The object of this article is to discuss, defend, and supplement the only definite piece of evidence we possess which deals with the musical scalesreferred to by Plato in the Republic . In this first section I shall consider the list of scales given by Aristides Quintilianus and suggest the source from which it is derived; in the second part the employment of certain abnormal intervals will be established and elucidated; and finally the evidence of the preceding sections will (...) be reviewed from the standpoint of the Pythagorean musical theory. (shrink)

But beyond doubt also, the primacy that Plato gives to the imitation of, or participation in the Ideas, apparently substantially existing, is the main reason why critics have refused to recognize or consider possible any mode of conceptual immanence in the mind of the Demiurge or whomever they regard as the Platonic God. Text on text could be cited to exemplify the role of the Ideas as archetypes. Yet it seems rather strange that Plato should conceive of two (...) simultaneous objects of imitation, the Supreme Being and the Ideas. Despite the plurality of Ideas, however, some critics have recognized a centripetal tendency in the dialogues toward the primacy of the Good, or the One, or the Beautiful, or Being, over subordinate Ideas. Was there possibly some similar tendency toward unity of some sort between the Supreme Intellect and the Intelligibles, his archetypes, which in the Timaeus are the ideal Living Exemplar of the cosmos? (shrink)

These notebooks were written during the years that F. W. J. Schelling spent as a student at the Tübinger Stift (1790–1795). From dates written by Schelling in the margins, we can surmise that the first portion (AA II/4: 15–28) was begun in August of 1792, and the latter portion (AA II/5: 133–142) was written in early 1794. To this latter portion is appended a substantial work, Schelling’s Timaeus-commentary, which is not included in the present translation. It appeared as “Timaeus (1794)” (...) (translated by Adam Arola, Jena Jolissaint, Peter Warnek) in Epoché 12: 2. These notebooks offer a window into Schelling’s philosophical development and proclivities, in light of his engagement with various Platonic dialogues, most notably the Ion, Theaetetus, Meno, Timaeus, and Philebus. They include discussions of divine power, rapture, and genius, especially as these relate to poetry, prophecy, and ordinary forms of human knowledge. These topics are discussed in the first portion (AA II/4: 15–25). In the latter portion, Schelling discusses myth, its function and relation to human greatness, Socrates’s daimonion, and the authority of tradition (AA II/4: 25–28; II/5: 133–142). (shrink)

A desultory caricature, ostensibly socialist in tenor, of a well-known theory of justice.--J. F. D.

In Plato’s Apology (29a-b), Socrates agues that he does not fear death; indeed, to fear death is a sign of ignorance. It is to claim to know what one in fact does not know (Ap. 29 a-b). Perhaps, Socrates suggests, death is not a great evil after all, but “the greatest of all goods.” At the end of the dialogue, after the judges have voted on the final verdict and Socrates has received the death penalty, the philosopher considers two (...) common views of death: that death is a long dreamless sleep and that death is a journey to another place - Hades. According to Socrates, either of these views of death would be acceptable to him; the one, because he would receive a wonderful rest with no dreams to disturb him; the other, because he would be able to talk philosophy with those who had gone before with impunity. In this paper, I will examine Socrates’ view of death, and I will argue that, according to Socrates, there could be a third perspective on death that will not only make him truly immortal in a certain way, but will also immortalize the practice of Socratic philosophy. Hence, Socrates embraces his sentence because dying at the right time and dying in the right way provides him the possibility of a good death. <br><br>. (shrink)

This long-awaited new edition contains eight of the dialogues of Plato, and is the first in a new five-volume complete edition of his works in the OCT series.

Let it be granted that Buddhism has, e.g., in its logical literature, detailed canons and explicit rules of right reason that, amongst other things, ban inconsistency as irrational. This is the normative dimension of how people should think according to many major Buddhist authors. But do important Buddhist writers ever recognize any interesting or substantive role for inconsistency and forms of irrationality in their account of how people actually do think and act? The article takes as its point of departure (...) a recurring theme in the writings of the 8th Century Indian Buddhist thinker, Śāntideva, who subjects his own behaviour and thought to minute scrutiny in argumentation with himself, only to be puzzled at his own seemingly irrational persistence in ways of thinking that he knows to be wrong and actions that he knows to be worse courses. The Buddhist’s situation is profitably comparable to issues of akrasia, weakness of the will, that are taken up by Plato, Aristotle and many modern philosophers, including notably Donald Davidson and David Wiggins. (shrink)

This collection of essays delineates the history of the rather disparate intellectual tradition usually labeled as "Platonic" or "Neoplatonic". In chronological order, the book covers the most eminent philosophic schools of thought within that tradition. The most important terms of the Platonic tradition are studied together with a discussion of their semantic implications, the philosophical and theological claims associated with the terms, the sources that furnish the terms, and the intellectual traditions aligned with or opposed to them. The contributors thereby (...) provide a vivid intellectual map of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. Contributions are written in English or German. (shrink)

The first solid bit of argumentation you get in Plato's Phaedo goes something like this: Whatever comes to be, comes to be from its opposite. If at a certain time t a given thing a begins to be F, before that time t it must have been non-F. Wherever a pair of predicates, F and G, are genuine contradictories; where, that is, they stand to each other in the same relation as F stands in to non-F; it is necessarily (...) true that if a began to be F at t before then a was G. The only trouble comes from the difficulty of finding substitutes for F and G that people will allow to be genuine contradictories. It the butter began to be soft at four o'clock, we may suggest, before four it was hard. A tiresome opponent will retort that there is a state in which butter cannot properly be called either hard or soft. We try again: If Ann began to be asleep at eight, before eight she was awake; if my shirt became dirty on Tuesday, before Tuesday it was clean; if Bonzo died last week, before last week he was alive. And when the advocate of the borderline state reminds us of the various twilight areas of consciousness or cleanliness, we are reduced to legislation: “asleep” shall henceforth apply to every mental state short of complete wakefulness, “alive” to every condition of the body before the onset of putrefaction, “clean” to every shirt incapable of producing a certain measurable discoloration in the water in which it is washed. “Let F and G be contradictories”, we still guardedly maintain: “then if a comes to be F at time t, before time t a was G”. (shrink)

No livro Plato’s Philosophers, Catherine Zuckert olha para o Timeu de Platão de maneira renovada e revive implicitamente a tese de A. E. Taylor, segundo a qual Timeu não fala por Platão. Taylor devotou seu escrupuloso comentário de 1927 para construir esse argumento, o qual, porém, encalhou diante da questão colocada dez anos depois por F. M. Cornford, no livro Plato’s Cosmology : “Qual poderia ter sido o seu motivo?” O motivo de Platão era tanto pedagógico quanto parmenídico: (...) assim como a deusa expõe o peregrino à “Via da Opinião” depois da revelação da “Verdade”, assim também o Timeu de Platão expõe o leitor a um relato poético de uma cosmologia baseada na visão – outro kosmo/j e0pe/wn a0pathlo/j – depois da revelação, feita na República V-VII, da ontologia platônica puramente inteligível. (shrink)

The language of phenomenology includes terms such as intentionality, phenom- enon, insight, analysis, sense, not to mention the key term of Edmund Husserl’s manifesto, “the things themselves” to return to . But what does the “things them- selves” properly mean? How come the term is replaced by the “findings” over time? And what are the findings for? The investigation begins by looking at the tricky legacy of the modern turn, trying to clarify ties to past masters, including Francis- co Suárez (...) and Augustine of Hippo . The former, because his influence goes beyond René Descartes reaching undoubtedly Franz Brentano and his students, as well as Martin Heidegger . The latter, because Augustine gives a personal component to the Greek inheritance, marked by the “inward turn .” However, it would not be possible to review the history of thought without the help offered by Jan Patočka's analyses . Patočka discloses the “care” of the Greek philosophers, Plato and Dem- ocritus among others, “for the soul”, we would say with Patočka for “being,” whose sense “does not leave us indifferent” as the leitmotiv of Ancient Philosophy . Nev- ertheless, in his lectures on Plato and Europe, Patočka points out that you must be careful not to confuse the phenomena of things, of existens, with the phenomena of being . Finally, Patočka’s legacy is found in the efforts to reconcile the life-feeling with the modern construction of reality, which means “a radical reconstruction of the naive and natural world of common sense .” In some ways, intentionality is to be revised . (shrink)

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

Truth of x (independently of any description of x) that it is f. A property f which holds of x but is not per se of x is said to hold per accidens of x. The essence of an individual is the sum of its per se properties. We can formulate the following: doctrine a: concrete individuals do not have essences though abstract entities do. Doctrine b: concrete individuals have essences but they do not individuate, whereas abstract entities have essences (...) which do individuate. Assumption i: we shall say that a thing exists insofar as it has an essence. Assumption ii: we shall say that we know a thing when we know what its per se properties are. We argue that plato held doctrine a and aristotle doctrine b (with assumptions i and ii). (edited). (shrink)

Reale points out that the good and the demiurgic intelligence are radically distinct, a conclusion denied by J. Seifert in the last paper of the book. Fourteen characteristics of the idea of the good are listed by T. A. Szlezák. It is obvious, he argues, that the theory of principles of Plato’s unwritten doctrines is not identical with what Republic 6 and 7 say about the good, but there is no real opposition. In the next paper, however, H. W. (...) Ausland, after a sober evaluation of the esoteric teachings, suspects that Reale and Szlezák succumb to a certain romanticism. According to L. Brisson, the good belongs to the sphere of being, even if it is not being ; it is not in every way beyond being. Plotinus was the first to place it above being. M. Erler shows what must be the attitude of the philosopher with regard to the information orally received by him. Although Plato did not want to define the good, he pointed out several of its characteristics. The good, M. Migliori notes, combines in itself beauty, proportion, and unity. The Philebus pursues the doctrine of the Republic and goes into the direction of the unwritten doctrines. The ultimate reality, however, is beyond our understanding. E. Cattanei attempts to explain how for Plato mathematics is a way of access to the knowledge of the good. R. Ferber, on the other hand, stresses that Plato nowhere directly says that the essence of the good is the one. Beauty, symmetry, and truth are not the good itself. According to C. Gill, Gadamer demystified the idea of the good, a view which shows some common ground with the position of analytical philosophy: the good is not a transcendent entity. M. Vegetti, however, upholds the transcendent character of the good as a cause of being. G. A. Press argues that over the past hundred years Plato was considered a dogmatic philosopher, and it was believed that the leading speaker in the dialogues states Plato’s own views, but the situation is far more complex. Plato wants us to acquire a vision rather than propositional knowledge. The idea of the good should not be accorded a special position. C. Rowe tries to demystify some current interpretations, whereas F. Ferrari insists on the causality of the good, and sees Plato’s teaching as the origin of the entire tradition of negative theology. Yet some texts give the impression that the good belongs to the ontological order. C. Porebski reminds us that problems of ethics are the starting point of what Plato says about the good in the Republic. According to F. Trabattoni, Aristotle’s description of Plato’s theory of principles is wrong and his philosophy differs fundamentally from Plato’s. The School of Tübingen is a prisoner of Aristotle’s interpretation. Plato’s reluctance to describe the good in detail may mark the beginning of a skeptic trend in the Academy. The Parmenides tells us, E. Berti says, that one has first to remove all hypotheses before a definition of the Good can be given. E. Moutsopoulos draws attention to some simplistic and wrong qualifications of Plato’s thought as related to idealism and mentions Kant and Hegel’s attitudes with regard to Platonism. J. F. Crosby points to a clear leaving behind of the Socratic “no one knowingly does wrong” in the Alcibiades 216b: as Plato explains in the Protagoras, one may live according to one’s lower appetite or follow the insight of the rational soul. G. Santos makes a strong stand in favor of the identity of goodness and reality. L. P. Gerson examines theories of Platos’s development: there is no evidence of a theory of the form of the good earlier than the Republic. Aristotle, J. Dudley writes, upheld an ethical ideal resembling that of Plato, substituting the contemplation of the unmoved mover for that of the idea of the good. In the last paper J. Seifert argues that Plato identified the demiurge and the good. (shrink)

S. Negri and J. von Plato, Proof Analysis. A Contribution to Hilbert's Last Problem. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2011. 278 pp. $90.00. ISBN:978-1-107-00895-3. Reviewed by F. Poggiolesi,...

Henri J. Renard, S. J.: a sketch, by J. P. Jelinek.--The good as undefinable, by M. Childress.--Gottlieb Söhngen's sacramental doctrine on the mass, by J. F. Clarkson.--Christ's eucharistic action and history, by B. J. Cooke.--Objective reality of human ideas: Descartes and Suarez, by T. J. Cronin.--A medieval commentator on some Aristotelian educational themes, by J. W. Donohue.--God as sole cause of existence, by M. Holloway.--Knowledge, commitment, and the real, by R. O. Johann.--John Locke and sense realism, by H. R. Klocker.--The (...) being of nonbeing in Plato's Sophist, by Q. Lauer.--Ethics and verification, by R. McInerny.--Analogy and the fourth way, by J. J. O'Brien.--Love and being, by W. L. Rossner.--Complexity in human knowledge: its basis in form/matter composition, by E. L. Rousseau.--Toward a more dynamic understanding of substance and relation, by J. M. Somerville.--The origin of participant and of participated perfections in Proclus' Elements of theology, by L. Sweeney. (shrink)

AtLeg.666b7, Burnet's emendation of the transmitted λήθην to λήθῃ has been widely accepted. Newly discovered support for this emendation comes from an Arabic version or adaptation of Plato'sLaws, most likely Galen'sSynopsis, quoted by the polymath Abū-Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī (a.d.973–1048) asKitāb al-Nawāmīs li-Aflāṭunin his ethnographic work on India. I transliterate and translate the passage below, proposing two incidental emendations to the Arabic:wa-qāla l-aṯīniyyu fī l-maqālati l-tāniyati mina l-kitābi: lammā raḥima [sic proraḥimati] l-ālihatu ǧinsa l-bašari min aǧli annahū maṭbūʿun ʿalā l-taʿabi hayyaʾū (...) lahum aʿyādan li-l-ālihati wa-li-l-sakīnāti wa-li-ʾf-w-l-l-n mudabbiri l-sakīnāti wa-li-d-y-w-n-w-s-y-s māniḥi l-bašari l-ḫamrata dawāʾan lahum min ʿufūṣati l-šayḫūḫati li-yaʿūdū fityānan bi-l-duhūli ʿani l-kābati wa-ntiqāli ḫulqi l-nafsi [wa-yantaqila ḫulqu l-nafsiperhaps to be read] mina l-šiddati ilā l-salāmati [al-salāsatiprobably to be read].The Athenian said in the second book of the work [sc. theLaws]: The gods, taking pity on the human race since it was born for toil, established for them feast-days (dedicated) to the gods and to the Muses and to Apollo, overseer of the Muses, and to Dionysus, who gave human beings wine as a remedy for them against the bitterness of old age, so that they might be rejuvenated by forgetting sorrow and (by) the character of the soul changing [and (so that) the character of the soul might changeperhaps to be read] from severity into soundness [into tractabilityprobably to be read].The source of the latter part of the passage, that is, the description of Dionysus’ gift and its effect (māniḥi l-bašari…l-salāmati), has until now remained unidentified. In the notes to his translation, Sachau, followed by Gabrieli, correctly identified part ofLeg. 653c–d (θεοὶ … ἔδοσαν) as the origin of much of the passage (see n. 4). No previous scholarship, however, has noted that the latter part translates a passage inLeg.666b–c (τοῖς ἀνθρώποις … τὸ τῆς ψυχῆς ἦθος), here joined to the earlier passage (presumably by Bīrūnī’s source, that is, most likely Galen) on the hinge of their shared mention of Dionysus. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Platonopolis: Platonic Political Philosophy in Late AntiquityMichael F. WagnerDominic J. O'Meara. Platonopolis: Platonic Political Philosophy in Late Antiquity. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003. Pp. xi + 249. Cloth, $55.00.Porphyry tells of Plotinus's failed petition to emperor Gallienus to (re)establish a "city of philosophers" conformed to Plato's laws, named Platonopolis (Vit. Plo.12). O'Meara here articulates primary themes and developments in philosophical political thought in the classical Neoplatonic period, from (...) Plotinus's day in the mid-third century into the sixth century. Concurrently, he addresses head on "the conventional view that the Platonist philosophers of Late Antiquity had no political philosophy" (3). This view exemplifies the more general perspective that the Neoplatonists were simply disinterested in this-worldly affairs in lieu of "an immaterial world... our true 'homeland,' where we can at last attain the good we desire" (3). Consequently, O'Meara provides both a unique study of an important [End Page 205] topic and a compelling case for a more complete, balanced understanding of Neoplatonic other-worldly-ness. O'Meara's study covers key figures from four main groups of (neo)Platonists: Plotinus and his students; the schools in Syria and Asia Minor inspired by Iamblichus; the Athenian school (Plutarch, Proclus, Damascius et al.); and the Alexandrian school (Hyapatia, Philoponus, Olympiodorus et al.). He organizes his investigation (chapters) into three Parts.The pivotal concept in O'Meara's two-pronged endeavor is divinization - "assimilation and unification, as far as possible, to god" (31, Proclus) - a concept whose meaning for classical Neoplatonists ranges from "becoming a god" to "imitating some form of divine life, in one way or another" (31). Part I focuses on the Neoplatonists' shared association of a human soul's divinization with virtue-osity [my jargon], beginning with Plotinus's distinction between political virtue(s) and purification—or purificatory virtue(s). O'Meara emphasizes the relevance of the resulting "scale of virtues" to a life of continued activity—for example explicating Plotinus's denial that a "purified" soul is somehow exempt from the rightness-of-acting expected of the politically virtuous soul: rather, "reaching higher principles and different measures he will act [directly, immediately] according to these" (43, En. I,2,7).Another organizing theme as O'Meara's investigations proceed beyond Plotinus is the significance of the increasing complexities of particular Neoplatonic metaphysical systems, and so also of their moral systems - e.g. their "scales of virtue." Part I also articulates related attempts (beginning with Porphyry and Iamblichus) to articulate programs of moral and philosophical study - i.e. a related "scale of sciences." Of special note here are proposals by some Neoplatonists to divide the "practical sciences" associated on this scale with political virtuousness into legislative science(s) and judicial science (56). Implicit in the Neoplatonic scale(s) of virtue(s) was the thesis that as one progresses towards divinization "lower" virtue-osity is not transcended in the sense of lost or dismissed but rather it is included or incorporated into a higher form. Arguably, "lower" sciences are likewise not merely aids or stepping-stones towards something "higher," but genuine topoi of study and knowledge in their own right.Part II is the true heart of O'Meara's outstanding scholarly and philosophical inquiry. Here is where he fulfills his intent to discern a substantive tradition of political philosophy and to articulate its key themes and concepts. Though he associates this part of his investigation with Plato's conceit of the philosopher's return to the cave, he immediately parses this "descent" as a "divinization of political life through philosophy" (71). He articulates various Neoplatonists' approaches to questions inspired by Plato's cave allegory—e.g. Is the philosopher socially obligated to "return"? Could s/he then still be happy? (His investigation here does seem to overlook Neoplatonic conceptions of choice, volition, or will as these might pertain to such questions.) O'Meara recognizes, however, that the more fundamental link between Neoplatonic metaphysics and Neoplatonic ethical-political thought derives from Plotinus's conception "of fecundity, of an [overflowing] abundance" (74) in his highest One, and so in a soul assimilated to It. In Proclus's formulation: "that which... (shrink)

This difficult and intensely sophisticated work is probably the most comprehensive and profound introduction to Hegel available in English. It has several aspects. Polemically, Rosen argues that Hegel must be read primarily as a logician, "... not as a philosopher of history, a political thinker, a theologian, or a Lebensphilosoph." He definitely does not mean that Hegel was interested in the analysis of logical structures, sentences, or axioms for their own sake. Rather, Hegel’s task was a reflection upon the presuppositions, (...) potentialities, and limitations of logic and analysis themselves, and to describe their final inability to give a logos, or to complete a discursive account of the totality of experience which philosophers since Plato have called the Whole. Rosen shows that approaching Hegel as, say, a philosopher of history leads inescapably to facing Hegel as a metaphysician, or, that is, as a logician. (shrink)

It is a pleasure for me to give this opening address to the Royal Institute of Philosophy Conference on ‘Explanation’ for two reasons. The first is that it is succeeded by exciting symposia and other papers concerned with various special aspects of the topic of explanation. The second is that the conference is being held in my old alma mater, the University of Glasgow, where I did my first degree. Especially due to C. A. Campbell and George Brown there was (...) in the Logic Department a big emphasis on absolute idealism, especially F. H. Bradley. My inclinations were to oppose this line of thought and to espouse the empiricism and realism of Russell, Broad and the like. Empiricism was represented in the department by D. R. Cousin, a modest man who published relatively little, but who was of quite extraordinary philosophical acumen and lucidity, and by Miss M. J. Levett, whose translation of Plato's Theaetetus formed an important part of the philosophy syllabus. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:MACINTYRE'S REPUBLIC J. K. SWINDLER Westminster College Fulton, Missouri CONTRARY TO HIS own evident intentions and perceptions, in After Virtue A'lasdair Macinty!l.·e is much more of a Ptlatonist 1than the A1 ristotelian he aims to be. I hase this judgment both on the positive evidence that Macintyre and Plato (in the Republic) m1gue for and against the same crucial theses and on the negative evidence that Plato (...) has read answers to the very issues which Macintyre finds 1 intractable from an AristoteHan point of viiew. My thesis can be made out in terms of a half dozen issues which Maclntyire takes as crucial to his case: (1) Can there he a science of government? (2) Is there an answer to the sophist's chaillenge to morality? (3) How oan the fragmentation of the modern self he theoretically overcome? (4) What are the hi1stocical and social determinants of morality? (5) Is there a unity of virtue in addition to individual virtues? (6) Can we reconcile ourselves to teleofogy, the absence of the polis, and the tragedy of human 1:ife? I will consider each of these in turn. I. Wisdom Plato defines wisdom as knowledge of how to rule, and Aristotle (in the Nichomachean Ethics) distinguishes between theoretical and practical wisdom, 1suggesting thereby an interesting ambiguity in Plato's view, an ambiguity of which Macintyre makes a great deal. One may rule eithecr hy law or by judgment. In his attack on the Enlightenment, MacIntyre showis quite clearly tha;t the idea of a social science that would p11ovide laws of human behavior, which could in 343 344 J. K. SWINDLER turn be used by il"ulers and managers to predict and therefore manipulate!human action, was an invention of the eighteenth century. He offers an extensive 1oritique o.f this conception of socirul science, grounded primarily in the claim that human.behavior is essentially unlawful, at least if we judge it by the standards of the physical sciences. There is in human affairs a farge 1and uneliminwble element of fortiuna which makes it impossrible rto.formulate laws of human nature or behavior that would he exceptionless and therefore underwrite predictions of behavior. For there is nothing to be done about the unpredictability of innovations or, from one's own point of view, of one's own future actions; nor can the uncertainties of gametheoretie decisions and 1 the general contingency of the outcomes of ruction,be remedied. There is therefore no possibility of a social science in the sense in which Hume tried to imitate Newton. So much for Marx and Weber and the horde of modern.social scientists. This is not to say that life is completely uncertain; on the contrary, there are genuine and general regularities in society, some natural, some social, ·some statistical, some causal, wihich make life bearable. But these provide a,ground for the Aristotelian idea, endorsed by MacIntyre, that the principles of conduct, such as they might be, hold only for the most part and not universa1ly. There is therefore in Maclntyre's view no justification for 1a mora;l oode in the modern sense, nor ev;en of moral principles of the kind we are used to from Kant ·and Mill, Rawls and Nozick, which purport to istand as a sufficient criterion of right in all cases. But, importantly, we do not find any such rules or codes in Pla.to either. For Plato, too, insists on the mixed reign of chaos and logos in the materia;l world and in our Jives and concludes that judgment is essential to· determining right conduct. He tellrs us that wise rule comes only &om good oharructer and good institutions, that legislating in such detaii1 as to eliminate judgment is "cut:ting off the heads of a hy:dra." One cannot help hut think that tMs (essentially Hemclitean) point is something Aristotle ~earned at his MACINTYRE'S REPUBLIC 345 master's knee. And both aspects of Plato's :point ~e ipresent in Aristotle, viz., that s~nce the:ve is chance in nature, there is luck (good 'and had) in life, and since no rule can capture the particularity of conorete situations right... (shrink)

This Festschrift is one of the best we have been offered during the last decade. German, French, Turkish, Italian, South African, and Austrian scholars have written 23 essays in honor of one of the foremost historians of philosophy in this century, H. Heimsoeth. Half of the book is devoted to Kantian-scholarship; especially impressive are: Guéroult's study on the structure of the second analogy of experience, Belaval's comparison between Kant and Leibniz, and the richly documented long investigation by G. Tonelli on (...) the presuppositions of Kant's table of judgments in the logic of the eighteenth century. The second part of the present volume is more heterogeneous than the first. One reads with genuine enthusiasm H. Fuhrmans' "The God-World relationship in Schelling's late philosophy." L. Landgrebe's article on the philosophical problem of the end of history is grounded in Kantian soil, but other essays are little connected to Heimsoeth's major interests. These essays include: E. Lichtenstein on the philosophical development of the concept of culture from Meister Eckhart to Hegel; F. Nicolin on the systematic situation of the history of pedagogy since Herbart and Schleiermacher; and H. Wagner's paper on Plato and the beginning of metaphysics as a science. The book concludes with a rich bibliography of Heimsoeth's publications since 1911.--M. J. V. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 477 (p. 32), although some might consider him to have been an important historian of logic. I am not certain that citing Carnap and Heideggar (p. 75) can do much to clarify Vires. When one reads 'Henrique Estienne' and "Hipotiposes pirronicas" (p. 266) in an Italian book he is a bit taken aback and wonders whether the author has done his homework. The writer missed a golden (...) opportunity to connect Galileo to the tradition, for his still unpublished Quaestiones on logic and the De motu (both written before 1600) have many interesting comments which tie in directly with the material developed in this volume. This could have provided an excellent bridge to the next'century, when the analytic method began to take a more central role in scientific and methodological discussions. There is still room for a number of studies on the evolution of the analytic method during the Renaissance. Unfortunately Crescini's study barely scratches the surface of this immense subject. Let us hope that his book will at least have the effect of encouraging others to treat the matter with more care, in greater depth, and more exhaustively. The volume is provided with a preface by Giorgio Radetti, who claims more for it than it actually provides, as well as noting that it is the first part of a more comprehensive study by the same author on the formation of the analytic method in Cartesian philosophy (p. 5). The book has a useful index, but unfortunately no bibliography. CHARLESB. ScxiMrrr The University of Leeds Le thomisme et la pens#e italienne de la Renaissance. By Paul Oskar Kristeller. Conference Albert-le-Grand 1965. (Montr6ah Institut d'~tudes m~di~vales, and Paris: Vrin, 1967. Pp. 287. $6) Surprisingly little is known about the later history of Thomism. This brief but very rich lecture by Professor Kristeller, renowned historian of Italian Renaissance philosophy, examines one period in the later career of St. Thomas' thought. This study, based chiefly on unpublished source material, shows that Thomas was very much present to both the humanists and to the academic philosophers during the Renaissance. Such leading humanists as Lorenzo Valla, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, and Marsilio Ficino, quote St. Thomas frequently and with approval. Even the unfavorable attitudes of Ermolao Barbaro or Baptista Mantuanus show that Thomas was already the most celebrated of mediaeval philosophers. The professors of philosophy at Italian universities, such as Pierre Pomponazzi, speak of Thomas with great respect and regard his theology as in conformity with the truths of faith, even when they reject his philosophy as being in disaccord with the authentic teaching of Aristotle. St. Thomas made a continuous contribution to the development of Renaissance theology and philosophy. Yet the principal Italian thinkers did not follow him strictly nor fall under his exclusive influence. Thomas is merely one of the most important sources, not the prevailing influence, in Renaissance thought. Ficino, for example, is,178 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY in accord with Thomas on certain important points, but his own theology is more in the spirit of Plato and Augustine. Professor Kristeller's vast learning is at the service of admirably balanced conclusions. Not everyone will agree with all his interpretations; Ficino perhaps did not imagine himself to be "constructing a system of philosophy" (p. 96) since the very title of his work, Theologia platonica, suggests that he continues, with new materials, the labor of mediaeval theolo#ans. And Ficino's doctrine of the continuity of the supernatural life of the soul in this world and the next (p. 120) seems to be completely in accord with Thomas. But the author's very careful scholarly method and sound general conclusions are beyond criticism. Two hitherto unpublished Latin texts are printed in critical edition at the end of the French lecture, the Opus aureum in Thomistas by Baptists Mantuanus, which is anti-Thomas, and the Opusculum ad Laurentium Medicem on beatitude, by Vincentius Bandellus, which is pro-Thomas. Like Professor Kristeller's fine lecture, these new texts are a permanent contribution to scholarship. PAUL J. W. MILLER University of Colorado The Anatomy of Leviathan. By F. S. McNeilly. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1968. Pp... (shrink)

On the analogy of the colloquial register in some modern languages, where narrative and argument may be punctuated by oaths and exclamations in order to maintain a high affective level and compel the hearer's attention, it is reasonable to postulate that Attic conversation also was punctuated by oaths, that this ingredient in comic language was drawn from life, and that the comparative frequency of ║ M M Δ in comedy is sufficiently explained thereby. There are obvious affinities between some passages (...) of comedy, relaxed conversation in Plato and Xenophon, and the forceful, man-to-man tone which Demosthenes sometimes adopts to such good effect . Compare, for instance, Ar. V. 133 f. στιν δ' νομα ⋮ τ μν γέροντι ⋮ Φιλοκλέων / να μ Δία, τ δ' υε κτλ., where the oath is a response to imagined incredulity, and X. Smp. 4.27 ατν δ σέ, η, γ εδον να μ τν πόλλω, τε κτλ. . It is also important that the commonest oaths fit, in most of their forms, the end of an iambic trimeter: μ τν Δία, ν Δία,ν τούς θεούς, μ τος θεούς. Add that in Aristophanic dialogue over half the iambic trimeters end with major pause, and half the remainder with minor pause, and we can see why Δ / established itself early as a distinctive comic pattern. Out of 105 examples of M M Δ cited from comedy in Section II above, 59 have the oath at verse-end. In the case of πάνυ, which was almost exclusively Attic and — to judge from its great rarity in tragedy — felt by Athenian poets to be prosaic, we lack evidence on its functions in the colloquial register; it may or may not have served as affective punctuation. In prose, we have to reckon with the fact that π Mπ and Mπ π constituted a genuine stylistic choice as far back as the evidence will take us, since the two earliest instances in prose are [X.] Ath. 2.3 πάνυ δι χρείαν and ibid. 3.5 πολλ τι πάνυ. The oath, as treated by the comic poets on the basis of colloquial usage, is bound to have served as a model for πάνυ, exerting an influence which pulled πάνυ to the end of the verse, but there was also a powerful metrical constraint. As a dibrach ending in a vowel which could not be elided or enter into crasis, πάνυ was especially appropriate for verse-end. That in itself was enough both to establish Mπ π as the dominant pattern in comedy and to promote Mπ … π. Out of the total of 104 examples of Mπ π in comedy, 93 have πάνυ at verse-end, which makes Mπ π / one of the hallmarks of comic style. Mπ … π does not occur in prose in association with any other feature identified as colloquial, but it should be noted that Aiskhines and Demosthenes are much fonder of Mπ π than other prose authors. In some cases one can see that the order Mπ π avoids a succession of short syllables or hiatus or both , but there are other cases in which it has the opposite effect . The possibility of comic influence on oratorical language cannot be dismissed out of hand. It is also possible that someone will find positive determinants which will explain all the cases of Mπ π in prose. σόδρα, which, like πάνυ, is peculiarly Attic, is metrically more tractable than πάνυ, since it can be elided; even so, out of the 80 comic examples of Mσ σ no less than 58 have σόδρα at verse-end, and of those 58 there are 22 at major pause, 8 at presumed major pause and 9 at minor pause. The comic treatment of σόδρα is thus comparable with the treatment of πάνυ, and Timokles 222.4 τηρεν…σόδρα is in fact the closest analogy we have to Ar. Pl. 234 f. χθομαι…πάνυ. δέ and γάρ are a different matter, and in some significant respects different from each other. Postponement of δέ is especially prominent in Aeschylus and then abundant in fourth-century comedy. It is much less common in Euripides , rare in Sophocles and Aristophanes , and virtually limited in prose to the categories which I labelled –. There is as yet no evidence to associate postponement of δέ with colloquial language; on the contrary, it seems to have begun as a feature of poetic language and to have been taken up and exploited by fourth-century comedy. If, in addition to being Aeschylean, it was colloquial in the fourth century, what happened to it afterwards? Except for such an isolated and inexplicable case as Diod. xx85.1 — in a military narrative — it is not a feature of the Koine at literary, documentary or subliterate level. Postponement of γάρ was no doubt encouraged by postponement of δέ, but it is not itself notably poetic ). One can see how it could possibly have developed in the spoken language of the fourth century, extending the function of γάρ as an explanatory particle in a way which makes it comparable with the English ‘you see’ in ‘He didn't dare pick it up. He hurt his back last year, you see’. For an extension of this kind we may compare the current extension of the English genitive affix in ‘Then the girl whose place she was taking's mother turned up’ and ‘The man that Christopher liked's Introduction is much better’. Moreover, postponed γάρ appears in a segment of conversation constructed in indirect speech by Theophrastus in Char. 8.9 τ πργμα βοσθαι γάρ . Again we must ask: what happened to it afterwards? A couple of cases in Theophrastus' botanical works could be a reflex of the influence of comedy on literary language at Athens. The influence was plainly short-lived, since it did not affect the Koine. It is not hard to see why serious poetry in the fifth century and earlier should have experimented occasionally with the postponement of δέ and γάρ: treatment of M M q as a valid alternative to M q M is metrically very convenient. No poet, however, could afford to use common words in a bizarre, un-Greek way merely to save himself time and trouble in constructing a verse. Linguistic innovation is normally analogical, proceeding by extension from a starting-point already there, and the most obvious starting-point for postponement of δέ and γάρ is constituted by my class . This consideration provides comic postponement with a pedigree, but does not deny it individuality. The remarkable scale and frequency with which comedy exploited a phenomenon which tragedy used with restraint and prose hardly at all gives comic postponement the right to be regarded as a quite distinctive artificial feature of comedy. (shrink)

In the field of philosophy, Plato's view of rhetoric as a potentially treacherous craft has long overshadowed Aristotle's view, which focuses on rhetoric as an independent discipline that relates in complex ways to dialectic and logic and to ethics and moral psychology. This volume, composed of essays by internationally renowned philosophers and classicists, provides the first extensive examination of Aristotle's Rhetoric and its subject matter in many years. One aim is to locate both Aristotle's treatise and its subject within (...) the more general context of his philosophical treatment of other disciplines, including moral and political theory as well as poetics. The contributors also seek to illuminate the structure of Aristotle's own conception of rhetoric as presented in his treatise. The first section of the book, which deals with the arguments of rhetoric, contains essays by M. F. Burnyeat and Jacques Brunschwig. A section treating the status of the art of rhetoric features pieces by Eckart Schütrumpf, Jürgen Sprute, M. M. McCabe, and Glenn W. Most. Essays by John M. Cooper, Stephen Halliwell, and Jean-Louis Labarrière address topics related to rhetoric, ethics, and politics. The final section, on rhetoric and literary art, comprises essays by Alexander Nehamas and André Laks. Originally published in 1994. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Recent articles in Religious Studies have underscored the questions of whether Buddhism presents any empirical doctrines, and whether, if it does, such doctrines are false or vacuous. In what follows I want to sketch an interpretation of Buddhism according to which it does not offer doctrines which are empirically false, on the one hand, or trivially true on the other. In doing so I take my cue from an earlier, and by now classic, paper by H. H. Price. For the (...) exposition of Buddhism I take the Pali Nikāyas, the single most significant collection of texts in the Buddhist tradition. The particular doctrine which is the focus of discussion here is the kammavāda or ‘karma view’ of early Indian Buddhism, for it is the focus of much of the recent literature cited above and a doctrine which some have thought amenable to statement in empirical terms. (shrink)

The sixteen essays of this book attempt to make recent scholarly conclusions on Socrates readily available. In his introduction the editor gives a survey of the Socratic problem. The next essay examines the precise meaning of the charges leveled against Socrates; not accepting the traditional gods comes foremost. Charles H. Kahn argues in favor of moving the Laches, Charmides, Lysis and Euthrypho from their traditional place before the Gorgias to the group of later dialogues because of their Platonic content--J. Beversluis (...) proves the obvious, namely, that Socrates makes use of examples in his search of definitions. Socrates' critique of his interlocutors' answers to the "what-is-F-ness?" questions is examined by Hugh Benson. Laches and others failed to grasp that there is only one universal essence corresponding to each question. Gregory Vlastos argues that Plato was the first to assume that the movement of the planets could be explained by a number of homocentric circular revolutions into different directions. Plato would have advanced from a dialectical examination of problems to a more mathematical method. According to T. H. Irwin, Socrates upheld the view that to be happy requires that one adapt his desires and be flexible. K. McTighe thinks that Plato understood the Socratic paradox in this way: wrongdoers are always ignorant of the harm their actions cause or of the fact that their actions are unjust. (shrink)