Classics Commons^™

Targeting Emotion In Early Stoicism, Scott M. Rubarth

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

The Stoic sage is a cold, heartless being who would not grieve over the loss of a beloved companion or child. Unmoved, unemotional, uncaring, the sage is an ethical and emotional monstrosity hiding behind the pretension of the so-called virtues of detachment and austerity. That, at least, is how many who study Stoic ethics perceive the sage in regard to his/her emotional life. In this paper I will argue that this conception of the Stoic theory of emotion and passion is misleading; emotions, in fact, are central to Stoic ethics and apatheia should not be confused with the contemporary idea …

Carneades' Pithanon And Its Relation To Epoche And Apraxia, Suzanne Obdrzalek

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Though the interpretation of ancient texts is notoriously difficult, Cameades presents what one might call a worst-case scenario. In the first place, he wrote nothing. His faithful disciple Clitomachus, attempting to play Plato to Cameades' Socrates, reportedly recorded Cameades' teachings in four hundred books. Not one remains. However, Clitomachus' attempt to make a philosophy of Cameades' anti-theoretical stance was not a complete failure; Cameades had a tremendous influence on the later Academy as well as the Stoa, and his views (or lack thereof) have been handed down to us by both Sextus Empiricus and Cicero. These sources are, nonetheless, problematic. …

Sagp Newsletter 2002.4 (May), Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

On The Nature Of Heraclitus' Book, Herbert Granger

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Heraclitus is critical of book-learning, yet, unlike Pythagoras, he wrote a book, which presumably he intended to be read. Heraclitus may think himself justified in composing his book because in his composition he remains true to the nature of things, which ‘loves to hide’ (B123). He writes a book that is just as taxing as the nature of things and demands the reader’s careful attention and thorough engagement. Like the Lord in Delphi, and the nature of things, Heraclitus ‘neither speaks out nor conceals, but gives a sign’ (B93). What is more important, he informs his readership about subjects that …

Advising The Cosmopolis, Eric A. Brown

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Plutarch charges that Stoic theory is inconsistent with Stoic political engagement no matter what they decide to do, because the Stoics' endorsement of the political life is inconsistent with their cosmopolitan rejection of ordinary politics (Stoic.rep., ab init.). Drawing on evidence from Chrysippus and Seneca, I develop an argument that answers this charge, and I draw out two interesting implications of the argument. The first implication is for scholars of ancient Stoicism who like to say that Stoicism is apolitical. The argument I reconstruct turns on the political importance of the practice of giving and taking advice, and in this …

Sagp Newsletter 2003.4 (April), Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

SAGP at the Central Division 2003

Do Zeno's Arguments Challenge Aristotle's Account Of Motion?, Rose Cherubin

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

What is the relationship between the arguments that Aristotle and Simplicius attribute to Zeno of Elea, and the account of motion that Aristotle presents in the Physics? Do the considerations that Aristotle raises in Physics Z.9 overcome the arguments about motion that he attributes to Zeno? Do they show the Zenonian arguments to be inapplicable or ill formed? Or do considerations that Zeno raises in the discussions attributed to him instead undermine Aristotle's account of motion? Do they undermine the possibility of physics as epistëmë? And why does Aristotle not treat Zeno's arguments about magnitude and plurality in his account …

Is Pyrrhonism Psychologically Possible?, Brian Ribeiro

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

How could there have been a group of philosophers who said they really were skeptics? How could they have claimed to suspend judgment about all non-evident matters which were presented to them and to have gone their way adoxastös (without belief) by (as they said) “following the appearances” (PH 1.23)? That is the question I would like to answer.

Aristotle On Knowledge, Nous And The Problems Of Necessary Truth, Thomas Kiefer

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

In this paper, I argue that nous for Aristotle concerns necessary truths. (1) Nous is the solution to the dilemma raised in Posterior Analytics I.3. (2) Knowledge and nous have necessary truths as their subject matter, and are identical to this subject matter. (3) This position creates two problems concerning (i) the innateness of knowledge and nous, and (ii) the mind-dependency of necessary truths. (4) The end of DA III.5 reveals an attempt to solve (i) and (ii): The necessary truths of knowledge and nous are for us innate in a certain way, appear to come to be and pass …

Sagp Newsletter 2002.2 (December), Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Sagp Newsletter 2001.2 (December), Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Sagp Ssips 2001 List Of Papers, Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

List of papers presented at the 2001 SAGP/SSIPS Conference

Philosophy As Liturgical Action: An Essay On Plato's Politics, Gene Fendt

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Plato teaches that the arche and telos of politics is liturgical action. No 'purely secular' foundation of a polis is possible. Politics necessarily opens beyond itself and is therefore subject to theological critique and theotic fulfillment (or not). The Republic teaches about the primacy of the liturgical; in the Laws Plato presents the proper liturgical act for human beings.

Oh Brother! The Fraternity Of Rhetoric And Philosophy In Plato's Gorgias, Roslyn Weiss

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Brothers abound in the Gorgias, as do types of fraternal relations. I look for that form of fraternity in the Gorgias that Plato means to serve as a model or paradigm for the ideal relationship between rhetoric and philosophy. The Gorgias acknowledges deficiency not only in rhetoric but in philosophy as well, and recognizes merit in both rhetoric and philosophy, so that there is potential for the two to complement one another and when they do, to be of real benefit.

Candidates For Aristotle's Natural Slaves, D. Brendan Nagle

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

The aim of this paper is to identify empirically potential candidates for natural slaves among the vast number of coerced workers in the ancient world, barbarian and Greek alike.

Socratic Perfectionism Ii, George Rudebusch

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

This paper is part two of an argument that Socrates is an agent-neutral perfectionist (like J. S. Mill) rather than an agent-relative perfectionist (e.g. in Crime and Punishment, the egoist Raskolnikov and the altruist Sophie). The argument is based on Plato's Lysis.

Sagp Newsletter 2002.3 (March), Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Classical Insights And Today's World, Julius M. Moravcsik

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Professor Moravscik, as President of the Society, was invited to present his views on the current state of classical philosophy at the turn of the millennium. He comments on the role of the History of Philosophy in current education, sketches the work done in classical philosophy during the 20th century, posits Aristotelianism as an antidote for Cartesianism, and recommends a Platonic perspective for epistemology.

Worlds Within World Within The One: Anaxagoras' Parmenidean Cosmology, John E. Sisko

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

The long-standing puzzle regarding the relation between Anaxagoras' pluralism and Parmenides' monism can be met and solved on its own terms. We need not deny that Parmenides was a numerical Monist and we need not suppose that Anaxagoras failed to adequately consider Parmenides' basic principles. Anaxagoras did not attack these basic principles, because he thought that they were compatible with pluralism. He not only provided a brilliant explanation of the emergence of our world within the Chaos, but he posited a fascinating cosmology of worlds within worlds within the One. And since his Chaos is Parmenides' One under an alternative …

Sagp Newsletter 2001.4 (May), Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Earth And Stars In The Cosmology Of Xenophanes, Alexander P.D. Mourelatos

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

The doxography for Xenophanes of Colophon unambiguously attributes to him a theory that all the meteora, i.e. all 'objects suspended above us' or 'objects seen in the sky' are different types of clouds. My concern in this paper is with two sets of assumptions that are likely to have framed Xenophanes' theory: a) assumptions concerning the size and shape of the eareth, and b) assumptions concerning the motions of the fixed stars.

Literary And Poetic Performance In Plato's Laws, Gerard Naddaf

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Plato’s evaluations of the written and spoken word are complex, even ambiguous. On the one hand, he clearly privileges the give-and-take oral conversation as the paradigm for philosophical discussion, and on the basis of this paradigm he offers strong critiques of the written word, notably in the Phaedrus and Letter 7. On the other hand, he is a most famous enemy of the oral performance of poetry − notwithstanding the fact that in the Republic he gives ‘music’ a prominent place in education. When we turn to the Laws, we encounter another aspect or dimension of Plato’s thinking about the …

Thinking, Thought And Nous In Aristotle's De Anima, Michael Bowler

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Michael Wedin in his “Tracking Aristotle’s Nous’’ wishes to argue that the most plausible interpretation of De Anima, Book III, chapter 5 is . .that these chapters provide the essentials of a thoroughly finitistic account of individual noetic activity.” I want to argue that Wedin’s account is not the most plausible interpretation of Aristotle’s theory of individual noetic activity. I think Wedin’s interpretation misses a crucial distinction between the actualization of mind and the being of mind, insofar as he argues that mind is identical simpliciter with its object in the act of knowing when in fact, for Aristotle, mind …

Sagp Newsletter 2001.3 (March), Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

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 …