I argue in this paper that, like the Pyrrhonism of Sextus Empiricus, Wittgenstein’s response to negative–dogmatic skepticism in On Certainty turns on the attempt to free us from the demands of traditional philosophy and is therefore not a philosophical position, strictly speaking. Rather, it is a therapeutic metaphilosophy designed to bring into view the relationship between our everyday epistemic practices and those of philosophy such that we simultaneously come to recognize what I call the pragmatic–transcendental self–standingness of the everyday and (...) its philosophical–rational groundlessness. The Pyrrhonian illumination of the everyday is therapeutic in that it aims to purify our metadoxastic attitudes of dogmatism. (shrink)

In Ennead II 9,9,39–42 we find a singular passage in which Plotinus asserts that the cosmos ‘proclaims’ the divine order. It is the only passage in the Enneads where the verb προφητεύειν is used. In this paper the ‘prophetic function’ of the cosmos will be examined. It will be demonstrated how the mentioned passage – despite its unique character in the Enneads – points to the centre of Plotinus’ thought, namely his theory of the causality of intelligible beings. As a (...) sensual product of transcendent causes, the cosmos ‘proclaims’ these causes. In consideration of other relevant passages, the implications of this notion will be delineated to deliver a more comprehensive interpretation of the cosmic προφητεύειν, not least in the context of Plotinus’ remarks about the genesis of time and the fundaments of astrology. It will be shown how Plotinus can articulate his theory of manifestation in terms of a ‘sigetic prophecy’ – ‘sigetic’ in the sense that manifestation unfolds ‘silently’. (shrink)

In Epicurean cosmology, material reconstitution, or palingenesis is the necessary consequence of the infinity of time and the eternity of atoms. I examine Lucretius’ treatment of this phenomenon and consider the extent to which his view enables us to develop an Epicurean response to the question: what makes a person at two different times one and the same person? I offer a reading of this passage in the light of modern accounts of persistence and identity, and what Lucretius states in (...) Books 3 and 4 about memory and the soul’s motions. Guided by the metaphysical implications of this analysis, I determine the type of relation which, according to Lucretius, holds between the mental and the physical. (shrink)

In his De philosophia, Varro lists 288 philosophical schools on the highest good before presenting Antiochus’s doctrine as the only true one. One of the particularities of his moral doxography consists in including cynicism which has never been mentioned in the previous moral sources. This paper therefore aims to show that the De philosophia represents a major turning point for the Roman reflection on cynicism. First, Varro defines cynicism as a simple way of life and not a doctrine so that (...) it could be adopted by all other philosophies. In fact, by ‘reducing’ cynicism to a way of life Varro makes it compatible with his conception of the highest good based on social duties. In that respect, his position on cynicism is opposite to Cicero’s who, in his De officiis, considers cynicism as a dangerous philosophy for Roman values. Finally, Varro uses cynicism as a conceptual tool for thinking, in philosophical terms, one of the most important issues that run through all his work: the relationship between happiness and Ancient Roman simplicity, especially in the context of Roman decadency. For instance, in Varro’s Menippean Satires, Cynics’s destitution partly reminds of the Ancient Romans’ austerity. Therefore, by mentioning cynicism in his moral doxography, Varro gives an original and Roman treatment of the Antiochian inquiry into the concept highest good. (shrink)

In this piece, I propose a reading of Plato’s Gorgias that pays special attention to the role that the fictional audience plays in the unfolding of the dialogue. To this end, I use some of the insights that Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts–Tyteca conveyed in their seminal work, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation in order to argue that thinking about the way in which Socrates’ arguments are shaped by the different audiences that Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles aim to (...) address and represent provides us with a new hermeneutical understanding of what is at stake in each of the different interactions Socrates engages in throughout the dialogue. In unpacking the way in which Socrates appropriates Gorgias’ particular audience, transforms Polus’ universal audience, and challenges Callicles’ elite audience, I provide an outline of the difficulties that Plato’s Socrates has to overcome in order to achieve the ‘community of minds’ that Perelman and Olbrechts–Tyteca identify as the bedrock of fruitful argumentation. Having done this, in the last section I turn to Plato’s Phaedrus, for the purpose of making evident that thinking about Plato’s deployment of rhetorical audiences is a crucial step in the effort to expose the implicit continuity that links the discussion of rhetoric delivered by the Gorgias to that of the Phaedrus. (shrink)

A topic common to both Plato’s and Aristotle’s discussions of theories of the soul is the doctrine of the soul as a harmony of the parts of the body. Plato’s Phaedo as well as Aristotle’s De anima and Eudemus present this theory and argue against the identification of the soul as a harmony. This paper has two focuses, one philosophical and one historical. First, I will focus on the argumentation used by Aristotle in his dialogue Eudemus, which is often associated (...) with Aristotle’s early attachment to Plato. On the basis of the argumentation against the harmonia theory, I will try to show that the Eudemus is not a dialogue that depicts Aristotle’s Platonic phase. Instead, by comparing the arguments of the Eudemus with both Plato and Aristotle’s mature thought, I will argue that the argumentation of the Eudemus seems to be an indirect attack on Plato’s view on the Forms and on the nature of the soul, and that it seems to be consistent with Aristotle’s mature work On the Soul. Second, given that Aristotle discusses this topic twice, I will try, also on the basis of conclusions about the Eudemus and on later reception of Aristotle’s arguments, to show why this is the case. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to the analysis of Plotinus’ citation of the Heraclitean saying B113 DK in the second treatise On the Presence of Being. I shall argue that the use which the author of the Enneads makes of this fragment has been hitherto misunderstood by scholars and that, for this reason, the significance of the passage and its role within Plotinus’ argument have been missed. Close attention will be paid to the tool through which Plotinus conveys his own reading (...) of Heraclitus’ tenet, i.e. etymology, and to the passages in which he both lays down and puts into practice the programmatic guidelines for his interpretation of the Presocratic. In addition, I shall interpret Plotinus’ recourse to a wordplay which is, in character, quite Heraclitean as a proof of the importance of his philosophical engagement with the Obscure. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the materialistic account of the blending and the way it shapes an original organism model. I aim to shed light on the threads of connections we can gather between the Presocratic and the Stoic views on the physical krasis of the body. The Stoics share with Parmenides and Empedocles the idea of a single material cosmic continuum in which thought and perception depend on the various blendings of the physical constituents of the body. Both of these (...) naturalistic traditions are committed to the view that substance is continuous and undergoes constant and qualitative change. My point is to underline how this view of a sympathetic cosmos presupposes a model of the individuality that is radically open. Thus, by taking off the notion of the krasis, the Stoics take off a problem – namely, that of the organism – that is first fleshed out by the Presocratics – Parmenides and Empedocles in particular – philosophers. In this respect, the Stoic view of relational identity indebts to the Presocratic account, beyond and against the Aristotelian one. (shrink)

With the use of a particular metaphor, which appears at the end of the Cratylus and is taken up with perfect symmetry at the beginning of the Theaetetus, Plato certainly wanted to indicate the succession of Cratylus–Theaetetus as an order for reading the two dialogues, which Trasillus faithfully reproduced in structuring the second tetralogy of Platonic dialogues. The claim of the theory of ideas, with which the Cratylus ends, must therefore be considered the background in which to place not only (...) the analysis of the name carried out in the Cratylus, but also the discussion and criticism of the epistemological theories examined and refuted in the Theaetetus. The transition from the discussion of the name to that of the logos is another important theoretical element that connects the two dialogues. Another one is the theory of knowledge, already precisely elaborated in the Cratylus, and taken up and deepened in the Theaetetus. Finally, the theme of false and error is a third theoretical element common to the two dialogues, which, starting from Euthydemus, finds its solution in the Sophist. (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate how Xenophanes was ‘eleaticised’, i.e. attributed theses and arguments that belong to Parmenides and Melissus. I examine texts of Plato, Aristotle and Theophrastus in order to determine if they considered Xenophanes as a philosopher and a monist. I show that neither Plato nor Aristotle regarded him as a philosopher, but rather as a pantheist poet who claimed, in a vague way, that everything is one. But Theophrastus interpreted too literally Aristotle’s claims and was the first (...) to make Xenophanes a proper monist philosopher. (shrink)

The paper firstly focuses on a rare vox, that is, the verb μετίσχω, as a new finding in two different sources: the Π text of Methaphysics Lambda 1075b19 and the “Ai Khanoum philosophical papyrus”. Using the verb μετίσχω testifies for a “2.0 version” of the theory of ideas, in a subsequent phase to Plato’s Parmenides. Xenocrates is likely to have played a role. This suggests a deeper connection than previously thought between Aristotelian theories and Plato’s Academy.

The core sense of pistis as understood in Posterior Analytics, De Anima, and the Rhetoric is not that of a logical relation in which cognitively grasped propositions stand in respect to one another, but the result of an act of socially embedded interpersonal communication, a willing acceptance of guidance offered in respect to action. Even when pistis seems to have an exclusively epistemological sense, this focal meaning of pistis is implicit; to have pistis in a proposition is to willingly accept (...) that proposition as a basis for some kind of activity as a result of some kind of communicative act. This is in accordance with Aristotle’s understanding of argumentation as a social practice, entered into in order lead others to certain actions, for certain ends. Understanding pistis in this way allows us to understand how it is that pistis admits of quantitative variation. (shrink)

Surprisingly little attention has been devoted to Musonius Rufus, a noted teacher and philosopher in first–century CE Rome, despite ample evidence for his impact in the period. This paper attempts to situate Musonius in relation to his philosophical predecessors in order to clarify both the contemporary status of the Stoic tradition and the value of engaging with the central figures of that school’s history. I make the case for seeing Cleanthes as a particularly prominent predecessor for Musonius and reaffirm the (...) importance of framing his philosophical commitments in the context of the Stoic tradition. On this latter point, I attempt to connect Musonius’ perspective on askesis and moral development with that of Posidonius. In doing so, I push back against the sometimes overly schematic intellectualism attributed to Stoic ethics generally. (shrink)

The following work features elements to ponder and an in-depth explanation taken on the Anca Vasiliu’s study about the possibilities and ways of thinking of God by a rational entity, such as the human being. This is an ever relevant topic that, however, takes place in relation to Platonic authors and texts, especially in Late Antiquity. The common thread is that the human being is a God’s creature who resembles him and who is image of. Nevertheless, this also applies within (...) the Christian Trinity according to which, not without problems, the Son is the image of the Father. Lastly, also the relationship of the Spirit with the Father and the Son, always within the Trinity, can be considered as a relationship of similarity, but again not without critical issues between the similarity of attributes, on the one hand, and the identity of nature, on the other. (shrink)

Passage 228a7-8 of Plato’s Sophist has been the object of a broad debate by reason of a number of subtle interpretative problems. The present work attempts to take stock of this passage and to put forward a satisfying solution from both a philological and an exegetic perspective. I seek to show that the reading cited by Galen and adopted in the editions of the Sophist cannot be preferred to the variant found in the manuscripts of the dialogue. As for the (...) interpretation, both readings stand out as problematic. I propose to reconsider the interpretation of the syntagma τοῦ φύσει συγγενοῦς and to translate it as “the natural kinship” rather than as “what is naturally kindred”. The paper continues with an analysis of the role played by kinship in Plato’s philosophy, showing how its sundering can be identified with stasis. (shrink)