Apeiron jako substrat? Najstarsza krytyka monizmu Anaksymandra oraz jej metodologiczne uwarunowania

Author(s): Maria Marcinkowska-Rosół / Language(s): Polish Issue: 43/2015

The article deals with the oldest criticism of Anaximander’s monism, for which we have evidence, found in John Philoponus’ (6th century A.D.) commentary on the first book of Aristotle’s Physics (In Ph. 88.24-89.2). Philoponus’ argumentation is analytically examined and explained, its premises brought to light and its conclusions evaluated. It is shown how his inquiry, although anticipating modern discussions about the classification of Anaximander’s doctrine in terms of ‘monism’ and ‘pluralism’, differs from the contemporary approach to the problem when it comes to both results and methodology.

Boski zapał ślicznego Izokratesa. Izokrates Platoński - rozważania z pogranicza filozofii i retoryki

Author(s): Zbigniew Danek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2015

The article discusses possible meanings of Isocrates’ mention at the end of Plato’s Phaedrus in the light of the orator’s attitude towards philosophy.

Comments on the Sources of Greek Philosophical Criticism

Author(s): Dariusz Kubok / Language(s): English Issue: 34/2015

The present article attempts to shed light on the sources of philosophical criticism of early Greece and on the origins of the critical attitude adopted by the thinkers of the period. Above all, however, reflections presented hereby are meant to serve as a backdrop for analyses of a much broader scope. The study seeks to identify the defining characteristics of early Greek criticism, upon which basis the author puts forth a proposition for a general typology of its forms. Complementing the present comments is a brief discussion of the suggested types of philosophical criticism in light of the views of some of the leading philosophers of the time.

Others as matter of indifference in Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations

Author(s): Edita Wolf / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2016

In Meditations, others are treated in a double way, as being closest to us and as matter of indifference. The present article offers an interpretation, based on chapter V, 20, where the two ways are seen in different perspectives, the perspective of the whole and the perspective of a part. The perspective of the whole allows one to see the interconnectedness of individuals by reason; it is also linked to the imagery of the view from above which enables one to understand oneself as equal to any other, whereas the perspective of a part helps one to assume the attitude of indifference towards the other and thus to act properly.

Photius and μεταγραφειν: Some notes on the linguistic aspect of Photius’ testimony to the nature of Zosimus’ drawing upon the Histories by Eunapius of Sardis

Author(s): Ivan Prchlík / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2016

Photius’ statement, if understood literally, seems to indicate Zosimus’ New History to have been a virtual transcription of the Histories by Eunapius of Sardis. Some of the modern scholars mistrust his authority, yet one of them, J. A. Ochoa, tried to analyse Photius ’ statement in order to achieve a more nuanced interpretation that would even allow for a non-literal reading. In this paper, Photius’ usage of the verb μεταγράφειν is re-examined, as well as other reviews of his Bibliotheca are pointed to, in which there are compared the authors who are known to have drawn upon one another, yet not exclusively. Both clearly testify that what Photius had in mind was that Zosimus had drawn solely upon Eunapius in the relevant section of the New History. One minor observation corroborates the hypothesis that also the opening chapters of the first book are in fact part of this section.

ŚW. TOMASZ Z AKWINU, Komentarz do "Hermeneutyki" Arystotelesa, przekł. z j. łac. A.P. Stefańczyk, Lublin: Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu 2013, ss. 639

Author(s): Natalia Kunat / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2014

Talesov vitalizam

Author(s): Željko Kaluđerović / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 03/139/2015

The paper analyses Thales’ concept of soul, primarily based on Aristotle’s main insights and by consulting relevant doxographical accounts. The study has shown that the Stagirite classified the Milesian physicist, while taking into account his alleged view that the stone has a soul in it because it moves iron, in the category of thinkers who believed that soul is the cause of motion. The author, then, concludes that the view that soul is intermingled in the whole is related to the famous phrase attributed to Thales according to which “all things are full of gods”. If we connect these formulations with statements about the lodestone and amber, then we arrive to a possible conclusion that, according to the Milesian, all things are ensouled, i.e. alive, both organic and inorganic parts of the cosmos. Finally, if these are authentic Thales’s views, then he is “the founder of (…) philosophy”, because he talks about the unity of the entire reality, and because in this way the unity of wholeness is vitalistically established.

Reinterpretacija fragmenta DK B6 Parmenidove poeme

Author(s): Drago M. Đurić / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 01/137/2015

This paper discusses the fragment DK B6 of Parmenides’ poem. The author defends the thesis that the most coherent interpretation of DK B6 were as follows: at the beginning of the fragment the goddess offers the criterion of truthful talking and thinking, and demands from her student to follow it; then, she requires the student to traverse both ways of inquiry, the way of truth and the way of mortals. After that, she exhibits some characteristics of the opinion of the mortals, as well as their crucial mistake; at the end she says that for the mortals there is a backward way, or a way out, which would consist in their return to what was said at the beginning of the fragment, or in their return to the criterion of truthful talking and thinking. Advanced reading of this fragment is taken as the basis for a more general reinterpretation of the thoughts of the famous Greek philosopher. The paper defends the thesis that Parmenides in his poem basically talks about two, not about three ways of inquiry. The paper also defends the thesis that the backbone of exposition of the poem represents a conflict between two prima facie acceptable intuitions: intuition about the criterion of truthful talking and thinking, and intuition incurred on our sensory experience of the events in the world, which Parmenides called the opinion of the mortals. In general, the thesis is that Parmenides accepted the first intuition, but that his radical interpretation of it lead to the rejection of the second.

Ka reafirmiranju sofističkog učenja o prirodnom pravu

Author(s): Spahija Kozlić / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 15-16/2015

Despite the domination of legal positivism (especially in the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries) the dispute between justice by nature and justice under the law initiated by the ancient Greek sophists has always been present in various forms of axiological debate about the law in its historical and philosophical sense. Transcending the mythical notions of justice and law in the figures of the goddesses Themis and Dike, Dike in particular - hence dikaion represents justice with two faces: one means retribution and punishment while the other protects the fairness, sophists leave to the latter theorists of law the task to discuss on starting points of the social norms shaped in the concept of nomos. According to mythological tradition opponents of Dike or eris are dispute which disturbs order (Dysnomia - Lawlessness), then bia symbolizing the force opposite righteousness and finally hybris representing excesses / immoderate life. For Protagoras the core meaning of citizen (polites) relates to everyone who has some kind of criteria of the concept of goodness which can’t be judged by no means by an individual (idiotes) while community of citizens (polis)defines the criteria needed for grasping the concept of righteousness (nomos). Sophists are more relevant for this topic because of their knowledge and understanding of the concept of natural rights (physei dikaion), particularly due to their position that is opposed to nomos or nomoi dikaion. These are, above all, Hippias, Antifont, Thrasymachus and Callicles. Hippias, for example, believes that earthly laws tyrannize men and force them to actions which are contrary to the nature of justice which leads to inequalities in the community. The argument for the injustice of earthly laws is in their frequent variability because justice, per definition, should be stable. Because of that these laws are not binding for the wise who live according to the principles physei dikaion. Furthermore Antifont understood physei dikaion as an order of full equality (isonomy) which is usually in conflict with the artificial standards which focus is inequality. Thrasymachus is even more radical and believes that the might create earthly laws for their own protection. The purpose of this work, in this regard, tends to reaffirm the ancient (especially Sophist) remarks about the importance of out-of-standard norms needed for interpretations of standards.

LABUDA, Pavol: Úvod do antickej filozofie I : Zrod a vývoj ranej gréckej filozofie

Author(s): Miroslav Karaba / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 1/2016

Sofistička proto-etika

Author(s): Milenko A. Perović / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 01/141/2016

In order to identify genesis of moral-ethical phenomenon, author starts from certainty of its historical, and not “eternal”, character. Its rudimental form is found in proto-moral consciousness and proto-ethical philosophical standpoint of the Sophists. Resting upon Aristotle and Hegel, author reconstructs Hellenic system of ethical life (Sittlichkeit) and shows the meaning of historical turn the Sophists made within that system by their own philosophical and cultural mission. Within this turn, moral-ethical phenomenon was born as a product of sophistic confrontation of principle of reason (reasoning) with traditional representational consciousness.

Platon i Parmenid

Author(s): Nikola Tatalović / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 01/141/2016

This paper analyses the relationship between Plato’s late thought of being and eleatic heritage that is at the very core of Plato’s middle period idea thesis. The analysis shows that Parmenides’ poem On Nature represents the framework for problems regarding Plato’s thought. That is, that the establishing of the concept of idea, which is simply postulated in the middle period, must be realized through criticism of Parmenides’ thought of being. In a way, Plato’s ideas are multiplied Parmenides’ being, but as such they are always the truth of many. Therefore, establishing the concept of idea requires a critique of Parmenides’ thought of being, a critique that opens a horizon for a new way of thinking ideas in terms of being as being. Patricide is Plato’s decision for the impassable, a blunder that leads to the way of those who wander two-headed.

Predsokratski pojam vremena

Author(s): Tonći Kokić / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 01/141/2016

This article considers three Presocratic conceptions of time based on: Hesiod’s consideration of time concept in Theogony, reports on Thales astronomical work and Parmenides’ theoretical discussions in the poem On Nature. With respect to Aristotle’s division of science (ἐπιστήμη) presented in Metaphysics, it is possible to interpret these conceptions as phases in historical development of thought (λογικοί) and rational assumptions (λόγοι) in the cognition of the governing principles and laws of the cosmos: from Hesiod’s mythical thought, a primitive type of an ancient wisdom that linked the time to the chaos (χάος), across Thales’ technological (τέχνη) time measuring (χρόνος) of the astronomical phenomena for practical purposes or goals, to Parmenides’ theoretical (methaphysical) deliberations that linked the time to the being, in orientation to cognition for the purpose of knowledge itself. One possible explanation for the relationship of these concepts is the idea of the loose link of changes from χάος across χρόνος to κόσμος, that is, from unarranged world, which prevents rational managing, over measuring the movements of visible bodies, to the highly theoretical definition of being.

Anaksimenov i Diogenov animatizam

Author(s): Željko Kaluđerović / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 01/141/2016

The research in this paper focuses on two relevant and interrelated Anaximenes’ and Diogenes’ doctrines: the monistic doctrine of air as the governing principle and their animatism. The author considers the opinion of two Pre-Socratics about the aliveness, i.e. ensoulment of everything, which could be explained by the perpetual motion of air and by its observable manifestations. The first principle, as understood by Anaximenes and Diogenes, was deemed as an eternal and therefore necessarily self-caused or self-mobile, in short the soul or life (psyche). The connection of life–breath–soul–air, to which Diogenes also added the mind, was established in the ancient understanding of the life of soul and air, however, Anaximenes and Diogenes reviewed previous standpoints and philosophically perceived the analogy of the soul and the air which a man breathes in order to live. The perception and recognition that air is a cosmic equivalent of the soul, i.e. the life of man, might, nevertheless, be an important motive for the last Milesian and, perhaps, for the last physicist to choose aer as arche of everything. Furthermore, and in accordance with the hylozoistic view, which Anaximenes and Diogenes largely shared, the stuff of cosmos had to be at the same time the stuff of life. It is also possible that the dual use of the word pneuma in the second fragment (DK13B2) led Anaximenes to the parallelism and analogy of man and the cosmos. Finally, with certain modifications, Diogenes confirmed the quintessential identity of microcosm and macrocosm, i.e. the relation between “internal” air, which is the life-giving principle of human and other living beings, their souls, and “external” divine air, which governs everything and regulates everything.

ОСНОВЕ ПЛАТОНОВЕ ФИЛОЗОФИЈЕ ПРИРОДЕ И АНТИЧКИ ОБРАЗОВНИ СИСТЕМ

Author(s): Predrag Milosavljević / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 2/2016

The objective of this paper is to present a different approach to the analysis of the natural-philosophical contents and the statements that Plato used to argument the geometrical characteristics of the cosmological number, better known as Plato’s Geometrical Number. The paper discusses a part of the multidisciplinary research results showing that the statements about the cosmological number should be observed as the description of the constructible geometrical matrix elements that Plato used to unify the principles of the celestial mechanics’ principles and the basics of matter structuring in a unique way. The crucial role in conceiving not only the cosmological constant, but also the basics of the ancient educational doctrine, belonged to the establishing of geometrical-structural connections between the continuous proportion, the Pythagorean musical scale intervals and the special phenomena of light propagation (primary and secondary rainbow angles).

Filozofa portret własny? Kilka uwag na marginesie "Listów" Platona

Author(s): Anna Głodowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2021

The aim of my article is the analysis of the selected letters attributed to Plato to answer the question: what conception of Plato as a person can a reader create after reading his correspondence. The philosopher proves himself as a faithful friend, judicious advisor and mentor, who is willing to serve his help to everyone who wants to listen and follow his hints. Although Plato realizes his position and significance in a Greek world, in his Letters there is a note of bitterness and disappointment because of his unfulfilled political ambitions and disappointed hopes. Plato also shows his feelings of regret caused by the loss of his two friends, Socrates and Dion. The form and style of Plato’s letters are as interesting as the content. The author repeatedly writes down his thoughts in so realistic and vivid way as he would have a lively dialogue with his fictional interlocutor. In his Letters Plato uses willingly dramatic elements to depict the referred events in form of the scenes taking place, as it were before the reader’s eyes.

SENECA MEDICUS. PRACTICI TERAPEUTICE ȘI PROTREPTIC FILOSOFIC ÎN CONSOLATIO AD HELVIAM

Author(s): Constantin-Ionuț Mihai / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 50/2022

In this article, I pursue two aims. First, I will discuss some therapeutic techniques and strategies Seneca made use of in his Ad Helviam, focusing on the philosopher’s role qua medicus. I will explore to what extent the acquaintance with the tradition of philosophical therapy allowed Seneca to portray himself as a ‘physician of the soul’ with moral and intellectual authority, relating his text to other works of ‘ancient psychotherapy’. The second aim is to provide a close analysis of Ad Helviam, 17, 1-18, 1, in which we find an encouragement to the study of the liberal arts and philosophy. As I intend to demonstrate, Seneca’s main concern here was to show his audience the value of a life dedicated to moral improvement, in other words, to persuade his would-be readers to convert to philosophy. The content and the rhetorical structure of the text invite comparison with other philosophical writings of protreptic intent from Greco-Roman antiquity. Such an approach will allow us to readdress not only the question of the genre of Seneca’s text but also that of its intended audience.

Sókratés androgün filozófiája

Author(s): Emese Mogyoródi / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2023

The article discusses the masculinity and femininity of Socrates and argues, in part, against accounts that, in general consider Greek philosophy misogynist, in part, against the distinction of a (masculine) ethic of principles vs. (feminine) ethic of care. For this purpose, it examines traits or facts of the life, tenets and methods of Socrates that attest to typical masculine (military heroism, prowess, endurance) and feminine (the “Socratic gospel”, midwifery, caring and service) qualities and argues that Socrates achieves a harmonic unity of these masculine and feminine attitudes or traits and thus avoids the pitfalls of the destructive archetypes of both the “tyrannical father” and the “devouring mother”. Thus, the philosophy of Socrates is neither masculine or feminine, nor gender-neutral, but androgynous. The androgynous nature of Socratic philosophy is also attested by his ethics, in which the central “principle” is precisely caring, by which he supersedes the antagonism of an ethic of principles vs. an ethic of care.

Aristotle, Usury, and Nature

Author(s): Owen Goldin / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2023

At Pol. 1.10 1258a40-b8 Aristotle condemns usury as unnatural. There has been little sustained discussion on exactly what he means. Is the usurer like Dr. Frankenstein, employing human ingenuity to unduly interfere with the external nonhuman order? Or is it human nature that is being violated? If so, how is this different from any unethical action, which fails to be in accordance with the natural dictates of reason? The goal of this paper is to achieve some clarity on these issues, on the basis of Aristotle’s more general accounts of money, politics, nature, and the unnatural.

The Pedagogical Dimension of Platonic Eros: The Education of the Lover’s and the Beloved’s Souls

Author(s): Katsarelis Evangelos / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2023

This article refers to the pedagogical dimension of Platonic eros pinpointing its characteristics and highlights that, for Plato, pedagogy is a required educational procedure to initiate both the lover’s and the beloved’s souls into knowledge and wisdom.5 Although the pedagogical aspect of the Platonic eros is already studied by scholars, such as Kerry Burch, it has not been properly shown that this is a joint pedagogical experience with a side-by-side educational impact on both members of the erotic relationship, and not just on a single member of the relationship, i.e. the beloved. Burch showed, almost two decades ago, that it is the pedagogical dimension that distinguishes Platonic eros from the pre-philosophic understanding of eros, and accords to eros -as we will see- epistemological and moral traits.6 However, although he illuminates the educational aspect of Platonic eros, he does not get into the interrelation of the lover and the beloved, as well as the pedagogical dynamics of the education of both souls, nor does he clearly state the side-by-side educational effect. This is what this essay will attempt to shed some light on, after presenting the pedagogical dimension of Platonic eros and connecting it with some more recent scholarship on Platonic educational philosophy