Kenelm Digby was among the first authors in England to embrace Cartesianism. Yet Digby’s approach to the mind–body problem was irenic: in his massive Two treatises (Paris, 1644), the author advocates a corpuscular philosophy that is applied to physical bodies, whereas the intellectual capacities of human beings remain inexplicable through the powers of matter. The aim of the present article is to highlight the (rather reticent) relationship of Digby’s corpuscularism with doctrines of spirits in connection with the Renaissance Neoplatonic tradition. (...) Not uncommon in seventeenth-century natural philosophies, such “spirits” are notoriously evasive entities: half spirit, half matter acting as mediators between the realms of bodies and souls. This article suggests that Digby sought to preserve the inveterate ideas of a universal spiritus and a world soul and, in particular, that Kenelm Digby translated (rather than “overcame”) Marsilio Ficino’s (1433–1499) spiritus doctrines into the language of seventeenth-century corpuscularism. (shrink)

Empedocles’ B100 contains an analogy between a girl handling a clepsydra and respiration. This article argues that proposals to establish Love or Persephone as the girl’s respiratory equivalent are rendered unlikely by differences between their respective causal roles. Rather than her gender, this article emphasises the importance of the girl’s age: Empedocles required a playful child to handle the clepsydra. This child’s play results in the extra phase of submerging the clepsydra while the upper vent is open, which Empedocles needed (...) to form a parallel for the first static phase of respiration. (shrink)

We critically reconsider an old hypothesis of the role of the dekad in Pythagorean philosophy. Unlike Zhmud, we claim that: 1) the dekad did play a role in Philolaus’ astronomical system, and 2) Aristotle did not project Plato’s theory of the ten eidetic numbers onto the Pythagoreans. We claim that the dekad, as the τέλειος ἀριθμός, should be understood in Philolaus’ philosophy as completeness and the basis of counting in Greek – as in most other languages – in a decimal (...) system. Additionally, we argue that the number ten is not even a candidate for the τέλειος ἀριθμός in Plato’s philosophy. As a final result of our discussion, we compare and contrast Philolaus’, Plato’s, and Speusippus’ accounts of completeness in relation to numbers. (shrink)

There has been no shortage of readers who take Nietzsche as educator (cf., for a by no means exhaustive list: Allen, 2017; Aviram, 1991; Bell, 2007; Cooper 1983; Fairfield, 2017; Fitzsimons, 2007;...

8000 Word annotated bibliography on the Phaedo, with roughly 70 entries. Note that the subscription version is a bit easier to navigate. The hyperlinks work in this pdf, but you can not as easily jump to the different sections.

> καὶ πῶς τις ἀνάξει αὐτοὺς εἰς φῶς, ὥσπερ > > ἐξ Ἅιδου λέγονται δή τινες εἰς θεοὺς ἀνελθεῖν; > > Plato Republic 521c This study reconstructs Empedocles’ eschatology and cosmology, arguing that they presuppose one another. Part one surveys body and soul in Empedocles and argues that the transmigrating daimon is a long-lived compound made of the elements air and fire. Part two shows that Empedocles situates our current life in Hades, then considers the testimonies concerning different cosmic levels (...) in Empedocles and compares them with the afterlife schemes in Pindar’s Second Olympian Ode and Plato’s Phaedo myth. Part three offers a new edition of section d lines 5–10 of the Strasbourg papyrus of Empedocles that reinforces the connection between transmigration and different cosmic locations for souls. Part four reconstructs Empedocles’ cosmology, identifies three different levels or habitats of soul, and, more tentatively, suggests that Empedoclean “long-lived gods” are best understood as stars. (shrink)

The Greek identification of certain Indian people as philosophoi at the end of the fourth century bce provides unique information about the meaning of the term philosophia, especially with respect to its reference to a certain kind of “way of life” (bios), at the time of its greatest maturity (at the start of the Hellenistic period). The Indica of Megasthenes, an ambassador to northern India after the death of Alexander, is our most important evidence; fragments from earlier works by Nearchus (...) and Onesicritus, intellectuals in Alexander’s cortege, provide corroboration. This essay argues that late classical Greeks did largely think of philosophia as a way of life. (shrink)

This paper explores the question of the relationship between art, rhythm, and life through a mobilisation of Giorgio Agamben’s discussion, first, of Nietzsche and the active nihilist’s relationship to art, and second, on his diagnosis of rhythm as pertaining to the “original structure” of the work of art in The Man Without Content. Agamben’s notion of the “rhythmic” and “poietic” encounter is one which situates the experience of rhythm as the experience of the originary dimension of temporality and of the (...) human’s relationship to the world. Turning to Nietzsche, this paper seeks to complicate Agamben’s picture by discussing Nietzsche’s under-discussed explorations of rhythm and its connection to art. Three distinct rhythms will be identified: Apollonian, Dionysian, and the tragic or joyful rhythms of the Apollo-Dionysus relation. Reading Agamben through Nietzsche, it will be discussed how Agamben’s notion of rhythm blends Apollonian and Dionysian elements; does not through this blending however offer a tragic or joyful notion of rhythm, which, for Nietzsche, follows from their double affirmative rhythmisation. Instead of a rhythmic-poietic encounter opening an originary and authentic experience of temporality and dwelling, Nietzsche offers an account of tragic and joyful rhythms which continually create new worlds. (shrink)

This text has already been published, in La Deleuziana – online journal of philosophy – n. 10 / 2019 – rhythm, chaos and nonpulsed man.: This paper explores the question of the relationship between art, rhythm, and life through a mobilisation of Giorgio Agamben's discussion, first, of Nietzsche and the active nihilist's relation-ship to art, and second, on his diagnosis of rhythm as pertaining to the “original structure” of the work of art in The Man Without Content. Agamben's notion - (...) Philosophie – Nouvel article. (shrink)

David Hernández Castro ABSTRACT: Scholars have generally analysed Empedocles’ criticism of sacrifices through a Pythagorean interpretation context. However, Empedocles’ doctrinal affiliation with this school is problematic and also not needed to explain his rejection of the ‘unspeakable slaughter of bulls.’ His position is consistent with the wisdom tradition that emanated from the Sanctuary of Apollo ….

In Philolaus’ cosmology, the earth revolves around a central fire along with the other heavenly bodies, including a planet called the counter-earth which orbits below the earth. His theory can account for most astronomical phenomena. A common criticism of his theory since ancient times is that his counter-earth does no work in the system. Yet ancient sources say the planet was supposed to account for some lunar eclipses. A reconstruction of Philolaus’ cosmology shows how lunar eclipses occurring at certain times (...) of day cannot be explained by earth blocking the sun’s light. The counter-earth could explain these eclipses. (shrink)

This article argues that contemporary space exploration, in producing visual representations of the planetary Earth for terrestrial consumption, has engendered a shift in the way the Earth - as terra firma - is both experienced and conceived. The article goes on to suggest that this shift is a key, but still largely tacit presupposition, underlying contemporary discourses on globalization and cultural cosmopolitanization. However, a close reading of some of the texts that make up the canon of 20th-century European philosophy shows (...) that this idea of a ‘deterritorialized’ planetary Earth challenges some basic presuppositions of that canon: especially its use of the pre-reflective experience of terra firma as a tropic site of intological and normative grounds. This article examines the way in which contemporary Western European philosophy - and intellectual culture generally - has responded to this challenge: and offers Deleuze and Guattari’s idea of the Earth as a ‘surface without territory’ as the most intellectually and ethically viable conception of the Earth in the age of ‘planetary deterritorialization’. (shrink)

An eleventh-century manuscript in the Biblioteca Laurenziana in Florence preserves a short excerpt of a calendar outlining stages in the development of the foetus. It is headed Δαμναστού έκ τού Περί κυουσών καί βρεΦών θεραπείας, ‘Damnastes, from On the Care of Pregnant Women and of Infants’. Though its existence has long been noted, it has not been previously edited or published.

The idea of the 'unity of opposites' allows one to see important connections between phenomena normally treated separately: verbal style, ritual, tragic action and cosmology. The stylistic figure of Satzparallelismus in lamentation and mystic ritual expresses the unity of opposites (particularly of life and death) as oxymora. Both rituals were factors in the genesis of tragedy, and continued to influence the style and action of mature tragedy. The author advances new readings of various passages of the Oresteia, which is seen (...) to advocate the replacement of a Herakleitean model of the unity of opposites with a Pythagorean model of their reconciliation. (shrink)

This article is currently available as a free download on ingentaconnect.

Although wisdom might be considered a quaint concept in a post-industrialised, instrumental and secular world, it deserves serious consideration. This is done primarily from a philosophical perspective and is intended to encourage the reintroduction of wisdom into educational and developmental programmes, especially for managers and leaders. Mindful of the potential naïvete of transplanting systems of thinking from one epoch to another, we nonetheless examine the relevance of pre-modern thought to the post-modern condition. This is done by radically reinterpreting classical Greek (...) texts as Pierre Hadot has done to derive a meaning of "philosophy" and the place of wisdom in the ancient world. The concepts of wisdom, virtue and enacted ethics derived from this re-interpretation are then applied to an ethnographic case study involving a senior executive. This study suggests that a Stoical "wisdom of the moment" philosophy may characterize contemporary leadership practice. (shrink)

Aristotle claims that Empedocles took perception and knowledge to be the same; Theophrastus follows Aristotle. The paper begins by examining why Aristotle and Theophrastus identify thought/knowing with perception in Empedocles. I maintain that the extant fragments do not support the assertion that Empedocles identifies or conflates sensation with thought or cognition. Indeed, the evidence of the texts shows that Empedocles is careful to distinguish them, and argues that to have genuine understanding one must not be misled into supposing that sense (...) perception is sufficient for knowledge. Nevertheless, sense perception is necessary for human knowing. (shrink)

This paper explores the role the Panhellenic centers played in facilitating the circulation of wisdom in ancient Greece. It argues that there are substantial thematic overlaps among practitioners of wisdom , who are typically understood as belonging to different categories . By focusing on the presence of σοφοί at the Panhellenic centers in general, and Delphi in particular, we can acquire a more accurate picture of the particular expertise they possessed, and of the range of meanings the Greeks attributed to (...) the word σοφία. This approach seeks to challenge the conventional categories of modern scholarship and to offer a broader and more inclusive interpretive framework in its stead. One such thematic overlap is the way in which many σοφοί are described as exerting an almost uncanny, yet highly conventional ability to attract listeners and enchant them with their verbal performances. There is plenty of material to support the view that σοφοό, through tapping into the repository of σοφία that Delphi constituted and by aligning themselves with its authority, were seen as themselves being a conduit for a similar type of charismatic speech. (shrink)

An eleventh-century manuscript in the Biblioteca Laurenziana in Florence preserves a short excerpt of a calendar outlining stages in the development of the foetus. It is headedΔαμναστού έκ τού Περί κυουσών καί βρεΦών θεραπείας, ‘Damnastes, fromOn the Care of Pregnant Women and of Infants’.Though its existence has long been noted, it has not been previously edited or published.

Euhemerus, the famous theorist on the nature of the gods who lived around 300 BC, has usually been discussed as a disembodied intellectual figure, with scholars focusing on his literary and philosophical sources and influence. Although he is called “Euhemerus of Messene,” there is uncertainty as to where he was born, lived, and worked, in particular whether he came from Sicilian or Peloponnesian Messene. Until now, the conquests of Alexander the Great and the establishment of the Successor Kingdoms have been (...) considered the only context for Euhemerus. This paper will draw upon literary, historical, and archaeological evidence to argue that Euhemerus belongs in a Sicilian context. The long history of the worship of rulers in Sicily from the oikistai to the tyrants of Syracuse, the wealth of Sicily, the proximity of the Lipari Islands, the multiethnic milieu of Sicily with its vigorous interaction and syncretism, all contributed to Euhemerus' experiences and thought. We suggest that centuries of Sicilian cultural and political experience, not merely the “phenomenon” of Alexander the Great and the dawn of the Hellenistic Age, provided the impetus to the ideas of Euhemerus, and that Euhemerus brought this Sicilian contribution to bear on the new problems of the wider world. (shrink)

This interdisciplinary article argues that ancient Greek and Roman representations of Okeanos, Tartaros, and the underworld demonstrate an observational awareness of the hollow underground spaces that characterize the geomorphology of karst terrains in the Mediterranean world. We review the scientific facts that underlie Greek and Roman accounts of karstic terrain in observation-based discourse and in myths, and we demonstrate that the Greek words barathron, limnē, koilos, and dinē are used with precision in observational accounts of karst terrain. Ancient accounts of (...) the dynamic limnē and barathrum systems characteristic of much karst terrain offer a complex matrix of observation-based and belief-based discourse: at the edge of the barathrum, the imaginative or spiritual realm of the underworld has a material plausibility and the closely observed material world has a plausible potential to connect to a world we cannot see. (shrink)

Euhemerus, the famous theorist on the nature of the gods who lived around 300 BC, has usually been discussed as a disembodied intellectual figure, with scholars focusing on his literary and philosophical sources and influence. Although he is called “Euhemerus of Messene,” there is uncertainty as to where he was born, lived, and worked, in particular whether he came from Sicilian or Peloponnesian Messene. Until now, the conquests of Alexander the Great and the establishment of the Successor Kingdoms have been (...) considered the only context for Euhemerus. This paper will draw upon literary, historical, and archaeological evidence to argue that Euhemerus belongs in a Sicilian context. The long history of the worship of rulers in Sicily from the oikistai to the tyrants of Syracuse, the wealth of Sicily, the proximity of the Lipari Islands, the multiethnic milieu of Sicily with its vigorous interaction and syncretism, all contributed to Euhemerus' experiences and thought. We suggest that centuries of Sicilian cultural and political experience, not merely the “phenomenon” of Alexander the Great and the dawn of the Hellenistic Age, provided the impetus to the ideas of Euhemerus, and that Euhemerus brought this Sicilian contribution to bear on the new problems of the wider world. (shrink)