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Cephalus And Euthydemus, Matthew Carter Cashen

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Cephalus makes only a brief appearance in Plato’s Republic, but his conversation with Socrates has generated remarkable disagreement: while some think Plato’s portrayal of the rich old metic is largely positive, many, including Julia Annas, Peter Steinberger, and Mark Gifford, argue that beneath Plato’s superficially sympathetic portrait lies a subtext of condemnation and malice. In this paper, I reject the later interpretation, defending Cephalus against two common charges: first, that Plato finds Cephalus’ views on the relationship between money and virtue morally outrageous, and next, that Plato exploits readers’ background knowledge of the historical Cephalus’ tragic fate to employ the …

Sagp Newsletter 2011/12.2 East Philol, Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Sagp/Ssips 2011 Program, Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Sagp Fordham Abstracts 72611, Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Aristotle On Truth, Facts, And Relations: Categories, De Interpretatione, Metaphysics Gamma, Blake Hestir

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Aristotle’s conception of truth looks like this:

TA-Schema: ‘S is P’ is true ↔ S is P.

TA-Schema(n): ‘S is not P’ is true ↔ S is not P.

By Tdf Aristotle need only mean that stating with respect to some property P that is in the case some subject S that P is in the case of S, is what amounts to truth. More precisely then for Aristotle the TA-Schema would amount to:

TA-Schema*: ‘S is P’ is true ↔ the universal P is instantiated in the case of S. TASchema( n)*: ‘S is not P’ is true ↔ …

Climate And Teleology In Aristotle's Physics Ii.8, Yancy Hughes Dominick

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Weather, including rain, happens as a result of natural and teleological processes, but that is compatible with the claim that rain falls not for the sake of something, but of necessity, and any benefit from the rain comes by chance. Aristotle need not embrace the conclusion, therefore, that it rains for the sake of the crops. Climate, on the other hand, is regular and beneficial. If the disjunct from Physics II.8 holds, climate ought to be for the sake of something even while rain is not.

Sagp Newsletter 2010/11.3 Pacific, Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Justice As Self-Transmitting Power And Just Acts In Republic 4, Andrew Payne

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

In his influential paper “A Fallacy in Plato’s Republic,” David Sachs charged Plato with committing a fallacy of irrelevancy. Plato’s Socrates is asked to show that justice understood as acting in conformity with conventional morality, so-called vulgar justice, is beneficial to the just person. Socrates actually demonstrates something else, namely that psychic justice, a state of internal harmony between parts of the soul, is beneficial to its possessor. A generation of Plato scholarship has reacted to Sachs’ reading of the Republic by using discussions of moral psychology and education elsewhere in the dialogue to bridge the gap between psychic justice …

Sagp Newsletter 2010/11.2 Central, Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Shame And Conflict - Lysis's Philosophical Akrasia, L. Albert Joosse

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

We will see a conflict within Lysis between his newly stimulated love for wisdom and his habitual self-restraint. Born and raised an aristocrat, Lysis experiences conflict when his mind is enticed outside its wonted limits. What he experiences is, in fact, shame of himself: he notices that part of him falls short of the ideal he has been brought up with and to which part of him still adheres. His is a philosophical akrasia.

Making Free Trade Fair, Nicole Hassoun

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

Philosophers have done very little work on what makes trade fair. Perhaps the most extensive discussion is Malgorzata Kurjanska and Mathias Risse’s article, “Fairness in Trade II: export subsidies and the fair trade movement.”2 In their article, Kurjanska and Risse consider the case for trade subsidies and the Fair Trade movement. They suggest that it is not permissible for developed countries to give their producers subsidies because doing so does not strike an appropriate balance between meeting the needs of the global poor and protecting domestic workers (Kurjanska and Risse, 2008: 34). Kurjanska and Risse also argue that the case …

Free Trade, Poverty, And Inequality, Nicole Hassoun

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

Anyone familiar with The Economist knows the mantra: Free trade will ameliorate poverty by increasing growth and reducing inequality. This paper suggests that problems underlying measurement of poverty, inequality, and free trade provide reason to worry about this argument. Furthermore, the paper suggests that better evidence is necessary to establish that free trade is causing inequality and poverty to fall. Experimental studies usually provide the best evidence of causation. So, the paper concludes with a call for further research into the prospects for ethically acceptable experimental testing of free trade's impact on poverty and inequality. Although the paper is unabashedly …

The Anthropocentric Advantage? Environmental Ethics And Climate Change Policy, Nicole Hassoun

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

Environmental ethicists often criticize liberalism. For, many liberals embrace anthropocentric theories on which only humans have non-instrumental value. Environmental ethicists argue that such liberals fail to account for many things that matter or provide an ethic sufficient for addressing climate change. These critics suggest that many parts of nature -- non-human individuals, other species, ecosystems and the biosphere have a kind of value beyond what they contribute to human freedom (or other things of value). This article suggests, however, that if environmental ethics are inclusive and also entail that concern for some parts of nature does not always trump concern …

Introduction To The Transaction Edition, The Genesis Of Winspear5s Thought, Anthony Preus

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Paternalist Deception In The Lotus Sūtra: A Normative Assessment, Charles Goodman

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

The Lotus Sūtra repeatedly asserts the moral permissibility, in certain circumstances, of deceiving others for their own benefit. The examples it uses to illustrate this view have the features of weak paternalism, but the real-world applications it endorses would today be considered strong paternalism. We can explain this puzzling feature of the text by noting that according to Mahayana Buddhists, normal, ordinary people are so irrational that they are relevantly similar to the insane. Kant's determined anti-paternalism, by contrast, relies on an obligation to see others as rational, which can be read in several ways. Recent work in psychology provides …