The Intelligent Troglodyte’S Guide To Plato’S Republic,
Fort Hays State University
The Intelligent Troglodyte’S Guide To Plato’S Republic, Douglas Drabkin
Philosophy Open Educational Resources
The Republic of Plato is one of the classic gateway texts into the study and practice of philosophy, and it is just the sort of book that has been able to arrest and redirect lives. How it has been able to do this, and whether or not it will be able to do this in your own case, is something you can only discover for yourself. The present guidebook aims to help a person get fairly deep, fairly quickly, into the project. It divides the dialogue into 96 sections and provides commentary on each section as well as questions for …
Seneca And The Stoic View Of Suicide,
Binghamton University
Seneca And The Stoic View Of Suicide, Walter Englert
The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter
will present a summary of the Stoic doctrine on suicide before Seneca, followed by an analysis of Seneca’s own views. Our sources on Stoic views of suicide before Seneca are meager. But they allow us to construct a coherent Stoic theory of suicide, and in Seneca we see the theory fleshed out. Rist is right to point out that we find a connection between suicide and libertas for the first time in Seneca, but wrong to suppose that it is inconsistent with earlier Stoic teaching, pathological, or based on a hatred of life.8 Seneca’s views are consistent with earlier, orthodox …
Aristotle On Women,
Binghamton University
Aristotle On Women
The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter
Sex differentiation is a pervasive and striking feature of the animal world, of which humans form a part. Patriarchy and role differentiation between men and women are pervasive phenomena in human societies. Aristotle is not about to re-design the world. But these phenomena are explained and justified at the economic level, and that is not where human values lie. At the higher level of civilized life, the differentiation becomes anomalous. Aristotle never shows how the anomaly is to be overcome. This is partly because the account of the homestead and the treatment of the city as such are not made …
Plato On The Souls Of Beasts,
Binghamton University
Plato On The Souls Of Beasts, Eve Browning (Cole)
The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter
Although Plato's emphasis on rationality and calculative reason, along with his faith in the soul's immortality, place him well to mark a clear-cut distinction between the human and the beast, that clear distinction is somewhat difficult to locate. While there is no strong evidence that Plato was inclined to attribute human-like cognitive capabilities to animals, the absence of extended textual engagements with animal cognition make this an uncertain issue. And in the moral domain, there do seem to be texts which suggest that a kind of natural virtue may be found among animals. These appear in the Laws. and are …
A Reconstruction Of The Homeric Tradition In Early Greece,
City University of New York (CUNY)
A Reconstruction Of The Homeric Tradition In Early Greece, Aidan Hoey
Student Theses
This thesis discusses the centuries-long historiographical debate that is known to us as the Homeric Question. The identity of Homer, the authorship of the Iliad and the Odyssey, the dating from when the Homeric epic poems were composed, the Homeric diction, and the historicity of the Trojan War has puzzled scholars since Antiquity. Only by the twentieth century, scholars Milman Parry and Albert Lord proved that the Iliad and Odyssey were orally composed. How the written form of the Homeric epic poems came about has become even more of a historiographic puzzle than it has been previously. Building off the …
Aristotle's Account Of The Virtue Of Courage In Nicomachean Ethics Iii.6-9,
Binghamton University
Aristotle's Account Of The Virtue Of Courage In Nicomachean Ethics Iii.6-9, Howard Curzer
The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter
Aristotle's account of courage exhibits several general principles of his architectonic. First, Aristotle applies to courage what I have called the doctrine of disjoint spheres. (1) Each virtue has its own sphere completely separate from the spheres of all other virtues. Aristotle then goes on to narrow the sphere of courage by insisting correctly that courage governs only situations involving both fear and confidence. Aristotle does not make the mistake of further restricting courage to life-threatening situations. Like his accounts of other virtues, Aristotle's account of courage involves several different parameters. (2) Each virtue is a disposition for getting all …
An Aristotelian Definition Of Friendship,
Binghamton University
An Aristotelian Definition Of Friendship, Paul Schollmeier
The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter
My paper explicates the Aristotelian definition of friendship, and it demonstrates that friendship for Aristotle can be either altruistic or egoistic. Aristotelian friendship includes three species, one of which is altruistic and two of which are egoistic. Good friendship is essentially friendship, and it is for the sake of another. Useful and pleasant friendships are accidentally friendships, and they are for the sake of oneself.
Even Friends Cannot Have All Things In Common: Aristotle's Critique Of Plato's Republic,
Binghamton University
Even Friends Cannot Have All Things In Common: Aristotle's Critique Of Plato's Republic, Christos Evangeliou
The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter
Aristotle considered as the core of Plato's ideal polity the proposal of communism in its double form, community of women and children and community of property for the guardians who, thus, would be able to provide the means to achieving the perfect unification of the state. Aristotle objected to these innovations and came out as a defender of common sense and common Greek political practice. His arguments were intended to show not only the impracticability of Plato's proposals and their incompatibility with common Greek practices but also their undesirability. He believed that, human nature being what it is, a political …
Heraclitus: The River Fragments,
Binghamton University
Heraclitus: The River Fragments, Leonardo Taran
The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter
Heraclitus was known in antiquity for the obscurity and the ambiguity of his expression, and there can be little doubt .that he purposely made use of ambiguity to emphasize the paradoxical character of some of his doctrines. For us who so many centuries later wish to understand his thought, these characteristics are increased and magnified by the very way his thought has been transmitted: citations and paraphrases by others whose interests were in most cases alien to his. Yet many ancient authors cited him to find authority and corroboration for their views in such an archaic thinker. Other writers, among …
How Does Plato Solve The Paradox Of Inquiry In The Meno?,
Binghamton University
How Does Plato Solve The Paradox Of Inquiry In The Meno?, Michael Morgan
The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter
In this paper I shall focus on a passage in Plato’s dialogue, the Meno, that has received wide and serious attention of late. It is that stretch of the Meno (80d-86c) that incorporates Meno’s eristic puzzle, the doctrine of recollection, Socrates’ interrogation of Meno’s slave-boy, and the sequel to that interrogation. I shall try to show that this text is transitional and doubly so, for, on the one hand, within the context of the Meno it marks the transition between the earlier elenchoi concerning the nature of arete and the employment of the method of hypothesis concerning whether arete is …
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