesn’t tell the thing, it isn’t a name. This is the puzzling and enigmatic theory proposed by Cratilo in the homonymous Plato’s dialogue. The thesis in Hermogenes already sounds hermetic, an "oracle" which requires the presence of an interpreter to clarify what remains hidden in the terms of the sentence. According to the disciple of Heraclitus, the names are by nature guaranteed to impart pure truths, that is, they are (...) all right, at least as many as are real names. An imperfectly fitting name isn’t an inappropriate name. It would not be a name at all. In this text we would like to examine the Platonic Cratylus with respect to the meaning that lies behind the words of Cratylus and clarify his position in face of Socrates's refutation. We will therefore concentrate our attention on the last section of the dialogue devoted to the exchange between Cratylus and Socrates, especially pages 427e-440e. (shrink)

En este trabajo intento mostrar que la función de la doctrina heraclítea en el Teeteto es argumentar a favor de la equivalencia entre la tesis de Protágoras y la definición de Teeteto “la percepción es conocimiento”, y que de esta manera la doctrina apoya la relatividad del conocimiento. Esta lectura va en contra de quienes sostienen que Platón introduce la doctrina porque la cree correcta acerca de lo sensible, y va un paso más allá de la interpretación que afirma que (...) Platón introduce la doctrina como una tesis ontológica para apoyar la tesis de Protágoras. (shrink)

In this article I elaborate and defend a rights-based understanding of climate politics, that is, one that takes climate politics to concern the rights to access of natural resources as opposed to people’s economic incentives. The argument contains two parts. The first is negative: to demonstrate that the tragedy of the commons as a story of climate change is inadequate. The second is positive: to suggest a more satisfactory framework, which I call the tragedy of the few. In this view, (...) climate politics is neither primarily mitigation nor economic incentive politics, but one of distributing rights to access natural resources in a fair and environmentally-friendly way. By changing both the narrative and underlying methodological assumptions, my goal is to enable us to accommodate the rights to access natural resources as a key moral issue in climate politics. I begin by sketching the main features of the tragedy of the commons and demonstrate its inadequacy. I then provide an account of the rights-based view of climate change that consists of two arguments. First, I demonstrate the normative side of the argument by highlighting the importance of environmental rights, and second, I outline the empirical side of the argument by discussing recent studies on the properties of natural resources and on the corporate agents who extract the resources that emit greenhouse gasses. (shrink)