Reception of Ancient Sicilian Greek experiences in political theory of Plato, Xenophon and Isocrates - a survey

Author(s): Ryszard Tokarczuk / Language(s): English Issue: 9/2014

In a book dedicated to turbulent history of Greece in fourth century Michael Scott describes ancient Sicily as “petri dish” for political experiments of Ancient Greeks. Article tries to find the evidence for such a claim can it be said that political experiences of Sicilian Greeks in fifth and fourth century were used in political theory of mainland Greeks? Such traces can be found in works of three Athenians Plato, Xenophon and Isocrates. All three had written about forms of government, including the rule of one. All had lived in the same period of time and were influenced by the same historical events. Plato is famous for his journeys to Sicily, Xenophon wrote a treaty featuring well known Syracusan tyrant from the previous century. Isocrates, in the end, had written a letter to Dionysius the Elder. Does that mean that there was some transfer of the ideas between Syracuse and the mainland Greece? Have political theory benefited in some way from the experiences of Syracusan tyranny?The article examines the works of three writers in search for traces of “experiments” that can be connected with Sicily and explicitly with Syracuse. Closer attention is shown to their opinions about ideal leaders and rulers. In each case, the background of each writer and his own reasons to write to or about Syracuse, results in something very different than one could expect from the metaphor about “petri dish”. Their knowledge of Sicily can be limited, most often however they use the general knowledge about the Sicilian tyrants to their purposes. Plato, who would have the most ambitious political project regarding the island, ends up with also the biggest failure.

Новація у праві Давнього Риму

Author(s): S. Sybiha / Language(s): English,Russian,Ukrainian Issue: 134/2016

Many of modern legal concepts have their roots in the jurisprudence of Ancient Rome. The concept of novation is one of them. That is why it is vitally important to analyze the main provisions concerning novation that were stated in ancient first-hand sources in order to improve modern theory on that matter.The concept of novation is one of the classic issues in the realm of law of obligations. Thus much attention was paid to it, and especially to the treatment of novation in Ancient Rome. The problem of novation was addressed in the writings of such scholars as Yu. Baron, K. von Czyhlarz, H. Dernburg,D. V. Dozhdyev, D. D. Hrimm, J. A. Pokrovs’kyy, B. Windscheid, and others.The main objective of the paper is to provide an overview of the main provisions stated in ancient Roman first-hand sources on the matter of novation and to suggest some practical implications that might be entailed from those provisions.In Ancient Rome novation is deemed to be a substitution of one obligation with another, or, in other words, a transformation of debt into some new obligation. The conclusion is made that both the primary and the new obligation had to be unilateral. Thus the author states that bilateral obligation was not able to be turned into unilateral one through the novation. Also the elements of the novation are defined. They are: (a) the existence and validity of the former obligation; (b) the existence and validity of the new obligation; (c) the difference between the former and the new obligation; (d) clearly an undoubtedly expressed intention of the parties to renew the obligation. Special attention is paid to the problem of novation under some special condition. The legal consequences of invalidity of the former or new obligation are also discussed.Despite the seeming similarity of the definitions of novation in Ancient Rome and in modern jurisprudence, the Roman concept of novation was much broader, especially because it encompassed the substitution of parties and the transformation of the obligation due to commencement of action.

Put grčke filozofije od Edese (484.) do Toleda (1150.)

Author(s): Marijan Cipra / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 20/2015

Svoje bih izlaganje započeo s dva pitanja, koja na prvi pogled ne bi morala stajati u uzajamnoj vezi. Jedno je pitanje historijsko-filološke naravi i odnosi se na klasičnu grčku filozofiju u cjelini, drugo je pitanje sistematske naravi i odnosi se na Aristotelovu podjelu filozofije.

МАКРОБИЙ КОММЕНТАРИЙ НА «СОН СЦИПИОНА»

Author(s): Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2015

Translation made on the publication: Ambrosii Theodosii Macrobii Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis, ed. I. Willis

ЭМПЕДОКЛ О ДЫХАНИИ

Author(s): Anna Afonasina / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2015

In Fr. B 100 DK Empedocles famously compares the principle of breathing with this of clepsydra. This simile provoked a scholarly controversy. The main question is what kind of breathing Empedocles describes – the breathing through the skin or the breathing through the mouth and nostrils? In this article I consider various solutions to the problem, suggested by different scholars (Powell 1923, Last 1924, Furley 1957, Booth 1960, Bollack 1965, O’Brien 1970), and incline to accept the idea that Empedocles describes a form of breathing through the skin with a qualification that the skin in question is the outer membrane of the respiratory apparatus rather than the outer covering of the living body, as it was previously thought. This article is the first part of the future analysis of Empedocles’ views on physical mechanisms of living beings and their sense perceptions.

АРИСТОТЕЛЬ И АЛЕКСАНДР АФРОДИСИЙСКИЙ О РОСТЕ И РАСТУЩЕМ

Author(s): Valery V. Petroff / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2015

The article investigates the tradition of discussions focusing on growth and growing started by Aristotle and continued by Alexander of Aphrodisias, including the polemics concerning the identity of indiviual’s changing body. It is shown that the questions of individual identity discussed already by Epicharmus and Plato, are treated in Aristotle in terms of the phenomenon of growth. In the De generatione et corruptione Aristotle argues that growth, being quantitative change, differs from the coming-to-be and qualitative alteration. What retains in the changing body is its eidos, which is compared with elastic pipe (aulos) imposing form on the water flowing through it. The related arguments from Alexander of Aphrodisias’ discussions of growth and growing are under consideration. According to Alexander, eidos, as an unchangeable nature (due to the fact that it preserves its identity) may be subject of accidental changes (in this case, it varies in size). The author indicates relevant doctrinal and terminological parallels between Aristotle and Alexander.

ДОСТИЖИМА ЛИ ЦЕЛЬ ФИЛОСОФСКОГО ПОИСКА?

Author(s): Nadezhda Volkova / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2015

A Review of Karl Albert, On the Meaning of the Philosophy according to Plato. Trans. from the German into Russian and introduction by M. E. Bulanenko. Vladivostok: Far Eastern Federal University Press, 2012. 120 pp. (Bibliotheca of Philosophy 35). This review focuses on the book by K. Albert On the Meaning of the Philosophy according to Plato (1989). The title of this book reflects its main theme. What is Philosophy according to Plato? What is the object of it? Where does it take its origin and where is the end of philosophical path? This is the range of questions that are answered by the author. The purpose of his study, which was successfully achieved, is to clarify the meaning of Plato’s philosophy. K. Albert argues that according to Plato philosophy is not an infinite and fundamentally unsatisfied desire. At the final stage of philosophical path philosopher find him- or herself in a completely new realm of being, which is described by Plato as a divine and immortal area. The author concludes that the path of philosophy comes from the multiplicity to a certain limit, to the ultimate knowledge of the One. The author refers to the study of K. Gaiser and H. Krämer, to whom he dedicated his book. K. Gaiser and H. Krämer are the founders of the so-called Tübingen school, the main premise of which was a desire to reconstruct Plato’s philosophy as a single metaphysical system. K. Albert refers to that interpretation of the theory of ideas, from which follows that Plato is not talking about two stages of knowledge – things and ideas, but about three stages – things, ideas, and the One. Then the One, according to K. Albert corresponds to three higher ideas – these of Good, Beauty and Being. Interpreting Plato in this way he brings him closer to the Neoplatonists, such as Plotinus.

ΜΥΘΟΣ VERSUS ΛΟΓΟΣ И «УМИРАЮЩИЕ ФИЛОСОФЫ» В «ФЕДОНЕ» (57–64B)

Author(s): Irina Protopopova / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1/2016

The article offers an interpretation of Plato's Phaedo based on a new reading of the main themes of the dialogue. The author believes that the so-called theory of Forms and the proofs of immortality of the soul are used here by Plato mainly with a view to examine the questions of “simple unity” and interaction of opposites; in this, the Phaedo appears a kind of introduction to the Parmenides, Republic, Sophist, and Timaeus. However, the purported examination is presented in the form of a “dialectical dialogue” (according to classification of Aristotle's Topics), whose main task is pedagogical, i.e. the point here is not to present conclusive evidence in favor of the immortality of the soul, but to demonstrate the ways by which we can reason about it. Thus, in the context of the above substantial subject matter, two methods of philosophizing, “dogmatic” and “dialectical” ones, are being opposed, the socalled “genuine philosophers” (a collective image with explicit reference to the Pythagoreans) representing in the dialogue the dogmatic mode of philosophy. The main methodological basis of the article is the “dramatic approach”, which demands not to limit oneself to mere isolation of philosophical positions in the dialogue but to pay close attention to their contexts, the idiosyncrasies of Socrates’ interlocutors and their replicas, to various “nonphilosophical” details, etc. Two samples of implementing this approach along the lines of the substantial interpretation of the dialogue suggested above are given in the article, focusing on the relationship between μῦθος and λόγος, and on implicit characteristics of Simmias and Cebes in the Phaedo's “prologue” (57–64b).

СТРАСБУРГСКИЙ ПАПИРУС ЭМПЕДОКЛА О РЕКОНСТРУКЦИИ ТЕКСТА И ЗАДАЧАХ НА БУДУЩЕЕ

Author(s): Anna Afonasina / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1/2016

The recent surge of interest in the Empedoclean philosophy is connected with a discovery of the previously unknown fragments of his poem in the structure of the Strasbourg papyrus. A new edition advanced by A. Martin and O. Primavesi has appeared in 1999. Before the eyes of many scholars has arisen a fresh picture of the Empedoclean great work. Some authors evaluate this fact as the beginning of the whole epoch in studying of the poem (or poems) by Empedocles, others do not incline to overstate its importance (P. Curd, for instance). The present work is dedicated in the first place to the problem of reconstruction of the new fragments and to the arguments in favor of their proper placing relative to the early-known ones. We will trace the process of the poem’s renaissance. This article opens the number of future studies, dedicated to different questions in studying of the Empedocles’ thought arisen in connection with the recently discovered fragments. I hope that the paper will be useful for Russian scholars, since no study on the Strasbourg papyrus has appeared in Russian yet.

ПРИСКИАН ЛИДИЙСКИЙ О СНЕ И СНОВИДЕНИЯХ (SOLUTIONES AD CHOSROEM 2, 3)

Author(s): Eugene Abdullaev / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1/2016

Chapters 2–3 of the Solutiones ad Chosroem of Priscian of Lydia addressed the questions of the Persian king Chosroes I on the nature of sleeping and dreams. An introductory article reviews the main sources of this part of the Solutiones: three small Aristotle’s oneirologic treatises, the On sleep and dreams by Theophrastus and the Symmikta Zetemata by Porphyrios. It also reviews the possible links of the chapters to the oneirologic speculations in the Persian religion and court’s cult. The article is supplemented with a commented Russian translation of the relevant chapters of the treatise.

„Skoro tak czynią, czyż nie są straszni w oczach bogów?” – wędrowni specjaliści rytualni w oczach autora De morbo sacro

Author(s): Przemysław Biernat / Language(s): Polish,Latin Issue: 6/2013

Hac in dissertatiuncula explanare conati sumus, quo modo sacrificuli et vates vagabundi descripti sint ab auctore ignoto Hippocratico in suo opere De morbo sacro, epilepsi sanandae dedicato. Brevem introductionem capitulum sequitur, in quo ipsius Hippocratici opiniones, quae ad naturam huius morbi necnon deorum pertinent, tractantur. Itaque Hippocraticus noster putavit hunc morbum false sacrum apellatum esse, quia omnes morbi partim divini et partim humani sunt neque est ullus divinior quam alii. Si autem sacrificuli et vates iactant se arcanam habere scientiam et sacris quibusdam deos constringere posse, eodem deos esse negant, quia homo solum rerum humanarum potens sit. In capitulo subsequenti in examen vocata sunt nomina, quae auctor Hippocraticus vatibus imposuit, praecipue autem usus nominum μάγος et καθαρτής apud Graecos. Ex hac analysi concludi potest magum vatem pravum significasse, purificatoris autem nomen et professionem magno in numero a Graecis habita esse. Magi cum purificatoribus coniuncti sunt ab auctore ut notionem purificationis quasi obnigrescerent et quod prius neque insolitum neque externum erat – vere antiquissimo more agebatur – nunc maximae esse impietatis putaretur.

Quo modo pronominatio in Plinii Minoris Panegyrico in Traianum adhibita sit

Author(s): Andrzej Kuźma / Language(s): Polish,Latin Issue: 6/2013

Idąc za wskazówkami autora Retoryki do Herenniusza i Kwintyliana, Pliniusz Młodszy stosuje antonomazję zarówno, by ganić, jak i chwalić. Do władców panujących przed Trajanem niemal zawsze odnosi się sceptycznie, czego poniekąd wymagano od autora panegiryku cesarskiego. Z upodobaniem sięga wtedy po antonomazję, by nadać wypowiedzi aluzyjnego tonu i nie przywoływać imion cesarzy, takich jak skazany na damnatio memoriae Domicjan. Dzięki umiejętnie dobranym antonomazjom Pliniusz może podkreślić swój polemiczny stosunek do znienawidzonych tyranów. Rzadziej występują antonomazje w stosunku do „dobrych” władców: Nerwy i Trajana; najczęściej w formie czcigodnych tytułów, czasami przypominają o ich dokonaniach. W Panegiryku spotykamy również antonomazje z użyciem zaimków aliquis, alius; przypisanie ich konkretnym osobom nastręcza więcej trudności. Zamiarem autora Panegiryku było nadanie im ogólniejszego charakteru i pozostawienie odbiorcom dzieła swobody interpretacji.

“Dva” Aristoksenova lica

Author(s): Željko Škuljević / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 01+02/2014

Uncontested musicological merits of the creator (thinker) from Taranto don’t “save” him from a large number of tendentious and shameful writings based not on facts but on mere speculations. Regardless of scarce resources there is no doubt that the Aristoksen is a creator of biography as a literary and philosophical genre, peripatetic and disciple of Aristotle. Deifying Plato, a large number of so-called “researchers”, favoring inherited opinion more than serious research, considered his biographical seeing of Socrates scandalous. As this is not the case with the “Life of Pythagoras”, one gets the impression that the Aristoksen had more than one “face” and that Plato’s Socrates is only one true Plato (at best it is one of possibilities). On the basis of Aristoksen’s presentation in the Life of Socrates we tried to convincingly prove the above mentioned possibility with this text.

Prikaz

Author(s): Željko Škuljević / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 06/1996

Günter Figal, Sokrates. Beck, München, 1995.

Drugi rozdział siódmej księgi Etyki eudemejskiej (EE VII.2 1235b13-1238b14)

Author(s): Arystoteles Stagiryta / Language(s): Polish Issue: 61/2016

Komentarz do przekładu wybranych tekstów filozoficznych Wiktoryna: Jak w Bogu możliwe jest zrodzenie? Manifestacja Boga jako Formy

Author(s): Jacek Ruszczyński / Language(s): Polish Issue: 61/2016

In this commentary I intend to present a problem with which Victorinusis concerned – how is Begetting possible in God? Latin Author considers the problem asa philosopher rather than a theologian. We can say that we are dealing with the philosophy of God.

ESEJ O IRONII FILOZOFICZNEJ TEODORA METOCHITY

Author(s): / Language(s): Polish,Greek, Modern (1453-) Issue: 24/2014

This is a translation of Theodore Metochites’s essay concerning philosophical irony from the Hypomnematismoi kai semeioseis gnomikai (Annotations and gnomic notes), an excellent collection of 120 texts on history, literature and thinking, containing the most extensive commentary on Aristotelian philosophy of the late Byzantine period. The essay on philosophical irony – never translated in Poland – is a commentary on the Dialogues of Plato, which had an important influence on the Platonic renaissance of the 15th century. Metochites, growing up in the cultural center of Constantinople, was a prolific writer, leaving behind works of rhetoric, poems, a literary testament, a collection of philosophical texts and two works on astronomy.

Dijaloška forma Platonovog mišljenja

Author(s): Hans J. Horn / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 07/1996

Pitanje dijaloške forme Platonovog mišljenja moglo bi se ubrojati u najtamnije zagonetke koje nam zadaje njegova filozofija i koje još uvijek iščekuju rješenja. Ali uprkos obimnim i raznovrsnim nastojanjima naučnika od ranga kao što su Hans von Arnim. Max Pohlenz i Paul Friedlander, teško da je razvijenije poznavanje one druge osobenosti platonskog dijaloga čijem rasvjetljavanju ovaj pokušaj želi dati svoj doprinos. Pri tome mislim na uvrštavanje dijalektičkog logosa u jednu scenu visoke životne neposrednosti.

Da li je Petrić bio sofist?

Author(s): Željko Škuljević / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 03+04/2001

Kada Platon u Sofistu kaže da je “teško i mučno uloviti rod sofista (218 d) onda se on, ne htijući, negativno određuje od brzopletih i jednoznačnih interpretacija. Nije s toga čudno što, shvatajući kompleksnost (za)datog, sugeriše Teetetu da, ponajprije, okušaju metodu istraživanja na drugom lakšem predmetu... Bez obzira, dakle, što ih izrijekom naziva majstorima u protivurječenju (225b), šesti oblik u kojem se manifestuje sofističko umijeće, iako prijeporno, kao da protivurječi Platonovoj osnovnoj nakani.

Εἶδος и ποίησις у Платоновој филозофији

Author(s): Nikola Tanasić / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 26/2016

The author attempts to investigate the relation between concepts of εἶδος and ποίησις (form and creation) in the philosophical works of Plato. Although these terms have a deeply rooted connection within the latter “platonist” theory of art, the two аrе not systematically connected with each other within Plato’s dialogues. The philosopher himself shows a significant lack of interest in the ontological mechanisms tying forms with products of creation in a “downwards” direction, as opposed to an “upwards” direction of gaining knowledge starting from empirical objects and reaching out towards the forms. The relation is discussed in different contexts, starting from the most „down-to-earth“ interpretation of ποίησις as “poetry”, and then taking into consideration the concepts of “divine inspiration” from the Ion, the “shift from non- being into being” from the Symposium, as well as the complicated metaphysical and theological implications of creation from the Timaeus and Book X of the Republic. These different accounts on the concepts of form and creation within different dialogues do not give us a “classical platonist theory” of “creation as formation”, but do seem to lay all the necessary foundations for such theories in later philosophy, especially Aristotle’s. Also, these different accounts all seem to be closely tied to Plato’s concept of the Divine, more often than not using a notion of a god (be that the “Creator of Ideas” from the Republic, the Demiurge from the Timaeus, or simply a Muse from Ion) as a the necessary link between these different ontological and metaphysical domains.