History of Philosophy Commons^™

A Religious Revolution? How Socrates' Theology Undermined The Practice Of Sacrifice, Anna Lannstrom

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Mark McPherran and Gregory Vlastos argue that Socrates’ theology threatened Athenian sacrificial practices because it rejected the do ut des principle (aka the principle of reciprocity). I argue that their arguments are flawed because they assume that the Athenians understood sacrifice as something like a commercial transaction. Drawing upon scholarship in anthropology and religious studies, I argue that we need to revise that understanding of sacrifice and that, once we do, McPherran’s and Vlastos’ arguments no longer show that Socrates would have been a significant threat to the practice of sacrifice. Finally, I argue that McPherran’s Socrates does undermine sacrifice, …

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 …

Participation In Plato's Dialogues: Phaedo, Parmenides, Sophist, And Timaeus, Leo Sweeney S.J.

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

What was important to Plato was formal causality. From experiencing that many existents are (say) beautiful, he realized that there is a form or essence of beauty. And this causes the beauty in things by its presence somehow in them. Formal causality and participation are two sides of the same coin. But Plato came to realize that his view of participation was incomplete. In the Parmenides and Sophist he joined participation with exemplarity and efficiency.

Socrates And Hedonism: Protagoras 351b-358d, Donald J. Zeyl

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

The weight of the evidence is heavily in favor of the antihedonist reading of the Protagoras. It is thoroughly compatible with the text of the Protagoras; it is intelligible in the light of a plausible account of Socrates' aims; and it can meet objections to it, whereas the prohedonist account creates more problems than it solves.

The Socratic Problem: Some Second Thoughts, Eric A. Havelock

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

In this paper, Havelock argues that the distinction between "early" "middle" and "late" dialogues makes little sense. All of the dialogues are Plato's construction; there is no reason to accept any of them as intended to be accurate representations of the historical Socrates. The Apology, often taken as a faithful representation of the historical Socrates, is rather a genre piece, in the tradition of Gorgias' Palamedes. Compare Isocrates' Antidosis. Havelock takes the movement from the orality of Socrates to the literacy of Plato as critical movement in the Athenian thought.

Preus

The Form Of The Good In Plato's Republic, Gerasimos X. Santas

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

The theory of the Form of the Good in the Republic is truly and coherently the centerpiece of the canonical Platonism of the middle dialogues, the centerpiece of Plato's metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and politics, and even his theory of love and art. In this theory of the Form of the Good Plato was truly the first grand philosophical synthesiser. If to achieve such a grand synthesis he had to employ a few unholy combinations, such as the combination of reality, goodness, and self-predication, he may perhaps be forgiven - at least if he is understood.