Milesians

The article sets out to reinterpret Heraclitus' views on religion and, by implication, his position in the context of the Presocratic philosophers' relationship to the Greek cultural tradition. It does so by examining the fragments in which Heraclitus' attitude to the popular religion of his time is reflected. The analysis of the fragments 69, 68, 15, 14, 5, 96, 93 and 92 DK reveals that the target of Heraclitus' criticism is not the religious practices themselves, but their popular interpretation. Heraclitus' (...) fragments are simultaneously shown to identify the underlying structure of the 'unity of opposites,' inherent in various religious practices. Heraclitus appears to reinterpret religious practices in terms of the conceptual structures of his own philosophy. On the other hand, religion provides him with the categories for the construction of his philosophical theology. Thus Heraclitus' treatment of religion is shown to be analogous to his treatment of ethics and politics, which he also tries to incorporate into his highly integrated vision of reality. In contrast to Xenophanes' radical critique of the traditional religion, Heraclitus emerges not as a reformer or an Aufklärer , but as an interpreter, who tries to discern the structures of meaning inherent in the existing practices, and to assume them into his own philosophical project. (shrink)

Scholarship on Xenophanes’s F1 has had two foci, one on the rules of the symposium and the other on the religious program posed at its close. Thus far, the two areas of focus have been treated as either separate issues or as the religious program proposed in the service of the sympotic objectives. Instead, I will argue that the sympotic norms Xenophanes espouses are in the service of the broader program of rational theology.

The Essential Herman Kahn offers the public for the first time an anthology consisting of the best of Herman Kahn's work. It brings together, out of the several thousands of pages published in his life, the "essential Kahn"—the most relevant, consequential, and interesting themes, ideas, and arguments of his work in areas such as international relations, public policy, environmentalism, strategic thinking, and futurology.

(No abstract is available for this citation).

The paper first discusses the metaphysical framework that allows the soul's integration into the physical world. A close examination of B36, supported by the comparative evidence of some other early theories of the soul, suggests that the word psuchê could function as both a mass term and a count noun for Heraclitus. There is a stuff in the world, alongside other physical elements, that manifests mental functions. Humans, and possibly other beings, show mental functions in so far as they have (...) a portion of that stuff. Turning to the physical characterization of the soul, the paper argues that B36 is entirely consistent with the ancient testimonies that say that psuchê for Heraclitus is exhalation. But exhalations cover all states of matter from the lowest moist part of atmospheric air to the fire of celestial bodies. If so, psuchê for Heraclitus is both air and fire. The fact that psuchê can manifest the whole range of physical properties along the dry-wet axis guarantees that souls can show different intellectual and ethical properties as well. Moreover, Sextus Empiricus, supported by some other sources, provides us with an answer how portions of soul stuff are individuated into individual souls. The paper closes with a brief discussion of the question whether, and if so with what qualifications, we can apply the term 'physicalism' to Presocratic theories of the soul. (shrink)

Seekes to explain the 'star-studded heavens' implausibly attributed to Anaximenes by Aetius as a confusion between Anaximenes and Asclepiades of Myrlea.

Anaximander is the first philosopher whose theory of the heavens is preserved in broad outlines. According to the sources the celestial bodies are huge rings of compressed air around the earth, each visible only where it is perforated by a tubular vent through which the fire contained in it can shine. Greatest and farthest of them is the sun, next comes the moon and under them there is the ring of the stars. It is a common practice to put and (...) answer the following questions: ‘…why he should have placed the stellar circles or rings closer to the earth than are the sun and the moon.’ ‘…why these lower rings of stellar ρ do not obscure the brighter but more distant bodies.’. (shrink)

Critical notice of Roberto Polito, The Sceptical Road: Aenesidemus’ Appropriation of Heraclitus, Brill, Leiden and Boston, 2004; Brigitte Pérez-Jean, Dogmatisme et scepticisme: L’héraclitisme d’Énésidème, Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, Villeneuve d’Ascq, 2005.

Athenaeus, xii. 526 a, quotes three elegiac couplets of Xenophanes on the luxurious ways which the men of Colophon learned from the Lydians. Since the lines lack theological or metaphysical interest, they have not received so much attention as other fragments of Xenophanes, and few attempts have been made to unravel their exact meaning. But it is rash to hurry over anything written by Xenophanes, and these lines are in their way as interesting as anything else that he wrote. For (...) they show what he, a penetrating and serious critic, thought about one aspect of the impact of East on West, of barbarian on Greek, and they contain his only known judgement on historical events. On examination they raise more questions than are usually found in them. They may be quoted as Diels printed them: βρоσνας δ μαθντες νωφελας παρ Λνδν, φρα τνραννης σαν νεν στνγερς, ϊσαν ες γоρν παναλоνργα φρε' χоντες, о μεоνς σπερ χλιоι ες ππαν, αχαλоι, χατσιν γαλλμεν' επρεπεσσιν, σκητоσ' δμν χρμασι δενμενоι. (shrink)

Eva Brann delves into Heraclitus's famously cryptic saying, "all things come to be in accordance with this Logos.".