The first book-length philosophical study on the Presocratic influences in Plotinus’ Enneads.

El presente artículo intenta ofrecer un marco documental para la discusión sobre la estructura cosmológica de Ferecides de Siros. Partiendo de la polémica entre quienes le adjudican un cosmograma quinario y aquellos que lo interpretan septenario, proponemos un recorrido por las antiguas doctrinas cosmológicas quinarias, tanto griegas como orientales, a fin de explorar su recurrencia y variedad. Se constata que la disputa religiosa entre los apologetas del cinco y los del siete existía ya en la antigüedad, pudiendo haber afectado a (...) la lectura que los doxógrafos hicieron entonces de la obra de Ferecides. Se expone la teoría de Nick Allen sobre la existencia de una «ideología pentádica» indoeuropea y se critica su sesgo idealista (pitagórico en la línea de Dumézil). Finalmente, se suscribe la hipótesis del origen «protogeométrico» de muchos de estos mapas ontológicos quinarios y se recapitulan las posibles referencias que manejaba el maestro de Pitágoras cuando ideó su teogonía. (shrink)

'Reason, Causation and Compatibility with the Phenomena' strives to give answers to the philosophical problem of the interplay between realism, explanation and experience. This book is a compilation of essays that recollect significant conceptions of rival terms such as determinism and freedom, reason and appearance, power and knowledge. This title discusses the progress made in epistemology and natural philosophy, especially the steps that led from the ancient theory of atomism to the modern quantum theory, and from mathematization to analytic philosophy. (...) Moreover, it provides possible gateways from modern deadlocks of theory either through approaches to consciousness or through historical critique of intellectual authorities. This work will be of interest to those either researching or studying in colleges and universities, especially in the departments of philosophy, history of science, philosophy of science, philosophy of physics and quantum mechanics, history of ideas and culture. Greek and Latin Literature students and instructors may also find this book to be both a fascinating and valuable point of reference. (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)

Okeanos is at once a mythological figure and a philosophical concept appearing in many ancient accounts of the world. A frequent object of allegoresis, his cosmological role and his name posed an enigma to Homer’s readers, especially those with a rationalizing bent. This paper proposes that the paradoxical representation of Okeanos as a primordial generative power and a geographical limit may be explained by the influence of etymological speculation, which was a popular heuristic method used by Greek intellectuals from the (...) archaic period throughout antiquity. (shrink)