What is it that produces laughter? Or a smile, since, in fact, the verb γελάω has both meanings? Because for someone to laughs or to smile, it requires to be in the company of others, and involved in a certain situation which somehow sparks in us that kind of reaction. This note will provide a sketch for a research on the various situations in which characters laugh or smile in the Platonic dialogues. There is a ridiculous situation that emerges in (...) a discussion, when the interlocutors speak by themselves without taking into account what the other says ; another ridiculous situation emerges involuntarily from an intervention or remark from one of the interlocutors ; another more subjective one emerges from certain behaviors in particular situations. Moreover, there are interesting indications about the very nature of the ridiculous and the proper way to use it in comedy or in the interactions between people. (shrink)

"Rereads the writings of Plato in the light andperspective of the paradigm of the Tubingen School, but it doesso on the basis of very precise principles of contemporaryepistemology which render the undertaking soundly andconvincingly scientific and highly, even fascinatingly readable".

The revival of Plato's philosophy in the nineteenth century presents many interesting features. It has become typical to contrast the 'Idealist' Plato portrayed by the don of Greek studies and introducer of Hegel into England, Benjamin Jowett, with the 'Sceptic' Plato presented by the Radical philosophers John Stuart Mill and George Grote. Notwithstanding the mutual high esteem and reviews of each other's works and the fundamentally similar image of Plato they offer, Grote and Mill have a (...) very different relationship with Plato's thought: Grote recruits Plato in the Radicals' field for his use of dialectical inquiry into truth while remaining unaffected by Plato's moral and political ideas; whereas Mill shows a profound Platonic influence in his notion of the rights and duties of a philosophical elite. Their totally divergent view of Protagoras, and relativism, tells the whole tale. (shrink)

Questo libro, come chiariscono i curatori, è il risultato di un progetto scientifico sullo studio dei commentari neoplatonici del Fedone, già realizzatosi in un convegno del 1970 diretto da Westerink, e poi ampliatosi in un convegno sulla storia delle interpretazioni del dialogo nell’antichità realizzatosi nel 2012 a Bruxelles: non più solo platonici, ma anche aristotelici, stoici, scettici. Dopo un’ «Introduzione», redatta dai tre editori, i saggi raccolti sono 13, a cura di Sylvain Delcomm...

We propose here the first translation into Portuguese of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s small treatise De Ente et Uno (1491). The translation is preceded by a brief presentation in which the work is contextualized within the scope of the thought of its young author and in the Florentine philosophical environment of the end of the Quattrocento. In the aftermath of the controversies between defenders of Plato and defenders of Aristotle, a quarrel brought by Greek and Byzantine intellectuals into (...) Italy, who exacerbated the differences between the two philosophers, there were also others who tried to show the essential concord between them, a purpose of which Pico’s treatise is one of the most expressive and relevant documents, seeking to prove the equivalence between Plato’s One and Aristotle’s Being. (shrink)

The author challenges the canonical opposition of utopia vs. realism in political thought. Although this opposition traces back to the very origins of Western political theory, in the works of such authors as Thucydides and Plato, the author maintains that both ‘utopian’ and ‘realist’ thinkers of every age keep the reality of their society in the background of their political constructions. The real difference is in their view of human nature: ‘utopian’ thinkers have a more optimistic view of human (...) nature, they see it flexible and prone to be changed by education and institutions; whereas ‘realist’ thinkers have a more pessimistic vision of man and have less faith in the power of laws and education. Based on their anthropological view, political authors have different expectations to mould human nature and different hopes to create a perfect society. This view is supported by an examination of Thucydides, Plato and Machiavelli and by reference to some other classic political thinkers in the Western tradition. (shrink)

The treatise On the Nature of the Universe, attributed to the Pythagorean Ocellus, has frequently been the subject of scholarly attention due to its engagement with Aristotle’s theory of elemental transformation or its role in the late Hellenistic debate on the eternity of the universe. In this paper, I argue that its author endorses a peculiar conception of matter: prime matter is an unqualified body, only potentially perceptible. Ps.-Ocellus draws this doctrine from Stoicism but reworks it for his purposes outside (...) the framework of Stoic corporealism. The author presents it as an antecedent to both Plato’s receptacle and Aristotle’s prime matter. As it turns out, the doctrine was meant to address some of the challenges posed by an incorporeal material principle. (shrink)

Roberto Frega & Giovanni Maddelena – Can you recollect what the situation was concerning the study of pragmatism when you were in college? Richard J. Bernstein – I was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago from 1949 to 1951. At the time the “Hutchins College” was an unusual institution. The entire curriculum was fixed and it was organized around reading many of the great books of the Western tradition. From the time I arrived, I was reading Plato, (...) Aristotle, Galileo, Darwin, Herodotus... (shrink)

This analysis of Plato's Republic begins with brief notes on the life and works of Plato, then offers a summary of the books that make up the Republic, identifying each one with one of the most important themes and problems that characterize the dialogue: justice, philosophy, happiness, desire, myth. The volume concludes with an appendix that deals with the question of truth and appearance, and its relationship to virtue and to the good of the city.

This work considers the novelty of Neoplatonism against platonic philosophy, characterising the former by three principie points: the monopolaristic conception, the One which is productive (a self difftisive One-Good) remaining as indefinable or ineffable and its consequences and implications. Plotino's metaphysics, therefore, finds itself before a new problem, not put by Plato: to give reason of the One, and with this, of the production of the many from the One, and in its resolution he introduces an irreductable novelty into (...) not only the platonic categories, but also into Greek thought (as the idea of positive infinitude). (shrink)

L'auteur résume dans cet article le contenu du commentaire du Phèdre qui doit paraître en mai 1998. Le Phèdre constitue un véritable « manifeste » qui présente un programme dans lequel Platon, alors âgé de soixante à soixante-cinq ans environ, prend position sur la question de l'écriture, à un moment où celle-ci était en train de se substituer à l'oralité pour constituer un instrument de communication privilégié. Dans le Phèdre, Platon veut montrer que, au moment même où il écrit, il (...) est le plus grand écrivain de la Grèce. Il démontre ce point en deux étapes: il entame tout d'abord une « joute oratoire » avec Lysias, alors considéré comme le meilleur écrivain de son temps, où il fait montre de sa supériorité sur les rhéteurs tant sur la forme que sur le contenu; il propose ensuite une théorie de l'art d'écrire dont le caractère adéquat se fonde sur la méthode dialectique. Il énonce de surcroît les trois critères fondamentaux qui doivent gouverner tous les discours, que ceux-ci soient écrits ou oraux: 1 / il faut connaître l'essence de la chose dont on parle; 2 / il faut connaître la nature des âmes auxquelles on s'adresse; 3 / il faut adapter les contenus des messages que l'on veut communiquer aux capacités de réception des âmes auxquelles on s'adresse. Toutefois, les messages du philosophe ne peuvent être transmis par la seule écriture: les choses les plus précieuses, le philosophe les écrit dans les âmes des hommes, autrement dit, il les communique dans le registre de l' « oralité dialectique ». Les discours écrits n'ont aucune autonomie, puisqu'ils ont, de fait, besoin du « secours » de l'auteur. Pour comprendre les discours écrits, fussent-ils les meilleurs, une connaissance préalable des choses dont ils traitent est nécessaire, connaissance qui ne peut être obtenue que par des voies différentes de celles que fournissent les discours écrits. The author summarizes in this article the content of his Phaedrus' commentary which will appear in May of 1998. The Phaedrus constitutes a true « manifesto ». It presents a programme in which Plato (who was then aged sixty or sixty-five), defends a position on the question of writing at a time when writing was being substituted for orality as the primary instrument of communication. In the Phaedrus, Plato wants to show, while he is writing it, that he is the greatest writer in Greece. He demonstrates this point in two stages: first, he initiates an « oratorical contest » with Lysias who was then considered the best writer of this time, where he shows his superiority over the orators both in form and in content; then, he proposes a theory of the art of writing the appropriate character of which is based on the dialectical method. Moreover, Plato states the three primary criteria which must govern any discourse whether oral or written: 1 / knowledge of the essence of what one speaks; 2 / knowledge of the nature of the souls to be addressed; 3 / knowledge of the content of the messages that one addressed. However, the messages of the philosopher cannot be transmitted only by writing. The most precious things are written by the philosopher in the souls of men, in other words, he communicates them in the register of dialectical orality. Written discourses have no autonomy since they need the « help » of the author. To understand written discourse, including the best, a preliminary knowledge of the things with which they deal is necessary, knowledge which can only be obtained through paths different from those which are provided by written discourse. (shrink)

The core of Hegelian idealism is the concept of dialectic, the soul of logic and the fundamental law of reality in all its forms. This dialectic is as vastly different from Platonic dialectic as the categories or pure concepts of the Transcendental Logic in the Critique of Pure Reason are from Plato’s ideas and Aristotle’s universals, and its character cannot be more plainly indicated than by this very contrast of the category with the Platonic idea and the Aristotelian universals.

This edition of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s “De ente et uno” (“On being and the one”) offers for the first time a key text for the reformation of metaphysics in Renaissance philosophy in German translation. The Latin text is added. The detailed introduction and careful commentary reveal the guiding points Pico has set with this work.

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola is best known for his Oratio, one of many works containing his promise to prove that the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle are in agreement. Pico never fulfilled this promise, however, and commentators have at times derided Pico’s concordist project. The present paper argues that Pico’s notion of concordia was at least partly inspired by a jurisprudential habit derived from his early training in canon law. After examining Pico’s explicit but dispersed statements on concordia, (...) I then consider the circumstantial evidence for a jurisprudential origin to Pico’s project. As the habits and dispositions of Renaissance exegetes differed significantly from those of present-day interpreters of the history of philosophy, there is merit in looking beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries to understand Pico’s attempted concordia of Plato and Aristotle. An appreciation of this context mitigates the negative assessments of his enterprise. (shrink)

It will be useful to connect the following survey with Giovanni Reale’s important book on Plato, because it reflects forcefully and lucidly the current state of Platonic scholarship. According to Reale, the three historical models of Plato—the Neoplatonic, the Romantic and the currently emerging one—are all paradigms or “disciplinary matrices” in the sense of Thomas Kuhn’s work on scientific theories. This view is fundamentally correct. Reale has adduced sufficient evidence to support it, and Kuhn himself is said (...) to regard favorably the application of his theory to Plato. In the succession of the three paradigms, we may further see a development in which the new view of Plato, which I shall sketch here, assumes the role of a synthesis of the Neoplatonic thesis and its Romantic antithesis in the work of Schleiermacher and Schlegel. Avoiding equally the extremes of too much and too little, the new view neither succumbs to the unhistorical adaptation and systematic transformation of Plato, as does Neoplatonism, nor does it abbreviate his philosophy to the extant literary corpus, as do the Romantics. It takes instead a mediate, historically scrupulous and balanced position between the allegorical interpretation, which prevailed into the eighteenth century, and the subsequently dominant literary interpretation by combining the doxographic tradition, which has its origin in Plato’s oral teaching, with the dialogues and the epistles. This view is careful to include and preserve all the tenable elements of the Romantic paradigm, as, for instance, the correct elements of Schleiermacher’s theory of the dialogue-form. The relation of the new paradigm to the older ones may thus be seen as the correction of the latter and their integration as partial theorems into a more comprehensive general theory. (shrink)

At the end of the essay “Silhouettes” in Either/Or , Kierkegaard writes, “only the person who has been bitten by snakes knows what one who has been bitten by snakes must suffer.” I interpret this as an allusion to Alcibiades' speech in Plato's Symposium. Kierkegaard invites the reader to compare Socrates to Don Giovanni, and Alcibiades to the seduced women. Socrates' philosophical method, in this light, is a deceptive seduction: just as Don Giovanni's seduction leads his conquests (...) to unhappy love—what Kierkegaard terms “reflective sorrow”—so the elenctic method leads Socrates' interlocutors to aporia, not to knowledge. I offer a critique of Socratic irony, a stance reflected in the theory of love Socrates presents in the Symposium, and suggest that philosophy should instead be modeled on Alcibiades' and the Silhouettes' approach to love. (shrink)

Ever since the proposal of Giovanni Reale, it has been useful to distinguish three “paradigms,” or models of “normal science,” in Thomas Kuhn’s sense, in the history of Platonic scholarship, each of which are relatively distinct from the others in their historical succession: the Neoplatonic model which persisted into modern times; the “Romantic” model which replaced it and whose foundations were formulated around 1800 by Friedrich Schlegel and Friedrich Schleiermacher, and which was until recently the guiding model for history, (...) philology and philosophy; and lastly the model that takes both the literary and indirect Platonic traditions, integrates them, uses them to supplement one another, and so in part preserves and in part modifies the second model by a perspectival “paradigm shift”. The new research program justified itself in view of the surplus of anomalies left by the old program, which had to leave certain central portions of the tradition unexplained or else forcefully reinterpret them. Meanwhile, the new program promised to progressively work off the explanatory deficit. The new program was also able to emerge as an alternative because the explanatory abilities of the old program had visibly declined into a state of stagnation and exhaustion. That program had not achieved the hoped-for explanatory goals: neither the extraction of the philosophical content of Platonic dialogues by an analysis of form, nor the evaluation of the relative chronology of the dialogues for the inner development of their philosophical thought. (shrink)

Kierkegaard's relationship to the literary Socrates of antiquity, an ironic and ambiguous figure who reflects the uncertain nature of reality itself, uniquely recapitulates Plato's relationship to the historical Socrates. For Kierkegaard as for Plato, contact with Socrates results in an explosion of poetic and philosophical creativity—a demonstration of Socrates’ pedagogical potency that implicitly resolves what Plato calls the “ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry.” This chapter reflects on that ancient quarrel and its connection with the figure of (...) Socrates, traces the birth of Kierkegaard's Socrates in his dissertation, and sketches the developing significance of Socrates in Kierkegaard's major pseudonymous writings. (shrink)

The field of psychiatry has long struggled with developing models of practice; most underemphasize the interpersonal aspects of clinical practice. This essay is unique in putting intersubjectivity front and centre. It is an attempt to provide a clinical method to re-establish the fragile dialogue of the soul with oneself and with others.

A radical reform of the agri-food biotech regulation in the EU is considered in many quarters as a pressing necessity. Indeed, two important decisions on the legal status of the so-called New Breeding Techniques are expected shortly. In order to clarify some basic aspects of the complex scenario, after a brief introduction regarding the “GMO” fallacy, we offer our point of view on the following facets: A faulty approach is frequent in the discussion of the agri-food regulation; NBTs, genome editing (...) may lead to the disappearance of the “GMO” meme; Beyond health and safety issues: socio-economic considerations; Sustainability: the comprehensive, meaningful starting point of a positive reform; The theoretical and legal basis for the reform are already contained in the EU’s general guidelines to legislation. (shrink)

Not only has the philosophical debate on causation been gaining ground in the last few decades, but it has also increasingly addressed the sciences. The biomedical sciences are among the most prominent fields that have been considered, with a number of works tackling the understanding of the notion of cause, the assessment of genuinely causal relations and the use of causal knowledge in applied contexts. Far from denying the merits of the debate on causation and the major theories it comprises, (...) this paper is meant as a stimulus for theorists of causation in the philosophy of biomedicine, with a focus on clinical matters. Without aiming at putting forward an original theory of causation and starting from the narration of two actual but paradigmatic cases at the joints between biomedical research and clinical practice, we want to point out that some pathological situations addressed by molecular medicine actually prove resistant to some of our major epistemological accounts of causal explanation. Given this scenario, which is very frequent in our hospitals, our analysis aims to provide a stimulus for the debate among theorists of causation in biomedicine interested in real cases in science in practice. We believe that this might in turn encourage some more general rethinking of the complex intertwinement of science, philosophy of science and ethics, as well as of the role of philosophy of science for clinical medicine itself. (shrink)

From the second half of the 16th century the question about Platonis Aristotelisque Concordia is no more a merely doctrinal problem, but it involves a discussion about methodus and ordo, according to the importance given to them in the coeval philosophical debate. In many cases underscoring Plato’s scientific merits, not only about inventio but also about the transmission of knowledge, meant promoting Platonism as a philosophy suitable for University. In this context the need for Platonic handbooks is perceived as (...) compelling, due to the recognised didactic superiority of Aristotle’s writings. The Compendio and the Vere Conclusioni are the specific contribution of Francesco Verino secondo, who gave holiday lectures on Plato at the Florentine Studium from 1576 to 1579. The present study focuses on the platonism of Francesco Verino, covering nearly all his works, printed and manuscript, in a constant comparison with his noble predecessors Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Francesco Cattani da Diacceto. In order to give light to Verino’s lectureship, particular attention is paid to glosses in his working and teaching copy of Platonis Opera. (shrink)

Williamson’s anti-luminosity argument has been thought to be in tension with the doctrine that we enjoy privileged epistemic access to our own mental states. In this paper, I will argue that the tension is only apparent. Friends of privileged access who accept the conclusion of the argument need not give up the claim that our beliefs about our own mental states are mostly or invariably right, nor the view that mental states are epistemically available to us in a way that (...) renders everything within our mind ‘open to view’ – arguably, two main pillars of their doctrine. What they need to reject is the idea that the mental is a realm whose ’determinacy’ or ’fineness of grain’ never escapes our appreciation. This idea – I will suggest – is not essential to privileged access and defenders of the doctrine should not be afraid to give it up. (shrink)

Esse artigo visa demonstrar como o psicanalista francês Jacques Lacan delineou e reformulou o conceito freudiano de pulsão de morte no interior dos três registros da experiência humana. Dito isso, iremos inicialmente compreender de forma geral como o conceito de pulsão de morte aparece na obra lacaniana, de maneira a demonstrarmos como ela é reformulada pelo autor francês. Depois, iremos delinear como esse conceito aparece no interior dos registros do Imaginário, Simbólico e Real; desse modo, estaremos envoltos com o Estágio (...) do Espelho desenvolvido por Lacan no decorrer dos anos 1930 e 1940, a teoria do significante fundada por nosso autor mais atentamente nos anos 1950 e por último o registro do Real, o qual foi introduzido com mais atenção a partir dos anos 1960 em diante. (shrink)

Beginning from Plato, there exists a philosophical tradition, which interprets philosophy as preparation for death. However, for Plato the death of a philosopher does not necessarily imply death in its ordinary meaning, but rather a spiritual way of life maximally free from corporeal affections. This kind of relationship between philosophy and death was intensively discussed in late antique philosophy, Patristics, medieval Byzantine philosophy, and also in medieval Georgian literature. Based on Plato’s and Plotinus’ philosophy, Porphyry presented definitions (...) of three kinds of death in his Sententiae : ‘death’ of a philosopher, natural death, ‘death’ of a soul. The aim of this paper is to provide a philosophical analysis of three concepts of death in the post-Porphyrian tradition, mainly in Byzantine and Georgian texts. The paper is based on the analysis of the above mentioned issues in the texts of Porphyry, Macrobius, Michael Psellos, as well as in the old Georgian versions of the works of Ammonios Hermiae, John of Damascus and John Sinaites. We also take into consideration the views on the relation between philosophy and death in the thought of the philosophers of Humanism and Renaissance, such as Georgios Gemistos Plethon, Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, and Michel de Montaigne, whether or not and to what extent their views on the relation between philosophy and death are different from the theories of ancient and medieval Platonists. (shrink)

We study a contemporary need to complement analytic philosophy with pendular, synthetic approaches. We provide new definitions of the dyad analytics/synthetics and complete it with a natural third, horotics. Some historical trends to support a synthetic/horotic paradigm are studied: (i) Peirce’s ideas around his logic of continuity – non Cantorian continuum and existential graphs – emphasizing the importance of mathematical gestures, (ii) Gödel’s understanding of intuitionism as a synthetic counterpart of classical logic, along with a new horotic approach to his (...) work, (iii) Contemporary mathematical achievements (1950-2000), difficult to understand from analytical philosophy perspectives. Finally, we indicate some main features that a systematical synthetic/horotic reasoning should enforce, in order to fulfill its historic sequence. (shrink)

In 1685, during the heyday of Scottish Cartesianism, regent Robert Lidderdale from Edinburgh University declared Cartesianism the best philosophy in support of the Reformed faith. It is commonplace that Descartes was ostracised by the Reformed, and his role in pre-Enlightenment Scottish philosophy is not yet fully acknowledged. This paper offers an introduction to Scottish Cartesianism, and argues that the philosophers of the Scottish universities warmed up to Cartesianism because they saw it as a newer, better version of their own traditional (...) Reformed scholasticism, chiefly in metaphysics and natural philosophy. (shrink)