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  1. Protrepticus. Aristotle, Monte Ransome Johnson & D. S. Hutchinson - manuscript
    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 (...)
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  2. Early Pyrrhonism as a Sect of Buddhism? A Case Study in the Methodology of Comparative Philosophy.Monte Ransome Johnson & Brett Shults - 2018 - Comparative Philosophy 9 (2):1-40.
    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 (...)
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  3. Spontaneity, Democritean Causality and Freedom.Monte Ransome Johnson - 2009 - Elenchos 30 (1):5-52.
    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. (...)
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  4.  59
    The Medical Background and Inductive Basis of Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean.Monte Ransome Johnson - 2024 - In Hynek Bartoš & Vojtěch Linka (eds.), Aristotle reads Hippocrates. Boston: Brill. pp. 351-374.
    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. (...)
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  5.  50
    Democritus, The Laughing Philosopher.Monte Ransome Johnson - 2024 - The Philosophy of Humor Yearbook 5 (1):1-28.
    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 (...)
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  6. (1 other version)Authenticating Aristotle's Protrepticus.Monte Ransome Johnson & D. S. Hutchinson - 2005 - Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 29:193-294.
    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.
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  7. The Aristotelian Explanation of the Halo.Monte Ransome Johnson - 2009 - Apeiron 42 (4):325-357.
    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 (...)
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  8. Nature, spontaneity, and voluntary action in Lucretius.Monte Ransome Johnson - 2013 - In Daryn Lehoux, A. D. Morrison & Alison Sharrock (eds.), Lucretius: Poetry, Philosophy, Science. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
    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 (...)
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  9. Why did Aristotle invent the material cause ? The early development of the concept of hê hylê.Monte Ransome Johnson - 2020 - In Pierre Pellegrin & Françoise Graziani (eds.), L'HÉRITAGE D'ARISTOTE AUJOURD'HUI : NATURE ET SOCIÉTÉ. Alessandria: Editzioni dell'Orso. pp. 59-86.
    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, (...)
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  10. Was Gassendi an Epicurean?Monte Ransome Johnson - 2003 - History of Philosophy Quarterly 20 (4):339 - 360.
    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 (...)
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  11. Sources for the Philosophy of Archytas. [REVIEW]Monte Ransome Johnson - 2008 - Ancient Philosophy 28 (1):173-199.
    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.
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  12. The Origins of Philosophy in Ancient Greece and Ancient India: A Historical Comparison by Richard Seaford. [REVIEW]Monte Ransome Johnson - 2021 - Philosophy East and West 71 (2):1-10.
    In his adventurous monograph in comparative philosophy, The Origins of Philosophy in Ancient Greece and Ancient India, Richard Seaford offers to explain why philosophy, which on his account originated in the sixth century BCE separately in both Greece and India, took such a similar form in both cultures.
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  13. Philosophy and Dietetics in the Hippocratic On Regimen: A Delicate Balance of Health. By Hynek Bartos. [REVIEW]Monte Ransome Johnson - 2020 - Ancient Philosophy 40 (1):221-227.
    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, (...)
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  14. Aristotle’s Empiricism: experience and mechanics in the 4th century BC by Jean De Groot. [REVIEW]Monte Ransome Johnson - 2015 - Ancient Philosophy 35 (1):220-230.
    According to a generally held impression, which has coalesced out of centuries of misinterpretation occasioned mostly by misguided charitable commentary, but often by outright hostility to his followers (and occasionally deliberate misrepresentation of his ideas), Aristotle is a teleological (as opposed to “mechanistic”) philosopher, responsible for a “qualitative” (as opposed to quantitative) approach to physics that is thereby inadequately mathematical, whose metaphysical speculations, as absorbing as they continue to be even for contemporary and otherwise ahistorical analytical metaphysicians, are essentially devoid (...)
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