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Even in Logic, Laws may Admit of Exceptions - A Survey of some Important Medieval Insights

Author(s): Wolfgang Lenzen / Language(s): English Issue: Suppl./2024

In this paper it is shown that many medieval logicians recognized that certain ‘laws’ hold only under certain restrictions. In particular, the basic principles of so-called connexive logic – as they had been put forward by Aristotle, Boethius, and Abelard – hold only for possible, or self-consistent, antecedents, or for non-necessary, or contingent, consequents. A similar restriction applies to the ‘law’ – possibly put forward by Chrysippus – that each proposition is compatible with itself.

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On Paraconsistent Logic, its Reception in East and West, and on Being a Philosopher

Author(s): Graham Priest,Jonas Dagys,Pranciškus Gricius / Language(s): English Issue: Suppl./2024

Interview with Graham Priest by Jonas Dagys and Pranciškus Gricius.

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Ammianus Marcellinus and Three-Dimensional Rainbows

Author(s): Ilia Rushkin / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2024

We examine Ammianus Marcellinus' scientific digression on the rainbow, where the rainbow colors are listed in an unusual order. We suggest an explanation for the order and conclude that, according to a scientific theory current at the time, the rainbow was viewed as a three-dimensional arrangement in the sky, with colored bands positioned at different distances from the observer. This perspective aligns with the rejection of the Aristotelean rainbow theory, which is an evolution of ideas observable in its intermediate stages in Seneca’s “Natural Questions” and in the commentary on Aristotle’s “Meteorology” written by Alexander of Aphrodisias.

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Themis vindicates Thetis

Author(s): Vasileios D. Spanos / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2024

Based on approach, which stems from neoanalysis and intertextuality, the paper aims to highlight the suitability of Achilles’ afterlife place through escalation of alternatives. Beginning with the Underworld, the research goes on with the Elysian Fields, the Islands of the Blessed and Mount Olympus and ends up with Leuke Island, presenting an updated information about it, carrying out a comparative analysis and justifying it as the most appropriate afterlife place for the hero via a holistic context whose focal points are cult, caliber, mythological and symbolic reasons.

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Аристотель о причинах сна

Author(s): Svetlana Mesyats / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2024

For more than half a century, scholars have been debating how many causes of sleep were discussed by Aristotle in the treatise On Sleep and Wakefulness (De Somno et Vigilia). Some commentators believed that Aristotle did not offer a formal explanation of sleep, others argued that sleep has no material cause, still others do not find either effective or final cause of it. The controversy is provoked by the very course of reasoning in the treatise, in the middle of which Aristotle promises to investigate all four causes of the sleep, but further on doesn’t say a word about either its form or matter. As for the efficient cause of sleep, it also remains highly controversial. Scholars disagree as to what physiological change in the animal body makes the central organ of perception incapable of perceiving – whether it is due to the heart being cooled, or warmed, or compressed by blood in a mixed condition. In the present paper I intend to propose a new interpretation of Aristotle’s theory of sleep in the light of recent discussions about the causes of sleep in Parva naturalia. To achieve this goal, I examine Aristotle’s explanatory method in the De anima, focusing on the question of whether sleep along with other living being’s activities involving soul and body (λόγοι ἔνυλοι), can be explained in terms of formal, final, material and effective causes. Particular attention is paid to the role of material and effective causes in the physiological explanation of sleep. While reconstructing Aristotle’s explanatory method I clarify the structure of the argument in the De Somno and resolve some of the problems concerning the unity of this work.

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Эпикур о страстях

Author(s): Vladimir Brovkin / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2024

The article deals with the question of Epicurus' attitude to the passions. It is established that the doctrine of passions plays an important role in the philosophy of Epicurus. It is shown that Epicurus sees the greatest danger to peace of mind in fears of the forces of nature, in love passion and greed. Therefore, these passions must be completely eliminated. Anger, according to Epicurus, should be restrained, because in some cases it can be natural. Epicurus approves of the pleasant sadness of remembering dead friends and compassion for loved ones. Epicurus also welcomes the joy and even rejoicing associated with spiritual goods. Thus, on the question of passions, Epicurus managed to develop a position that differs from both the Stoic doctrine of dispassion (apathy) and the peripatetic doctrine of moderation in passions (metriopathy).

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Иное и Ничто в платоновской апофатике: к дисскуссиям о диалоге «Парменид»

Author(s): Aleksey Bogomolov,Roman Svetlov / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2024

The article is devoted to the problem of the correlation of apophatic issues in the dialogues "Sophist" and "Parmenides". The article substantiates the position that the doctrine of non-being, presented in the Sophist, is one of the foundations of the first two hypotheses of Parmenides. An important point in the Sophist is the distinction between the other (ἕτερον) and the nature of the other (θατέρου φύσιν), which serves as a prerequisite for the dialectic of the one and many in the second hypothesis. It is suggested that the other six hypotheses are determined by the understanding of the other in the Sophist.

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Другая история античной географии?

Author(s): Dmitry A. Shcheglov / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2024

The article aims to assess the extent to which our understanding of the history of ancient geography (defined as a list of authors who contributed to it) is shaped by extant sources, and how different this history could have appeared, if we account for their limitations and selectivity? Consequently, an analysis of sources and references to authors of lost works yields divergent outcomes. Source analysis demonstrates that our knowledge of ancient geography is largely conditioned by random factors and thus must have significantly differed from its ancient perception. Conversely, citation analysis reveals that we know the majority of geographers who were famous in antiquity. This divergence can be explained, in part, by the tendency to cite the famous authors instead of those whose information was actually used. Comparing historiographic lists of geographers from different sources reveals more discrepancies than similarities between them, indicating that its version from our primary sources (Eratosthenes, Strabo, Stephanus of Byzantium) lacks widespread support. However, a consistent pattern emerges: the primary sources tend to draw upon the most famous authors and vice versa. A kind of “stress test” allows us to assess how sensitive our knowledge of the prominent geographers is to the loss of individual sources and, conversely, how many more geographers could have been included among them if better represented by sources. The overall conclusion is that alterations to our source pool would significantly impact our evaluations of most geographers but have minimal effect on their total number. Lastly, it is argued that the period in the history of geography from Strabo to Ptolemy lies in our “blind spot,” being the least illuminated by sources yet concealing some crucial missing links.

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Аксиология гладкого и корявого: интерпретация визуальной философемы из «Федона»

Author(s): Nikola D. LEČIĆ / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2024

The article is devoted to the identification and description of a speculative innovation that was clearly formed in Plato, which we designate as “the axiology of the smooth and the rugged.” According to this speculative innovation, smoothness is seen as a sign of perfection — as understood by Plato and the philosophers who influenced him — and the opposite characteristics of smoothness, such as ruggedness or roughness, as the absence of this perfection. The “axiology of the smooth and the rugged” is first explicitly stated in the passage about the “true Earth” from the “Phaedo”, as a part of Socrates’ visualization of the afterworld awaiting philosophizing souls after death (Pl. Phaed. 110a–e). The fantastic landscape from the “Phaedo” contains descriptions of smooth, transparent and beautifully colored stones and mountains, as well as a description of the Earth as a “sphere of twelve pentagons” (dodecahedron), equally beautifully coloured. The article undertakes an analysis of all of the listed visual signs of perfection, with an emphasis on their connection with smoothness. Despite the fact that highlighting the special status of smoothness is Plato’s innovation, we present it as part of a more ancient speculative field, which include (i) the special status of the “perfectly rounded Sphere” in Parmenides, (ii) Heraclitean ontologization of precious materials (gold) and (iii) early Pythagorean ideas related to the special status of the dodecahedron. A distinction is made between this field and the ideas of Empedocles and Democritus that do not belong to it. All visual elements of the “true Earth” are presented as visual philosophy and their interpretation as “metaphors” is criticized. At the end, an outline is made of possible applications of the “axiology of smooth and rugged” in the interpretation of various phenomena in the history of philosophy and visual culture. Although there are countless interpretations of the “Phaedo”, analyzes of the visual component of the myth of the afterlife are very rare, and among them there is not a single one that draws attention to the importance of smoothness. Accordingly, our analysis is being done for the first time.

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Клеомед и Ван Чун о размерах Земли

Author(s): Dimitri Panchenko / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2024

In the works of Wang Chong and Cleomedes there are coinciding numerical parameters related to the determination of the size of the Earth. In Wang Chong, the numerical data appear partly arbitrary, partly insufficiently substantiated. In the corresponding passage of Cleomedes, the argument pretends to be scientific, but in fact turns out to be internally contradictory and almost illogical. Painstaking reconstruction of the reasonable core in Cleomedes’ account reveals that the numerical parameters given by him go back to a certain early system of Greek astronomy. This system assumed a flat Earth, the movement of the luminaries only above the Earth, the principle of the limited spread of sunlight; it employed the measurement of distances along the meridian based on the proportional change in the length of the shadow and the use of the archaic stadium of 100 single steps. It is about the system of Anaximenes and his followers. In Chinese material, this system is known as the gai tian, and I repeatedly argued its Greek origin. Wang Chong is also an adherent of the gai tian. All this makes it very likely – but still not proven – that the numerical parameters presented by Wang Chong came to him ultimately from Greek sources.

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Аналогия, диалектика, миф и катастрофа у Платона

Author(s): Konstantin Shevtsov / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2024

Plato defines dialectics as a transition from many to one and from one to many, as well as an ascent from limited premises to a non-presupposed beginning. The problem is posed by the fact that the transition that Plato talks about is essentially a transition from the corporeal to the incorporeal and from the human to the divine. This means that we cannot have a simple method of this transition and we have to look for help in other approaches that Plato also uses. In the article, we take as the subject of analysis Plato's way of using analogy and myth. In a number of Plato's dialogues (Republic, Phaedrus), one can see an appeal to the analogy of cognition with the transition from a flat to a three-dimensional space. Mythological narratives about the catastrophe that happened to the cosmos in the past (Politician, Timaeus) allow us to assume the interaction of the cosmos with the divine space, which has a different dimension than a three-dimensional body. The image of a three-dimensional body on a plane inevitably carries a lot of contradictions that are removed in three-dimensional space, and also exactly the contradictions of the corporeal cosmos can be removed in the surrounding body of the hyperourania region, which can only be seen by the disembodied gaze of the mind. Thus, analogy and myth are not separated from dialectics, but, on the contrary, are invoked by it as a necessary complement that gives support to the mind for the transition from human knowledge to pure knowledge of things in themselves. This knowledge changes the thinker himself; the article shows how the figures of thinkers in Plato's dialogues change depending on whether he acts as a researcher or someone who has already acquired higher knowledge.

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Диалог «Феаг» и апории образования

Author(s): Georgy Morgunov / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2024

The article examines Plato's dialogue Theages. By meticulously preserving the dialogue, the author concludes that various perplexities found in other Plato dialogues, such as the Symposium and Theaetetus, can be unraveled. The interconnection between them becomes apparent in the shared interpretation of concepts like daimonion in the Theages, Eros in the Symposium, and the nameless god in the Theaetetus. This deity influences Socrates' approach to wisdom, suggesting that the pursuit of philosophy is the art of love. Synousia, defining Socrates' relationship with his students and encompassing, among other things, erotic practices, is crucial for such training. The author proposes that a careful examination of the Symposium and Theaetetus can elucidate the enigmatic fragments in the Theages, thereby acknowledging the educational and disciplinary system of antiquity reflected in these dialogues.

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Platonism and the Natural World: How Far do Plato or Later Platonists Appreciate the Beauties of Nature?

Author(s): John Dillon / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2025

Does the philosopher Plato, despite his elevation to a supreme position in the intelligible world of the Beautiful itself, or the Idea of Beauty, really exhibit any appreciation of the beauties of nature, or Natural Beauty? The omission of any mention of the beauties of Nature in Diotima’s ladder of ascent to the Beautiful Itself in the Symposium leads me to propose that Plato, in line with the sensibility of Greeks of the Classical period in general, does not possess what would later be termed an ‘Arcadian’ view of the beauties of the natural world; and even in the later Platonist tradition there is little evidence of such sensibility.

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Плиний Младший, речь Диотимы и типы литературного бессмертия

Author(s): Ilya KOLESNIKOV / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1/2025

The idea of literary immortality first appears in the Homeric epics: the heroes live on in glory. Further tradition develops this motif – we must imitate our heroes or ancestors, because only in this way will they be given due honor. But another (historical) understanding of literary immortality is also developing; it aims to save the past from oblivion, not to influence the present (written culture, as opposed to oral tradition, thinks in this way). Plato takes the position of “poetic” immortality in this matter, but he considered poetry in an ethical context and seeks to select poets who have the right to educate the youth. In the Hellenistic-Roman era, the semantic accents shift, and now the author himself claims literary immortality. The idea of the author’s immortality is mixed with the usual immortality in glory and with the religious immortality of the soul (the writer becomes a minister of the muses). Pliny the Younger’s position is limited neither to two “pure” types of literary immortality (“poetical” or “historical”), nor two “mixed” types (immortality in glory and immortality of a muses’ minister). Pliny outlined a new understanding of literary immortality – immortality as an exemplary author, as Cicero was for him.

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О душе: платонизм множественности в контексте натурфилософии Марсилио Фичино

Author(s): Denis Shalaginov / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1/2025

The article is devoted to the consideration of the so-called Platonism of multiplicity in connection with the tendency in philosophy of recent decades to revaluate “non-modern” modes of existence, thinking and knowledge. The most important aspect of this revaluation is the rejection of Cartesian dualism (as a philosophical “symbol” of the modern era) in favor of anti-substantialist thought based on the conceptualization of the multiplicity of relations. Following this theoretical line, the authors identify key features of modern thinking and attempt to find an alternative to the modern (Cartesian/Kantian) concept of the subject in Platonic philosophy (in its Renaissance interpretation). For this purpose, the authors first of all clarify their approach to Platonism, construed not as a heritage of the metaphysical past, but as the very potentiality of philosophy itself. In support of this interpretation, various versions of the reactualization of Plato’s ideas in contemporary philosophy are given, associated with the names of J. Patočka, A. Badiou, and I. H. Grant. Following a brief consideration of their “Platonisms,” and clarifying the key concept for this article, “Platonism of multiplicity,” this concept is applied to the Renaissance Platonism of Marsilio Ficino in order to examine in detail the natural philosophical concept of the soul that he developed. Drawing on extensive research material, the authors describe the constitution of the soul as Ficino understood it, and demonstrate in what sense this concept, repressed by modernity, is an alternative to Cartesian and/or Kantian subjectivity, and explain why the task of current philosophical thought is to provide the conditions for its return.

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«О Стиксе» Порфирия Тирского (перевод и комментарии)

Author(s): Alexei Garadja / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1/2025

The publication presents a commented Russian translation of Porphyry of Tyre’s (ca. 234 – ca. 305) treatise On the Styx (Περὶ Στυγός), which belongs to the group of his works dealing with Homeric poems. The best known of these is his fully preserved treatise On the Cave of the Nymphs (Περὶ τοῦ ἐν Ὀδυσσείᾳ τῶν νυμφῶν ἄντρου), while the most extensive are his partially preserved commentaries on the Ilias and Odyssey known under the common title of the Homeric Questions (Ὁμηρικὰ ζητήματα). Finally, his treatise On the Styx is extant only in fragments, which have been preserved by a single author only, Joannes Stobaeus (fl. vth century). In the Homeric Questions, a purely philological attitude is predominant, based on Aristarchus of Samothrace’s principle of “self-interpreting” text, “explaining Homerus from Homerus (Ὅμηρον ἐξ Ὁμήρου)”, while in both treatises the allegorical interpretation of the Homeric text moves to the foreground, which entails supplying it with a philosophical, specifically Platonic, content, having to do, above all, with the understanding of human soul and its vicissitudes after death. Attention to the letter of the Homeric text, as well as to other literary phenomena is not diminished by that, though undergoes a transformation. This attitude is characteristic of other Platonists as well, from Numenius of Apamea before Porphyry to Proclus Diadochus after him. The Russian translation is based on Cristiano Castelletti’s edition of On the Styx (2006), taking into account both the standard edition of Porphyry’s fragments by Andrew Smith (1993) and the still relevant critical edition of the four books of Stobaeus’ Anthology (whence the fragments of On the Styx have been extracted) by Kurt Wachsmuth and Otto Hense (1884–1912).

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Гомеровские формулы и цитаты и неоплатоническая терминология в эпиграммах А. Ф. Лосева и А. А. Тахо-Годи С. И. Радцигу и Т. В. Васильевой на древнегреческом и латинском языках

Author(s): Tycho Davydov / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1/2025

In this article we are publishing for the first time four epigrams in Ancient Greek and Latin by Russian classicists Alexei Losev (1893–1988) and Aza Takho-Godi (born 1922), dedicated to Sergei Radzig (1882–1968) and Tatiana Vasilieva (1942–2002), who herself was a notable Neo-Latin poet. The epigrams are provided with a critical apparatus, a Russian translation and a commentary. The analysis of vocabulary and linguistic features of the epigrams revealed the use of epic formulae as well as Homeric and Horatian quotations in a light pseudo-Hellenistic spirit. Traits of Losev’s individual literary style manifest via incorporation of Neoplatonic terminology into the Homeric language of the poems.

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La importancia de Tomás de Aquino en la búsqueda filosófica de la sabiduría

Author(s): Tomasz Łach / Language(s): Spanish Issue: 1/2025

The article deals with the role of Thomas Aquinas in the philosophical search for wisdom. The author first indicates what were the origins of philosophy, how and where it was born, then shows why the pursuit of understanding knowledge is something natural for man as a rational. The author then points out that philosophy is a wisdom cognition which, although initiated out of astonishment, is not limited to it. The purpose of philosophizing is to acquire wisdom knowledge - that is, general, necessary and constant knowledge that covers all reality. Wisdom, then, is not the quantitative gathering and ordering of information. Wisdom is the intellectual ability to understand the available information that results in knowledge.Then the author shows the reasons for the breakdown of philosophy into two traditions - realism and idealism, and shows their main features and their variety. She also explains where this variety of philosophical currents came from.The main part of the article deals with the main theses of the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. The author briefly presents Aquinas's views and shows why they were groundbreaking for philosophical cognition. Then she makes a short summary in which she justifies the role of Thomas Aquinas in the search for wisdom knowledge.

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St. Thomas Aquinas’s Teaching on Love as a Component of Karol Wojtyła’s Project of Finding an Adequate Interpretation of the Love Between a Man and a Woman

Author(s): Karol Petryszak / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2025

The article presents a hitherto unknown lecture by Karol Wojtyła in 1954, discussing St. Thomas Aquinas’ teaching on love. Wojtyła juxtaposes this teaching with the philosophy of Max Scheler and unequivocally argues for a Thomistic understanding of love. In the article, I discuss how Wojtyła understood love in general after St. Thomas and then situate love between a man and a woman within its framework. The conclusion of this juxtaposition and the argumentation is that only multidimensional love between a man and a woman can adequately perfect their natures. Other relationships that mimic the complete love of a man and a woman cannot adequately perfect either side of the relationship.In addition, due to the nature of the material on which the article’s argumentation is based, historical and philosophical issues that shed significant light on the development of Wojtyla’s teaching on love – especially in the 1950s – are also presented.

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State, Culture and Religion in the Preamble of the 1997 Constitution of the Republic of Poland:Considerations in Relation to the Aristotelian-Thomistic Tradition

Author(s): Wojciech Ryba / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2025

This paper demonstrates the symbiotic, real bond between the existence of the state, culture and religion, through which a person living in a national community can strive to achieve Aristotelian eudaimonia. The expression of this bond can be found, among other things, in the solemn Preamble to the Constitution of the Republic of Poland of April 2, 1997, in which the Constituent Assembly, establishing the very foundation of the state’s order, referred to God, emphasizing the importance of Poland’s Christian heritage. This heritage draws its identity not from a cultural vacuum, but from the achievements of Latin civilization, which served as the building blocks that formed the long history of the Piast State, beginning in the tenth century. This paper is therefore intended to answer the question of whether the Third Republic, in the twenty-first century, is also a continuation of the great cultural heritage of Latin civilization.

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