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The Socratic Fallacy In The Early Dialogues, Priscilla Sakezles

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

In ‘Plato’s Euthyphro: An Analysis and Commentary’ (33), Peter Geach attributes two assumptions to Socrates which he calls the ‘Socratic Fallacy’ since its locus classicus is the early Socratic dialogues:

(A) if you know you are correctly predicating a given term ‘T,’ you must ‘know what it is to be T’ in the sense of being able to give a general criterion for a thing’s being T;

(B) it is no use to try and arrive at the meaning of‘T’ by giving examples of things that are T.

Geach claims that (B) follows from (A) because assuming (A) is true, …

The ‘Digression’ In Plato’S Theaetetus: A New Interpretation, David Levy

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

In this paper I argue that the “digression” (Tht. 172D-177C) plays a central role in Plato’s overall critique of Protagoras’s measure doctrine. Properly understood, the digression itself constitutes an argument against accepting a particular interpretation of the measure doctrine. This argument is based upon the unacceptable moral and political consequences that result from an institutional validation of extreme conventionalism. Commentators, such as Robin Waterfield and Gilbert Ryle, who dismiss this passage as pointless, and translators, such as Gwynneth Matthews, who omit the passage entirely, fail to draw the important connections among the measure doctrine, the Athenian legal system …

The Transformation Of The Investigation Of F In Plato's Dramas Of Definition, David Wolfsdorf

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

In this paper I consider which formal characteristics, if any, occur in the investigations. In addition, I am interested in whether there is a transformation of formal characteristics among the dramas of definition.

Methodologically, the paper focuses on what I call the surface claims and arguments of the text. By that I mean the explicit claims and arguments Socrates and his interlocutors make about the identity of F. This aspect of the texts is distinguished from their literary or dramatic aspects as well as any indirect claims and arguments about F, however these might occur. The neglect of the literary …

Sagp Newsletter 1999-2000.2 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 Boston, December 28, 1999, and with the American Philological Association in Dallas, December 28, 1999.

Sagp Newsletter 1999-2000.1 July, Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Announcement of the program for the 1999 SAGP/SSIPS conference in Binghamton, October 22, 23, 24, 1999.

Is There A Focal Meaning Of Being In Aristotle?, Jiyuan Yu

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

At the beginning of Metaphysics Γ Aristotle claims that there is a science which is concerned with being qua being. 'Being’ is said in many senses. Different beings are not said to be purely homonymous, but rather to be “related to one thing (πρόσ ἕν)”(1003a33- 4). G.E.L Owen translates this ττρός ἕν formula as "focal meaning", and in his paraphrase, it means that all the “senses [of ‘being’] have one focus, one common element”, or “a central sense”, so that “all its senses can be explained in terms of substance and of the sense of ‘being’ that is appropriate to …

Animal Perception In Early Stoicism: A Response To Richard Sorabji, Scott Rubarth

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

The Stoics cannot deny that animals perceive things in relation to each other things (e.g. the scent coming from that direction). The dog must minimally connect the scent a direct if we are to explain the animal following an animal's trail. And it is also true that if the animal is to act on a stimulus it must connect the stimulus with a desire or experience. The dog must connect the scent with its desire or hunger. However, I do not agree that the animal must believe that the scent is coming from a given direction or even believe that …

On Separating The Intellect From The Body: Aristotle's De Anima Iii.4, 429a10-B5, John E. Sisko

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Aristotle is clearly aware that the theory of separable intellect is not without its own difficulties. One difficulty is that of how intellect is to come to possess its objects. These objects first exist (potentially) in material things, but material things (it would seem) share no underlying generic sameness with separable (immaterial) intellect. So, upon consideration of his own account of agency and patiency, which requires that agent and patient hold something in common (see Generation and Corruption 1.7), it becomes unclear to Aristotle how it is that separable intellect, having nothing in common with anything else, is to ever …