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James Lesher [35]James H. Lesher [9]
  1.  57
    The Meaning of NOYΣ in the Posterior Analytics.James H. Lesher - 1973 - Phronesis 18 (1):44-68.
    In his Posterior Analytics Aristotle confronted a problem that threatened his vision of scientific knowledge as an axiomatic system: if scientific knowledge is demonstrative in character, and if the axioms of a science cannot themselves be demonstrated, then the most basic of all scientific principles will remain unknown. In the famous concluding chapter of this work (II 19), he claimed to solve this problem by distinguishing two kinds of knowledge: we cannot have epistêmê of the first principles, but we can (...)
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  2. Aristotle on Form, Substance, and Universals: A Dilemma.James H. Lesher - 1971 - Phronesis 16 (1):169-178.
    In book Zeta of the Metaphysics and elsewhere Aristotle appears to commit himself to the following propositions: (1) No universal can be substance; (2) Form is a universal; and (3) Form is that which is most truly substance. These propositions appear to constitute an inconsistent triad lying at the heart of Aristotle’s ontology. A number of attempts have been made to rescue Aristotle from the charge of inconsistency. Some have claimed that Aristotle did not subscribe to (1), but only to (...)
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  3.  70
    Socrates' disavowal of knowledge.James Lesher - 1987 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 25 (2):275-288.
    On a number of occasions in Plato’s dialogues Socrates appears to disavow all knowledge. At Apology 21d, for example, Socrates says of one of his interlocutors: ‘He, having no knowledge, thinks he knows something, while I, having none, don’t think I have any,’ On other occasions, however, Socrates does claim to know some things: ‘It is not a mere guess to say that knowledge and right opinion are different. There are few things I would claim to know, but that at (...)
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  4. Xenophanes.James Lesher - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Xenophanes of Colophon was a philosophically-minded poet who lived in various parts of the ancient Greek world during the late 6th and early 5th centuries BC. He is best remembered for a novel critique of anthropomorphism in religion, a partial advance toward monotheism, and some pioneering reflections on the conditions of knowledge. Many later writers, perhaps influenced by two brief characterizations of Xenophanes by Plato (Sophist 242c-d) and Aristotle (Metaphysics 986b18-27) identified him as the founder of Eleatic philosophy (the view (...)
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  5. The Meaning of Saphêneia in Plato’s Divided Line’.James Lesher - 2013 - In Mark L. Mcpherran, G. R. F. Ferrari, Rachel Barney, Julia Annas, Rachana Kamtekar & Nicholas D. Smith (eds.), Plato's 'Republic': A Critical Guide. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 171-187.
    In Republic VI, Plato’s Socrates attempts to explain the nature of human understanding by means of a simile of a line divided into four unequal segments. Socrates directs Glaucon to accept as names for the four states ‘rational knowledge’ for the highest, ‘understanding’ for the second, ‘belief’ for the third, and for the last, ‘perception of images.’ He then directs Glaucon to arrange the four states in a proportion, ‘considering that they participate in saphēneia in the same degree to which (...)
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  6. Parmenides' critique of thinking. The Poludêris Elenchos of Fragment 7.James H. Lesher - 1984 - Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 2:1-30.
    Parmenides may fairly be said to have undertaken two parallel efforts: first, to offer a persuasive account of the nature of ‘what-is’ (to eon); and second, to establish ‘it is’ as the only true and trustworthy way of speaking and thinking about what-is. Fragment 7.3-6 plays a crucial role in this latter effort when Parmenides’ goddess directs the youth to put aside all information obtained through sense perception and instead ‘judge by reason the poludêris elenchos spoken by me.’ Although the (...)
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  7. ‘Early Interest in Knowledge’.James Lesher - 1999 - In A. A. Long (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 225-249.
    Western philosophy begins with Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. Or so we are told by Aristotle and many members of the later doxographical tradition. But a good case can be made that several centuries before the Milesian thinkers began their investigations, the poets of archaic Greece reflected on the limits of human intelligence and concluded that no mortal being could know the full and certain truth. Homer belittled the mental capacities of ‘creatures of a day’ and a series of poets of (...)
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  8. Xenophanes' scepticism.James H. Lesher - 1978 - Phronesis 23 (1):1-21.
    Xenophanes of Colophon (fl. 530 BC) is widely regarded as the first skeptic in the history of Western philosophy, but the character of his skepticism as expressed in his fragment B 34 has long been a matter of debate. After reviewing the interpretations of B 34 defended by Hermann Fränkel, Bruno Snell, and Sir Karl Popper, I argue that B 34 is best understood in connection with a traditional view of the sources and limits of human understanding. If we hold (...)
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  9. ‘Mind’s Knowledge and Powers of Control in Anaxagoras DK B 12’.James Lesher - 1995 - Phronesis 40 (2):125-142.
    In fragment B 12 Anaxagoras asserted: ‘And [Mind] has every gnômê concerning everything and is strong to the greatest degree.’ The definitions of gnômê given in the standard Greek lexicon cover a wide range: ‘mark’, ‘token’, ‘intelligence’, ‘thought’, ‘judgment’, ‘understanding’, ‘attention’, ‘conscience’, ‘reason’, ‘will’, ‘disposition’, ‘inclination’, ‘purpose’, ‘initiative’, ‘opinion’, ‘verdict’, ‘decision’, ‘proposition’, ‘resolution’, ‘advice’, and ‘maxim’. Taking a clue from the assonance of ischei (has) with ischuei (is strong), it would be natural to take both parts of the assertion to (...)
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  10. ‘Xenophanes’ Theory of Knowledge and Sophocles’ Oedipus the King’.James Lesher - 2019 - In 'Euphrosyne: Studies in Ancient Philosophy, History, and Literature'. De Gruyter. pp. 95-108.
    Sophocles’ Oedipus the King is an extended meditation on the limits of human intelligence, or more precisely, on how a man renowned for the power of his intellect could fail to know the most important truths. One could argue, however, that Sophocles intended for his audiences to take away a second, narrower lesson: namely that divinely inspired seers such as Tiresias have a surer claim on truth than do those who, like Oedipus, seek to gain knowledge through their own efforts. (...)
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  11. Knowledge and Presence in Early Greek Poetry and Philosophy.James Lesher - forthcoming - In ‘Knowledge’ in Archaic Greece: What Counted as ‘knowledge’ Before there was a Discipline called Philosophy. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies.
    Philosophical reflection on the conditions of knowledge did not begin in a cultural vacuum. Several centuries before the Ionian thinkers began their investigations, the Homeric bards had identified various factors that militate against a secure grasp of the truth. In the words of the ‘second invocation of the Muses’ in Iliad II: “you, goddesses, are present and know all things, whereas we mortals hear only a rumor and know nothing.” Similarly Archilochus: “Of such a sort, Glaucus, son of Leptines, is (...)
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  12. Anselm Feuerbach’s Das Gastmahl des Platon and Plato’s Symposium.James Lesher - 2008 - In Imagines: The reception of antiquity in the performing and visual arts. Logroño: Universidad de La Rioja. pp. 479-490.
    In his monumental work Das Gastmahl des Platon (1869) the artist Anselm Feuerbach depicted the scene in Plato’s Symposium in which a drunken Alcibiades, accompanied by a band of revelers, enters the dining chamber of the house of the poet Agathon. We have reason to attribute three aims to the artist: (1) to recreate a famous scene from ancient Greek literature, making extensive use of recent archaeological discoveries in southern Italy; (2) through the depiction of a senate and dignified Agathon, (...)
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  13. Heraclitus' Epistemological Vocabulary.James Lesher - 1983 - Hermes 111 (2):155-170.
    In fragment B 1 Heraclitus claims to have achieved a profound insight into the nature of things: ‘distinguishing each thing in accordance with its nature and explaining how it is.’ In a number of similarly cryptic remarks, he offers a series of clues to the nature of that insight. It is properly spoken of as noos or wisdom rather than as learning from experience (B 17, 28a, 40, 45, 54, 104, 107, 123). It consists of xunesis or understanding what is (...)
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  14. Xenophanes of Colophon.James Lesher - 2009 - In Graham Oppy & Nick Trakakis (eds.), Medieval Philosophy of Religion: The History of Western Philosophy of Religion, Volume 2. Routledge.
    Xenophanes was a poet and rhapsode who lived in Greece during the late sixth and early fifth centuries BCE. Surviving fragments of his poetry touch on proper conduct at symposia, the measures of personal excellence, and aspects of his interactions with various notable individuals. Xenophanes also characterized various natural phenomena as products of a set of basic physical substances and processes. In a series of remarks concerning the stories about the gods told by Homer and Hesiod, the true nature of (...)
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  15. Parmenides on Knowing What-Is and What-Is-Not.James Lesher - 2020 - Anais de Filosofia Clássica, 14 (28):2-20.
    As is clear from the multiple references to knowledge in the proemium of fragment B1, Parmenides presented himself to his audiences as one who had achieved a profound insight into the nature of ‘what-is’. In support of this claim he conducted an elenchos or ‘testing’ of the ways of inquiry available for thinking, in the process revealing a set of sêmata or ‘signs’ indicating that what-is an eternal, indivisible, and unchanging plenum. In each of these respects, Parmenides was speaking the (...)
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  16. ‘The Philosophical Aspects of Jean Delville’s L’Ecole de Platon.James Lesher - 2013 - 19th Century Art Worldwide 12 (2):on line.
    Jean Delville was a central participant in the Symbolist movement in France and Belgium at the turn of the twentieth century. His monumental work, L’ Ecole de Platon, made its first public appearance at the 1898 Salon d’Art Idealiste in Brussels. Although two contemporary critics showered it with praise, the work has puzzled many viewers. Why, for example, does the central figure (one assumes Plato) bear a striking resemblance to Jesus as he is traditionally depicted? Why are those gathered around (...)
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  17. (1 other version)'A Systematic Xenophanes?'.James Lesher - 2013 - In Early Greek Philosophy: The Presocratics and the Emergence of Reason, Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy. Washington, DC USA: CUA Press. pp. 77-90.
    To what extent were the different aspects of Xenophanes’ philosophy interrelated? I argue: (1) that in fragments B 27-B 33 Xenophanes offered a coherent set of explanations of a wide range of terrestrial and heavenly phenomena in terms of a small number of basic forces and material substances; (2) that in fragments B23-26 he articulated a coherent view of a deity wholly isolated from the natural realm and human affairs; and (3): that in fragments B18 and B 34 he encouraged (...)
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  18. ‘The Flourishing of Ancient Philosophy in America: Some Causes and Concerns’.James Lesher - 2004 - In Greek Philosophy in the New Millennium. Berlin: Akademia Verlag. pp. 89-98.
    The second half of the 20th century may fairly be considered a golden age for the study of ancient philosophy. This period witnessed the creation of four English-language journals for specialists and two professional societies. Throughout this period there were numerous regional and national conferences, reading groups, NEH-sponsored summer seminars and institutes on various aspects of ancient thought, successful graduate programs in ancient philosophy at a sizable number of American universities, and a steady supply of jobs for specialists in the (...)
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  19. Robinson Jeffers, 'The Double Axe'.James Lesher - manuscript
    Robinson Jeffers’ dark view of humankind is thought to owe much to Friedrich Nietzsche while his admiration for the beauty of nature has been compared to sentiments expressed by Lucretius in de rerum natura. In many respects, however, the philosopher who stands closest to Jeffers in both thought and personality is the ancient Greek thinker Heraclitus of Ephesus. Jeffers’ extended poem ‘The Double Axe’ makes no fewer than five clear references to Heraclitean ideas: (1) ‘Heraclitus’ Sibyl whose voice reached over (...)
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  20. Analytic Approaches to Plato.James Lesher - 2012 - In Associate Editors: Francisco Gonzalez Gerald A. Press (ed.), The Continuum Companion to Plato. Continuum International Publishing Group. pp. 292-294.
    In recent years some scholars have sought to apply the techniques of modern analytic philosophy to Plato’s writings. This has involved recasting portions of the dialogues as concisely stated deductive arguments, exploring questions relating to validity as well as to truth, exposing contradictions and equivocations, and making explicit all essential assumptions. The rationale behind this approach, as Gregory Vlastos has explained, is that ‘By means of these techniques we may now better understand some of the problems Plato attempted to solve (...)
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  21. An Interdisciplinary Course on Classical Athens.James Lesher - 1982 - Teaching Philosophy 5 (3):203-210.
    Interdisciplinary or team-taught courses pose special challenges and make special demands on the instructors. Yet they also offer special opportunities for learning—for instructor and student alike. This paper describes one such course taught at the University of Maryland by a historian (Kenneth Holum), an art historian (Elisabeth Pemberton), and a philosopher (James Lesher), focused on the art, politics, and philosophical environment of 5th-century Athens. Three themes emerged over the course of the semester: the centrality of the family in Athenian society, (...)
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  22. The Humanizing of Knowledge in Presocratic Thought’.James Lesher - 2008 - In Patricia Curd & Daniel W. Graham (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Presocratic Philosophy. Oxford University Press USA. pp. 458-484.
    A ‘pious pessimism’ pervaded much of archaic Greek poetry: ‘It is for the gods to know and men merely to opine’ was the prevailing sentiment. However, in the late 6th century a set of independent-minded individuals began to move away from the older pessimism to embrace a more optimistic and secular outlook. In various ways they maintained that mere mortals could, if they were prepared to undertake the appropriate inquiries, achieve a clear and sure understanding of the entire cosmos. Heraclitus (...)
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  23. ‘Hopkins’ Creative Use of Heraclitean Materials,.James Lesher - 2011 - International Journal for the Classical Tradition 18:262-269.
    Gerard Manley Hopkins is best remembered for his celebratory 'nature sonnets'— 'Pied Beauty', 'God's Grandeur', and 'The Windhover'. Less than a year before his death, however, Hopkins drew on ideas associated with the ancient Greek thinker Heraclitus of Ephesus to express a darker view of nature. In 'That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection’ Hopkins offers a vision of nature and human existence marked by dissolution and destruction. But the poet rejects that apocalyptic vision (...)
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  24. The Afterlife of Plato's Symposium.James Lesher - 2004 - Ordia Pri 3:89-105.
    As Reginald Allen has observed, ‘the afterlife and influence of Plato’s Symposium is nearly as broad as the breadth of humane letters in the West.’ I argue here that the dialogue’s appeal can be traced back to six features: (1) the high degree of artistry with which Plato organized the speeches in honor of the god Eros; (2) the symposium format which allows for the presentation of competing intellectual traditions and contrasting personalities; (3) the provision of a philosophical framework through (...)
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  25. Plato and the Presocratics.James Lesher - 2012 - In Associate Editors: Francisco Gonzalez Gerald A. Press (ed.), The Continuum Companion to Plato. Continuum International Publishing Group. pp. 21-24.
    Plato refers frequently to the views held by the early Greek thinkers we today call ‘the Presocratics’, typically while lining up witnesses for or against a philosophical thesis. His characters speak approvingly of the doctrines of Parmenides and the Pythagoreans but repudiate in the strongest terms the teachings of ‘atheistic materialists’ such as the Milesian inquirers into nature we today regard as the founders of Western philosophy and science. The chief failings of the materialists lay in not acknowledging the priority (...)
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  26. Three Variations on a Heraclitean Theme.James Lesher - manuscript
    In ‘Hoi Rheontes’ (‘The Flowing Ones’), Alfred Lord Tennyson adopted the Heraclitean simile of the flowing river in support of philosophical relativism: (1) all things are changing all the time; therefore (2) nothing is, but is only in the process of appearing to be in some way; therefore (3) all beliefs are true. But the relativist doctrine refutes itself: it can only be true relatively to those who assert it. In his ‘In May’ the American poet Michael Collier rejected what (...)
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  27. ‘Ta polla hêssô nou: A puzzle in Xenophanes’.James Lesher - 2022 - Ancient Philosophy 42:1-6.
    Diogenes Laertius reports (in his Lives of Eminent Philosophers ix 19) that Xenophanes of Colophon stated that ta polla hêssô nou (in some sense, ‘that the many give way to mind’). After reviewing four alternative but unsatisfactory ways of understanding the remark I argue that it is best understood as ‘the multitude of things (i.e. the cosmos) gives way to—is mastered by—the (divine) mind.’ When understood in this way the remark establishes Xenophanes as one of the earliest Greek thinkers to (...)
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  28. Heraclitus and Modern Poetry: Works Cited.James Lesher - manuscript
    Heraclitus and Modern Poetry: Works Cited.
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  29. A Course on the Afterlife of Plato’s Symposium.James Lesher - 2004 - Classical Journal 100:75-85.
    A course on the afterlife of Plato’s Symposium can accomplish two worthwhile objectives. It can afford students an opportunity to study a philosophical and literary masterpiece, and it can introduce them to some of the main currents in modern European culture. One recent iteration of such a course addressed six questions: (1) Why might Plato have chosen to write a dialogue about a ‘drinking party’? (2) Why did Plato present multiple speeches on the nature of Eros? (3) Why have some (...)
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  30. Archaic knowledge.James Lesher - 2009 - In William Wians (ed.), Logos and Muthos: Philosophical Essays in Greek Literature. State University of New York Press.
    Although the Greek language of the archaic period lacked nominative expressions equivalent to the English “knowledge”, Greek speakers and writers employed a number of verbs in speaking of those who fail or succeed in knowing some fact, truth, state of affairs, or area of expertise—most commonly eidenai, gignôskein, epistamai, sunienai, and noein (in its aorist forms). In the Homeric poems, knowledge can be attained either through direct observation, through a revelatory trial or testing procedure, or from the reliable testimony of (...)
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  31. Heraclitus' Poetic Ideas.James Lesher - manuscript
    This study forms a part of a larger investigation of the influence of the philosophy of Heraclitus of Ephesus on modern poetry. T. S. Eliot, to mention the best known of the many poets inspired by Heraclitus, selected two Heraclitus fragments (B 2 and B 60) as epigraphs for his “Burnt Norton”, the first of his Four Quartets. Eliot explained that he was drawn to the fragments because of their ‘ambiguity’ and ‘extraordinary poetic suggestiveness’. Similarly, in ‘This Solitude of Cataracts’, (...)
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  32. ‘The Self in Conflict with Itself: A Heraclitean Theme in Eliot’s Cocktail Party’.James Lesher - 2013 - In Seduction and Power: Antiquity in the Visual and Performing arts. London and New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 121-132.
    In ‘Burnt Norton’, the first of his ‘four quartets’, Eliot selected two Heraclitus’ fragments as epigraphs. In quoting fragment B 60 (‘the way up and the way down are one and the same’) he was reminding his readers that entrance into a spiritual life calls for both engagement and withdrawal, for both descending and ascending. And in quoting B 2 he reaffirmed Heraclitus’ conviction that most people fail to recognize the truth even when it is directly presented to them. In (...)
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  33. ‘Heraclitean Ideas in Stevens’ “This Solitude of Cataracts”,.James Lesher - 2014 - Wallace Stevens Journal 38 (spring):21-34.
    ‘Cataracts’ in Stevens’ poems are falling waters—here a river flowing near a mountain. The ‘apostrophe that was not spoken’ may be an address that was not made, perhaps an unspoken affirmation of nature’s beauty. And the river that ‘is never the same twice’ can only be the flowing river Plato claimed Heraclitus used as a simile for all existing things: ‘Heraclitus says somewhere that everything gives way and nothing remains, and likening existing things to the flow of a river, he (...)
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  34. Lehrer's Sceptical Hypothesis.James H. Lesher - 1972 - Philosophical Forum 4 (2):299.
    Keith Lehrer has put forward an argument for skepticism which trades on the possibility that a group of creatures in another galaxy (Googols) may be rendering our beliefs about reality largely false (this is ‘Lehrer’s Skeptical Hypothesis’). Since there are no arguments against the Lehrer-Googol hypothesis, it cannot be rejected as unjustified. But since we can be completely justified in believing that p only when hypotheses which conflict with our belief are unjustified, we cannot be completely justified in believing that (...)
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  35. Aristotle’s Considered View of the Path to Knowledge.James H. Lesher - 2012 - In Lesher James H. (ed.), El espíritu y la letra: un homenaje a Alfonso Gomez-Lobo. Ediciones Colihue. pp. 127-145.
    I argue that these inconsistencies in wording and practice reflect the existence of two distinct Aristotelian views of inquiry, one peculiar to the Posterior Analytics and the other put forward in the Physics and practiced in the Physics and in other treatises. Although the two views overlap to some degree (e.g. both regard a rudimentary understanding of the subject as an essential first stage), the view of the syllogism as the workhorse of scientific investigation and the related view of inquiry (...)
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  36. Theistic ethics and the "euthyphro".James H. Lesher - 1975 - Apeiron 9 (2):24 - 30.
    A. E. Taylor states the widely held view that Plato’s Euthyphro posed a question which figured prominently in later ethical controversies: “It amounts to asking whether acts of piety, or more generally virtuous acts, derive their character of being right from the mere fact of being commanded or are commanded because they are antecedently intrinsically right.” I argue against this characterization of the Euthyphro. The argument Socrates deploys against Euthyphro’s third and most serious definition of holiness or piety (to hosion) (...)
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  37. Genetic explanations of religious belief.James H. Lesher - 1975 - Philosophical Studies 27 (5):317 - 328.
    Genetic explanations of religious belief, such as Freud’s analysis of theism as ‘a neurotic relic’, pose a problem for theists: how far do such explanations establish the irrationality of religious belief? I argue that genetic analyses of belief suffer from a number of limitations. Showing that some reason-irrelevant factor or factors were sufficient to produce conviction on some occasion would not establish that they were necessary in every case of religious conviction. Showing that reason-irrelevant factors were both necessary and sufficient (...)
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  38. Danto on Knowledge as a Relation.James H. Lesher - 1970 - Analysis 30 (4):132 - 134.
    Arthur Danto claims that knowing that S is not a property of some individual knower M but a relation between M and some object O in the world, where O is what makes S true. For if knowledge were a property of M it would be possible to determine whether M knew simply by examining M, which is typically not the case (i.e. unless S happens to be about M). I argue that Danto errs in: (1) claiming that we can (...)
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  39.  33
    Borges's Love Affair with Heraclitus.James Lesher - 2017 - Philosophy and Literature 41 (1A):303-314.
    In an early poem, "Year's End", Jorge Luis Borges takes the turning of the year as an occasion to consider how "something in us" endures, despite the fact that we are products of "infinite random possibilities" and "droplets in the stream of Heraclitus": It is not the emblematic detail of replacing a two with a three, nor that barren metaphor that brings together a time that dies and another coming up nor yet the rounding out of some astronomical process that (...)
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  40.  13
    MacNeice the Heraclitean.James Lesher - 2021 - Philosophy and Literature 45 (2):315-328.
    Many of the poems of Louis MacNeice display a knowledge of the philosophical theories he studied during his undergraduate years in Oxford. In his ‘Variation on Heraclitus’ and in several other poems, MacNeice alludes to the ‘doctrine of flux’ Plato attributed to the Greek thinker Heraclitus of Ephesus. In ‘Plurality’, his most extended exploration of the conflict between the life-affirming doctrine of flux and a life-suppressing monism, MacNeice embraces the reality of change and rejects the monism he credits to the (...)
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  41.  35
    Odysseás Elytis's Conversation with Heraclitus: "Of Ephesus".James Lesher - 2020 - Philosophy and Literature 44 (2):226-236.
    ‘Of Ephesus’ begins with a series of vivid impressions of a wild and free nature—vineyards rolling across the landscape, an untrammeled sky, a runaway donkey, flaming pinecones, roosters, and colorful kites and flags. Fire in some form (wildfires, the sun, flames, torches, lightning, sunlight) is the hallmark of a dynamic reality. The reference to ‘St. Heraclitus’ supports this interpretation: Elytis, like Heraclitus, seeks to alert his audience to the possible existence of a higher realm of being. So he fashions a (...)
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