"An English translation of Colloquium of the Seven about Secrets of the Sublime, originally written in Latin in the sixteenth-century by Jean Bodin.

John Wyclif’s principium biblicum, that is to say, his inception speech as a Master of Theology at Oxford, dating from 1372/1373, has received scant scholarly attention. Discovered and edited in the 1960s by Beryl Smalley, it has long been considered a typical representative of its genre. A closer look at Wyclif’s text in the light of current principia-scholarship, and in particular of Robert Grosseteste’s recently identified inception speech, shows, however, that Wyclif’s principium biblicum is all but traditional. Its (...) far-reaching claims concerning the importance of a thorough philosophical training as a prerequisite for the study of the Bible, as well as for that of theology, make this principium stand out amongst medieval inception speeches. (shrink)

The paper reviews statistical models for money, wealth, and income distributions developed in the econophysics literature since the late 1990s. By analogy with the Boltzmann-Gibbs distribution of energy in physics, it is shown that the probability distribution of money is exponential for certain classes of models with interacting economic agents. Alternative scenarios are also reviewed. Data analysis of the empirical distributions of wealth and income reveals a two-class distribution. The majority of the population belongs to the lower class, characterized by (...) the exponential (“thermal”) distribution, whereas a small fraction of the population in the upper class is characterized by the power-law (“superthermal”) distribution. The lower part is very stable, stationary in time, whereas the upper part is highly dynamical and out of equilibrium. (shrink)

In his recent article, titled ‘Royaumont Revisited’, Overgaard challenges Dummett's view that one needs to go as far back as the late nineteenth century in order to discover examples of genuine dialogue between ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ philosophy. Instead, Overgaard argues that in the 1958 Royaumont colloquium, generally judged as a failed attempt at communication between the two camps, one can find some elements which may be utilized towards re-establishing a dialogue between these two sides. Yet, emphasising this image of (...) Royaumont as a kind of battleground between ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ philosophy obscures the plurality of philosophical approaches involved. Royaumont was the meeting point of more than two philosophical traditions, as can be shown by the divergent interests of its participants. Thus, though the potential for rapprochement between Oxford ‘linguistic philosophy’ and a certain strand of phenomenological thought may indeed be found among the discussions that took place during the colloquium, one should keep in mind that such rapprochement took place in the context of a meeting between, among others: continental ‘analytics’, Anglophone non-‘analytics’, French historians of philosophy, ‘analytic’ opponents of Oxford philosophy, Franciscan phenomenologists, and Oxonians who called their work ‘phenomenology’. (shrink)

This paper discusses two related questions about Plato’s account of the tripartite soul in the Republic and Phaedrus. One is whether we should accept the recently prominent ‘analytical’ reading of the theory, according to which the three parts of the soul are animal-like sub-agents, each with its own distinctive and autonomous package of cognitive and desiderative capacities. The other question is how far Plato’s account so interpreted resembles the findings of contemporary neuroscience, given that this also depicts the mind as (...) complex, partitioned, subject to conflict, and only very incompletely rational. The paper sketches the analytical reading, outlines the similarities and disanologies of the theory so understood to contemporary neuropsychology, and then steps back to consider three problems with such an interpretation. None is decisive; but they raise doubts as to whether the question of the title can really be answered in the way both the analytical reading and the modern parallel presume. (shrink)

This paper examines the interpretation of erôs in Plato’s Symposium developed by Vasilis Politis in his paper, “The Volatility of Erôs.” The paper first argues that some of the central claims made by Politis are untenable. It then suggests that there is, nevertheless, an important distinction that Politis points to between the way in which erôs is directed specifically at beauty and the way in which desires for the good are directed specifically at goodness. An attempt is made to put (...) this distinction on a new footing incorporating some recent work on Plato’s moral psychology. (shrink)

This paper examines Plato’s Sophist with particular attention to the cast of characters and the most curious and complicated dramatic situation in which Plato places this dialogue: the dramatic proximity of surrounding dialogues and the impending trial, conviction, and death of Socrates. I use these considerations as a propaedeutic to the raising of questions about how these features of the dialogue might affect our interpretation of the actual positions espoused in the Sophist. One clear effect of these considerations will be (...) to destabilize the commonly held view that in this dialogue Plato is “replacing” Socrates and Socratic aporia and questioning with the more didactic, formalistic, and doctrinal conception of philosophy espoused by the Eleatic Stranger. (shrink)

In response to, but in keeping with, Hyland’s attention to specific dramatic features of Platonic dialogues, the commentary explores the issue of temporality in these dialogues and its role in their portrayal of the philosophical life. The explicit discussion and portrayal in these dialogues of diachronic time, in particular, reveals important aspects Socrates’ practice of philosophy.

The Visitor’s inquiry into the expertise of statesmanship in Plato’s Statesman consistently privileges knowledge as the sole source from which to derive legitimate authority to command. And yet the section of the dialogue to which he refers as a “play” (δρᾶμα, 303c8) of satyrs and centaurs (291a–303d) complicates matters significantly by spelling out the difficulty of identifying a true statesman and the dangers of thinking ourselves able to do so. Reading the account of human community provided in the myth of (...) the cosmos together with the “good imitation” of knowledge in the satyr play, a limited notion of properly human wisdom comes into view as the horizon within which to interpret knowledge and dialectical division in the dialogue. I conclude that the education of the dialectician is connected to the problem of the absence of the true statesman, and that the Statesman is prescribing ways in which members of the philosophical community ought to understand themselves in dialogue with the written word. (shrink)

The paper explores the link between contemplation of the One and happiness in Plotinus and challenges the traditional interpretation according to which a contemplative or mystical experience of the One is by necessity brief and transitory, while the experience of Intellect can become a stable state in this life. Were it so, it would not serve as a ground for the good or happy life. In order to reconcile this point with Plotinus’s other claim about contemplation, his doctrine of the (...) double activity of Intellect is invoked. (shrink)

This commentary examines the interpretation of Parmenides developed by Rose Cherubin in her paper, “Parmenides, Liars, and Mortal Incompleteness.” First, I discuss the tensions Cherubin identifies between the definitions and presuppositions of justice, necessity, fate, and the other requisites of inquiry. Second, I critically assess Cherubin’s attribution of a sort of liar paradox to Parmenides. Finally, I argue that Cherubin’s handling of the Doxa, the section of Parmenides’ poem that deals with mortal opinion and cosmology, is unsatisfactory. I suggest that (...) her reading may contradict the text in denying that the Doxa contains truths. (shrink)

In Nicomachean Ethics III.5, Aristotle argues that virtue and vice are “up to us and voluntary.” Readers have long struggled to make sense of Aristotle’s arguments in this chapter and to explain how they cohere with the rest of his ethical project. Among the most influential lines of complaint is that the argument of III.5 appears to contradict his emphasis elsewhere on the power of upbringing to shape character, beginning in childhood. Scholars have developed two main interpretive approaches to III.5, (...) which I label “libertarian” and “compatibilist.” I argue that neither approach succeeds in removing the appearance of contradiction. I develop an alternative interpretation that reveals the coherence of Aristotle’s commitments, showing that for him the voluntariness of character and the power of upbringing are in reality two sides of the same philosophical coin. Both are grounded in his fundamental idea that virtue and vice are acquired by practice. (shrink)