This paper explores the role of external factors in the constitution of the Stoic mind. It will show how the external influences the Stoic mind in several crucial ways: 1) Constitutive Role: The external world acts as a constitutive factor for the soul (the third level of the scala naturae), shaping its development. At the fourth level, the logos (rational principle) interacts with qualified external objects. These objects form the basis of abstract reasoning and teachings derived from external sources; 2) (...) Truth-Making Function: The external world serves as a truth-maker for phantasiai and the axiomata associated with them, providing validation and substance to internal representations and core beliefs; 3) Opposition to External Goods: For the Stoic soul dedicated to virtue, external goods are elements to be opposed or transcended. The Stoic perspective emphasizes the pursuit of virtue as independent of external goods, which are considered indifferent or secondary to moral development; 4) Condition of Possibility: the external void or incorporeal space is a necessary condition for the growth of the cosmos, including its periodic conflagration (destruction) and subsequent reconstitution. (shrink)

In the last decades the Cyropaedia enjoyed a renewed interest, mostly addressed to the controversial character of Cyrus, exemplary leader or susceptible to a dark reading. However the character of Cyrus as a child and adolescent, who appears in Cyr. 1.3-4, has been usually overlooked, especially with regard to the psychological side of his behavior, which instead deserves to be carefully analyzed. Xenophon indeed created a complex, multifaced character: on the one hand a Cyrus as a child, who already shows (...) the exceptional character traits of the adult Cyrus; on the other hand – and this is the innovative aspect – a Cyrus as a child and adolescent who shows attitudes and behavior that today we are able to acknowledge as typical of children and adolescents. It is not difficult for us to grasp these attitudes and behavior, but that Xenophon succeeded in creating a character endowed with them is a really amazing achievement, because he could only rely on his observation skills, probably a kind of empathy and his gifts as a writer: an even more amazing achievement if we keep in mind that Greek literature and more generally Greek culture showed very little interest in the child itself, regarded nearly exclusively as the adult he was destined to become or anyway in its relationships with adults. Cyr. 1.4.3 is a very important passage, in which Xenophon gives a kind of overview of those features of Cyrus as a child that will quickly disappear already in the first phase of adolescence: immediately afterwards indeed in Cyr. 1.4.4 Xenophon summarizes in few lines some significant changes that mark the transition, often so abrupt, to adolescence and that will be described as the narration goes on. It is really noteworthy that very recent studies on some psychological processes (especially concerning mirror neurons) offer an explanation of the attitudes and behavior of Cyrus as a child and adolescent as they were narrated by Xenophon. (shrink)

Parmenides B 16/D51 presents an account of human cognition and understanding. It is usually taken to form part of the account of the untrustworthy opinions of mortals. Regardless of its proper location within the poem, it invokes difference, movement, and multiplicity — features that the goddess describes as fundamental to mortals’ opinions and as incompatible with what one must say and conceive on the road of inquiry that she recommends. The tale of the journey and both parts of the goddess’s (...) speech use negation, invoke difference and change and multiplicity, and in general conform in many ways to the conceptual framework the goddess attributes to mortals in B8.53-61/D8.58-66 and B9/D13. Does this reflect confidence in the Light-Night conception as a starting-point for an adequate account of what-is? Or does it produce a paradox, wherein the Light-Night conception undermines itself but we would have to use it in order to deny its adequacy? In sum, what kind of a claim about human understanding might the passage represent? What could B16/D51 say about the epistemological status of its own claims, and about the epistemological status of each part of the poem? Why does the passage mention humans (anthrōpoi) specifically, as opposed to all beings that have awareness? These questions will be the focus of this essay. (shrink)

According to the “orthodox” version of Parmenides’ Poem, version generally accepted as vox dei, the “Way of Truth” begins in fragment 2 of the Poem (because fragment 1 is only a kind of introduction) and ends at verse 50 of fragment 8. The “Way of the Doxa”, on the other hand, begins at verse 51 of fragment 8 and ends at fragment 19. We believe it will not an be exaggeration to say that this text could be signed by most (...) specialists interested in the Parmenidean philosophy, even the most eminent ones. Now, apart from a few words, this passage implicitly supposes a whole series of hypotheses, generally accepted without prior justification, hypotheses which, once analyzed, necessarily lead one to support the non-existence in Parmenides of either a “Way of Truth” or a “Way of Doxa”. (shrink)

The myth of Helen runs through the poetic and philosophical tradition of the ancient world. Her defense is a paradox for legal tradition and the opportunity for a triumph of rhetoric. Through her name Greeks discuss the enchantment of beauty and desire as a driving force, which can have a destructive or constructive effect, or even act as a medium for great ideals. With Helen, a controversial power is at issue, which emanates from beauty and which presents itself differently to (...) the gaze of men and women, raising a “gender” question that has clear traces in ancient texts. All this gives reason to appreciate, once again, the usefulness of intertextual comparison to investigate themes transversally present in poetic, rhetorical, legal, historical and philosophical texts. The revisiting of myths is already an elective place for a consciously intertextual practice on the part of tragic poets, in which Plato finds a model for his philosophical theatre. Among the detectable intersections, it still deserves investigation that precisely the “rewriting (palinodia)” of the myth of Helen offers Plato the opportunity to introduce a decisive turning point in the Phaedrus, where his Socrates deals with the power of eros by dueling with rhetoric: here a poetic quotation becomes a philosophical place, in which the threads of a distant comparison, sometimes explicit, sometimes underground, intertwine between the intellectuals active in the first half of the 4th century. The ambiguity of the myth of Helen is the underlying theme of this essay, which aims to identify connections between the texts and implications that are not always declared. The themes examined are the praise or denigration connected to the image of Helen in Homer, the double rewriting of the myth in Euripides (The Trojan women and Helen), the different virtuosities of its defense in Stesichorus, Gorgias and Isocrates, the philosophical metamorphosis of the myth in Plato’s Phaedrus, where for the first time the quality of desire is questioned together with the type of love that derives from it. This essay is intended to be a tribute to Livio Rossetti, who made intertextual study an indispensable exegetical model for understanding what is talked about in the literature of the ancient world. (shrink)

Hermeneutical scholars doubt whether many past authors really existed. They are only a sort of construction built with the passing of time. Indeed, Zeno of Elea, for instance, was real, and historians attempted to establish what he wrote and intended to say. Our most important source for Zeno is Aristotle. Zeno’s paradoxes deeply influenced the latter’s Physics. Is Aristotle’s physics relevant to us? Yes, because philosophical problems are too complex not to be considered in their historical development as well. In (...) reading Zeno and Aristotle, we can see physical problems from a completely different perspective and learn a lot. In other terms, the historical Zeno is disorienting for us. On the other hand, Zeno’s historical legacy is extremely interesting for us. Indeed, we will see how Zeno’s and Aristotle’s reflections on continuum, extension, and movement could contribute to a better understanding of these notions in the contemporary debate. (shrink)

Several scholarly inquiries have explored the possibility that Parmenides was acquainted with Heraclitus and engaged in polemics against him, in light of the fact that their respective chronologies do not preclude this scenario. However, with few exceptions, the debate remains polarized between two main positions: the first contends that Heraclitus and Parmenides were likely unaware of each other, or at least that no conclusive evidence exists to prove their acquaintance; the second posits that Parmenides was indeed aware of Heraclitus and (...) argued against him. This paper focuses on Heraclitus B 49a DK to offer additional, albeit measured, support for the latter position and to suggest a hypothesis, at least a partial one, concerning the origins of Parmenides’ κρίσις between εἶναι and μὴ εἶναι. (shrink)

Greek seafaring between the 10th and 6th centuries BCE gave rise to a technical culture centered around navigation, commerce, and international cultural exchange. The Greeks were not a unified nation in the modern sense, confined to a territory centralized in Attica or the Peloponnese. Instead, they were a collection of independent city-states (poleis) spread across the Mediterranean, from the Iberian Peninsula to the Black Sea. The intense commercial relationships among these Greek settlements and with other peoples wove a Mediterranean cultural (...) web that fostered a genuine spirit of intercultural exchange, leading to a new cultural synthesis that gave the Greeks – and the world to this day – an extraordinary drive for originality. This technical culture, which Rossetti calls the “cultura dell’attendibilità,” was based on observation, objectivity, and rationality. Without these principles, and relying solely on myth, seafaring could never have flourished. This shift away from myths to a new culture is testified by Xenophanes, who, in DK B 18 (LM D53), contrasts the ancient method of gaining knowledge through communication with the gods with a new method of research that in time yields better results. (shrink)

In this paper, the problem of compatibility between the two parts of the poem by Parmenides of Elea is addressed. This is done on the basis of a number of fragments from the poem – B 8, 9, 12, 16 and others – and a study of their ancient testimonia. In this way, the Parmenidean conception of the world and of human perceptive and gnoseological activity within it is reconstructed. Furthermore, starting from textual clues that show a certain need to (...) go beyond this view of the world, an attempt has been made to argue how τὸ ἐόν can be understood as the All, i.e. as the universe, but seen in its unity. In order to do so, a tempative answer was proposed, using the philosophical category of limit, to recent aporias raised by interpreters. (shrink)

Two of the greatest interpreters of Parmenides, Giovanni Casertano and Franco Ferrari, have given opposite interpretations of the role of the character of Parmenides. For Ferrari, Parmenides would only be a critic of ideas, as he equates them with their sensitive participants (thus, he could not be considered one of the prosopa of Plato). For Casertano, on the other hand, Parmenides expresses the ‘metaphysical’ aspects of ideas in accordance with the young Socrates’ discourse on the “prodigy” in the initial part (...) of the dialogue. Neither of the two interpretations presents a Parmenides that represents the figure of Plato adequate for the “dramatic” development of the dialogue. If, on the other hand, we regard them both as integral parts, the image and role of Parmenides could be more appropriate to the bipolar structure of the dialogue and of Plato himself. To this end, I have assumed that Plato unifies in Parmenides his dialectical-deductive method with that of Zeno: the aporetic-paradoxical one that is more open than his to finding ways of escape from any paradoxical arguments. It would be for this reason that Parmenides encourages the young and inexperienced Socrates to follow Zeno’s tropos when defining virtue, also because it was Socrates himself, in the final part of his discourse on the “prodigy,” who praised Zeno for the double courage shown first in criticizing the common sense and the principles of current physics and then in overcoming the contrast between these principles and the more specific mathematizing logic. I identify in this praise of Socrates an assumption, on the part of Parmenides, that the burden of bringing back into ideas the courageous behaviour that Zeno showed in the world of the sensible. I agree with Vlastos in considering Parmenides to be “the manifesto of Plato’s self-criticism,” and in viewing this Parmenides as the prosopon of a Plato that is willing both to level self-criticism at his own stance and to give voice to those who do not think like him and even to those who reject his position. (shrink)

The approach I propose here to Books VI and VII of Plato’s Republic is to offer some reflections on the organicist and perspectivist readings. Perspectivism seems in some respects to be a variant of organicism. Indeed, both approaches allow for a reassessment not only of the various parts that make up a dialogue, but also, more generally, of the importance of the literary or dramatic form, which is marginalised by the evolutionist reading. The aim of this essay is therefore to (...) try to understand some of the images present in the central books of the Republic, without burdening them with theoretical structures and questionable chronologies, but rather by noting their importance in the overall design of the individual text and their consistence within a broader organism, the entire and unitary Platonic corpus of dialogues. To this end, I will try to highlight the subtle differences between organicism and perspectivism. I will focus on the relationship between literary constructions and theoretical speculations that make the Republic an organically unified text in itself and perfectly consistent with the entire corpus of dialogues. Three images in particular will help me to show how literature and philosophy meet: the sun analogy, the divided line and the allegory of the cave. My aim is not to say what exactly the epistemology of the central books of the Republic consists in, but rather to try to identify the pitfalls in the text when philosophical questions about epistemological issues are separated from literary ones. (shrink)

Against the assumption that their literary form precludes Plato from expressing views in his dialogues, this paper argues that it is legitimate to read certain utterances of characters also as expressions of Plato’s views or to infer Plato’s views from his characters’ speech. Ancient hermeneutical practice, including the practice of Plato’s characters themselves, shows mimetic literature’s reception as “double speech” on two registers, a story register and a rhetorical register. Although aware of the distinction between character and author, ancient readers (...) attribute ideology in characters’ speeches directly to the author. Plato’s contemporaries did this with his dialogues. This practice creates the presumption that philosophical dialogues began as a genre both mimetic and assertoric. Evidence from Cicero and Plutarch supports this presumption, and modern examples show writers and artists weaving ideology into their works. Distinctions in modern literary theory help posit “mouthpiece” as a formal property of characters, “turned on” in order for the author to convey ideology at places in the work. I argue that the “mouthpiece” assumption does not entail fallacy and that the theoretical gains of the “author’s mouthpiece” construct outweigh its risks. Without vitiating dialogues’ status as fiction, the “mouthpiece” assumption serves the history of philosophy and enriches our engagement with the texts. (shrink)

The interest of scholars in the Anonymous of Iamblichus has been oriented in two main ways: it focuses either on the problem of its dating and authorship, or on one or other of the many themes which seem to have been on the agenda of the investigation of its author. My interest is in this second way and I propose to examine the author’s conception of time on the horizon of human nature. What makes man truly man (ἀνὴρ ἀληθῶς ἀγαθός (...) – DK 89, 4)? I intend to point the importance of the notion of time in the context of the human experience for who aspires to be an agathos, an enkratestaton. First, I will examine the lexical and semantic field of time employed to characterize the human condition and justify the prerogatives of author regarding human behaviour and action. Second, I will discuss the different aspects and contexts considered by the author to develop his argument. Among these aspects we have: (i) the distinction between what is innate in us (φῦναι), and what must be acquired through effort (φιλοπονία) and perseverance over time (πολὺν χρόνον); (ii) the opinion that anyone who wants to guide theirlife in view of what is beautiful and good (καλόν καὶ ἀγαθόν) must to be initiated very early (πρωιαίτατα), or should start “immediately and increasing to the end” (αὐτίκα τε ἀρξάμενον καὶ συναυξηθὲν είς τέλος); (iii) the need for him to use his own resources “always and not occasionally” (DK 89, 1–2). We will examine in our paper the passages in which a concept of time appears, in order to show that this is one of the centrepieces of the author’s argument and the way par excellence to understand the underlying concept of human nature at the thought of its author. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche resorted several times to the image of a child playing with sand or pebbles. His purpose in doing so was to evoke a cyclical process of construction and destruction devoid of both responsibility and finality. This essay examines, on the one hand, the relation of the child’s image to its two main hypotexts (Heraclitus DK 22 B 52 and Iliad XV 362-64) and, on the other, the range of Nietzsche’s uses of the simile.

The problem of the interpretation of the Timaeus represents one of the greatest exegetical challenges for Plotinus. For Plotinus the Timaeus is a problematic dialogue due to its mythical-allegorical language and the fact that some doctrines in the work seem incompatible with his hypostatic vision. The Plotinian conception of the demiurge is critical of the concept of “artisanal causality.” Plotinus does not agree that the cosmos could have been generated according to a plan, i.e., according to dianoetic and contingent reasoning. (...) At the same time, he identifies the demiurge with the Intellect, but then, in other treatises, also equates the demiurge with the world soul and nature, i.e., the aspect of the third hypostasis that has the task of acting directly on matter. While this ambiguity of Plotinus is found in several places of his Enneads, it finds justification in a spurious dialogue of Plato, the Epinomis, in which the role of the demiurgic soul is central. In my opinion, Plotinus is likely to have taken his cue from the Epinomis as an endorsement for his doctrine of the demiurgic soul. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the identification of the demiurgic soul with a single hypostasis leads Plotinus to several aporias. (shrink)

Aristotle’s observation that “Plato not wrongly ordered sophistry around non-being” (Metaph. E 2, 1026b14; also in K 8, 1064b29) refers generally to Plato’s Sophist. The admission of non-being (τὸ μὴ ὄν) could be considered as a certain consequence of the Eleatic monism, which gave rise to the Sophistic movement as has been recognized by Plato and Aristotle. In this paper, we try to identify more precisely the context of this setting of non-being of polemical and very particular importance.