Classics Commons^™

Zeno And Stoic Consistency, John M. Rist

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

It seems that the Stoics were prepared to say two things : 1) It will in fact pay to be virtuous provided that you want to be happy; and 2) the good man will seek virtue for its own sake. Some of the apparent difficulties in reconciling these propositions may be resolved by examining the notion of seeking virtue for its own sake. What then do the Stoics say that virtue is?

Any Cynic could advocate a consistent life, for the description is purely formal. But one consistent life might be set against another, and Zeno's appeal to natural consistency …

Plotinus And Paranormal Phenomena, Richard T. Wallis

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

The present paper is intended primarily for classicists who are not specialists in Neoplatonism and will therefore tell experts in Plotinus little of which they are not already well aware. Its purpose is to explain Plotinus' views on a subject which finds itself, perhaps surprisingly, once again of some contemporary interest, and where misunderstandings and emotionally toned judgments are only too easy. It will be concerned as much with the reasons underlying Plotinus' beliefs as with those beliefs themselves, and in particular will show how his views on paranormal phenomena spring naturally from some of the most fundamental principles of …

Listing Of The 1973-1974 Sagp Content, Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Parmenides: 'To Be' Or 'Not To Be', Victorino Tejera

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

I will seek to test the possibility that Parmenides was referring, in the Way of Being (the Aletheia), to existence-as-a-whole. According to this hypothesis Parmenides, in expounding 'the first way' should be understood to be making clear what can be said without contradiction about existence-as-a-whole, i.e. about what is, about Being.

Symbol And Structure In Heraclitus, Raymond Adolf Prier

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Prier reviews the interpretations of Heraclitus by Guthrie and Hegel in terms of a scientific viewpoint and an idealist viewpoint. Prier follows a suggestion by Cherniss to examine the fragments in symbolic and structural terms.

Iamblichus' Criticism Of His Immediate Predecessors, John M. Dillon

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

This paper deals with the criticisms that Iamblichus levels against his predecessors. His differences with his predecessors are not as great as he tries to make them. His criticisms consist largely of reformulations and more exact specifications. He takes his stand as a conservative, preserving the purity of Platonism against Porphyry or Amelius.

Aristotle And Plato's Theory Of Transcendent Ideas, Chung-Hwan Chen

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Listing Of The 1972-1973 Sagp Content, Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Aristotle's De Philosophia And The Introduction Of The Fifth Element, David E. Hahm

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

One of the most influential of Aristotle's ideas, the idea that the heavenly bodies consist of a fifth element distinct from the four earthly elements (earth, water, air, and fire) is widely believed to have been introduced to the world for the first time in Aristotle's lost dialogue De Philosophia. This assumption has created a host of problems which have not yet been solved.

The Dissoi Logoi 4, 5 And 6, Thomas M. Robinson

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Translation, with comments, of Dissoi Logoi 4, 5, and 6, based on a new edition of the text.

Socrates And Protagoras, Michael I. Stokes

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Stokes provides a close reading of the arguments in Plato's Protagoras, focusing especially on Socrates' questions after Protagoras' "Great Speech."

"Complete Virtue" (Hole Arete) In The "Eudemian Ethics", Vianney Decarie

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Several problems (aporias) are discussed: a) the meaning of the phrase "complete virtue" in the Eudemian Ethics; b) does the last chapter of EE explain this phrase? c) How do the "Common Books" (EN V, VI, and VII = EE IV, V, VI) apply to the problem of "complete virtue". Decarie approaches this problems from the direction of Plato's Laws 12. He describes the structure of "complete virtue" in EE and argues that the final chapter of EE is a reasonable conclusion to the book, and that the Common Books fit well with the rest of EE.

Listing Of The 1971-1972 Sagp Content, Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Parmenides' Way Of Truth And B16, Jackson P. Hershbell

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

At least three interpretations have been given to B16 of Parmenides' poem. It has been taken for a fragment of his theory of knowledge, of his doctrine of sense perception, and of his views on sensing and knowing. It is usually assigned to the second part of the poem, the Way of Seeming. In this study I will argue that it comes from the first part of the poem, and that it is an affirmation of the close relationship between thought and being.

Socrates And Prodicus In The Clouds, Z. Philip Ambrose

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

While Plato's Socrates would deny the description of himself as a meteorosophist on the grounds that the term associates him wrongly with the physical philosophers, Aristophanes' meteora are bodies which metaphorically include all lofty knowledge, both about things and about words. In this sense Socrates and Prodicus are rightly grouped together as meteorosophists at Clouds 361. It is possible to make more use of the Clouds as testimony for Prodicus than has hitherto been seen and to reaffirm Nestle's views concerning the general content of the Horae.

Listing Of The 1970-1971 Sagp Content, Society For Ancient Greek Philosophy

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Listing Of The 1970-1971 Sagp Content, Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

A Comparison Of The Classical And Modern Concepts Of Memory With Suggestions For Further Study, Kathleen Oros Reed

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

On The Antecedents Of Aristotle's Bipartite Psychology, William W. Fortenbaugh

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

This paper will be concerned with the antecedents of Aristotle's bipartite or moral psychology. It will consider two common theses: 1) Aristotle's bipartite psychology is in origin a popular psychology already present (if not clearly formulated) in Euripides' Medea; 2) Aristotle's bipartite psychology developed out of tripartition by collapsing together the two lower elements of tripartition. Roughly, I shall be affirming the first and rejecting the second thesis. In both cases I hope to develop and make more precise the origins of Aristotle's bipartite psychology.

Intellectualism And Practical Reasoning In Aristotle's Moral Philosophy, John Cooper

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

My aim in this paper is to examine the basis of the dominant scholarly understanding of Aristotle's conception of human eudaimonia. I call this interpretation intellectualist, because it attributes to Aristotle the view that human flourishing consists exclusively in pure intellectual activity of the best and highest kind. I show that the intellectualist thesis, with its grounds, is inadequate. I also show that in the Eudemian Ethics the rejection of this kind of intellectualism is explicit, adopting instead a much more inclusive view of what it is for a man to flourish. I provide an alternative reading of EN X.7-8, …

The Tradition About Zeno Of Elea Re-Examined, Friedrich Solmsen

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Acceptance of Plato's testimony in the Parmenides raises more problems than has commonly been realized. Plato's divinatio may have hit the truth, but to have this confidence involves an act of faith. If anyone wonders what other theory we may put forward regarding Zeno's treatise, he may take notice of the fact that in the Phaedrus Plato mentions Zeno in the company of rhetoricians like Thrasymachus, Theodorus, and Gorgias. In the devising of new methods and argumentative techniques he remains a pioneer.

Listing Of The 1969-1970 Sagp Content, Society For Ancient Greek Philosophy

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Dinos, John Ferguson

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Speculation on circular movement is part of the general process of replacing mythology by science and mathematics - Dinos did indeed evict Zeus. That the primal movement is circular stems from astronomical observation. The atomists equate the dine with ananke, and that becomes tyche for Plato and Aristotle.

Euripides and Aristophanes were aware of the philosophical implications of the latest physical speculation.

The Non-Lover In Plato's Phaedrus, Stanley Rosen

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

My goal is to cast light on the philosophical function of that much and unjustly maligned character, the non-lover. In a secondary sense, my paper is intended as evidence of a thesis on how to read a Platonic dialogue. We recall the Symposium in order to contrast the Phaedrus.

Listing Of The 1968-1969 Sagp Content, Society For Ancient Greek Philosophy

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Xenophon's Teleology, Francis R. Bliss

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

There is considerable evidence that the later Greeks and even more the Romans bypassed Aristotle and Plato in their treatment of teleology. Theirs was to be the age of immanent deity, of epiphany, of astrology, of credo quia absurdum. The Stoic Pronoia, which we have in fullest form in Cicero's De Natura Deorum 2, closely reflects the version we have in Xenophon, even transferring elements from his proof of the existence of deity to the proof of pronoia. Also, Xenophon's double treatment of his theme, stressing the cosmic in one chapter and the human in the other, initiated the tendency …

Mind's Commitment To The Real: Parmenides B8.34ff, Alexander P.D. Mourelatos

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

It is through an analysis of this passage that I can explain most clearly and directly a certain conception of the relation of mind to reality for which I also find evidence in other texts, in some of the characteristic aspects and themes of Parmenicles' poem, and which I consider philosophically and historically important.,

Knowledge Of Atoms And Void In Epicureanism, David J. Furley

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

There is an obvious paradox in the theories of the Atomists. If knowledge comes to us by means of sensation, how are we to explain the atomist's knowledge of the basic propositions of his special theory: that the world consists of void, which is called 'the intangible', and atoms, which are said to be imperceptibly small? Epicurus' method was to set up a pair of contradictories - either there is a void or there is not, either matter is infinitely divisible or it is not - and then to present an argument for rejecting one of them.

Listing Of The 1967-1968 Sagp Content, Society For Ancient Greek Philosophy

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Listing of the Contents and Commentary

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. …