André Laks aims to clarify how Plato’s Laws ‘pursues a philosophical project consisting in a rationalization of law, in as much as that is possible’ (4). According to Laks, Plato implicitly distinguishes law’s content from its discursive form. Law’s content is ‘a deontic proposition ultimately dictated by “reason”/nous’; its discursive form is ‘an order or command usually followed by the threat of punishments’ (4). On Laks’s interpretation, commands are violent and irrational, so ideal legislative discourse omits them. I question this. (...) Rational commands are essential to law. As a doctor’s prescriptions aim to produce healthy patients, so an expert legislator’s commands aim to produce virtuous citizens, ones with true beliefs about what is best and whose passions are ruled by those beliefs. That past legislators used ‘unmixed violence alone’ and ‘tyrannical prescription’ (Laws 722c, e) indicates that their commands relied on threats without persuasive preambles, not that they relied on commands alone, as Laks suggests. For Plato, virtuous souls must continuously heed reason’s supple pull and guidance, i.e., its commands (644d–645a, 895e–897b). (shrink)

Aristotle’s fundamental rationale for the ‘teleios life’ requirement (Nicomachean Ethics i 7.1098a18) is that a virtuous activity is better when it is more continuous and more enduring. Consequently, the Aristotelian wish (boulēsis) for happiness properly inclines the virtuous person to wish for immortality. This is not an incoherent wish because mortality is coincidental to the human being as such.

Though Socrates appears to present examples of mathematicians hypothesizing entities in Republic 510c3-6, most interpreters assume that he really means that they hypothesize propositions. After establishing the plausibility of the entities interpretation, I show that it is fruitful in respect to locating the objects of dianoia, addressing the question of whether Plato held a theory of mathematical intermediates, and explaining the inferiority of mathematical reasoning to dialectic.

Discussion of the Aristotelian syllogistic over the last sixty years has arguably centered on the question whether syllogisms are inferences or implications. But the significance of this debate at times has been taken to concern whether the syllogistic is a logic or a theory, and how it ought to be represented by modern systems. Largely missing from this discussion has been a study of the few passages in the Prior Analytics where Aristotle provides explicit guidance on how to individuate syllogisms. (...) I argue that syllogisms are individuated by unordered premise pairs and so may be fruitfully thought of as multiple-succedent sequents. I conclude by drawing a few consequences for the representation of the syllogistic. (shrink)

This article addresses the longstanding puzzle of what Cratylus’ silence means. It argues that Plato’s Cratylus goes silent to convey his position regarding the correctness of names, and it does this by demonstrating how Cratylus is silent in imitation of a literary trope for portraying the significance of a character’s silence. The philosophical payoff of this imitation is that, for Cratylus, correctness consists not in saying, but in showing.

The argument from thinking in Aristotle’s On Ideas deals with the problem of ‘presence in absence’. It argues that, to solve it, one must posit Forms. Scholars claim that Aristotle takes the argument as valid either for Forms or for his own universals. I argue against both alternatives, for Aristotle thinks that the problem that motivates the argument does not require a metaphysical solution, but only a psychological solution.

The Cynics were radically anti-conventional Greek philosophers who held egalitarian views about gender. They are also associated with extremely misogynistic anecdotes. How can one square this tension? I argue we must look to their ethical naturalism, on the basis of which they opposed convention, culture, and all that smacks of superficiality. This, combined with a longstanding stereotype about ‘feminine artifice’, explains (but does not justify) Cynic hostility toward the feminine.

Aristotle ascribes to Thales of Miletus the notion of the Earth resting on water. However, in archaic Ionian cosmologies the Earth was not viewed as a cosmic body resting on physical support. The very motif is likely to have originated in the Near East. If Aristotle claims that this was the oldest conception of stability of the Earth it is possible that Thales may have been associated with it anachronistically.

This article urges that what distinguishes dialectic from rhetoric in the Gorgias is their differing conceptions of definitions and argues that: (1) Dialectic centers on the nature of things, rhetoric on their qualities. (2) Dialectic is shown to differ from rhetoric in the inquiry through the application of collection and division. (3) Socrates’ definition and criticism of rhetoric flows from his conception of expertise, not his moral outlook.

According to a once standard view, the NE is dialectical in the sense that its starting points are endoxa and that it follows a ‘dialectical procedure’ of setting out the endoxa, finding problems among the endoxa, and resolving these problems. In more recent years, however, scholars have pushed back against this view, arguing that Aristotle’s investigations in the NE are guided by scientific norms outlined in the Analytics. Supporters of this ‘scientific’ interpretation leave little room for dialectic. Although I agree (...) that the role of the method of endoxa is rather limited, I argue that dialectic, understood as the skill of constructing and evaluating arguments from endoxa, plays a more significant role in the NE. Specifically, much, if not all, of the investigation in the NE takes place ‘beyond the disciplines’, and Aristotle thought the skill of arguing outside the disciplines must be dialectic. I support this interpretation through an analysis of NE x 7, where I show that the arguments overwhelmingly employ topoi found in Topics iii. At the very least, this suggests that the Topics is an important resource for reconstructing Aristotle’s arguments in the NE. But my overall interpretation also suggests that, in propounding these dialectical arguments, Aristotle had rather modest epistemic aspirations. (shrink)

At Phaedrus 264c2-5, Socrates asserts that good logos is a well-measured unity containing extremes (ἄκρα) and intermediates (μέσα). This raises questions of whether and how Phaedrus is unified. I argue that it is, and describe its unity through principles from Philebus concerning extremes and intermediates. Phaedrus, I argue, exhibits a discursive-method range as a logos continuum bounded by the self-serving (ἴδιος) discourse of the idiot (ἰδιώτης) and the commonness (κοινός) of dialectic.

I argue that central to Aristotle’s account of vice is a distinction between two varieties of vicious person: those for whom character change is possible (the curable), and those for whom it is not (the incurable). Recognizing this distinction and drawing out the ideas which ground it shows why Aristotle’s discussions of vice in EN vii and ix 4 are not inconsistent.

The paper focuses on Democritus’ void (κενόν) as not-being and tackles two interrelated puzzles: (a) whether the two starting-points of the atomic theory, atoms and void, should be considered as equivalent and (b) how nothing can be something. It offers a close examination of the passages concerning emptiness in tandem with the corresponding views of Parmenides and Melissus, and then it reassesses Aristotle’s idea of a link between the notions of void and place.