Ancient Greek Philosophy

Nonostante il tentativo di Aristotele di offrire un’esposizione esaustiva di tutta la problematica del luogo e di darne una soluzione definitiva con l’arcinota definizione di luogo come primo limite immobile del contenente, fin dall’antichità i lettori hanno avuto grande difficoltà a conciliare i diversi aspetti della sua dottrina e, soprattutto, a comprendere il senso esatto di quella definizione, sia riguardo alla realtà dello stesso luogo sia in merito a come il concetto di luogo possa essere un valido sostituto dell’assai più familiare concetto di spazio. Già Teofrasto confessava di non comprendere cosa intendesse il suo maestro e anche i peripatetici Stratone e Eudemo mostrando non poca incertezza. Neanche l’attuale storiografia mostra di avere maggiore facilità, al punto che si è parlato senza mezzi termini di un’evidente inadeguatezza o incompletezza della dottrina, o addirittura di un’inconsapevolezza del problema da parte di Aristotele. Solo una ripresa approfondita, ab initio, di tutto Fisica Δ 1-5 poteva dimostrare che lo Stagirita in verità svolge una dottrina unica e coerente secondo principi e premesse metodologiche che saranno mantenuti pressoché costantemente dal primo al quinto capitolo, e che molte difficoltà incontrate dagli interpreti sono dipese dal non aver riportato ad un unico quadro di riferimento, affermazioni e valutazioni così apparentemente tanto diverse e distanti fra loro. Aristotele ci fa vedere che la realtà del luogo è analizzabile secondo vari punti di vista, tutti utili e legittimi, che devono esser rispettati nello loro irriducibilità, con i quali dobbiamo fare i conti, nessuno escluso, evitando di trasformare i suoi et…et nei nostri aut…aut.

En este trabajo me propongo mostrar cómo la interacción ideológica
documentada en la época arcaica de Grecia se rigió por una dinámica de tipo com-petitivo que involucró a representantes del saber poético tradicional y a los practicantes de un tipo recién surgido de investigación laica sobre la naturaleza y las
causas de los fenómenos, esto es, a los pensadores presocráticos. Según se muestra
aquí, la búsqueda de la excelencia en todo campo en competencia con los demás
era una tendencia natural del hombre helénico (compárese Homero Il. VI, 208)
que adquirió carácter oficial en los agones (concursos atléticos, literarios, artísticos
y oratorios) y que habría fungido como mecanismo de afirmación personal y profesional también en actividades eminentemente intelectuales como la ciencia y la
filosofía. Ilustraré en particular cómo estos expertos en un nuevo campo de conocimiento —de los cuales me referiré aquí a Jenófanes, Parménides, Empédocles y
Heráclito— se habrían enfrentado mutuamente y con los sabios tradicionales (sobre
todo con poetas como Homero, Hesíodo y Simónides) en una disputa real o virtual
no sólo para persuadir al auditorio sobre la superioridad cualitativa de su modelo
explicativo (la cual lo haría objetivamente preferible a los otros), sino sobre todo
para descalificar la validez de sus adversarios junto con sus proyectos intelectuales.
Se subrayará asimismo cómo dicha polémica involucró no sólo a especialistas en
sentido estricto, sino también a dilettanti a quienes nuestros esquemas mentales
modernos nos llevarían a excluir como interlocutores calificados o pertinentes en
el debate especializado, aun cuando estaban igualmente empeñados en hacer que
las declaraciones doctrinales de sus adversarios aparecieran como erróneas, más
aún como mentiras flagrantes.

Contrairement aux interprétations coutumières il y a un dialogue permanent entre la République, le Politique et les Lois et non une rupture ou un changement substantiel de la pensée politique de Platon. Une analyse minutieuse de Leg. V 739a1-740a2 montre clairement cette cohérence, en particulière la tournure "dieux ou fils des dieux" qu'y apparaît se rattache à l'état ordonné de l'âme et plus spécifiquement à la connaissance philosophique et n'indique pas l'abandonnement des positions de la République. De cette façon sont réfutées les thèses soutenues par A. Laks depuis quelques années sur le rapport entre la République et les Lois.
In spite of the usual interpretations there is a continuous dialogue between the Republic, the Statesman, and the Laws and not a break or a substantial change in Plato's political thought. A detailed analysis of Laws V 739a1-740a2 shows beyond all doubt this strict coherence, especially the expression "gods or children of gods" that appears in this passage is related to the ordered state of the soul and more specifically to the philosophical knowledge and does not point to a revision of the doctrines defended in the Republic, so that the interpretation of the relationship between the Republic and the Laws defended since the beginning of the 90'ties by A. Laks can be considered as definitively refuted.

Many have argued that Plato’s intermediates are not independent entities. Rather, they exemplify the incapacity of discursive thought (διάνοια) for cognizing Forms. But just what does this incapacity
consist in? Any successful answer will require going beyond the intermediates themselves to another aspect of Plato’s mathematical
thought - his attribution of a quasi-numerical structure to Forms (the ‘eidetic numbers’). For our purposes, the most penetrating account
of eidetic numbers is Jacob Klein’s, who saw clearly that eidetic numbers are part of Plato’s inquiry into the ontological basis for all counting:
the existence of a plurality of formal elements, distinct yet combinable into internally articulate unities. However, Klein’s study of the Sophist
reveals such articulate unities as imperfectly countable and therefore opaque to διάνοια. Only this opacity, I argue, successfully explains
the relationship of intermediates to Forms.

Drawing upon John Burnet’s interpretation of mesotēs, I explore the original meanings of this important Greek word and its inherent relations to the concepts of formal cause, final cause, and actuality [energeia]. My investigation reveals the concept of mesotēs as an Ariadne’s thread running through the whole system of Aristotle’s moral and natural philosophy. It also throws a new light on the implications of Aristotle’s definition of moral virtue and the essential role it plays in the truth of human existence.

ABSTRACT: This paper serves two purposes: (i) it can be used by students as an introduction to chapters 1-5 of book iii of the NE; (ii) it suggests an answer to the unresolved question what overall objective this section of the NE has. The paper focuses primarily on Aristotle’s theory of what makes us responsible for our actions and character. After some preliminary observations about praise, blame and responsibility (Section 2), it sets out in detail how all the key notions of NE iii 1-5 are interrelated (Sections 3-9). The setting-out of these interconnections makes it then possible to provide a comprehensive interpretation of the purpose of the passage. Its primary purpose is to explain how agents are responsible for their actions not just insofar as they are actions of this kind or that, but also insofar as they are noble or base: agents are responsible for their actions qua noble or base, because, typically via choice, their character dispositions are a causal factor of those actions (Section 10). The paper illustrates the different ways in which agents can be causes of their actions by means of Aristotle’s four basic types of agents (Section 11). A secondary purpose of NE iii 1-5 is to explain how agents can be held responsible for consequences of their actions (Section 12), in particular for their character dispositions insofar as these are noble or base, i.e. virtues or vices (Section 13). These two goals are not the only ones Aristotle pursues in the passage. But they are the ones Aristotle himself indicates in its first sentence and summarizes in its last paragraph; and the ones that give the passage a systematic unity. The paper also briefly consider the issues of freedom-to-do-otherwise, free choice and free-will in the contexts in which they occur (i.e. in the final paragraphs of Sections 6, 7, 12, 13).

The concept of antinatalism is now becoming popular on the Internet. Many online newspaper articles deal with this topic, and numerous academic papers on antinatalism have been published over the past ten years in the fields of philosophy and ethics.  The word “antinatalism” was first used in the current meaning in 2006, when the two books that justify the universal negation of procreation were published: one by David Benatar and the other by Théophile de Giraud. However, we can find various prototypes of antinatalistic thoughts in ancient Greece, ancient India, and modern Europe. You might recall the name Schopenhauer.
In this paper, I briefly summarize the history of antinatalistic thoughts and propose a set of categories on antinatalism and related thoughts.

Special attention in this Newsletter for pythagorean women.                  Sarah B. Pomeroy  interview + CV, Hypatia,  Museum of Pythagoras,
basilica Pitagorica, Conferences , New books, Book reviews, Book chapters, Journal articles, Internet

Parmenides’ philosophy is unique in the history of ideas in Europe, but it has a striking parallel in India, from about the same age. The unchanging Absolute, called ‘Being’ or ‘Existent’; the depreciation of everyday objects as mere ‘names’; and the construction of the empirical world out of elements called ‘forms’ are all found in the first text of the Sadvidyā (Chāndogya Upaniṣad VI. 1-7). Comparing details and taking into consideration other old Indian material this paper tries to prove that convergence of thought or parallel development is out of the question – there must have been actual contact. Also it suggests that the most probable scenario is that Parmenides travelled to India, learned the language and some important philosophical texts, and brought them back to Greece.

The second Book of the Politics has been object of multiple considerations, but it has called the attention of the scholars mainly because of its detailed criticism of Plato's political projects, especially the Republic. In fact Aristotle devotes 6 of the 12 chapters of Book II to examine Plato's proposals. Most of the scholarly contributions are focused on the criticism of Plato trying either to demonstrate the justice of Aristotle's reproaches or to invalidate his chapters on the basis of a supposed inexactness of his words.

With Empedocles, the qualities of a creative religious, mytho-poetic imagination fluent in Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, and Parmenides allies itself with a rational mind keenly interested in understanding the natural world.:
The first condition for an understanding of Empedocles is to banish the notion of a gulf between religious beliefs and scientific views. His work is a whole, in which religion, poetry, and philosophy are indissolubly united. His imagination is constructive, gathering elements from every available quarter-Hesiodic and Ionian cosmogony, Parmenidean rationalism, Orphic mysticism, poetic legend, the experience of a physician, a poet’s sensuous response to the sights and sounds of mature, and the fears and hopes of a spirit exiled from heaven for ‘a brief span of life that is not life’- but building all these elements together into a unitary vision of the life of the world and the destiny of the human soul, bound, like the macrocosm, upon the wheel of birth and death (Cornford 122).
To give an idea of how Empedocles articulates the elements of muthos and logos in his system,  eleven fragments have been chosen in an attempt to illustrate the basic aspects of his system with an attention to mythical aspects:

Every scholar of ancient philosophy, I suppose, has written a paper on the Third Man Argument. This is my version ... (written in GERMAN)

„Das Argument vom dritten Menschen“, in: Rolf. W. Puster (Hg.), Klassische Argumentationen in der Philosophie, Münster: Mentis 2013, 33-56

Celem artykułu jest przeanalizowanie, w jaki sposób J. Keats i W. B. Yeats w swej poezji próbują ocalić piękno przed niszczącym je przemijaniem. Keats w "Odzie do Urny Greckiej" przedstawia następujące rozwiązanie: oto należy zatrzymać cykl śmierci i odrodzenia poprzez zatrzymanie czasu - zamrożenie piękna w momencie rozkwitu. Yeats w "Żeglując do Bizancjum" obiera inną strategię - czas należy całkowicie porzucić, aby dzięki temu przejść w neoplatońską bezczasowość. Wspomniani poeci nie tylko przywołują greckie poglądy na temat przemijania, ale także istotnie je przekształcają: dla obu twórców grecka idea czasu stała się jedynie płótnem, na którym odmalowali oni autorską wizję nieprzemijającego piękna.

The paper analyses J. Keats’ and W. B. Yeats’ poetic responses to the threat of loss and decay. Keats in his Ode to a Grecian Urn proposes to stop the temporal cycles of death and rebirth by freezing the ephemeral beauty in stasis. Conversely, Yeats’ Sailing to Byzantium conveys his idea of transcending time altogether and crossing into Neo-Platonist timelessness. The writers not only employ the Greek ideas of decay, but also transcend them: for both the Greek notion of time is only a canvass on which to paint their own visions of the life imperishable.

Celem artykułu jest przeanalizowanie, w jaki sposób J. Keats i W. B. Yeats w swej poezji próbują ocalić piękno przed niszczącym je przemijaniem. Keats w "Odzie do Urny Greckiej" przedstawia następujące rozwiązanie: oto należy zatrzymać cykl śmierci i odrodzenia poprzez zatrzymanie czasu - zamrożenie piękna w momencie rozkwitu. Yeats w "Żeglując do Bizancjum" obiera inną strategię - czas należy całkowicie porzucić, aby dzięki temu przejść w neoplatońską bezczasowość. Wspomniani poeci nie tylko przywołują greckie poglądy na temat przemijania, ale także istotnie je przekształcają: dla obu twórców grecka idea czasu stała się jedynie płótnem, na którym odmalowali oni autorską wizję nieprzemijającego piękna.

The paper analyses J. Keats’ and W. B. Yeats’ poetic responses to the threat of loss and decay. Keats in his Ode to a Grecian Urn proposes to stop the temporal cycles of death and rebirth by freezing the ephemeral beauty in stasis. Conversely, Yeats’ Sailing to Byzantium conveys his idea of transcending time altogether and crossing into Neo-Platonist timelessness. The writers not only employ the Greek ideas of decay, but also transcend them: for both the Greek notion of time is only a canvass on which to paint their own visions of the life imperishable.

Complete English translation of the article published originally in Russian (2015).
                              Summary
It is commonly believed that the epic Theogony of Epimenides of Crete derives from the corpus of pseudepigrapha under his name and that it was composed by anonymous author (with Pythagorean background) after 500 B.C. We demonstrate (mainly on the basis the reconstruction of the proem of the Theogony) that such influences do not exist and we arrive at the conclusion that the Theogony was written by Epimenides himself around 600 B.C. Aristotle who was sceptical about the authorship of the poems attributed to Orpheus and Musaeus, cites Epimenides without reservations as the real author of the verses he cites. Therefore the common elements between Epimenides on the one hand, and the Orphics and Pythagoreans on the other (Night as the first principle, the cosmic egg, the immortality and reincarnation of the soul), should be interpreted as borrowings by the latter from Epimenides, not vice versa. As a “priest of Zeus and Rhea” Epimenides belongs to the ancient Cretan hieratic clan that claimed descendance from Aiakos, son of Zeus; in view of the extreme conservatism of Cretan cultural, political and religious traditions, the sources of Epimenides’ divine wisdom should be sought not in the hypothetical “northern” or eastern quarters, but in the local oral traditions that go back the Late Minoan times and are closely tied with the cults and myths of the region around Mount Ida and similar oracular caves. The discussion of Epimendes’ herbal medicine shows that it is connected both with therapeutuc use of herbs and with cathartic rituals; Indian Ayurveda provides a close typological parallel to this, so common Indo-European roots are possible. After this we address the problem of the origin and thesources of the Orphic Theogony and propose a new solution. Taking at its face value Aristotle’s information on Onomacritus as the author of the Orphic epic Theogony, we discuss the “Cretan connections” of Onomacritus and adduce in favour of our hypothesis numerous literary and epigraphical- archeological pieces of evidence that connect early Orphism and the belief in the reincarnation with the Idaen cave and the region around it (Orphic golden plates and epistomia from Eleutherna and Sfakaki near Rethymno collected and studied by Tzifopoulos). Inter alia, we also propose a new interpretation of the Orphic graffiti written on bone plates from Olbia as divinatory devices (mantic cards, the oldest known ancestor of the cards Tarot) that probably belonged to the “diviner of Hermes” Pharnabazos of Olbia and were connected with the dice divination (astragalomanteia), the proper art of Hermes. The divinatory dodecahedron found in the Idaean cave seems to be connected with astragalomanteia, as well.

This book is the first complete collection and analysis of ancient testimony relating to the chronology of the early Greek natural philosophers, astronomers, and geometers who were active before Aristotle. New estimates are given for the dates of thirty-nine different individuals, ranging from Thales to Eudoxus; these include substantial downdatings of the lives of the two Milesian philosophers Anaximander and Anaximenes and significant revisions to the chronology of Pythagoras. It also demonstrates how errors and variants crept into the late chronographical tradition as changes from one dating format to another led to the loss of contextual information.

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/716031

Babylonian hermeneutics has been the subject of several studies in recent years that have showed that speculative thought exploited the potentiality of the cuneiform system through analogical reasoning in order to find and create new meanings according to phonetic, semantic and graphic similarities. Analogical hermeneutics was prompted by the polysemic and homophonic nature of cuneiform writing and was intended as an inquiry into the cuneiform system itself. Analogical reasoning is also well known in ancient Greece particularly in Heraclitus producing semantic proliferation and ambiguity. A comparison between Mesopotamian and Greek sources shows that Heraclitus’ fragments share with cuneiform scholarship a similar epistemic reasoning based on analogy. The present contribution aims at setting the Babylonian epistemological system in light of Heraclitus' philosophy.

The ancient Hellenic world was composed of more sovereign states than the contemporary one. Aristotle alone studied the constitutions of over150 city-states or poleis. As such it was a microcosm of a sociocultural system which existed within the Mediterranean geopolitical environment, much the same as the European society now exists within its global context.
It would therefore be instructive to know how the Greeks saw themselves in relation to other nations. Such holistic perspective gives an idea of the origins of classical international affairs theory. This article, part of a larger study of classical world theory, concentrates on the central aspect of Greek Weltanschauung that divided humanity into Greeks and Barbarians.
It is our thesis here that this primordial dichotomy served as the foundation of Hellenic international ideology. Moreover, we contend that such distinctions always color human reason and still persist in modern times. Although the analogy should not be carried too far, there are definite parallels between the classical and present worlds which the reader will recognize and appreciate.
In order to give the flavor of the times, this article is based on the world shaking events up to the Fifth century BC and the impact they had upon the great Greek thinkers of that era.  The trauma of this critical period dominated international thought for almost two centuries until the final demise of the inter-state system. Nevertheless, during that period of upheaval, some progressive thinkers also developed the notion of a common humanity. Their cosmopolitan ideals therefore influenced international thinking through the millennia.
Subsequently published as a chapter in the author's Exopolitics (NOVA, NY 2005) and its Greek translation Exopolitika (LEADER BOOKS< Athens, 2000-1)

"Paper looks at the writings of Athanasius, Didymus the Blind, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus to affirm the divinity of the Holy Spirit against the Pneumatomachians and other Neo-Arians between the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325 and the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 381.

Keywords: created, uncreated, simplicity, ontology, sanctification, Platonism, Stoicism, linguistic analysis, activity, power, revealer, mediator."

Claudius Ptolemy sketches in Iudic. 4.3-6 a theory on the origin of language that follows Epicurus’ doctrine. Since Ptolemy’s approach contains a naturalistic stage, this paper also discusses a section of another of Ptolemy’s works, Harmonics, relating to the human voice and its determinants. These are works with different interests, but it is possible to link Ptolemy’s naturalistic theory of language with rhetorical effects in both treatises.

We firstly find traces of systematical and comprehensive thought related to existence of the universe in Plato and Aristotle. Plato, by the doctrine of ideas which is the basis of his whole philosophy, accepted that the objective world was to be composed of shadows, and he propounded that the essential was in ideal world. On the contrary, Aristotle has shaped his thoughts related to being by conception made individual substances as base, and he defended that Platonic idealism was only a conceptual structure and the truth was not composed of absolute forms or ideas but it was to be consist of indivisible unity of them. In this paper it will briefly be dealt with the bases of both conceptions.

Le zoonosi contemporanee ci costringono a porci una domanda che già gli antichi pensatori si erano posti più o meno esplicitamente. Le risposte sono spiazzanti e per molti versi attuali: mangiamo gli animali perché non siamo dèi (e quindi perché non siamo mai stati – o non siamo più – puri) o perché, semplicemente, siamo onnivori. Per Aristotele, nello specifico, mangiamo gli animali perché le tecniche a nostra disposizione ce lo permettono, anche se in ciò che ci viene permesso – secondo lui – dovrebbe sempre esserci una misura.

This course offers an introduction to the history of ancient Greece from the Bronze Age to the end of the Hellenistic Age (roughly the 16th to the 1st centuries BCE), drawing on both source materials and modern works. This is a student-driven seminar based on a balance of lectures, readings, and in-class discussions on the societal, religious, and political developments of the Greek world in antiquity. Students will become familiar with the Bronze, Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, and early Roman periods of Greek history.

The foundation of this course is the geopolitical history of the expanding Greek world; however, students also will engage the importance of ancient Greek culture, literature, religion, art, and gender roles. Through the investigation of texts, architecture, and archaeology, students will gain an appreciation of not just the ruling classes of the ancient Greek world, but also of the daily lives of normal Greeks and Hellenized native peoples.

The establishment of reason as the primordial source of force for better existence by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle was a significant contribution to humanity. Their emphasis on intelligence as a path of analysis that leads to empirically accurate and profound knowledge has had a profound impact on future religious traditions.

Greek thought, with its concept of pure first order, influenced the polytheistic cults, eventually leading them towards a monolithic direction that later influenced Islamic and Christian monotheism.

""The paper provides an analysis of Protagorean philosophy, concentrating on Protagoras' famous homo mensura fragment. The examination is supported by significant philological clarifications, which eventually lead to the conclusion that ethico- political relativism does not follow from homo mensura fragment: only perceptual relativism logically follows. The argument goes on to show that Protagorean perceptual relativism may be understood both objectively and subjectively. The Heraclitean and Parmenidean influences upon Protagoras’ thought are also indicated. It is consequently shown how Plato and Aristotle misunderstood the central thesis of Protagoras, at the same time retrieving the homo mensura fragment from charges of self- refutation. It is also argued that Protagoras should not be called an “atheist”, but only a “subjective agnostic”.
""

Je mehr Möglichkeiten der Lebensführung wir erkennen, desto dringlicher wird die Frage: Wie lebe ich gut? Wer allerdings in der gegenwärtigen Philosophie die Klärung seiner Frage erwartet, wird zunächst enttäuscht. Er wird ein Nebeneinander gegensätzlicher Gründe eines guten Lebens vorfinden: Verwirklichung der menschlichen Natur, Erfüllung aller Wünsche, vernünftige Pflichterfüllung.
Diese Abhandlung sucht nach einem Ausweg, nach einer rationalen Grundlage für die persönliche Lebensentscheidung. Die Hauptpositionen der gegenwärtigen Debatte werden auf ihre Vordenker – Kant, Aristoteles und Sokrates – zurückgeführt und nach dem Vorbild der sokratischen Prüfung immanent entfaltet, um sie schließlich an ihren eigenen Voraussetzungen zu messen.
Der Nachvollzug des jeweiligen Denkens verdeutlicht Begründungsstrukturen, die auch in der Gegenwartsdebatte herangezogen werden: Aristoteles sieht den Grund des guten Lebens im richtigen Ziel der menschlichen Tätigkeiten; Kant hingegen im zwecksetzenden Vernunftvermögen. Bei beiden Konzeptionen zeigen sich immanente Schwierigkeiten. Die sokratische Prüfung in Platons Tugenddialogen eröffnet eine nichtskeptische Alternative jenseits dieser Dichotomie.