Although the saying at Analects 7:1 is well-known and often mentioned in Confucian scholarship, there have been few focused discussions about what ‘transmitting’ means and in what sense it is contrasted to ‘innovating’. This article seeks to argue for the following points. The ‘transmitting/innovating’ relationship should be understood in relation to the Confucian notion of filial piety. Analects 7: 1 is indeed Confucius's self-conception of what he is doing, that is, his way of philosophizing. Traditionally, Confucius's transmitting has been thought (...) to be related to his work on the ancient classics. This is not wrong, but is far from the whole story. Rather, it is primarily about the restoration of the dao. What Confucius transmits is the Dao, and it is for this goal that he worked on the ancient classics. Moreover, since we learn about Confucius's philosophy mainly through the Analects rather than the classics he edited, an appropriate understanding of the ‘transmitting/innovating’ contrast must be related to the ideas in the Analects. (shrink)

Cet article analyse les différents paradoxes associés aux usages académiciens et sceptiques des concepts de saisie [ katalepsis ], d’insaisissabilité [ akatalèpsia ] et d’absence de saisie lors d’une représentation [ akatalèptos ]. Il s’agit de montrer, que les philosophies déniant aux dogmatiques leur prétention à saisir fermement quelque chose de certain ne se contredisent pas nécessairement en prétendant saisir l’insaisissable ou en universalisant l’insaisissabilité. Évitant les paradoxes infamants auxquels leurs adversaires cherchent à les réduire (que nous nommerons « paradoxe (...) du dogme dissoluble » ou « paradoxe des indiscernables distincts »), les académiciens et les sceptiques exposèrent leur pessimisme gnoséologique à travers des stratégies argumentatives qui assument parfois une tournure paradoxale, mais non contradictoire, parce qu’elle est la mieux adaptée à notre état d’« ignare ignorance », ignorance absolue qui s’ignore elle-même en tant que telle. (shrink)

This article offers a new formulation of the Socratic principle known as the Principle of the Sovereignty of Virtue. It is divided in three sections. In the first section I criticize Vlastos’ formulation of the PSV. In the second section I present the weighing model of practical deliberation, introduce the concepts of reason for action, simple reason, sufficient reason and conclusive reason that were offered by Thomas Scanlon in Being realistic about reasons, and then I adapt these concepts so as (...) to render them apt to be used in the formulation I intend to offer. In the third section I present my formulation of the PSV using the concepts introduced in the second section and explain why I believe this formulation is better than the one offered by Vlastos. (shrink)