A new interpretation of Hegel's reading of Sophocles's Antigone, focussing on Antigone's urge to action grounded in her religious feeling, on her facing the risk of death and the consequences of this move for her sense of self-awareness, becoming also conscious of her onesidedness in respect to Creon's (equally onesided) reasons.

Recreational Drugs European Network (ReDNet) project aims to use the Psychonaut Web Mapping Project database (Psychonaut Web Mapping Group, 2009) containing novel psychoactive compounds usually not mentioned in the scientific literature and thus unknown to clinicians as a unique source of information. The database will be used to develop an integrated ICT prevention approach targeted at vulnerable individuals and focused on novel synthetic and herbal compounds and combinations. Particular care will be taken in keeping the health professionals working directly with (...) young people showing problematic behaviors regularly updated in terms of novel compounds and combinations as well. A user-friendly project website will be developed aimed primarily at delivering the information/prevention approaches, but will also be a way of communicating with project partners and relevant stakeholders (e.g. thematic forum facilities, instant messages, blogs, video chat, wikiblog, newsletters distributed via mailing list). The website will support various ICT prevention tools, including an SMS alert service. Different areas and sections will be aimed specifically at the different target groups. -/- . (shrink)

continua il mio impegno in questa straordinaria avventura intellettuale e clinica ... a partire da una dirompente verità: quando poniamo la coscienza al centro dei nostri interessi e dei nostri interventi, come fosse il principio stesso d'ogni cosa, compresa la salute e la sofferenza mentale, allora il mondo ne esce stravolto nei suoi principi e nella sua logica, in un modo che possiamo definire quantistico ... per giungere, infine, a una rivoluzionaria conclusione: sta nel nostro potere di autodeterminazione la possibilità (...) di cambiare la realtà, o di crearne una del tutto nuova. (shrink)

Ci imbattiamo in un confine ogni volta che pensiamo a un’entità demarcata rispetto a ciò che la circonda. C’è un confine (una superficie) che delimita l’interno di una sfera dal suo esterno; c’è un confine (una frontiera) che separa il Maryland dalla Pennsylvania. Talvolta la collocazione esatta di un confine non è chiara o è in qualche modo controversa (come quando si cerchi di tracciare i limiti del monte Everest, o il confine del nostro corpo). Talaltra il confine non (...) corrisponde a una discontinuità fisica o a una differenziazione qualitativa (come nel caso dei confini del Wyoming, o della demarcazione tra la metà superiore e la metà inferiore di una sfera omogenea). Ma, che sia netto o confuso, naturale o artificiale, sembra esservi per ogni oggetto un confine che lo separa dal resto del mondo. Anche gli eventi hanno confini, quantomeno confini temporali. Le nostre vite sono delimitate dalle nostre nascite e morti; una partita di calcio comincia alle quindici in punto e termina col fischio finale dell’arbitro alle sedici e quarantacinque. E a volte si dice che anche le entità astratte, come i concetti o gli insiemi, hanno dei propri confini. Se tutto questo parlare di confini abbia davvero un senso, e se rifletta la struttura del mondo o solo l’attività organizzatrice del nostro intelletto, è però oggetto di profonda controversia filosofica. (shrink)

Aristotle’s dialogue Protrepticus is not only his earliest work of ethics but also the root of all his subsequent investigations into ethics. Here we explore the various ways Aristotle retained in memory the contents of the Protrepticus and redeployed them in the Eudemian Ethics, including the common books. Since Aristotle himself does not explicitly acknowledge the foundational significance of the Protrepticus to his later works, our exploration must proceed on the basis of our knowledge of the earlier work, which can (...) then related to comparable passages in the treatises. But the Protrepticus is a lost work, unlike the EE and the EN, in the sense that no medieval manuscripts of it have survived. And so it first needs to be reconstructed on the basis of the streams of reception that deposited information in surviving works by later ancient authors. We begin in part 1 by reviewing the surviving evidence of the Protrepticus before presenting our wider reconstruction and conception of the work as a dialogue in part 2. In part 3, we discuss ideas and arguments in the reconstructed dialogue that are retained and redeployed in the Eudemian Ethics, focussing on the account of intellectual virtues in EE v and the introduction and methodological framework in EE i-ii.1. (shrink)

Critics have alleged that Democritus’ ethical prescriptions (“gnomai”) are incompatible with his physics, since his atomism seems committed to necessity or chance (or an awkward combination of both) as a universal cause of everything, leaving no room for personal responsibility. I argue that Democritus’ critics, both ancient and contemporary, have misunderstood a fundamental concept of his causality: a cause called “spontaneity”, which Democritus evidently considered a necessary (not chance) cause, compatible with human freedom, of both atomic motion and human actions. (...) Some influential contemporary compatibilists have argued that freedom and responsibility are compatible with causal determinism, but not intentional constraint where some other agent is intentionally manipulating or coercing one’s actions. In line with this, Democritus holds that humans should not blame their actions on other agents like the gods, or agent-like external forces like fate or chance, but should assume ultimate intentional control over their own choices and actions. The famous remark of his associate Leucippus that “everything happens for a reason and out of necessity” is a fitting slogan of their atomistic philosophy, for Democritus pursued what can without anachronism be recognized as a causal theory of freedom. (shrink)

Two arguments in Eudemian Ethics 2 that are crucial to Aristotle’s definition of moral virtue as a mean state contain claims that Aristotle says are clear by induction. In these contexts, he explicitly appeals to examples coming from arts and sciences like gymnastic training and medicine for evidence. But Aristotle does not here, or elsewhere (at least in any extant work), including the parallel arguments in the Nicomachean Ethics, actually supply or discuss the evidence that makes these inductive arguments clear. (...) Fortunately, strong support for them can be found in the Hippocratic Corpus, especially in On Ancient Medicine and On Regimen. (shrink)

The potential reducibility of chemical entities to their physical bases is a matter of dispute between ontological reductionists on one hand, and emergentists on the other. However, relevant debates typically revolve around the reducibility of so-called ‘higher-level’ chemical entities, such as molecules. Perhaps surprisingly, even committed proponents of emergence for these higher-level chemical entities appear to accept that the ‘lowest-level’ chemical entities – atomic species – are reducible to their physical bases. In particular, the microstructural view of chemical elements, actively (...) developed and defended by emergentists, appears to hold that the explanatory power of nuclear charge justifies being reductionist about atomic species. My first task in this paper is to establish that nuclear charge cannot ultimately provide explanations sufficient to justify a reductionist approach to atomic species, unless we abandon the persuasive intuition that the presence of an element in a substance ought to explain the properties of that substance. The ‘missing piece’ for explaining the properties of substances by way of their elemental constituents is the electronegativity values of participant atoms. But electronegativity is a strikingly disunified concept that appears distinctly unamenable to analysis by way of fundamental physical principles. Through evaluating the uncertain physical identity of electronegativity, as well as its widespread and indispensable epistemic utility in chemical practice, I argue that electronegativity provides compelling grounds to seriously consider emergence for atomic species. (shrink)

Authenticates approximately 500 lines of Aristotle's lost work the Protrepticus (Exhortation to Philosophy) contained in the circa third century AD work by Iamblichus of Chalcis entitled Protrepticus epi philosophian. Includes a complete English translation of the authenticated material.

I argue that a circa first century B.C./A.D. anonymous epistolary comic novel depicting a fictional interaction between Hippocrates of Cos and Democritus of Abdera contains an insightful imitation of Democritus that can cast light on the historical Democritus’s thought, including his thought on the touchy subject of appropriate and inappropriate laughter. The only thing certain about Democritus’s view of laughter is that he denounced laughter at human misfortune as inappropriate. The later legend of him as laughing at everything and everyone (...) indiscriminately is a later distortion of his view which the author of the comic novel seems concerned to counteract. (shrink)

Encyclopedia article briefly summarizing the history of atomism from antiquity to modernity.

An overview of the influence of Lucretius poem On the Nature of Things (De Rerum Natura) on the renaissance and scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, and an examination of its continuing influence over physical atomism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

In twenty important passages located throughout De rerum natura, Lucretius refers to natural things happening spontaneously (sponte sua; the Greek term is automaton). The most important of these uses include his discussion of the causes of: nature, matter, and the cosmos in general; the generation and adaptation of plants and animals; the formation of images and thoughts; and the behavior of human beings and the development of human culture. In this paper I examine the way spontaneity functions as a cause (...) in other Greek and Latin writers, beginning with Homer and Hesiod, and including Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, and Theophrastus; among Latin writers Cicero, Pliny, Horace, Vergil and Ovid. I argue that the most important influence (immediately or via Epicurus) on Lucretius’ concept and use of this cause is the natural philosophy of Democritus and his followers and critics. I argue that understanding the nature of spontaneity, and how it differs from chance, is crucial to understanding Lucretius’ account of the cosmos and nature, and also how some of the actions of humans and other animals are “free” and “voluntary”. For in the famous passage at II.251-293 he contrasts free action with action caused or constrained by external forces and outside influences. (shrink)

We offer a sceptical examination of a thesis recently advanced in a monograph published by Princeton University Press, entitled Greek Buddha: Pyrrho’s Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia. In this dense and probing work, Christopher I. Beckwith, a professor of Central Eurasian studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, argues that Pyrrho of Elis adopted a form of early Buddhism during his years in Bactria and Gandhāra, and that early Pyrrhonism must be understood as a sect of early Buddhism. In making (...) his case Beckwith claims that virtually all scholars of Greek, Indian, and Chinese philosophy have been operating under flawed assumptions and with flawed methodologies, and so have failed to notice obvious and undeniable correspondences between the philosophical views of the Buddha and of Pyrrho. In this study we take Beckwith’s proposal and challenge seriously, and we examine his textual basis and techniques of translation, his methods of examining passages, his construal of problems and his reconstruction of arguments. We find that his presuppositions are contentious and doubtful, his own methods are extremely flawed, and that he draws unreasonable conclusions. Although the result of our study is almost entirely negative, we think it illustrates some important general points about the methodology of comparative philosophy. (shrink)

For an Aristotelian observer, the halo is a puzzling phenomenon since it is apparently sublunary, and yet perfectly circular. This paper studies Aristotle's explanation of the halo in Meteorology III 2-3 as an optical illusion, as opposed to a substantial thing (like a cloud), as was thought by his predecessors and even many successors. Aristotle's explanation follows the method of explanation of the Posterior Analytics for "subordinate" or "mixed" mathematical-physical sciences. The accompanying diagram described by Aristotle is one of the (...) earliest lettered geometrical diagrams, in particular of a terrestrial phenomenon, and versions of it can still be found in modern textbooks on meteorological optics. (shrink)

In some influential histories of ancient philosophy, teleological explanation and mechanistic explanation are assumed to be directly opposed and mutually exclusive alternatives. I contend that this assumption is deeply flawed, and distorts our understanding both of teleological and mechanistic explanation, and of the history of mechanistic philosophy. To prove this point, I shall provide an overview of the first systematic treatise on mechanics, the short and neglected work Mechanical Problems, written either by Aristotle or by a very early member of (...) his school. I will argue that the work is thoroughly Aristotelian in methodology, and that taking it seriously can deepen our understanding of Aristotle’s discussion of animal and human self-motion in the Physics and On the Movement of Animals. (shrink)

I develop a positive interpretation of Democritus' theory of agency and responsibility, building on previous studies that have already gone far in demonstrating his innovativeness and importance to the history and philosophy of these concepts. The interpretation will be defended by a synthesis of several familiar ethical fragments and maxims presented in the framework of an ancient problem that, unlike the problem of free will and determinism, Democritus almost certainly did confront: the problem of the causes of human goodness and (...) success. I will argue that Democritus' account of the virtues and success is naturally interpreted as an intellectualist one. His focus on our intellectual powers as the source of our own agency and cause of our success led him to remarkable breakthroughs in moral psychology, including the development of a kind of cognitive-behavioral therapy for stress and anxiety, and the proposal of an autonomous source of moral sanction. (shrink)

Risk is an intrinsic part of our lives. In the future, the development and growth of the Internet of things allows getting a huge amount of data. Considering this evolution, our research focuses on developing a novel concept, namely Holistic Risk Assessment (HRA), that takes into consideration elements outside the direct influence of the individual to provide a highly personalized risk assessment. The HRA implies developing a methodology and a model. This paper is related to the epistemological positioning of this (...) research. We consider this research as an artificial science under the constructivism paradigm. We also introduce the positioning of this research in the complexity science paradigm. We end this paper by presenting a methodology based on an adapted Design Thinking Model. (shrink)

We hope to show that the overall protreptic plan of Aristotle's ethical writings is based on the plan he used in his published work Protrepticus (Exhortation to Philosophy), by highlighting those passages that primarily offer hortatory or protreptic motivation rather than dialectical argumentation and analysis, and by illustrating several ways that Aristotle adapts certain arguments and examples from his Protrepticus. In this essay we confine our attention to the books definitely attributable to the Nicomachean Ethics (thus excluding the common books).

Pierre Gassendi was a major factor in the revival of Epicureanism in early modern philosophy, not only through his contribution to the restoration and criticism of Epicurean texts, but also by his adaptation of Epicurean ideas in his own philosophy, which was itself influential on such important figures of early modern philosophy as Hobbes, Locke, Newton, and Boyle (to name just a few). Despite his vigorous defense of certain Epicurean ideas and ancient atomism, Gassendi goes to great lengths to differentiate (...) his philosophy from Epicureanism on certain key points. In this paper I argue that those key points on which Gassendi rejects and and criticizes the Epicurean view, such as the immortality of the soul and divine creation of the cosmos, are central not only to Epicureanism, but also to Gassendi's own philosophy. In order to see Gassendi's philosophy for what it is, and understand its role in the history of natural theology, we need accept and understand better why he rejected the central theses of Epicureanism. (shrink)

I discuss how Aristotle’s formulation of the problem of moral luck relates to his natural philosophy. I review well-known passages from Nicomachean Ethics I/X and Eudemian Ethics I/VII and Physics II, but in the main focus on EE VII 14 (= VIII 2). I argue that Aristotle’s position there (rejecting the elimination of luck, but reducing luck so far as possible to incidental natural and intelligent causes) is not only consistent with his treatment of luck in Physics II, but is (...) to be expected, given that the dialectical path of EE VII 14 runs exactly parallel to that of Physics II 4-6. Although Aristotle resolves some issues that he raises, he cannot avoid the problem of constitutive moral luck that, as Thomas Nagel puts it, pertains to ‘the kind of person you are, where this is not just a question of what you deliberately do, but of your inclinations, capacities, and temperament’. The problem for Aristotle follows not only from his ethical positions, but also directly from his more general physical and political principles and assumptions. Furthermore, the problem touches the very essence of Aristotle’s moral theory. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that there is an important anomaly to the causalist/compatibilist paradigm in the philosophy of action and free will. This anomaly, which to my knowledge has gone unnoticed so far, can be found in the philosophy of Harry Frankfurt. Two of his most important contributions to the field – his influential counterexample to the Principle of Alternate Possibilities and his ‘guidance’ view of action – are incompatible. The importance of this inconsistency goes far beyond the issue (...) of coherence within Frankfurt’s philosophy. I shall argue that this inconsistency represents an important anomaly within the causalist/compatibilist framework; so that we should start to seriously consider having to move on from the established paradigm. (shrink)

El propósito de esta investigación es tratar de hacer una aproximación al pensamiento metafísico de Nicolás de Cusa partiendo de su libro La caza de la sabiduría, en las siguientes fases: 1. En primer lugar, pretendo contextualizar al autor, principalmente aquellos aspectos que han marcado notoriamente su pensamiento, como son por ejemplo el comienzo del renacimiento, su papel en la defensa de la unidad de la iglesia, la presencia del pensamiento aristotélico y platónico en la época en que vivió, etc. (...) Trato de destacar lo que considera las claves hermenéuticas para la comprensión de su pensamiento filosófico. 2. A continuación, analizo los temas tratados en esta obra, remarcando las grandes cuestiones Cusanas, a medida que van siendo incoadas. Cito algunas de las discusiones planteadas en la bibliografía referentes a la interpretación que diferentes autores han ido haciendo, y trato de aportar luces tras la lectura e interpretación del libro La caza de la sabiduría. 3. Finalmente presento una serie de conclusiones con mi parecer personal acerca de algunas de las cuestiones más debatidas en la bibliografía consultada. (shrink)

Aristotle is the first philosopher on record to subject the meaning of life to systematic philosophical examination: he approaches the issue from logical, psychological, biological, and anthropological perspectives in some of the central passages in the Corpus Aristotelicum and, it turns out, in some fragments from his (lost) early popular work the Protrepticus (Exhortation to Philosophy). From an Aristotelian perspective, in asking about life’s “meaning”, we may be asking either a theoretical question about the definition of the term life (and (...) this either generically or with specific reference to human life), or a practical question about the final end or purpose of life (or human life). Aristotle carefully considered both questions, and in his view answering the theoretical question is the key to answering the practical question. In brief, his theoretical view is that humans are distinguished from all other living things, and thus defined by their ability to use reason; thus his practical view is that the end or purpose of human existence is intellectual activity, especially doing philosophy. (shrink)

El emergente paradigma educativo del aprendizaje ubicuo está dando lugar a nuevos entornos virtuales de aprendizaje. El objetivo de este estudio es contribuir a esta transformación en los procesos de aprendizaje para avanzar en el dominio del inglés, con un diseño didáctico innovador inspirado en el concepto de ‘entorno personal de aprendizaje’, con el uso de vídeos de YouTube. Los resultados demuestran el potencial pedagógico de los PLE, su eficacia no sólo a nivel cognitivo sino también como experiencia emocional. Este (...) diseño también se ha mostrado de utilidad para promover la autonomía y la motivación intrínseca del estudiante. (shrink)

The concept of kosmos did not play the leading role in Aristotle’s physics that it did in Pythagorean, Atomistic, Platonic, or Stoic physics. Although Aristotle greatly influenced the history of cosmology, he does not himself recognize a science of cosmology, a science taking the kosmos itself as the object of study with its own phenomena to be explained and its own principles that explain them. The term kosmos played an important role in two aspects of his predecessor’s accounts that Aristotle (...) rejected: first, cosmogeny and kosmopoiia, generation or creation of the kosmos; second, diakosmêsis, arranging of a plurality of kosmoi. Aristotle was extremely critical of accounts involving kosmopoiia and diakosmêsis and he developed general dialectical strategies against them. In emphatically distinguishing his view from all his predecessors (including Plato), he uses the terms ho ouranos (the heaven), to holon (the whole), and to pan (the totality) in preference to ho kosmos (the kosmos or world). There is usually no harm in speaking loosely of ‘Aristotle’s cosmology’ when referring to his concept of the order of nature and the ouranos. Nevertheless, Aristotle’s theoretical philosophy offers something very different from those of his predecessors for whom kosmos was a keyword. (shrink)

In recent decades, Western philosophy, including personalism, has had to face the question of how to respect the otherness of the personal Other, a challenge issued most famously by Emmanuel Levinas. In his Totality and Infinity, Levinas's conclusions about alterity are stark. The Other is beyond all conceptualization and precedes my activity as a subject. It is the Other who founds my own independent subjectivity as an "I."1 These are indeed radical conclusions, but they raise the question, Does the very (...) term Other itself fully capture the alterity Levinas wishes to do justice to? The term Other (autrui) has a certain unavoidable generality and abstractness to it. Any person who is not myself, the world's population minus one, can be referred to by this term. Yet the Other is always richly distinguished in each case, for each Other is unique. I will argue that the personalist philosophy of Dietrich von Hildebrand reveals that the alterity of the Other rests on the more fundamental uniqueness of the content of our personhood. This content, which is a value, is disclosed in love, and it is indicated in the personal name. It is the name that, better than the term Other, captures the alterity of the personal Other. (shrink)

In juxtaposition with the myth and tragedy of Ovid’s Medea, this paper investigates the possibility within the Kantian conception of agency of understanding moral evil as acting against one’s better judgment. It defends the thesis that in Kant self-deception, i. e. the intentional untruthfulness to oneself, provides the fundamental structure for choosing against the moral law. I argue that, as Kant’s thought progresses, self-deception slowly proceeds to become the paradigmatic case of moral evil. This is discussed with regard to two (...) important topics in his later moral philosophy: the doctrine of radical evil and the crucial role of the duty of truthfulness in ethics. The inquiry into Kant’s theory of conscience unfolds both against this theoretical background and in light of its historical roots in the polemic against casuistry and probabilism. This contribution closes with a brief look at the tools Kant implements to counter this tendency to self-deception in moral judgment and particularly at the role casuistry plays within his conception of moral education. (shrink)

Aristotle rejected the idea of a single, overarching super-science or “theory of everything”, and he presented a powerful and influential critique of scientific unity. In theory, each science observes the facts unique to its domain, and explains these by means of its own proper principles. But even as he elaborates his prohibition on kind-crossing explanations (Posterior Analytics 1.6-13), Aristotle points out that there are important exceptions—that some sciences are “under” others in that they depend for their explanations on the principles (...) of a superior (more architectonic) science. In this paper, I explore how subordination relations and architectonic structures apply to Aristotle’s scientific practice—including not only the works of theoretical philosophy, which have already been discussed in this connection, but also in and between these and the practical and productive sciences. (shrink)

Democritus of Abdera, best known as a cosmologist and the founder of atomism, wrote more on ethics than anyone before Plato. His work Peri euthumiês (On Contentment) was extremely influential on the later development of teleological and intellectualist ethics, eudaimonism, hedonism, therapeutic ethics, and positive psychology. The loss of his works, however, and the transmission of his fragments in collections of maxims (gnomai), has obscured the extent his contribution to the history of systematic ethics and influence on later philosophy, especially (...) in the Hellenistic age. In this essay I review the evidence basis for Democritus’ ethics, discuss the rhetorical and logical aspects of his maxims, attempt to synthesize the fragments into an overall interpretation, and offer a summary some of the more influential aspects of his ethics. (shrink)

Encyclopedia article on Democritus. Includes a brief overview of his philosophical views, major works, and critical reception.

Greco-Roman meteorology will be described in four overlapping developments. In the archaic period, astro-meteorological calendars were written down, and one appears in Hesiod’s Works and Days; such calendars or almanacs originated thousands of years earlier in Mesopotamia. In the second development, also in the archaic period, the pioneers of prose writing began writing speculative naturalistic explanations of meteorological phenomena: Anaximander, followed by Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, and others. When Aristotle in the fourth century BCE mentions the ‘inquiry that all our predecessors have (...) been calling meteorology’ (338a26), he is referring to these writers. In the third development, the first two enterprises were combined: empirical data collection about meteorological phenomena began to be married to naturalistic theoretical explanation. This innovation was prompted by Democritus and synthesised in its most influential form by Aristotle. At this point more sophisticated techniques of both short-term weather forecasting and long-term speculation about global climate change were also developed. In the fourth development, the wider implications of the naturalistic explanation of meteorological phenomena were contested. The views of ‘meteorologists’ had been controversial since the archaic period because they were perceived, and sometimes intended, to displace the divine prerogatives and undermine traditional religion. These controversies intensified throughout the classical and Hellenistic periods. (shrink)

Biology and theology are interdependent theoretical sciences for Aristotle. In prominent discussions of the divine things (the stars and their unmoved movers) Aristotle appeals to the science of living things, and in prominent discussions of the nature of plants and animals Aristotle appeals to the nature of the divine. There is in fact a single continuous series of living things that includes gods, humans, animals, and plants, all of them in a way divine. Aristotle has this continuum of divine beings, (...) and a theory of value that corresponds to it, in mind not only in key parts of his theology and biology, but also in his practical philosophy. Here I call attention to some important texts and attempt to offer a coherent account of them, without being able to enter into the usual interpretive disputes. I begin by clarifying the terms “theology” and “biology” and their place in Aristotle's division of philosophy. Next, I discuss how Aristotle’s theology is informed by his biology, and then how his biology is informed by his theology. I end by discussing some implications of the interdependence of biology and theology for Aristotle’s ethics and exhortation to philosophy. (shrink)

This paper has three major aims. The first is to defend the hypothesis that Aristotle’s lost work Protrepticus was a dialogue. The second is to explore the genres of ancient apotreptics, speeches that argue against doing philosophy and show the need for protreptic responses; our exploration is guided by Aristotle’s own analysis of apotreptics as well as protreptics in his Rhetorica. The third aim is to restore to the evidence base of Aristotle’s Protrepticus an apotreptic speech that argues against doing (...) Academic philosophy, evidence that was incorrectly excluded by Ingemar Düring in 1961. (shrink)

I present a developmental account of Aristotle’s concept of hê hylê (usually translated “the matter”), focused the earliest developments. I begin by analyzing fragments of some lost early works and a chapter of the Organon, texts which indicate that early in his career Aristotle had not yet begun to use he hylê in a technical sense. Next, I examine Physics II 3, a chapter in which Aristotle conceives of he hylê not as a kind of cause in its own right, (...) but merely as an example of the so-called “out of which” cause : the material is the cause out of which an artifact is made. Next, I examine Physics II 7, a chapter in which Aristotle names "the material" as one of the four kinds of cause in its own right. But Aristotle’s model of "the material" remains the material out of which an artifact is made. (shrink)

Archytas of Tarentum, a contemporary and associate of Plato, was a famous Pythagorean, mathematician, and statesman of Tarentum. Although his works are lost and most of the fragments attributed to him were composed in later eras, they nevertheless contain valuable information about his thought. In particular, the fragments of On Law and Justice are likely based on a work by the early Peripatetic biographer Aristoxenus of Tarentum. The fragments touch on key themes of early Greek ethics, including: written and unwritten (...) laws; freedom and self-sufficiency; moderation of the emotions and cultivation of virtues; equality and the competence of the majority to participate in government; criticism of “rule by an individual”; a theory of the ideal “mixed constitution”; distributive and corrective justice and punishment, and of the rule of law. The fragments also contain one of the only positive accounts of democracy in ancient Greek philosophy. (shrink)

A review of Carl Huffman's new edition of the fragments of Archytas of Tarentum. Praises the extensive commentary on four fragments, but argues that at least two dubious works not included in the edition ("On Law and Justice" and "On Wisdom") deserve further consideration and contain important information for the interpretation of Archytas. Provides a complete translation for the fragments of those works.

An appreciation of the "more philosophical" aspects of ancient medical writings casts considerable light on Aristotle's concept of nature, and how he understands nature to differ from art, on the one hand, and spontaneity or luck, on the other. The account of nature, and its comparison with art and spontaneity in Physics II is developed with continual reference to the medical art. The notion of spontaneous remission of disease (without the aid of the medical art) was a controversial subject in (...) the medical literature, and Aristotle's aporia about the notion of spontaneous generation of natural things runs parallel to this controversy. Aristotle's account of spontaneous generation in the Metaphysics and in the Generation of Animals can also be profitably illuminated by looking at the comparison with medicine in detail. The result, hopefully, is a clearer and more consistent picture not only of Aristotle's concepts of nature, art, and spontaneity, but also of the influence of medical writings and concepts on his natural philosophy. Joel Mann has written a commentary on the essay. (shrink)

Balancing a hermeneutic of trust with a hermeneutic of suspicion, this article develops a phenomenological description of imagination that highlights its alethic ambiguity. Imagination is an act of disclosure, without which the world of fiction and pure possibility cannot be constituted. Imagination is also an act of self-indulgence and narcissism, the source of much concealment and untruth. It is not the one or the other, but both at the same time, essentially ambiguous because of its phenomenological constitution. In this article, (...) I will take some steps towards clarifying this essential ambiguity of the imagination by drawing on the insights of Husserl and Sartre. Beginning with Husserl’s parallel treatment of imagination and perception as intuitive, objectifying acts, I will argue, drawing on insights from Sartre, that there is an important discrepancy between them with respect to the role of desire. While the constitution of perceptual presence is inseparable from a desire for truth, the desire involved in the constitution of imaginary presence has an ambiguous character, both epistemic and magical. This duplicity of desire partly accounts for the ambiguity of imagination, which is all the more pronounced the more the imagination demands the full emotional involvement of the imagining subject. (shrink)

In epoca medievale si è molto discusso su alcuni concetti chiave come prova o giustificazione. La teoria della prova contenuta nei trattati di logica medievale prende il nome tecnico di consequentia, che è un tipo di ragionamento fondato sul passaggio dalla concessione (o negazione) di uno o più enunciati denominati antecedenti alla concessione (o negazione) di uno o più enunciati denominati conseguenti. Questo tipo di teoria ha avuto un correlato a livello dei singoli termini che compongono l’enunciato all'interno della teoria (...) nota come suppositio terminorum. Prende, infatti, il nome di descensus, la regola che permette la verifica del passaggio da un termine maggiore (un termine comune) ad un termine minore (che denota individui). La stessa definizione di alcune ramificazioni della teoria della suppositio è col-legata alla possibilità di ammettere o meno il descensus cioè questa "discesa" da un termine comune ad una congiunzione o disgiunzione di termini singolari. Il presente lavoro intende descrivere la teoria del descensus come un tipo particolare di consequentia mostrandone le connessioni con le moderne tecniche logiche. I trattati che si affronteranno appartengono al XIV e al XV secolo, cioè ad un periodo caratterizzato da una sistemazione della materia che li rende confrontabili con un quadro teorico unitario. (shrink)

A new translation and edition of Aristotle's Protrepticus (with critical comments on the fragments) -/- Welcome -/- The Protrepticus was an early work of Aristotle, written while he was still a member of Plato's Academy, but it soon became one of the most famous works in the whole history of philosophy. Unfortunately it was not directly copied in the middle ages and so did not survive in its own manuscript tradition. But substantial fragments of it have been preserved in several (...) works by Iamblichus of Chalcis, a third century A.D. neo-Pythagorean philosopher and educator. On the basis of a close study of Iamblichus' extensive use and excerption of Aristotle's Protrepticus, it is possible to reconstruct the backbone of the lost work, and then to flesh it out with the other surviving reports about the work from antiquity (for example in Alexander of Aphrodisias and other ancient commentators on Aristotle). It is also possible to identify several papyrus fragments of the work, and many references and literary allusions in later authors, especially Cicero, whose own lost dialogue Hortensius was a defense of philosophy modeleld on Aristotle's. (shrink)

Some of the manuscripts once part of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s collection transmit autograph notes, which have been useful to reconstruct his library. A peculiar case is represented by the notes transmitted in a codex containing the Latin translation of Moses Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed. These notes are actual corrections to the translation made mostly on the basis of a comparison with the Hebrew text, while in some other cases they derive from a specific interpretation. The aim of this (...) paper is to present some characteristics of the textual revisions, in particular with reference to the Hebrew source. The palaeographic data demonstrate Pico’s direct involvement, which leads to the question of the authorship of these notes, namely if they were the result of an autonomous work or of a collaboration with some other scholar. (shrink)

Hynek Bartos does the field of ancient philosophy a great service by detailing the influence of early Greek thinkers (such as Heraclitus, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Democritus, and Diogenes of Apollonia) on the Hippocratic work On Regimen, and by demonstrating that work’s innovative engagement with contemporary scientific and philosophical concepts as well as its direct influence on Plato and Aristotle. His study usefully counteracts the lamentable tendency among ancient philosophers to ignore or downplay the influence of medical literature on philosophy in general, (...) and to heap scorn on this text in particular, which Kirk, Raven, and Schofield considered ‘an eclectic and very superficial quasi- philosophical treatise’ and Barnes famously called ‘a silly farrago of ill-digested Presocratic opinions’. (shrink)

Il 2021 segna gli ottant’anni dalla nascita di Mario Perniola, uno dei massimi filosofi italiani del secondo dopoguerra. Questo volume raccoglie interventi che esplorano la sua opera mostrandone la fertilità e sottolineando al tempo stesso la prossimità delle sue idee con le principali sfide del nostro tempo. Dall’Italia al Brasile, passando per gli Stati Uniti, l’Irlanda, la Francia, il Belgio, il Messico e la Cina, gli autori si soffermano su temi che comprendono l’estetica, la politica, la teoria della comunicazione, i (...) queer studies, il pensiero rituale e religioso, la sessualità e la letteratura, restituendo la plurivocità e l’originalità di un filosofo di respiro internazionale e più che mai attuale. (shrink)

This thesis considers the notion of intergenerational justice. I consider intertemporal justice largely through the lens of John Rawls’s theory of justice. Nonetheless, Rawls incorrectly gives priority to the principle of reciprocity in his theory. I correct Rawls’s misunderstanding concerning reciprocity. I also discuss the often-overlooked importance of natural duties to Rawls’s theory. I add the condition of vulnerability to Rawls’s circumstances of justice. By making these changes I give priority to impartiality in Rawls’s theory, remove the difficulties created by (...) Rawls’s present-time-of-entry interpretation, remove the need for Rawls’s motivational assumption, and remove the chance-timing of a person’s birth as an arbitrary contingency and basis for bias in the decision-making of those behind the veil of ignorance. (shrink)