Epistemology today centrally concerns the conceptual analysis of knowledge. Historically, however, this is a concept that philosophers have seldom been interested in analysing, particularly when it is construed as broadly as the English language would have it. Instead, the overriding focus of epistemologists over the centuries has been, first, to describe the epistemic ideal that human beings might hope to achieve, and then go on to chart the various ways in which we ordinarily fall off from that ideal. I discuss (...) in detail two historical manifestations of idealized epistemology — Aristotle and Descartes — and then consider how this perspective might make a difference to the discipline today. In the end, an idealized epistemology points toward a normative, prescriptive rather than descriptive enterprise. (shrink)

Hegel’s Science of Logic is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest works of European philosophy. However, its contribution to arguably the most important philosophical problem, Pyrrhonian scepticism, has never been examined in any detail. Pyrrhonian Scepticism and Hegel's Theory of Judgement fills a great lacuna in Hegel scholarship by convincingly proving that the dialectic of the judgement in Hegel’s Science of Logic successfully refutes this kind of scepticism. Although Ioannis Trisokkas has written the book primarily for those students of (...) philosophy who already have an interest in Hegel’s epistemology and philosophy of language and/or his Science of Logic, it will also appeal to those who investigate the problem of scepticism independently of the Hegel corpus. (shrink)

This dissertation is a study of the relation between Aristotle’s ethics and the crafts (or technai). My thesis is that Aristotle’s argument is at key points shaped by models proper to the crafts, this shaping being deeper than is generally acknowledged, and philosophically more problematic. Despite this, I conclude that the arguments I examine can, if revised, be upheld. The plan of the dissertation is as follows – Preface: The relation of my study to the extant secondary literature; Introduction: The (...) pre-Platonic concept of technē, as evidenced in Greek philosophical and literary sources, in particular the early Hippocratic corpus; Chapter one: The Platonic concept of technē, followed by an investigation of whether Plato affirms a virtue-technē in the Protagoras and Republic; Chapter two: Aristotle’s concept of technē, followed by scrutiny of his arguments in NE VI.5 against a virtue-technē, and of his analyses of slavery and deliberation; Chapter three: An exposition of Aristotle’s function argument, followed by a dominantist interpretation of it, and an explanation of dominantism as in part a technē-influenced doctrine; Chapter four: An examination of Aristotle’s ethical mean and its problems, with a diagnosis of these in terms of influence by the Philebus, and by paradigms derived from the crafts; Chapter five: Argument that Aristotle’s theory of habituation suffers from two significant opacities, these being a function of influence both by the Republic, and by models of craft-learning; Conclusion: Response to key objection; Aristotle’s ethics revised, defended. (shrink)

از زمان ارسطو عقل عملی یا فرونسیس ، یعنی فضیلت مندانه عمل کردن. چنین معنایی برای این واژه تازمان هیوم باقی بود، اما هیوم باتاکید بر نقشی که امیال، انگیزه ها وانفعالات ما، هنگام اتخاذ تصمیمات اخلاقی ایفامی کنند، بر نقش امیال ونگیزه ها وعوامل روان شناسانه در عقل عملی، تاکیدکرد.کانت بعدازهیوم، بواسطه ویژگی هایی که برای عقل عملی ذکر کرد، همچون خودبنیادیِ آن واهمیت بیشتر قائل شدن برای اراده، تعریف جدیدی از عقل عملی ارائه داد که آراء هیوم را (...) دراین مساله با چالش های جدی مواجه ساخت؛ وی تلاش زیادی کردتا نقش امیال وانگیزه های روانشناسانه را ازحوزه تصمیم اخلاقی حذف کند؛ اماتلاشهای کانت وپیروانش برای بنا نهادن وجدان اخلاقی صرفاً بر مبنای عقل واراده، راه به جایی نبرد وهمچنان انتقادات مهمی به تفسیرصرفاً عقلانیِ کانت از عقل عملی وارد است. درعصرحاضر، عده ای از فیلسوفان اخلاق از جمله خانم فیلیپا فوت وفیلسوفان نوارسطویی دیگر، ضمن نقد وردّ تفسیر کانتی از عقل عملی با ارائه تعریفی جدید از عقلانیت عملی، تلاش دارند تا بین عقل وسایرمنابع انگیزشی ازجمله امیال وانگیزه ها، دراتخاذتصمیم صحیح اخلاقی سازش ایجاد کنند. دراین مقاله به بررسی انتقادات برخی فلاسفه برکانت درباب عقل عملی، پرداخته می شود. (shrink)

Aristotle's theory of demonstration, developed in the Posterior Analytics, is not restricted to determining the formal requirements for formulating probative arguments that establish properly the results of scientific investigation. To the probative aspect of demonstration it shall be added its primarily explanatory character, orientated by theses of strong ontological and metaphysical content and involving notions like substance, essence and causation. We shall analyze the relation between those two ranges of Aristotle's philosophy of science and investigate how the formal features of (...) demonstration maintain an affinity with the metaphysical background to which scientific activity is conditioned. (shrink)