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Full-Text Articles in Ancient Philosophy
The Tyranny Of Authority: Eternal Damnation In The Fragments Of Clement Of Alexandria?, Daniel J. Crosby
The Tyranny Of Authority: Eternal Damnation In The Fragments Of Clement Of Alexandria?, Daniel J. Crosby
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
This short paper discusses a fragment that John Potter (1715) incorrectly assigned to a hypothetical work of Clement of Alexandria called "On the soul," and how his error came to be responsible for a sharp divide in scholarship with regard to Clement's beliefs about hell and punishment after death. I conclude by suggesting that this short case study also highlights the importance of maintaining an awareness of the ideas and decisions that underlie a critical edition of a text.
Logos And Psyche In Plato's Phaedo, Jesse I. Bailey
Logos And Psyche In Plato's Phaedo, Jesse I. Bailey
Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications
In this dissertation I argue that, according to the Phaedo, the ψυχή should not be understood as a reified, quasi-physical entity which can travel to another τόπος upon separation from the body; that is, the soul should not be understood as what came to be called a “spiritual substance.” Rather, I will show that the Phaedo presents the proper ontology of the soul to be based in an understanding of its characteristic activity. I will argue that this activity is revealed to be the gathering of multiplicities (‘parts’) into the intelligible unities (‘wholes’) which we experience. This gathering occurs in …
Empirical And Dialogical Proofs Of God's Existence In Laws 10, Lewis Trelawny-Cassity
Empirical And Dialogical Proofs Of God's Existence In Laws 10, Lewis Trelawny-Cassity
The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter
Book 10 of the Laws is intended to prove that the gods exist, care for us, and are not persuaded by bribes (885b7-9). The arguments put forward concerning the gods in Book 10 are described as “our noblest and best prelude (kalliston te kai ariston prooimion) on behalf of the laws” (887c1). In this paper I want to investigate how Plato establishes the fact that nous, “god, in the correct sense, for the gods” (897b2), exists. Some scholars have noted the “empirical” character of Plato’s arguments for the existence of god in Laws 10. While empirical facts do provide an …
What Does Aristotle's Prime Mover Do?, Sarah Waterlow Broadie
What Does Aristotle's Prime Mover Do?, Sarah Waterlow Broadie
The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter
The Prime Mover of Metaphysics Lambda is the source, above all, of eternal motion in the first sphere. It may seem silly to ask 'What (according to Lambda) does the Prime Mover do?' The answer is obvious: 'He — or it — gives rise to the motion of the first sphere'. But according to a widely accepted interpretation, this is not what the Prime Mover does first and foremost; instead, the Mover essentially contemplates. This contemplative conception is my target here. I shall adduce reasons for suspecting that the contemplative Prime Mover is not an Aristotelian postulate in Lambda, but …
The Philosophical Economy Of Plato's Psychology: Common Concepts In The Timaeus, Dorothea Aline Frede
The Philosophical Economy Of Plato's Psychology: Common Concepts In The Timaeus, Dorothea Aline Frede
The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter
Plato's insistence that the eternal immobile model is “the real thing” and the mobile world only an image is to stress the sincerity of his conviction that the intelligible pattern, the unchangeable network of principles, must be the foundation of the physical reality. Only because there is such a fundamentum in re can we have concepts that allow us to understand and explain the world. Without such really existing concepts our thinking would be nothing, it would be a groping for stability in a changing world that could at best provide similarities without any fix point to determine their nature. …
The Argument For Immortality In Plato's Phaedrus, Thomas M. Robinson
The Argument For Immortality In Plato's Phaedrus, Thomas M. Robinson
The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter
The Phaedrus seems to be saying that soul is the cause of all movement in an organized world, a world measurable by Time. In a non-organized world not measurable by Time one can wonder whether the movement in question has anything to do with this. At this stage words start to break down under the strain. Plato is compelled to give some description of the pre-cosmic chaos, and talk of movement in such a world is no more and no less intelligible than phrases like 'before this' (53a8) in the same passage, when Time has been admitted to be absent. …
Notes On Aristotle De Anima 3.5, John M. Rist
Notes On Aristotle De Anima 3.5, John M. Rist
The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter
Of all the Aristotelian doctrines perhaps the most difficult is that concerning the Active and Passive Intellects which we find in the short fifth chapter of the third book of the De Anima. Interpretations of this chapter have been almost as numerous as interpreters, and it would be naive to expect at this stage to be definitive. Nevertheless it seems that progress has been delayed in many cases by a too casual approach to what Aristotle says in the chapter itself - and this at least admits of some improvement.
Panpsychism And Immortality In Empedocles, Charles H. Kahn
Panpsychism And Immortality In Empedocles, Charles H. Kahn
The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter
The general position of Empedocles in the matter of consciousness may be described as a rigorous panpsychism. In this view there is really no such thing as inanimate nature. It is the physis or composition of our body which accounts for, if it is not identical with, our psychic character and thought. At the same time, he distinguishes the wandering daimon from the four physical elements. The realm from which he has been banished can only be that of Love. Far from contradicting the physical poem, the doctrine of reincarnation and release constitutes its logical sequel, the coping-stone which completes …