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Aristotle On Existential Import And Nonreferring Subjects, Scott Carson

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Much contemporary philosophy o f language has shown considerable interest in the relation between our linguistic practice and our metaphysical commitments, and this interest has begun to influence work in the history of philosophy as well. In his Categories and De interpretatione, Aristotle presents an analysis of language that can be read as intended to illustrate an isomorphism between the ontology of the real world and how we talk about that world. Our understanding of language is at least in part dependent upon our understanding of the relationships that exist among the enduring πράγματα that we come across in our …

Are Ends Subject To Deliberation In Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics? A Reply To David Wiggins, Anthony Crifasi

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

We focus upon the difficulties involved in Wiggin's interpretation of deliberation, since these form the basis for his later analyses. Wiggins grounds his thesis that ends are subject to deliberation upon the view that the various virtues are constituents of happiness. As constituents of the ultimate end itself, they would not be ordered to any higher end. Consequently, the virtues would be incommensurable with one another, since conflicts between virtues would not be resolvable in terms of any common end. It is perfectly understandable that under this view the sole arbiter of such conflicts would be “situational appreciation,” as Wiggins …

Are Ends Subject To Deliberation In Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics? A Reply To David Wiggins, Anthony Crifasi

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Conflicts between virtues would not result in the radical incommensurability described by Wiggins (having no common end at all). Such a highest end would by no means be a “universal rule” in the sense criticized by Wiggins in his reply to Allan, since particular circumstances could, as always, affect or prevent altogether the manner and means by which the end would be actualized. The “situational appreciation” of practical wisdom would therefore still play a vital role in the practical actualization of any virtue. Since the benefits of this interpretation include the elimination of radical incommensurability without appeal to universal Kantian …

Epicurus, Sententia Vaticana Xxiii, Eric A. Brown

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Sententia Vaticana 23, as usually emended, says that every friendship is choiceworthy for its own sake. I argue that this sentence should not be attributed to Epicurus. No other evidence supports the attribution of this view to Epicurus, and much other evidence counts strongly against it. It would be better to reject the emendation, so that the sentence says, in somewhat awkward but not entirely unprecedented Greek, that every friendship is by itself a virtue, or to attribute the emended sentence not to Epicurus but to the later, more timid Epicureans who, according to Cicero, conceded more value to friendship …

Sagp Newsletter 1998-99.3 November, Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Announcement of the SAGP panels with the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association in Washington DC December 28 and with the American Philological Association, also in DC, December 30.

Aristotle On Akratic Action: How Rational Is It?, Patrick Mooney

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

My answer to the question asked in the paper’s title is: akratic action-acting contrary to what one believes or knows is the best course of action open to one, or “weakness of will”—is not rational at all, according to Aristotle (here restricting myself to his discussion of akrasia in the Nicomachean Ethics, VII. 1-3). In saying that it is ‘not rational at all,’ I have in mind that there is no “intellectual,” or “cognitive,” faculty at work which so much as helps to bring about the akratic act-there is, in other words, no way in which the akrates “figures out” …

Sagp Newsletter 1998-99.5 April, Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Announcement of the SAGP panel with the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association in New Orleans, May 7, 1999.

The Receptivity Of Νοῦς In De Anima Iii.4, Joseph M. Magee

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

• For Aristotle, the faculty of thought is legitimately characterized as being receptive of its objects. To construe Aristotle as holding that it is not renders a significant part of DA 3.4 to be of highly questionable internal coherence, since it makes it seem that he is claiming that something foreign might intrude into a power that has no organ and render that power inoperable. Moreover, failure to acknowledge the intellect's receptivity renders what is clearly supposed to be an explanation (mind is unmixed because it 7 knows all things) otiose and virtually unrelated to the logic of his argument. Finally, …