Essays on Aristotle's Sea-Battle, Lazy Argument, Argument Reaper, Diodorus' Master Argument -/- The book is devoted to the ancient logical theories, reconstruction of their semantic proprieties and possibilities of their interpretation by modern logical tools. The Ancient arguments are frequently misunderstood in modern interpretations since authors usually have tendency to ignore their historical proprieties and theoretical background what usually leads to a quite inappropriate picture of the argument’s original form and mission. Author’s primary intention was to draw attention to the (...) complexity of some historical arguments and to the theoretical context in which arguments were created, circulated, developed, and finally tuned. Four well-known ancient arguments – with a common central subject related to the future contingencies problem – are reconstructed from available historical sources: “The Sea Battle”, which is drawn from Aristotle’s treatise De Interpretatione; two arguments, usually ascribed to the Stoics, “The Lazy Argument” and “The Reaper”; “The Master Argument” of the Megarian philosopher Diodorus. Arguments are linguistically and semantically detaily analyzed, formally presented by reflecting some relevant corresponding hypotheses based on physical or logical theories of their ancient authors, and finally covered by appropriate logical tools familiar to a modern reader. Two appendices are added at the closing part of the book. One covering some assumptions relevant for understanding of rival streams in ancient theories of meaning related to the nature of names and naming; the other is devoted to the ancient understanding of logical proposition and attempts to find an adequate Latin translation of the Greek delicate philosophical term “ἀξίωμα”. (shrink)

Velika večina sodobnih analiz Platonovega dialoga Menon poskuša osvetliti vzpostavitev kreposti, pri čemer skušajo ugotoviti, kako lahko pridemo do nje, upoštevajoč tri momente, navedene na začetku dialoga: διδακτόν, ᾰσκητόν in ϕύσει. Članek se osredotoča na slavni eristični argument v 80e, ki je znan kot »Menonov paradoks«. Tega razgradi na elemente in skuša razkriti namenoma prikrite pomene v vsakem kosu argumenta, uporabljajoč različne grške izraze, ki označujejo »vednost« v različnih pomenih. Ta filo-loška/filozofska analiza erističnega argumenta omogoča prebiti sofistično/eristično pročelje, ki je (...) številne filozofe napeljalo na misel, da ni mogoče začeti ali napredovati s filozofskim raziskovanjem. Cilj te analize je tudi, da poudari razliko med sofistično ovržbo in pravim filozofiranjem, kolikor je slednje značilnost Platonskih in Aristotelskih besedil. (shrink)

It is argued that recollection in Plato's "Meno" is used as a metaphor, though not one for a priori knowledge: the point of comparison is the analogy between the processes of learning in the sense of coming to know from an error and recollecting something one has forgotten. Recollecting in this sense as well as correcting an error implies the becoming aware of a lack of knowledge previously unnoticed. It is shown that the geometry lesson (82b9-85b7) is intended to bring (...) out this analogy. It is argued further that the error to be corrected by the staging of the geometry lesson is an error of Meno's concerning the nature of knowledge. It is finally argued that Socrates' speech in 81a5-d5 is a parody of a Gorgian speech and that the learning-is-recollection statement in this passage is an allegorical conceit in the manner of Gorgias and Empedocles. (shrink)

Plato in the Meno is standardly interpreted as committed to condition innatism: human beings are born with latent innate states of knowledge. Against this view, Gail Fine has argued for prenatalism: human souls possess knowledge in a disembodied state but lose it upon being embodied. We argue against both views and in favor of content innatism: human beings are born with innate cognitive contents that can be, but do not exist innately in the soul as, the contents of states of (...) knowledge. Content innatism has strong textual support and constitutes a philosophically interesting theory. (shrink)