We kindly inform you that, as long as the subject affiliation of our 300.000+ articles is in progress, you might get unsufficient or no results on your third level or second level search. In this case, please broaden your search criteria.
Aristotelian imagination is widely understood as a psychological power by which retained perceptual states recur in consciousness. According to this view, imagination is decaying sense, a part of the psyche that is parasitic on perceptual acts for its content. This paper disputes this reading and provides an alternative account of Aristotle’s concept of imagination. I argue that Aristotelian imagination is a power of the psyche that is both productive like intellect, and presentational like perception. Unlike perception and intellect, however, imagination does not correctly discriminate among beings, and thus cannot be relied upon to give one knowledge of the world. When one accepts this alternative conception of Aristotelian imagination, it becomes clear how it can take on the peculiar epistemic function of allowing a particular serve as the vehicle of a universal thought. This paper argues that Aristotle’s explanation of valid judgments in geometry depends on the imagination to allow the perception of a particular diagram to give rise to the intellectual grasp of a general proposition.
More...
This paper focuses on the concept of logos in the writings of Plato. After preliminary methodological considerations, it proceeds to attempt a provisional definition of the term. It then examines the philosopher’s capacity to be philologos. This ability, the paper shows, is closely connected with the philosophical dimension of music. This eventually leads to a novel and complex definition of logos. Contextualised in the historical event of Socrates’ trial as recounted in the Apology, it argues for the capital importance of the dialectical search for logos in Plato’s philosophical work.
More...
This article analyzes two fragments by the last Iconoclastic Patriarch John Grammaticus (837–843). A number of parallels to the doctrine in the fragments have been identified, including Aristotle, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Basil of Caesarea, and John Philoponus. It is proposed that the main source of the fragments was a passage from the Epilyseis or Solutions Proposed to the Arguments of Severus by Leontius of Byzantium.
More...
In this paper we study the organization of the allegory of the cavern through the investigation of knowledge verbs. First, we briefly follow the interpretations of the allegory of the cave that we consider most significant and our perspective: all are valid provided that each does not deny the others. At our core we analyze the verbs of knowledge: how they relate to each other and what structure of knowledge they establish. In the conclusion, we affirm that the verbs do not present a vision of being as "what is", but as "what is being"; this means, with respect to the allegory, that the relation between being and intelligibility means a pathway of mutual equalization, which the prisoner of the cave goes through; nevertheless, the attempt to reach a comprehensive intelligence of the being requires one more step: to integrate the phenomena to the comprehension of the real thing.
More...
The ancient authors knew nothing certain about Spartan lawgiver Lycurgus save that he lost his eye (allegedly because of the opposition to his reforms). This small detail provides the best indication to the original character of Lycurgus. Greek, Indian, Iranian and other texts repeatedly mention the eye of a highest god, and there were Sumerian precedents for that. The idea of the eye of god was initially connected with the notion of the celestial pole and its symbolic representation. An important and characteristic function of the all-seeing Eye was to oversee justice and right order, just as ‘the eye of Zeus’ does in Hes. Op. 267. Spartan one-eyed Lycurgus was a god of that type. Conscious efforts of fifth century’s Spartan politicians who were able to influence contemporary poets and writers turned Lycurgus into a lawgiver of a kind of Athenian Solon.
More...
The first part of the article analyzes Aristotle's treatment of animals and the research of the authors focuses on three issues: the presence of logos in animals, if animals can act voluntarily and if animals are responsible for what they do. Stagirites' general standing point is that animals do not have beliefs, opinions, discernment, thinking, understanding and reason. By studying his volumes it has been determined, subsequently, that animals can act voluntarily. Resolution to the dilemma whether animals are responsible for what they do depends on the understanding of Aristotle's concept of responsibility. If responsibility is understood as regulating all of those activities which were undertaken on purpose i.e. voluntarily, animals can be considered responsible. On the other hand, if the scope of responsibility is limited to the moral evaluation of acts, including the activity of logos, animals will be excluded from thus understood concept of responsibility. The authors have, following in Stagirites' footsteps, concluded that since animals can have phantasia that what they do is right or wrong, they should be either rewarded or punished for their acts. The second part of the article examines the Theophrastus' work entitled On Piety which reports not only on his opposition to sacrificing animals, but also his non-acceptance, moreover, condemning the consumption of meat, i.e. the linking of these two acts while pointing out their interdependence. The most important Eresian's philosophical contribution is reflected in the thesis that animals are intrinsically related to humans, so that due to the substantive nature it is unfair to kill them. People and animals are, inter alia, interconnected by their souls. Although some living beings have more and some less perfect souls, all of them by nature have the same principles, which is evident from the resemblance of their properties, as well as from the fact that they have common primordial parents: Uranus (Heaven) and Gea (Earth). Their similarity, then, is also reflected in the aspect of desire, anger, and especially in regards to senses. Finally, contrary to Aristotle's reception of a man and his privileged status in nature, Theophrastus considered that humans and animals are also related in terms of reasoning.
More...
Plato’s ethics lie at the centre of his philosophy. So to grasp his moral theory we need to understand how it is integrated with the enterprise as a whole. If we look closely at Plato’s metaphysics, we can easily ascertain that the Greek philosopher proclaims the impossibility of being in this world the foundation of the ultimate cause, which is situated in a superior of the ideal world. From this vision came the theory of two worlds or realities. A productive world, that of Ideas, the true reality, known through the eye of thought, the world of eternal prototypes; and the world is produced by the sensible world, the world of appearances. Ideas form a logical system subordinated to a Supreme Idea that is the Idea of Good.
More...
The plotinian man is located between heaven and earth, between intelligible and sensitive; therefore, he has a celestial origin and is (ir)recoverably penetrated by the soul. Although his birth is a contradictory and uncertain event, a boldness and perhaps even an apostasy from All, he constantly seeks to experience the presence of a Transcendent Good and / but inaccessible by intellectual means. Soteriology developed by Plotinus, based on the theory of the soul that has never descended into the body, conveys that the duty of man is to realize the activity of the part remaining up there, so as to reach (ac)knowledge of the intelligible and implicitly of the state of happiness that follows this approach, linking what is divine in him, to the divine in the universe.
More...
Death is a concept studied from ancient times by all major areas, from literature and art, to philosophy and psychology. In this research, we analyze the way Socrates, the famous Greek philosopher, negotiates the idea of death, through his own death. We approached this, because the ancient philosopher was put in this situation when he was sentenced to death, unjustly, following a democratic decision. His way of seeing death reveals a formula that does not match the expectation of his contemporaries, nor the classical typology of the imminence of his own death, belonging to psychiatrist Elizabeth Kübler-Ross. And the explanation of this non-coincidence is based on the philosophical idea of man and world and the specifics of his philosophical practice. It is precisely this philosophical conception and practice that will make Socrates’ attitude become repeatable and not unrepeatable, as one might expect, since this attitude appears so conditioned by specific elements. In fact, the rational research on the grounds of beliefs and personal knowledge that stands at the basis of his philosophical practice, is deeply rooted in the foundations of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). Therefore, what lays at the basis of Socrates’ view on death goes far beyond the ancient cultural framework. To fill in the phenomenal dimension with the one of organic layer, the analysis will also include an interpretation of Socrates’ behavior, from the dopamine mechanism approach.
More...
The overall purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate over a possibility to reconstruct such theories which are not explicitly formulated in the preserved texts of ancient authors. Aristotle is one of those who did not write a single treatise on language, though language – both, as an instrument, as well as an object of the study – was still focal point of his philosophy. In his writings, Aristotle rigorously distinguishes several ways of methodologically examining same phenomenon. He is aware of the fact that every phenomenon can be examined from various perspectives and that different goals of the study lead us towards different answers. Aristotle’s views on language are scattered through his entire oeuvre. The main aim of this paper is to offer and justify a new way of reconstructing Aristotle’s theory of language. In the first part, the paper justifies the very existence of Aristotle’s theory of language and outlines a plan how to proceed with reconstruction of such theory. In the second part, the preliminary plan is situated into the current state of Aristotelian scholarship. Finally, in the third part, the plan of reconstruction is elaborated using an integrationist approach. Integrationism (the idea that our language is a very complex phenomenon which has to be studied from different perspectives and the results of those studies cannot be reduced to each other and cannot be merged into a single atemporal model, instead those results should be understood as an integral part of the very temporal nature of our language) allows me to explain how various different dimensions of language are uncovered in Aristotle’s works and how they gradually arise from each other.
More...
In the Republic, the paradigmatic character of Plato’s best city appears incompatible with the use of deception in the procreative practices of the Auxiliaries and Guardians. I argue that this incongruity, as well as the exact provisions of Plato’s reproduction festival, are explained by three facts: his commitment to eugenics, his insistence on the abolition of the typical Greek household and his belief that there are serious limitations to the type of knowledge that Auxiliaries can achieve.
More...
Review of: Igor Mikecin, Parmenid; Matica hrvatska, Zagreb 2018.
More...Réflexions sur l’origine d’une croyance néoplatonicienne
We can often read that, for Plato, the soul is exiled in the body. By looking at the concepts of soul and exile in Plato, one can see that this is wrong. Certain neoplatonic thinkers attributed this assertion a posteriori to Plato, in the light of their rereading of older texts. It was through them that this claim was wrongly anchored in our philosophical imagination.
More...
Les Métamorphoses d’Apulée est un roman picaresque, érotico-comique narrant les tribulations du jeune Lucius, transformé en âne à la suite d’erreurs de magie. Ce texte constitue une fête du rire tant il contient de scènes et de personnages comiques. Ainsi, s’appuyant sur les théories platoniciennes de l’âme, Apulée engage à la fois son personnage et son lecteur dans un processus dialectique ayant pour but de rendre son âme plus vertueuse, condition sine qua non de sa métamorphose ontologique.
More...Point fixe entre cogito, esprit et volonté
Defining soul only by the concept of mind or mens, Descartes breaks with the philosophy of Aristotle and his hylomorphic conception of the soul and its various functions. But, on the one hand, what are the relations between this definition derived from mind’s perception and the “I” of cogito or the self which characterize the connection mind/body? Still, on the other hand, in the absence of a mind in the animal, Descartes agrees to animal’s body sensation and perfection.
More...
This article examines the problem of the status of the different degrees of being that Plato, in the Timaeus, seems to attribute to the different kinds of reality that he distinguishes. In what sense and under what conditions is it possible to state that the intelligible forms, the sensible things and the spatial and material substratum of the chora “are” and “exist” ?
More...
At the end of Treatise 38 (VI 7), Plotinus presents an original analysis of the activity of the intellect. The intellectual activity of the soul cannot produce its object and thinks what is in the Intellect from which it comes. On the contrary, the Intellect produces its object (οὐσία) and its intellection is not the act of a substrate (ὑποκείμενον), as in the preceding case. In this context, Plotinus uses, to account for this particular form of intellect, a very rare notion in his work, that of συνυπόστασις. In our opinion, its use is at the origin of a true explanatory model that Plotinus uses in particular in Treatise 39 (VI 8) to think how the One can be what he wants to be. The use of this notion can therefore help us understand the meaning of freedom and will attributed to the first principle.
More...
The review of: Bruno Ćurko, Matija Mato Škerbić (aut.), Mirko Ćalušić (ilust.) Filozofija – ma što pak je to? 13 priča o antičkim filozofima, Udruga Mala filozofija, Zadar 2019.
More...
In this article the author confirms a well known Aristotle's statement on Thales being the first philosopher. By carefully analyzing the Metaphysics, On the Heavens and On the Soul, one can find relevant paragraphs which support the Stagirite's remark about a wise man of Miletus as the founder of something which would later become known as the "Greek wonder". When interpreting here quoted Aristotle's statements there are three key points: 1.) The Earth rests on the water (Met.983b21-22; Cael.294a28), 2.) Water is the material cause of all things (in Met.983b19-21 the water is mentioned as the arche, and before that in Met.983b7 it is said that for the majority of the first philosophers the principles which were of the nature of matter were the only principles of all things), and 3.) All things are full of gods (De an.411a7-8; it is also added that the magnet is alive; for it has the power of moving iron, De an.405a19-21). After reconstruction of Stagirite's writings on Thales it was determined that his significance for philosophy lies in the fact that he, having considered the whole variety of known world, detected a unique principle which lies, or, even better, underlies beneath self-evident and obvious variety. In fact, when Milesian proclaimed the water as the first principle of all things, he tried, in a "natural" and scientific manner, without myths and supernatural forces, to explain the whole of cosmos. Thus, he gained the reputation of "the founder of philosophy".
More...