Aristotle’s subtle distinction between the forms of friendship and his concept of loving friend as one’s other self propose a solution to the fundamental objection to any eudaimonian theory of friendship, namely that friendship – as basically non-moral phenomenon – is but an egoistic device of one’s happy life. Aristotelian theorems are based on his concept of analogy and on a philosophically specific notion of “self”. Since both of these are rooted in Platonism, Aristotle has to evolve them dialectically in (...) a critical distance to Plato. Still, his dialectical theory of friendship needs to be rooted not in metaphysics but in political theory after all. Political friendship as a utopian perspective taken by each of the citizens in their pursuit of a close relationship with any other indicates a notion of “infinity as perfection” which presents the decisive step beyond Plato and toward the later course of the history of philosophy. (shrink)

The paper claims that we cannot understand properly Platonic conception of love and friendship unless we read the Lysis in the light of the Symposium and vice verse. Dealing with the crucial question of what made Plato write two different dialogues on the same topic, it advocates an alternative intertextual reading that does not deny progress of Plato’s thinking. Though the Symposium offers, in comparison to the Lysis, a more developed philosophical theory of love, Plato still has good reasons to (...) articulate the dilemmas presented in the Lysis. Combining the contrast in dialogue endings with the similarity in structure and in argumentation, Plato makes clear that, between the Lysis and the Symposium, there is progress and constancy at the same time: while the Symposium gives a philosophical account of what we can call “divine love”, it accepts and even emphasizes the insight of the Lysis that philosophical love can imply lack of what we usually consider worth loving. Plato in the Symposium does not discard “human love” and does not conceal possible troubles of philosophical, i.e. divine love. Therefore, the critique of Plato as being champion of impersonal or “ideal” love is unpersuasive. (shrink)

Platónovy pokusy o určení dobra lze nalézt v celém jeho díle. Zahrnují jak relativně „univoční“ koncepci dobra ve smyslu sókratovského intelektualismu, tak pluralističtější koncepci obsaženou v politickém projektu Zákonů. Podle vývojové interpretace Platónových dialogů to naznačuje posun v autorově myšlení způsobený poznáním obtížnosti problému. Byl to přitom údajně teprve Aristotelés, kdo vyřešil Platónův problém dobra pomocí pojmu analogie. Proti této interpretaci článek zdůrazňuje, že aristotelské pojetí analogie je hluboce zakořeněno v Platónově vlastním potýkání se s rozdílem mezi morálním a politickým (...) dobrem. Byla to především Platónovo pochopení specifické hodnoty politické plurality, které stojí v základě akademického rozlišení mezi analogia a pros hen. (shrink)

Plato’s theory of virtue in the Laws could be striking for someone who is more familiar with Aristotle’s ethics for conceptual complementarity between the two positions (contrary emotions, the ordering element of reason, virtue as a mean which lies between two forms of vice, typically linked to excessive actions, etc.). Plato’s theory, however, still differs from that of Aristotle in two crutial points. First, the source of emotional dynamism is, according to Plato, supraindividual as far as the psyche is a (...) cosmological principle. Only if it comes to be formed and ordered, it separates from the universal cosmic context and make up the emotional nature of an individual soul. But the soul is not, and this is the second point of difference, ordered by some external element (training or education, organized by a rational agent). Plato counts on a pre-arranged order of emotions at a particular ontological topos of the individual soul into which reason eventually descends. Emotions, on their part, seem to include a nexus between formable and forming that is chronologically and methodocally prior to that between the biological substratum and its rational organization, as assumed by Aristotle. (shrink)

Der Vortrag will die positiven Interpretationsmöglichkeiten untersuchen, die mit der weiteren Verfolgung der am Anfang des Dialogs vorzeitig verlassenen Unterscheidung zwischen der Herdezucht und Gemeinzucht verbunden sein können. Ich werde davon ausgehen, dass diese Unterscheidung nicht nur auf den Mythos und auf die beiden dort entdeckten Diairesis-Fehler hinweist, sondern auch auf mehrere im späteren Verlauf des Dialogs erschienenen Dilemmata und Spannungen, die sie systematisch vorzeichnet, indem sie ins Problemfeld der Nomos-Nous-Beziehung vordringt.

The paper disproves the widely held interpretation of Aristotle’s statement that the concept of the citizen varies with the constitution. I claim that it gives no evidence for any positivism or constitutional relativism. What Aristotle truly intends here is to put emphasis on his idea of the good life in a city that consists of a variety of forms and ways. This variety is generally desirable and thus prescriptive. It is only under these conditions that the constitution is „the Form (...) of the city“ which determines the citizenship. The concept of the citizen is thus conceived as rather broad and the argument reveals to be a plea for the rule of majority (polity). But on the other hand, the definition of citizen enables to distinguish the virtue of the good man from that of the good citizen und thus to differentiate among the good constitutions. (shrink)

The chapter, while exploring the interconnections between Plato’s Republic and Aristophanes’ Ecclesiazusae, postulates the existence of a third common source, which was presumably Hippodamus’ project of the best constitution. Hippodamus embraced the Pythagorean idea that the leading role in the polis should pertain to a group of morally and intellectually perfect philosophers who live on a communist basis; on this background, he proposed a tripartite functional division of the city. Aristophanes had adopted this model and reformulated it comically by identifying (...) the ruling group with women. This comical travesty then successfully manifested the fundamental connection between nourishing, sexuality and ruling. In the Republic, Plato integrates all these impulses into the dialectical context and develops a theory of naturalness of the political community. (shrink)

Je otrok podle Aristotela vykořisťovaným nástrojem výroby stojícím na úrovni zvířete, nebo méně nadaným jedincem, jenž může svoje omezené možnosti naplnit pouze jako podřízený člen domácnosti? Aristotelští badatelé zdůrazňují jednu z možností podle toho, nakolik jsou sami liberálně, či komunitaristicky orientováni: buď je Aristotelova teorie panství vykládána jako nelidská a ideologická, nebo jako realistická a solidární. Spor se však netýká pouze „liberalismu“ a „komunitarismu“ v Aristotelovi, nýbrž – jelikož je otrok v obou výkladech chápán jako nástroj pána – také dvou (...) základních pojetí techniky a v důsledku moderní civilizace obecně, jež jsou zastoupeny na jedné straně Lévinasovým Gagarinem a na druhé straně Heideggerem. Aristotelés naznačuje – a to pomocí technicky přesného důkazu – možnost techniky, která osvobozuje od nutnosti, přitom si je však vědom podmíněnosti každého takového osvobození. Výdobytkem Aristotelovy teorie panství je to, že se v ní hledisko rovnosti a svobody a hledisko podřízení a nutnosti nikoli vylučují, nýbrž vzájemně doplňují. (shrink)