Aristotle On The Mechanics Of Thought: Abstract, Michae V. Wedin

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

The submission is itself an abstract, not a complete paper. The revised (complete) paper is included in J. P. Anton & A. Preus, eds. Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy V. Aristotle's Ontology. SUNY Press. 245-272.

Sagp Newsletter 1987/8.4 (March), Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Program for the meeting of the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy with the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association in April, 1988, in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Sagp Newsletter 1987/8.3 (February), Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Program for the meeting of the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy with the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association March 24, 1988, in Portland Oregon.

Kantian Ethics And Socialism, Harry Van Der Linden

Butler University Books

This study argues for three main theses: (1) Immanuel Kant’s ethics is a social ethics; (2) the basic premises of his social ethics point to a socialist ethics; and (3) this socialist ethics constitutes a suitable platform for criticizing and improving Karl Marx’s view of morality.

Some crucial aspects of Kant’s social ethics are that we must promote the “realm of ends” as a moral society of co-legislators who assist each other in the pursuit of their individual ends, which requires in turn that we seek the realization of the republican state and peace between the nations. Thus hope for …

Listing Of The 1987-1988 Sagp Content, Society For Ancient Greek Philosophy

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Dust To Dust: Aristotle's Account Of Generation And Desctruction, Mary Louise Gill

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

I believe Aristotle could endorse God’s statement to Adam as reflecting his own theory of generation and destruction. Complex bodies, such as living organisms, are generated out of earth, and to earth they will ultimately return. In this paper I will argue that Aristotle defends a cyclical model of generation and destruction which starts and ends with some simple stuff. I will call the model the ''construction model." The construction model underlies many of Aristotle’s claims about substantial generation and destruction, but he presents the main theory in Metaphysics H.5, a text that is curiously neglected in recent discussions of …

Ethical Method In Aristotle: Setting Out The Phainomena, Daniel T. Devereux

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

My chief objective here is the task of setting out and clarifying the data that we need to consider in giving an account of Aristotle's method in ethics. These data are more complex than is usually supposed. I argue that it may be quite misleading to speak of the method of endoxa as the dialectical method, and that it is a mistake to think that there are close parallels between this method and the concept of dialectic discussed in the Topics.

Sagp Newsletter 1987/8.2 (November), Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Announcement of the meetings of the Society with the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association and with the American Philological Association for December 1987.

The Plotinian Reduction Of Aristotle's Categories, Christos C. Evangeliou

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

I propose to consider the Plotinian reduction of Aristotle’s categories, especially as presented in the problematic VI. 3. 3. The following questions will be discussed: Which of the Aristotelian categories did Plotinus consider dispensable and for what specific reasons? Are there any non-Aristotelian categories in the Plotinian set and, if so, where do they come from and how do they function? By what method, if any, did Plotinus determine the number of his set of categories and why just five? Finally, why is it that Plotinus is the last, in a long series of Platonists, to sharply criticize Aristotle’s doctrine …

Ends And Intrinsic Goods In Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Richard Kraut

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

(The attached paper is in fact a longish abstract. Here is a SHORT abstract)

This paper considers some connections between NE I and NE X.7-8. I argue that the two are consistent, and that Aristotle proposes two dominant ends, one for the philosophical life, another for the political life.

The Aporias Of De Anima Γ 4, 429b22-430a9., John Driscoll

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Aristotle introduces the assumption that mind is, as described by Anaxagoras, 'without mixture,' later restating it in his own terms as the view that mind is simple and ἀπαθές and without anything in common with anything else. This leads to two aporias: how, Aristotle asks, will thinking be possible under the assumptions stated, and how can mind itself be an object of thought? He then states two theses of his own: while mind is its objects potentially it is nothing in actuality until thinking occurs, and in the case of things without matter what thinks is the same as what …

Epicurus On Pleasure And Happiness, Julia Annas

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

I concentrate on Epicurus' attempt to show that pleasure is complete, not just one aim we have for its own sake but ultimately the only non-instrumental aim we have. Epicurus tells us that we will be happy, have the best overall life, by having pleasure as our final aim, and that we shall achieve this by living according to the virtues, by becoming a certain kind of person.

Sagp Newsletter 1986/7.4 (March), Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Announcement of the meeting of the Society with the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association, May 1 1987.

Sagp Newsletter 1986/7.3 (February), Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Announcement of the meeting of the Society with the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association, March 1987.

Canons, Careers, And Campfollowers: Randall And The Historiography Of Philosophy, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

For some very good reasons John Herman Randall, Jr. saw himself as an innovator and a deviant within the discourse that is called the history of philosophy. In an early chapter of The Career of Philosophy he pronounces this characteristically salty judgment on the main tendency of such work:

The history of philosophy, in truth, since German professors captured it and made it the handmaiden of academic advancement, has been a rigid tradition. Philosophy began with Thales, it falls neatly into Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, and it culminates in the men now writing for your favorite philosophical journal, God forgive …

Philosophical Lives: The Academics, Jorgen Mejer

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No modern account of the history of the Academy as a whole exists. For the early history of the Academy, the last 3 1/2 centuries BC, we are in an unusual situation, as compared with the other schools of philosophy, that two historical accounts are preserved: Papyrus Herculanensis 1021, the Index Academicorum, and Book 4 of Diogenes Laertius' Lives and Opinions of the Philosophers. Comparison of these two sources gives us a better possibility of determining what belongs to the main tradition and what is peculiar to each source.

Aristotle On Reason, Practical Reason, And Living Well, Deborah K.W. Modrak

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

The Lives Of The Peripatetics: Diogenes Laertius, Vitae Philosophorum, Book Five, Michael Sollenberger

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

The fifth book of Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of the Philosophers is concerned with the first four heads of the Peripatos – Aristotle, Theophrastus, Strato, and Lyco – and two outstanding members of the school – Demetrius of Phalerum and Heraclides of Pontus. Consideration is given her to rather general matters of structure, organization, and arrangement of material in Book Five as a whole, to the different categories of information in the individual lives, and to the most striking feature of this book which set it apart from other books: namely, the wills of the first four scholarchs and the extensive …

Review: The End Of Man, W. David Beck

SOR Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Sagp Newsletter 1986/7.2 (November), Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Announcement of the meetings of the Society with the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association and with the American Philological Association, December 1986.

Aristotle On Meaning And Natural Kinds, David Charles

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Given the account that I give of natural kind terms in Aristotle, the task of explaining the coherence of essentialist claims lay elsewhere for him than in the theory of reference. He required a deeper account of necessity and explanation than the modern theorist provides in order to fulfill an explanatory task left virtually untouched by his account of the meaning of these terms. ... The ancient and modern routes to essentialism seem fundamentally different. And this is why Aristotle did not require to attribute to the pre-scientific thinker the deep assumptions invoked by the modern theorist.

Aristotle On Property Rights, Fred D. Miller Jr.

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

The thesis is that a theory of private property rights can be reconstructed from the remarks about property scattered throughout Aristotle’s writings. His working concept is as follows: X has a property right in P if, and only if, X possesses P in such a way that the use of P is up to X and the alienation of P (giving P away or selling P) is up to X. It is argued that Aristotle provides clear answers to the important questions which should be answered by a theory of property rights: (1) What individuals can properly hold rights to …

Socrates' Evil Associates And The Motivation For His Trial And Condemnation, Thomas C. Brickhouse, Nicholas D. Smith

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

We argue against those who construe the charge made by Polycrates, that Socrates was the teacher of Alcibiades and Critias, to be a substantial feature of the prejudice that Socrates faced as he stood trial for impiety and corrupting the youth.

Sagp Newsletter 1985/6.3 (February), Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Announcement of the meetings of the Society with the Pacific and Central Divisions of the American Philosophical Association for Spring 1986.

A Text For Reading, A Text For Deciding, Antonio T De Nicolas

Research Resources

No abstract provided.

The Native, General Background Of Ignatius Of Loyola, Antonio T De Nicolas

Research Resources

First chaper of de Nicolas:

Powers of Imagining: Ignatius of Loyola : A Philosophical Hermeneutic of Imagining Through the Collected Works of Ignatius De Loyola With a Translation of These Works (Albany: SUNY Press, 1986)

On 'Essentially' (Hoper) In Aristotle, Alban Urbanas

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

In this paper I shall examine the notion of ταὐτόν - commonly translated as 'same' or 'identical' - and its relevance to so-called essential predications, as effected through the use of ὅπερ in Aristotle. It will be shown that propositions of the type 'A is ὅπερ B' involve an essential predication where either a genus is affirmed of a species, or a species of an individual. The possibility of such predications will be founded upon the doctrine of the categories and the ontological distinction between essence and accident. Besides predications involving generic or specific identity, others effected through propositions of …

The Origin Of Aristotle's Metaphysical Aporiae, Edward Halper

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

That the fifteen aporiae to whose exposition Aristotle devotes all of Metaphysics B originate from Platonism is widely accepted. However, the text provides no account of how Aristotle constructed these aporiae, and the exact path by which they developed remains shrouded by our lack of knowledge of Aristotle's contemporaries and of the discussions in Plato's Academy. Book B has been a focal point for various, conflicting accounts of Aristotle's development, for scholars assume that the aporiae presented here are problems that troubled Aristotle and remained unsolved when he wrote Metaphysics B. In this paper I shall present an alternative account …

How Learning Mathematics Helps Us Be Virtuous, Joan Kung

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

A number of passages in the Timaeus make a connection that strikes us as odd, even bizarre perhaps. Who nowadays thinks that the study of geometry or number theory has anything to do with being a good person? Yet these passages emphasize the importance for human virtue and happiness of mathematical studies, especially the study of the ratios of numbers and the geometry of solids in motion, the harmonies and revolutions of the world or of the god. We are told, for example, that by learning to know and compute these rightly we shall bring our souls into order and …

Did Jesus Really Claim To Be God?, Wayne Brindle

SOR Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.