Plato's confrontation with Dionysius I, the so-called “tyrant of Sicily,” became famous as a cautionary tale of the perils of offering unwelcome advice to a powerful prince. Within early modern England, this tale took on added currency in the context of humanists' ambitions to serve as counselors in the court of Henry VIII. The humanist scholar Thomas Elyot (1490–1546), who briefly and unsuccessfully served at Henry's court, re-created Plato's exchange with Dionysius I in his dramatic dialogue The Knowledge Whiche Maketh (...) a Wise Man (1533). In his dialogue, Elyot imagines Plato returning to Athens after his brief period of enslavement, where he meets the philosopher/rhetorician Aristippus. Aristippus challenges Plato by positing that Plato's dangerous words to Dionysius violated rhetorical tenets of propriety and timing. In the course of their extended exchange, two different versions of the rhetoric of counsel surface—one based on principles of philosophy and one based on strategic rhetoric. (shrink)

Taiji – sport, meditation, martial art , health preservation, way of enlightenment and philosophy of life – is one the best-known signs for recognizing Chinese Daoism. The following article wishes to explain the influence of classical philosophical Taoism notions such as dao , qi and wuwei and their application on Taiji principles practiced today world wide. Arising from tradition of an early Daoism those notions are the core of its fundamental books and forming material of Daoistic philosophy, which has managed, (...) despite its exposure to great historical changes and religious influences during the thousands of years, to preserve its autonomy owing to the application of those axioms. Regularly practicing Taiji with the aim of mens sana in corpore sano and appreciating the rules of principles dao, qi and wuwei directly result in suppleness, strength and composure of body and spirit and carries us to higher levels of consciousness in which we are able to achieve the unity of physical and mental perfection. In this manner Taiji as ”sport” gains its complete, transcendent dimension. (shrink)

In this essay I discuss an important but neglected controversy in which the Stoics sought to discredit Epicurus' teaching on justice by showing that the Epicurean wise man, if immune from detection or punishment, will commit injustice whenever he may profit from it. Under the influence of this criticism, tradition has developed a view of Epicurus' position that makes it so weak and vulnerable that it is difficult to see how Epicureans could have defended it over the course of (...) several centuries. There is decisive evidence, however, that Epicurus' critics seriously misrepresented his position, and that the tradition influenced by their polemic stands in need of fundamental revision.1 My purpose here is to prove that the Epicurean wise man will not commit injustice, secretly or openly, because it is in his self–interest to be just; to reconstruct Epicurus' arguments for this teaching; to show how he defends his position against natural right theorists; and to clarify the larger issues at stake in his controversy with the Stoics. I begin by sketching the Stoic criticisms and the Epicurean response. (shrink)

The possible Stoic origins of the natural rights and natural law theories of the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) has been a subject of scholarly debate in recent years. Yet discussions about Grotian sociability tend to focus exclusively on the meaning of appetitus societatis in De Jure Praedae (written in 1604–1608) and De Jure Belli ac Pacis (1625), with little reference to the historical context. Insufficient consideration has been given to the intended audience(s) of these works, Grotius’ purpose in writing (...) them, and the possible correlation between his overarching argument and his working methods. This article examines Grotius’ use and abuse of Seneca's philosophical works in De Jure Praedae, commissioned by the directors of the Dutch East India Company (or VOC) in autumn 1604. The brutal murder of Sebald de Weert on the island of Ceylon (modern-day Sri Lanka) in June 1603 is analyzed from a Stoic perspective in Chapter 15 of De Jure Praedae. Following his refusal to hand over Portuguese prisoners, De Weert and his crew were butchered on the beach of Batticaloa by Wilama Dharma Suriya, the ruler of the island's interior. Grotius blamed the victim. VOC commanders in monsoon Asia should suppress any residual loyalty which they might feel towards Christendom. It was imperative to conclude alliances with native rulers against the Iberian colonial powers, regardless of the rulers’ (lack of) faith or their horrific treatment of prisoners. As Grotius noted in Chapter 8 of De Jure Praedae, Seneca distinguished between “two kinds of commonwealth, the world state and the city state.” Spanish and Portuguese violations of the natural law – freedom of trade and navigation in particular – deserved condign punishment for the sake of both the fellowship of mankind and, naturally, the VOC and Dutch Republic. In assessing the uses of Stoicism in De Jure Praedae, much can be learned from the physical characteristics of Ms. BPL 917 in Leiden University Library, its sole surviving manuscript copy. Seneca's philosophical works are not cited at all in the original text of Ms. BPL 917, which Grotius copied out in 1604–1605. Instead, quotations from De Ira, De Clementia and De Beneficiis appear in the top and bottom margins of folio-pages or on inserted sheets of paper, which can be dated to 1607–1608. These quotations serve to flesh out an existing argument about the VOC's just war(s) in the East Indies. A case in point is the heavily rewritten Chapter 2. Grotius added quotations from De Clementia at the same time as he reformulated two natural laws on f. 8–9, a folio sheet inserted in or after January 1607. This was no coincidence. Revenging the past misdeeds of the Portuguese, which Grotius had described in great detail in Chapter 11, could no longer be considered the main or only priority of the VOC. Instead, Grotius contended on f. 8–9 that “evil deeds must be corrected” so as to achieve, in Seneca's words, “universal security.” Acting as a kind of global police force, the VOC should punish transgressors of the natural law on account of “that world community” envisioned by the Stoics. The practical consequences were felt during the Twelve Years Truce (1609–1621). Despite a cessation of arms in Europe, the VOC continued to engage in hostilities in the East Indies. The author of De Jure Praedae supported the Company on this. Like Cicero before him, he had successfully harnessed the Stoa to the cause of empire. (shrink)

The possible Stoic origins of the natural rights and natural law theories of the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius has been a subject of scholarly debate in recent years. Yet discussions about Grotian sociability tend to focus exclusively on the meaning of appetitus societatis in De Jure Praedae and De Jure Belli ac Pacis , with little reference to the historical context. Insufficient consideration has been given to the intended audience of these works, Grotius’ purpose in writing them, and the possible (...) correlation between his overarching argument and his working methods. This article examines Grotius’ use and abuse of Seneca's philosophical works in De Jure Praedae, commissioned by the directors of the Dutch East India Company in autumn 1604.The brutal murder of Sebald de Weert on the island of Ceylon in June 1603 is analyzed from a Stoic perspective in Chapter 15 of De Jure Praedae. Following his refusal to hand over Portuguese prisoners, De Weert and his crew were butchered on the beach of Batticaloa by Wilama Dharma Suriya, the ruler of the island's interior. Grotius blamed the victim. VOC commanders in monsoon Asia should suppress any residual loyalty which they might feel towards Christendom. It was imperative to conclude alliances with native rulers against the Iberian colonial powers, regardless of the rulers’ faith or their horrific treatment of prisoners. As Grotius noted in Chapter 8 of De Jure Praedae, Seneca distinguished between “two kinds of commonwealth, the world state and the city state.” Spanish and Portuguese violations of the natural law – freedom of trade and navigation in particular – deserved condign punishment for the sake of both the fellowship of mankind and, naturally, the VOC and Dutch Republic.In assessing the uses of Stoicism in De Jure Praedae, much can be learned from the physical characteristics of Ms. BPL 917 in Leiden University Library, its sole surviving manuscript copy. Seneca's philosophical works are not cited at all in the original text of Ms. BPL 917, which Grotius copied out in 1604–1605. Instead, quotations from De Ira, De Clementia and De Beneficiis appear in the top and bottom margins of folio-pages or on inserted sheets of paper, which can be dated to 1607–1608. These quotations serve to flesh out an existing argument about the VOC's just war in the East Indies. A case in point is the heavily rewritten Chapter 2. Grotius added quotations from De Clementia at the same time as he reformulated two natural laws on f. 8–9, a folio sheet inserted in or after January 1607. This was no coincidence. Revenging the past misdeeds of the Portuguese, which Grotius had described in great detail in Chapter 11, could no longer be considered the main or only priority of the VOC. Instead, Grotius contended on f. 8–9 that “evil deeds must be corrected” so as to achieve, in Seneca's words, “universal security.” Acting as a kind of global police force, the VOC should punish transgressors of the natural law on account of “that world community” envisioned by the Stoics. The practical consequences were felt during the Twelve Years Truce . Despite a cessation of arms in Europe, the VOC continued to engage in hostilities in the East Indies. The author of De Jure Praedae supported the Company on this. Like Cicero before him, he had successfully harnessed the Stoa to the cause of empire. (shrink)

The possible Stoic origins of the natural rights and natural law theories of the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) has been a subject of scholarly debate in recent years. Yet discussions about Grotian sociability tend to focus exclusively on the meaning of appetitus societatis in De Jure Praedae (written in 1604–1608) and De Jure Belli ac Pacis (1625), with little reference to the historical context. Insufficient consideration has been given to the intended audience(s) of these works, Grotius’ purpose in writing (...) them, and the possible correlation between his overarching argument and his working methods. This article examines Grotius’ use and abuse of Seneca's philosophical works in De Jure Praedae, commissioned by the directors of the Dutch East India Company (or VOC) in autumn 1604. The brutal murder of Sebald de Weert on the island of Ceylon (modern-day Sri Lanka) in June 1603 is analyzed from a Stoic perspective in Chapter 15 of De Jure Praedae. Following his refusal to hand over Portuguese prisoners, De Weert and his crew were butchered on the beach of Batticaloa by Wilama Dharma Suriya, the ruler of the island's interior. Grotius blamed the victim. VOC commanders in monsoon Asia should suppress any residual loyalty which they might feel towards Christendom. It was imperative to conclude alliances with native rulers against the Iberian colonial powers, regardless of the rulers’ (lack of) faith or their horrific treatment of prisoners. As Grotius noted in Chapter 8 of De Jure Praedae, Seneca distinguished between “two kinds of commonwealth, the world state and the city state.” Spanish and Portuguese violations of the natural law – freedom of trade and navigation in particular – deserved condign punishment for the sake of both the fellowship of mankind and, naturally, the VOC and Dutch Republic. In assessing the uses of Stoicism in De Jure Praedae, much can be learned from the physical characteristics of Ms. BPL 917 in Leiden University Library, its sole surviving manuscript copy. Seneca's philosophical works are not cited at all in the original text of Ms. BPL 917, which Grotius copied out in 1604–1605. Instead, quotations from De Ira, De Clementia and De Beneficiis appear in the top and bottom margins of folio-pages or on inserted sheets of paper, which can be dated to 1607–1608. These quotations serve to flesh out an existing argument about the VOC's just war(s) in the East Indies. A case in point is the heavily rewritten Chapter 2. Grotius added quotations from De Clementia at the same time as he reformulated two natural laws on f. 8–9, a folio sheet inserted in or after January 1607. This was no coincidence. Revenging the past misdeeds of the Portuguese, which Grotius had described in great detail in Chapter 11, could no longer be considered the main or only priority of the VOC. Instead, Grotius contended on f. 8–9 that “evil deeds must be corrected” so as to achieve, in Seneca's words, “universal security.” Acting as a kind of global police force, the VOC should punish transgressors of the natural law on account of “that world community” envisioned by the Stoics. The practical consequences were felt during the Twelve Years Truce (1609–1621). Despite a cessation of arms in Europe, the VOC continued to engage in hostilities in the East Indies. The author of De Jure Praedae supported the Company on this. Like Cicero before him, he had successfully harnessed the Stoa to the cause of empire. (shrink)

In this essay I discuss an important but neglected controversy in which the Stoics sought to discredit Epicurus' teaching on justice by showing that the Epicurean wise man, if immune from detection or punishment, will commit injustice whenever he may profit from it. Under the influence of this criticism, tradition has developed a view of Epicurus' position that makes it so weak and vulnerable that it is difficult to see how Epicureans could have defended it over the course of (...) several centuries. There is decisive evidence, however, that Epicurus' critics seriously misrepresented his position, and that the tradition influenced by their polemic stands in need of fundamental revision.1 My purpose here is to prove that the Epicurean wise man will not commit injustice, secretly or openly, because it is in his self–interest to be just; to reconstruct Epicurus' arguments for this teaching; to show how he defends his position against natural right theorists; and to clarify the larger issues at stake in his controversy with the Stoics. I begin by sketching the Stoic criticisms and the Epicurean response. (shrink)

According to Steven Nadler's novel interpretation of Spinoza's much discussed ‘free man’, the free man is not an unattainable ideal. On this reading, the free man represents an ideal condition not because he is passionless, as has often been claimed, but because even though he experiences passions, he ‘never lets those passions determine his actions’. In this paper, I argue that Nadler's interpretation is incorrect in taking the model of the free man to be an attainable ideal within our reach. (...) Furthermore, I show that Spinoza's moral philosophy has room for another ideal yet attainable condition, which is represented by the wise man. On my reading, becoming a wise man consists not in surmounting human bondage, but in understanding ourselves as finite expressions of God's power and, thereby, coming to terms with the ineliminability of bondage for us due to our very human or modal condition in the Spinozistic universe. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:God, the Absolute Wise Man, and the Study of ReligionClemens CavallinThe Absolute Wise ManIn the beginning of the Summa contra gentiles [SCG], Thomas Aquinas remarks that, according to the Philosopher (that is, Aristotle), the wise man orders "things rightly and governs them well."1 To do this, the wise man needs to pay attention to the proper goal of his activity, that is, the good toward (...) which he is to order things. This means that there can be wise politicians, carpenters, and philologists; but Aquinas has primarily in mind "the absolute wise man" (simpliciter sapiens), who queries both the origin of the universe and its end: God.Moreover, not only does the absolute wise man contemplate the nature of God, the ultimate source and truth of the universe, but as even the highest theoretical wisdom (in the Aristotelean sense of sophia) has a practical, ordering dimension, it is also proper for such a person to teach truth and oppose falsehood—in other words, to be a teacher.2Toward the end of the first chapter of SCG, "The Office of the Wise [End Page 1207] Man," Aquinas returns to his introductory quote from Proverbs 8:7: "My mouth shall meditate truth, and my lips shall hate impiety." Aquinas interprets impiety (impietas) as "falsehood against the divine truth," and its opposite, piety (pietas), he writes, is another word for religion.3 The absolute wise person is, therefore, in the business of ordering religion toward its proper goal, God as the origin and end of the universe. As a result, besides the mistaken views of heretics, the Christian wise man, according to Aquinas, has to oppose the errors of Jews, gentiles, and Muslims, that is, all non-Christian religions. In refuting the latter two, he has to use natural reason, as they accept neither the Old nor the New Testament.4 And this philosophical task is the fundamental errand of SCG.Moreover, the quest for and ordering of knowledge in relation to ultimate wisdom brings with it a joyous union of "man to God in friendship," as God, the creator, made everything in wisdom, as ordered to himself, the Supreme Being and Truth.5 To pursue wisdom thus divinizes man.However, my goal in this article is not primarily to deepen our understanding of the Thomist spirituality of higher wisdom, but to probe the possibility of a Catholic "religious studies" endeavor inspired by Aquinas's approach in SCG I. My main question is, therefore, whether the office of the wise man is compatible with (or at least complementary to) the idea and practice of religious studies. Or if a Catholic approach to religious studies must do without absolute wisdom and settle for a lower-level goal such as ordering the relations between the diverse religious traditions of global society with the goal of harmonious coexistence? In that case, the spirituality of the scholar turns from divinization to humanization, but in what way would such studies be Catholic?A Catholic "religious studies" is here understood as different from theology of religions, and more generally from dogmatic theology.6 Theology of religions is concerned with questions such as the possible salvific role of non-Christian religions, with how to understand the principle of extra ecclesiam nulla salus ("no salvation outside the Church") and [End Page 1208] the trichotomy of exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism.7 The main concern of religious studies is not such evaluations, but rather the details of the history of religions and the contemporary diversity and changes of religion and spirituality. The theoretical thrust of religious studies aims at understanding the natural inclination for religion and its manifold manifestations (beliefs, rituals, and myths). It is also distinct from natural theology (for example as found in SCG), as the latter deals with the possibility and scope of rational knowledge of the divine.Moreover, religious studies as a field differs from that of Catholic studies, which has Catholicism itself as the object of study and which combines perspectives from religious studies and theology, often with the aim of cultivating the Catholic identity of a college or university.8Moreover, the interreligious-dialogue active component of interre-ligious studies is more limited... (shrink)

In the second book of the De Musica, Aristides Quintilianus discourses at length on the educational value of music, drawing on many earlier sources, Pythagorean, Damonian, and of course Plato and Aristotle. In ch. 6 Plato's censorious views in the Republic are particularly referred to, but, like Aristotle in the eighth book of his Politics, Aristides takes a less severe attitude towards the pleasure-giving content of melody on appropriate occasions, and points to the natural human taste for such music: τς (...) δ σεως κα τ τοιατα παιτοσης, μποδίζειν μν δνατον , τν δ νσεων τν λιμον προκριτον. (shrink)

In the second book of the De Musica, Aristides Quintilianus discourses at length on the educational value of music, drawing on many earlier sources, Pythagorean, Damonian, and of course Plato and Aristotle. In ch. 6 Plato's censorious views in the Republic are particularly referred to, but, like Aristotle in the eighth book of his Politics, Aristides takes a less severe attitude towards the pleasure-giving content of melody on appropriate occasions, and points to the natural human taste for such music: τ⋯ς (...) δ ϕὺσεως κα τ τοιατα παιτοσης, μποδίζειν μν δνατον, τν δ νσεων τν ὠϕλιμον προκριτον. (shrink)

The Hiero is an account in Socratic conversational form of a meeting between Simonides the poet and Hiero the tyrant of Syracuse; it was written by Xenophon of Athens in the fourth century b.c., but is set in the fifth, when the historical Simonides and Hiero lived and met. The subject they are portrayed discussing is the relative happiness of the tyrant and private individual. Plato also makes this a topic of discussion in his Republic. However, whereas Plato writes a (...) regular Socratic dialogue, Xenophon does not, for though he represents his characters using Socratic conversation, Socrates himself does not appear; the characteros of the Hiero are Simonides and Hiero, poet and tyrant. This is the problem of the Hiero. It requires explanation. The action of the Hiero is initiated by Simonides and begins in the following way: Simonides the poet once came to the court of Hiero the tyrant. When they were both at leisure, Simonides said, ‘Would you be willing to tell me, Hiero, something you are likely to know better than I?’ And Hiero said, ‘What is it that I should know better than you, who are such a wise man?’ He replied, ‘I know that you were once a private individual and are now a tyrant. Since you have experienced both conditions, you are likely to know better than I how tyrannical life differs from private life in respect of men's pleasures and griefs’ . The identification of Simonides as a wise man who nevertheless seeks wisdom from others establishes his Socratic nature from the start. (shrink)

It is for Hume’s sympathetic attention to the complexity of human nature, and for his trying to do justice to it at the deepest levels of philosophical refl ection, that we should honour his memory.

It is for Hume’s sympathetic attention to the complexity of human nature, and for his trying to do justice to it at the deepest levels of philosophical refl ection, that we should honour his memory.

There is a tension in Hume’s theory of belief. He tells us that beliefs are ideas that, as a result of certain natural mechanisms of the mind, become particularly lively and vivacious. Such an account seems to allow us little control over which beliefs we acquire, maintain or eschew. It seems I could not avoid feeling the strength of such ideas any more than I could avoid feeling the strength of the sun when exposed to it. Yet much of Hume’s (...) writings on belief reveal that he thinks we do have quite a lot of control in the area of belief maintenance and that we can be blameworthy for holding some beliefs and not others. For example, he says that beliefs that are a result of prejudice, namely beliefs formed on the basis of “general rules contrary to present observation and experience,” are “errors.” It is similarly an error if I believe x rather than y simply because x occurred more recently and is thus conceived by my mind in a more lively manner. The man who trembles when looking at the precipice below him, despite the complete security afforded by the iron cage he is in, ought not to believe he is in danger. Hume says we “ought to regulate our judgment concerning causes and effect” with rules that are formed in the understanding. These rules teach us to “distinguish accidental circumstances from the effacacious causes”. In the first Enquiry, Hume says, “A wise man … proportions his belief to the evidence.”. (shrink)

No philosopher is needed to say where reality may be found. The fool no less than the wise man is in direct touch with real existence at every moment of his waking or dreaming life. To find reality might be a problem for timeless gods beyond the flux of nature—if timeless gods can be said to have problems—but natural creatures encounter reality at every turn. Nor need we look to the philosopher for knowledge. A division of labor having been (...) made between philosopher and scientist, it is to the scientist that we turn for most of our knowledge. Nevertheless, tasks for the philosopher remain and one of these is to make clear what knowledge is, for, to have knowledge is one thing; to know what knowledge is, is another. Science, we may safely assume, constitutes our best claim to knowledge but not all who know their science can say why it is knowledge. (shrink)

The interpretation of the theoretical content of the ethics of Democritus, as well as of its place in the history of ethical thought, encounters a special difficulty. Democritus' ethics, which has come down to us in fragments, the authenticity of which is still a matter of debate, is full of evident contradictions. It contains mutually exclusive judgments on questions which were the principal subject matter of the intellectual polemics in ethics in the fifth century B.C. On the one hand, Democritus (...) put forth a rather definite naturalistic-individualistic thesis: "Pleasure and displeasure form the boundary between what is useful and what is harmful." On the other hand, he intellectualizes moral motives and states his belief in the existence of general ethical determinations: "There is one and the same good and one and the same truth for all people, whereas one thing is agreeable to one person, another thing to another." Democritus is just as contradictory on the question of the moral value of the state. We find in him an unambiguous affirmation equating a moral individual with the citizen of a city state: "The interests of the state should be above everything else, and we must see to it that it is well governed. To assist in this, we must not struggle against justice and use force for our own benefit against the general good. For a well-governed state is a mighty bastion: it encompasses all, and as long as it persists, everything is as one, but if it should perish, all perishes with it." Yet at the same time a moral model of actions for him involves emancipation from laws: "He called laws a bad invention and said: "The wise man should not obey the laws, he live freely.". (shrink)

The aim "has been to provide the general reader with a reliable and trustworthy account of the life, teaching and influence of Confucius and to show how a man, comparatively insignificant and obscure in his own day, came to occupy a supreme place as the Great and Revered Teacher of the Chinese people." This aim is admirably fulfilled in this sympathetic study of the roots and history of Confucian civilization and its continuing revival of interest, both in the mainland and (...) in areas of Chinese Dispersion, in Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Part I gives a good account of the "unique and distinctive place given to Confucius, the founder of one of the world’s greatest systems of religion and philosophical thought." A persuasive case is offered for the defense of the religious dimension of Confucian thought, though its content is essentially ethical. Professor Smith has, in the main, succeeded in conveying the Confucian religious attitude. Part II devotes to a discussion of Confucian civilization from the triumph of Confucianism in the Han Dynasty, and its role until the founding of the Republic of China in 1911. It deals with the development of Neo-Confucian systems and the state cult. A great emphasis is placed on the process that led to the apex of the Confucian civilization in the Manchu Dynasty. The book concludes with an assessment of Confucius: "The great ideals of individual perfection and a harmonious social order which Confucius inculcated are as relevant in the modern world as they were nearly 2500 years ago.... He retains his place, and will still retain his place among the wise ones of the earth who sought after righteousness and found it a thing of great price. Confucius is China’s greatest gift to mankind." The book is a contribution to contemporary reassessment of Confucian thought.—A. S. C. (shrink)

In this paper I compare two models of expert judgment: the art critic in Hume’s “Of the Standard of Taste” and the “wise man” in “Of Miracles.” The art critic is a true judge of beauty because he has made himself into a person who is optimally receptive to beauty. He possesses the virtues of taste: “Strong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice” (“Of the Standard of Taste,” 241). But (...) the virtues of the art critic, I argue, are also those of the “wise man,” the person who consistently “proportions his belief to the evidence” (EHU 10.4; SBN 110). Comparison of these two characters reveals that for Hume the virtues fundamental to the art critic’s critical competence are also epistemic virtues. Hume’s exposition of aesthetic excellences should thus be of interest for virtue epistemology. Because contemporary virtue epistemologists have tended to focus almost exclusively on the relationships between intellectual and moral virtues, Hume offers something new: an account of epistemic virtues based on aesthetic virtues. (shrink)

Timeless advice on how to be a successful leader in any field The ancient biographer and essayist Plutarch thought deeply about the leadership qualities of the eminent Greeks and Romans he profiled in his famous—and massive—Lives, including politicians and generals such as Pericles, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Mark Antony. Luckily for us, Plutarch distilled what he learned about wise leadership in a handful of essays, which are filled with essential lessons for experienced and aspiring leaders in any (...) field today. In How to Be a Leader, Jeffrey Beneker presents the most important of these essays in lively new translations accompanied by an enlightening introduction, informative notes, and the original Greek on facing pages. In "To an Uneducated Leader," "How to Be a Good Leader," and "Should an Old Man Engage in Politics?" Plutarch explains the characteristics of successful leaders, from being guided by reason and exercising self-control to being free from envy and the love of power, illustrating his points with memorable examples drawn from legendary Greco-Roman lives. He also explains how to train for leadership, persuade and deal with colleagues, manage one's career, and much more. Writing at the height of the Roman Empire, Plutarch suggested that people should pursue positions of leadership only if they are motivated by "judgment and reason"—not "rashly inspired by the vain pursuit of glory, a sense of rivalry, or a lack of other meaningful activities." His wise counsel remains as relevant as ever. (shrink)

Independent on Sunday October 2nd One of the country's lead­ing philosophical counsellers, and chairman of the Society for Philosophy in Practice (SPP), Tim LeBon, said it typically took around six 50 ­minute sessions for a client to move from confusion to resolution. Mr LeBon, who has 'published a book on the subject, Wise Therapy, said philoso­phy was perfectly suited to this type of therapy, dealing as it does with timeless human issues such as love, purpose, happiness and emo­tional challenges. (...) `Wise Therapy, is part of a series aimed at promoting an integrative attitude as its ethos. Among all the many perspectives of psychotherapists and counselors, philosophy needs to take its place and needs to find its voice. Tim LeBon has provided an effective means by which counselors can bring philosophy into their work with clients' - APPA journal `Tim Le Bon's Wise Therapy is a comprehensible and well argued book dealing with the practical therapeutic applications of philosophical research that may well be of interest to philosophers but -- as the author himself intends -- will be of most obvious benefit to therapists and counselors, both by informing their dialogue with clients in new ways and by helping them become more informed about ways to resolve the ethical dilemmas arising within the context of their own work' - Metapsychology `A fascinating workshop for therapists and clients, backed up a thorough degree if philosophical acuity' - Journal of the Society for Existential Analysis `I strongly recommend the book for philosophers as well as practitioners, teachers, students and supervisors in counselling and psychotherapy' - Self and Society `Provides some additional and valuable arrows for the therapist's quiver' - Irvin Yalom, author of Love's Executioner `Like Aristotle, Tim LeBon examines what is said and extracts what is best from it…. There are many fascinating exercises designed to bring out and enlighten the client's values, conception of the good life, well-being, happiness, pleasure, and the proper place of reason in life…. Wise Therapy is well written and engaging. The case histories are illuminating examples of therapeutic techniques at work, the thought experiments are well designed, and the philosophical position adapted from the internal debates of the philosophers is level headed…. I recommend it highly to philosophers with an interest in counselling, and psychological counsellors with an interest in philosophy' - Jeff Mason, The Philosophers' Magazine `Tim LeBon has… authored a text which should become a staple on the philosophical counsellor's bookshelf…. Wise Therapy is a concise, well-written book…. His ability to relate philosophical concepts to counselling concerns is admirable and attests to the skill and knowledge he possesses as a working counsellor. But, by far the most important part of Tim LeBon's book to PC is the last chapter, "The Counsellor's Philosophical Toolbox"' - Craig Munns in The Examined Life ` Tim LeBon has done a good job of offering practical approaches to some of the most important and vexing issues that arise in counselling…. Tim LeBon's book contains helpful suggestions, practical information, and useful examples, and would make a good addition to the library of any counsellors willing to allow philosophy to turn mere client sessions into wise therapy' - Peter Raabe, Practical Philosophy Wise Therapy is an original and practical guide to how philosophy can benefit counselling and psychotherapy. Tim LeBon argues that therapy, informed by philosophy, can help clients make better decision and achieve emotional wisdom. He uses philosophical approaches to explore issues of right and wrong, the emotions and reasons, well-being and the meaning of life, and develops a 'counsellor's toolbox' of techniques that can help practitioners apply the wisdom of philosophy to good therapeutic practice. For counsellors who may find philosophical approaches to therapy useful, this work addresses key philosophical topics - the emotions, free will, the meaning of life and ethics. It is jargon-free where possible and assumes no previous philosophical training. From The Independent, 16th November 2004 Plato is my agony aunt It was the end of a love affair that broke her heart. Could the wisdom of the great philosophers show her how to be happy again? Claire Smith tries a novel form of therapy "The unexamined life is not worth living," Socrates said. Nor is the life you're left with after your boyfriend has left you for another woman - at least, that's how it felt in October last year when mine broke rank and went off with an art student from Cleveland, Ohio. We were over there for the opening of his new art exhibition. He'd flown over four days before me and had met her at a party. Supposedly, they "connected". The five months that followed were a roller-coaster of confusion, vitriol and despair. I knew there'd been problems in our relationship. We saw the world very differently; he delighted in the charm of the ordinary, I wanted maximum divinity. He walked; I galloped. He drank tea; I loathed the stuff. But, along the banks of the Thames, we'd made a promise to always stick together. Our love was something unique: "transcendental", I called it. And besides, we recycled. Surely a commitment to save the world would save our relationship? Alas, no. So there I was, a woman scorned. Hell truly hath no greater fury. And what made it worse was that I still believed in our transcendental love. If I wanted to change the way I was feeling, I needed to alter the way I was thinking. But how? A few bottles of wine and a sharp blow to the head might have done the trick. Fortunately, there's an older, more trusted way of turning your head on its head that counsellors are starting to use: philosophy. The idea of employing Plato as an agony aunt was begun in 1981 by the German philosopher Gerd Achenbach. Although philosophy spends a lot of its time asking real-life questions that affect real-life people - What is happiness? And is it always wrong to lie? - most of the debate goes on in ivory towers. What Achenbach and subsequent philosophers including Tim LeBon, the chairman of the UK's Society for Philosophy in Practice, wanted to do was "give practical application" to this gigantic library of great thoughts. So how does it work? Like most types of therapy, you sign up for a set of sessions. "Two would give you a new perspective on one issue; six would help you to make a major life-decision, like a career change; with 12 you can start to rethink your entire life philosophy," explains LeBon. Each session lasts 50 minutes and costs £50 - and, no, you don't have to have any previous knowledge of philosophy. "If you think of Friends, it would suit Ross and Chandler more than Joey," LeBon says. "It's for anyone who wants to make their emotions more intelligent. Or for those who have tried other kinds of therapy, and want something more cerebral." The first session begins with the patient venting off about whatever's troubling them. The rant over, the counsellor then picks out some key concepts that are crucial to the problem - in the case of heartbreak, it is love and happiness that come hurtling to the fore - and then gets the patient to define what they mean. So, what is love? What is happiness? To kick-start the patient's thinking, LeBon describes what a great philosopher had to say about it. In my case, he tells me what Plato wrote about love in his Symposium: that to stop man fighting the gods, Zeus decided to cut each human in two, so they would lose their strength. "This, then, is the source of our desire to love each other," Plato said. "Each of us is a 'matching half' of a human whole, because each was sliced like a flatfish, two out of one, and each of us is always seeking the half that matches him." This method of probing what we might think are "obvious" ideas, such as love and happiness, was devised by Socrates in the squares of Athens. "The only I thing I know is that I know nothing at all," he boasted. What Socrates showed was that although many of the thinkers of his time thought they knew what justice, happiness and goodness meant, their understanding was tied in to their personal agenda and world view, and, what's more, when pushed, their ideas often contradicted themselves. A bit like me on love. Whereas part of my understanding of love was something that gave life meaning, made it worth living and bound us together, I also believed that true love was "transcendental": that it was out of this world, and it didn't matter if the two people who loved each other couldn't get along in the day-to-day. Love was bigger than the mundane. But when it came to the next stage of the therapy, critical thinking - "to check out whether your assumptions stand up to examination" - I walked head first into a contradiction. If I think love's purpose is to make life worth living, but then say it's irrelevant to daily life, surely my two ideas of love are not compatible? As the cogs in my brain start to creak into motion, I feel myself taking a step back from my predicament: thinking about how I've been thinking. This idea I had of transcendental love might have started off as a romantic dream. But when the relationship stopped working, and I found myself feeling trapped and frustrated, I used it to justify the mechanics of a relationship that just didn't work in the daily grind. I used it to lie to myself. In the final stage, LeBon gets me to start thinking about how to go forward. "You can't change what has happened," he says. "You can't change that he's left you, or how you behaved in the relationship. So, as the Stoics did, let's work on controlling the controllables: the things that you can change." To work out what can be changed, he gets me to try out a thought experiment, a method often used in philosophy to imagine other worlds where people can have different codes of behaviour. Thought experiments shatter your preconceived ideas of how the world should be and let your imagination run wild to how the world could be. "I find Viktor Frankl very useful here, the Austrian psychiatrist and concentration-camp survivor who actually believed that everything in life happens for a purpose," LeBon says. "Suppose this break-up did happen for a reason that will work to your benefit," he suggests. "What might that be? The answer might be that you can now focus on something important that was denied in the relationship. Or - the Hollywood version - so you'll meet someone who is really right for you." Temporarily freed of any sense of responsibility for the relationship that was, and its sorry demise, the list came fast. I could now travel more; he didn't like me travelling on my own, but too often he didn't want to go anywhere, preferring to stay in his studio and make art. I'd love to meet someone with a similar sense of adventure to mine. For the first time in two years, I was being honest with myself about what I really wanted - listening to those voices that we all have inside our heads, and too often try to muzzle. So did philosophy save me? Well, I'm now dating a travel writer I have to run to keep up with. I still haven't got over the fact that my replacement came from Cleveland, Ohio. But I guess I never will. Tim LeBon can be reached by e-mail at [email protected] A FEW WORDS FROM THE WISE Compiled by Ed Caesar · "At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet" - Plato · "There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness" - Friedrich Nietzsche · "That man shall live as his own master and in happiness who can say each day 'I have lived'" - Horace · "The good of man is the active exercise of his soul's faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue... Moreover this activity must occupy a complete lifetime; for one swallow does not make spring, nor does one fine day; and similarly one day or a brief period of happiness does not make a man supremely blessed and happy" - Aristotle · "There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than friendship" - Thomas Aquinas · "Whatever you do... love those who love you" - Voltaire · "Happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination" - Immanuel Kant · "Happiness is a state of which you are unconscious. The moment you are aware that you are happy, you cease to be happy" - Jiddu Krishnamurti · "Love is an ideal thing. Marriage is a real thing" - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe I shrink, therefore I am Therapy has many answers, but some questions require the help of a philosopher, says Clint Witchalls Sunday November 21, 2004 The Observer Danny had worked in the City of London for 10 years. As a research analyst, stockbroker and fund manager, he'd made a lot of valuable contacts, earnt a lot of cash, and learnt some important business skills. However, as he approached his mid-thirties, he no longer felt good about himself or what he did for a living, and he found his colleagues cold and unfriendly. A chronic illness made him realise his mortality, and he began to reassess his priorities. Danny had been struggling with his career conundrum for nearly five years when he met David Arnaud, a philosophical counsellor. After a few soul-searching sessions, Danny arrived at a decision. Today, he teaches economics to sixth-formers, and he loves it. 'It's a much better lifestyle,' he says. Many people are turning to philosophical counsellors to get answers to questions such as: 'How do I make sense of myself?' 'What is important to me?' 'Where am I going?' These are perhaps not the sort of questions that require psychiatric intervention, but Arnaud, who recently completed the first empirical study of philosophical counselling in the UK, has found that within just five sessions the majority of clients, with important decisions to make, tend to move from a state of concern and confusion to a resolution. Modern philosophical counselling can be traced back to 1981, when the philosopher Gerd Achenbach opened the first practice near Cologne. Achenbach referred to the new discipline as 'therapy for the sane.' Today, there are hundreds of philosophical counsellors around the world, with the movement particularly strong in the US, Britain and the Netherlands. 'The dilemmas people face aren't always primarily psychological,' says Alex Howard, a philosophical counsellor from Newcastle. 'If people face problems that are social or economic, it doesn't make sense to define their problems in purely psychological terms.' Tim LeBon, a founder member of the Society for Philosophy in Practice (SPP) and author of Wise Therapy, adds: 'We are faced with far more life choices than our grandparents, yet have far fewer resources to deal with them. Our grandparents may have gone to a priest or to other family members for advice; most people don't trust these solutions any more and so want to make their own well-informed, well thought-out choices. Philosophical counselling can help these people - people in mid-life crises who are wondering how to make the most of the rest of their life. People who want to take stock of their values.' Where stressed executives might once have been prescribed a course of tranquillisers or antidepressants, they can now get a dose of Bertrand Russell instead: 'Success is too dearly purchased if all the other ingredients have been sacrificed to obtain it.' While some philosophical counsellors do recommend books for their clients to read, most sessions are about helping the client identify faulty thoughts. For example, a briefing in Aristotelian logic might show a client why their beliefs are erroneous. The person might infer that they're a screw-up because they've screwed up. The counsellor could point out that they're making an error called 'fallacy of composition' - that is, what's true of the part isn't necessarily true of the whole. In philosophical counselling, problems aren't pathologised as they are by the psychiatric profession, and the dialogue between client and counsellor is more like a meeting of equals, compared to many therapies where the client is treated like a patient and seen as someone who is, in some way, inadequate. 'Anybody can benefit from philosophical counselling,' says Howard. 'But it does require someone who is willing to take stock.' Lou Marinoff, author of international bestseller Plato Not Prozac! has done much to promote philosophical counselling. 'Some people who have stabilised their neurochemistry and validated their emotions now wish to examine or re-examine the criteria of their beliefs, the principles of their conduct, or the meaning of their lives,' he says. 'With whom shall they do this? Psychologists and psychiatrists can shed light on such issues - as can rabbis, priests, imams and gurus. Philosophers are now rejoining the ranks of helpers.' LeBon believes certain therapies (such as cognitive behavioural therapy) don't go far enough in helping their clients. 'For instance, if you are anxious about your relationship, a cognitive therapist would try to dispute your catastrophising and jump to conclusions to make you feel less anxious,' says LeBon. 'A philosophical counsellor would do this, but would also look for existential meaning in your anxiety - perhaps you really don't want to be in the relationship and that is what your anxiety is telling you.' LeBon also gives short shrift to psychoanalysts. 'There's very little evidence for the Freudian unconscious, and it's time to move on to more intellectually satisfying and helpful therapies,' he says. However, Alain de Botton, the man who popularised philosophy as self-help, isn't ready to bury psychologists and their ilk just yet. 'The truth is that psychoanalysis grew out of philosophy - it's not some completely new idea, and in fact, done properly, psychoanalysis is philosophical anyway. It may even be dangerous to the mental health of some people to suggest a philosopher rather than a properly trained analyst. The knowledge of analysts when it comes to many emotional problems is now much greater than that of most philosophers.' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004. (shrink)

Certainty : a contemporary question -- Beginnings: questions and debates in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries -- Abba Father: the certainty of salvation -- The spiritual man judges all things: the certainty of exegetical authority -- Are you alone wise?: the Catholic response -- Experientia: the great age of the Spirit -- Unmasking the angel of light: the discernment of the spirits -- Men should be what they seem: appearances and reality.

The Euthyphro is crucially important for understanding Plato's presentation of the last days of Socrates, dramatized in four brief dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. In addition to narrating this evocative series of events in the life of Plato's philosophical hero, the texts also can be read as reflecting how a wise man faces death. This particular dialogue contains Socrates' vivid examination of the intentions of Euthyphro to prosecute his own father for murder and culminates in an attempt to (...) understand holiness-a topic central both to Euthyphro's justification of his actions and to the charge of impiety that Socrates faces before the Athenian court. This accessible student commentary by Charles Platter presents an introduction to the Euthyphro, the full Greek text, and a commentary designed for undergraduates and selected graduate students. As part of the series Michigan Classical Commentaries, now edited by Josiah Osgood and Alexander Sens at Georgetown University, and K. Sara Myers at the University of Virginia, the volume is sized and priced for student use. (shrink)

For Seneca, the firmness of the Wise is shown in his ability to remain calm against attacks, as he explains in his treatise of that name. Attacks can come in the form of injustice, iniuria, and disparagement, contumelia; Seneca proves that neither of them affects the wise man. Contumelia is linked to contemptus in definition and conceptualization so that the remarks on how to deal with disparagement contain clues as to what contemptus means for Seneca. The article argues (...) that Seneca understands the term in a double sense: First, contemptus denotes a reprehensible attitude. Second, it designates a kind of indifference which is to be understood in the context of Stoic apatheia. (shrink)

Scholars have long noted Ignatius of Antioch’s statements of high christology. Jesus, who as God appeared in human form, is ‘God in man’ and is ‘our God’. Jesus Christ is included in such ‘nas-cent trinitarian’ passages as Eph. 9.1 and Magn. 13.1-2. Yet further treasures remain to be mined, and the specific vein I will explore is the integration of Ignatius’ high christology with his ethics. His paraenesis is rooted in ‘the mind of God’, also described as ‘the mind of (...) Christ’, who is ‘the God who made you so wise’. Ignatian moral instruction combines ‘the will of God and Jesus Christ’, ‘the honor of the Father and the honor of Jesus Christ’, and ‘the love of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ’. Believers are to be ‘imitators of God’ as well as ‘imitators of Jesus Christ’. Ignatius even prayed that he would be ‘an imitator of the suffering of my God’. Ignatian exhortation thus merges an imitatio Christi with an imitatio Dei. Arising from his particular experiences and specific circumstances, Ignatius’ contextualized paraenesis elevates the Son to an authoritative status parallel to that of the Father. The interplay of christology and ethics also underscores a multi-leveled understanding of ‘unity’ and a multivalent use of ‘flesh and spirit’. (shrink)

When the ancient Greek philosopher, Pythagoras, was asked if he was a wise man, he humbly replied "No, I am only a lover of wisdom." This love of wisdom has been central to the philosophical enterprise for thousands of years, inspiring some of the most dazzling and daring achievements of the human intellect and providing the very basis for how we understand the world. Now, readers eager to acquire a basic familiarity with the history of philosophy but intimidated by (...) the task will find in A Passion for Wisdom: Philosophy Through the Ages, a lively, accessible, and highly enjoyable tour of the world's great ideas. Without simplifying their subject, editors Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins tell the story of philosophy's development with great clarity and refreshing wit. The brevity of their study, in fact, allows readers to see more clearly the connections and divergences between philosophers, as well as the way ideas change, reappear, and evolve over time. The authors begin with the most ancient religious beliefs and bring us right up to the feminist and multicultural philosophies of the present. Along the way, major philosophers are highlighted, from Plato and Aquinas to William James and Simone deBeauvoir, and major categories explored, from metaphysics and ethics to politics and logic. We also see the evolution of enduring ideas--how, for example, the value of subjective experience is treated in Augustine, Luther, Descartes, and Kirkegaard, how the idea of dynamic change appears in the work of Heraclitus, Darwin, Hegel, and Nietzsche, and how the recurring dichotomies between faith and reason, belief and skepticism, mysticism and empiricism occupy philosophers from one generation to the next. The authors make clear the many ways philosophers have argued with, borrowed from, and built on each other's ideas throughout the ages. We see Francis Bacon rejecting Aristotelian dogma, the impact of Buddhism on Schopenhauer, and the influence of Hume and Rousseau on the monumental philosophy of Imanuel Kant. The book is enlivened as well by telling anecdotes and sparkling quotations. We're treated to Thomas Hobbes' assessment--"Life is nasty, brutish, and short," Hegel's description of Napoleon as "world history on horseback," Schopenhauer's assertion that Art allows us a "Sabbath from the penal servitude of willing," and many other memorable and provocative observations. Accessible, comprehensive, and delightfully written, A Passion for Wisdom is a splendid introduction to an intellectual tradition that reaches back over three thousand years. More than that, it is a much-needed reminder for the present of the power inherent in humanity's wonder before the world. (shrink)

This book explores an innovative set of critical narratives, accounts and engagements by different authors about their professional mobility and how that relates to the discipline and their life experiences. Human Geography and Professional Mobility seeks to encourage, influence, and help students understand geographic concepts based on critical reflections, international experiences, and practical insight laid out in stories of real people, real geographers, real college faculty, that students can relate to. This volume is less theoretical and more personal insight-based, wherein (...) first-hand and personal accounts of practical experiences are explored, which renders the text supplementary reading for human geography, population geography, world geography, and migration/mobility classes. With critical navigation of spaces in response to several geographical questions, this book offers a novel perspective on professional mobility of geographers which will be of interest to students and academics in the fields of geography, tourism, sociology and anthropology. (shrink)

Of all the world thinkers on whom the author of The Philosophy of the Common Task [Filosofiia obshchego dela] reflected, the one to whom he devoted the most attention, thought, and passion was perhaps a contemporary of his who, though fifteen years his junior, had already thrown some "impossible" works in the face of a fascinated, flabbergasted, and shocked public and had lived for almost ten years outside the world of culture and history, in a state of complete insanity. I (...) speak, of course, of Friedrich Nietzsche. He burst into Russia as a deafening European intellectual novelty, which intoxicated and swept away quite a few young people and even some experienced wise heads with the audacity of his "transvaluation of all values," his prophetic eruptions of new ideas and life principles, his exciting style of free philosophizing, and, finally, his existential tragedy. Fedorov could not but have been sensitive to and, I would say, personally affected by this phenomenon-Nietzsche and Nietzscheanism and the fashion for them. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:160 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY A PLATONIC PARALLEL IN THE DISSOI LOGOI The Dissoi Logoi or Two-/old Arguments (Diels-Kranz, II, 405-416) is an anonymous sophistic treatise written in literary Doric at some time subsequent to the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404-403.1 As early as 1911, A. E. Taylor wrote that the treatise "must be seriously reckoned with in any attempt to reconstruct the history of Greek thought in (...) the generation immediately anterior to Plato." 2 But scholars have been slow to take up Taylor's challenge. From those writing in English we have had little beyond the summary in Kathleen Freeman's Companion a and the papers of Adolfo Levi4 and E. S. Ramage." There is not even a full English translation in print, s In this paper I shall call attention to one brief passage which seems to me to be of exceptional interest since it offers a solution to a type of sophistical argument which occurs in Plato's Euthydemus. In so doing, I hope to arouse interest in a document much neglected by historians of ancient thought. Dzssoz Loaox, V, 15. With respect to the assertion that the same man both is and is not, I put the following question: "Does he exist with respect to some particular thing, or just in general?" Then if someone denies that the man exists, he is mistaken, because he is treating (the particular and) universal senses as the same. Because everything exists in some sense. GENI~I~AL REMAI~KS.The nature of the solution offered is clearly based on a distinction similar to that made by Aristotle in On Sophistical Re]utations (166b 37 ft.) between expressions used "in a certain respect" and "absolutely." The formulation of the fallacy to which the distinction is intended to be applied, however, is considerably less clear. Is it supposed that the opponent has put forward an argument purporting to demonstrate (a) that the same man both is and is not, or (b) that a particular man, thought to exist, does not in fact exist? This question can best be answered by an analysis of the Euthydemus passage, to which I now turn. EUTttYDgMUS 283b-e: The sophist Dionysodorus inquires of Socrates and his friends whether they genuinely wish their young prot4g6, Cleinias, to become wise. On gaining their assurance that they do, he then proceeds as follows: 1) You wish him to become wise and not to be ignorant (283d 1). 1This terminus post quem is derived from I, 8, in which the author lists a number of victories and speaks of that won by the Spartans over the Athenians as being "the most recent." "The 6,~ao~X6-tot,"Varia Socratica, Fizst Series (Oxford, 1911), p. 128. aCompanion to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers, (Oxford, 1946),pp. 417-423. ""On 'Two-fold Statements,'" American Journal o/Philology, LXI (1940), 292-~06. 5"An Early Trace of Socratic Dialogue," American Journal of Philology, LXXXII (1961), 418-424. 6The present writer has cempleted a translation which is to be published in Mind in the near future. NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 161 2) You wish him to become what he is not, and no longer to be what he is now (literally: what he is now, no longer to be [283d 2-3]). 3) You wish for his death, since you wish him no longer to be (283d 5-6). The obvious way of dealing with this argument is to make precisely the distinction made by the author of the Dissoi Logoi at V, 15: we should say to Dionysodorus, "Your conclusion that the friends of Cleinias wish for his death is the result of an illegitimate step: you went from 'you wish him not to be ignorant' to 'you wish him not to be'. To have made this step is to have ignored the distinction between existence with respect to some particular thing, i.e., ignorance, and existence in general." (A later critic might point out to Dionysodorus that he has confused the copulative and existential uses of the verb "to be.") It now becomes possible to return to the question, which of the two formulations, (a) or (b... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:160 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY A PLATONIC PARALLEL IN THE DISSOI LOGOI The Dissoi Logoi or Two-/old Arguments (Diels-Kranz, II, 405-416) is an anonymous sophistic treatise written in literary Doric at some time subsequent to the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404-403.1 As early as 1911, A. E. Taylor wrote that the treatise "must be seriously reckoned with in any attempt to reconstruct the history of Greek thought in (...) the generation immediately anterior to Plato." 2 But scholars have been slow to take up Taylor's challenge. From those writing in English we have had little beyond the summary in Kathleen Freeman's Companion a and the papers of Adolfo Levi4 and E. S. Ramage." There is not even a full English translation in print, s In this paper I shall call attention to one brief passage which seems to me to be of exceptional interest since it offers a solution to a type of sophistical argument which occurs in Plato's Euthydemus. In so doing, I hope to arouse interest in a document much neglected by historians of ancient thought. Dzssoz Loaox, V, 15. With respect to the assertion that the same man both is and is not, I put the following question: "Does he exist with respect to some particular thing, or just in general?" Then if someone denies that the man exists, he is mistaken, because he is treating (the particular and) universal senses as the same. Because everything exists in some sense. GENI~I~AL REMAI~KS.The nature of the solution offered is clearly based on a distinction similar to that made by Aristotle in On Sophistical Re]utations (166b 37 ft.) between expressions used "in a certain respect" and "absolutely." The formulation of the fallacy to which the distinction is intended to be applied, however, is considerably less clear. Is it supposed that the opponent has put forward an argument purporting to demonstrate (a) that the same man both is and is not, or (b) that a particular man, thought to exist, does not in fact exist? This question can best be answered by an analysis of the Euthydemus passage, to which I now turn. EUTttYDgMUS 283b-e: The sophist Dionysodorus inquires of Socrates and his friends whether they genuinely wish their young prot4g6, Cleinias, to become wise. On gaining their assurance that they do, he then proceeds as follows: 1) You wish him to become wise and not to be ignorant (283d 1). 1This terminus post quem is derived from I, 8, in which the author lists a number of victories and speaks of that won by the Spartans over the Athenians as being "the most recent." "The 6,~ao~X6-tot,"Varia Socratica, Fizst Series (Oxford, 1911), p. 128. aCompanion to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers, (Oxford, 1946),pp. 417-423. ""On 'Two-fold Statements,'" American Journal o/Philology, LXI (1940), 292-~06. 5"An Early Trace of Socratic Dialogue," American Journal of Philology, LXXXII (1961), 418-424. 6The present writer has cempleted a translation which is to be published in Mind in the near future. NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 161 2) You wish him to become what he is not, and no longer to be what he is now (literally: what he is now, no longer to be [283d 2-3]). 3) You wish for his death, since you wish him no longer to be (283d 5-6). The obvious way of dealing with this argument is to make precisely the distinction made by the author of the Dissoi Logoi at V, 15: we should say to Dionysodorus, "Your conclusion that the friends of Cleinias wish for his death is the result of an illegitimate step: you went from 'you wish him not to be ignorant' to 'you wish him not to be'. To have made this step is to have ignored the distinction between existence with respect to some particular thing, i.e., ignorance, and existence in general." (A later critic might point out to Dionysodorus that he has confused the copulative and existential uses of the verb "to be.") It now becomes possible to return to the question, which of the two formulations, (a) or (b... (shrink)

As is known, the specifics of the domestic philosophy is, firstly, in its inextricable connection with the public-political life, and secondly, in the form of its existence, when the philosophical problems are not solved in philosophical treatises by the means of the classical wise man, but in literary works through the creation of artistic images, through the deepening of human psychology and, as a conclusion, the formation of values and ideals of personality and through personalities - the whole society.

A growing number of contributors to environmental philosophy are beginning to rethink the field’s mission and practice. Noting that the emphasis of protracted conceptual battles over axiology may not get us very far in solving environmental problems, many environmental ethicists have begun to advocate a more pragmatic, pluralistic, and policy-based approach in philosophical discussions abouthuman-nature relationships. In this paper, we argue for the legitimacy of this approach, stressing that public deliberation and debate over alternative environmental ethics is necessary for a (...) culture of democracy to be upheld in decision making and policy formulation. Then we argue for a democratically tempered environmental ethics that is grounded in a practical understanding of the character of moral claims regarding the natural world. We offer the results of an empirical study of environmental ethics held by the public to illustrate the diversity in their moral commitments to nature. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of the implications of this ethical pluralism for policy discussions about the management of American public lands. (shrink)

First Criticism of the Theory.—This is of the nature of an argumentum ad hominem. In the first place, It is surprising that so clever a man as Protagoras did not see that he proved more than he intended, for according to his theory not only are all men, the wise and the foolish, reduced to the same level, but on the plane of sentient experience it is just as true to say that a pig or a tadpole is the (...) measure of all things. (shrink)

First Criticism of the Theory.—This is of the nature of an argumentum ad hominem. In the first place, It is surprising that so clever a man as Protagoras did not see that he proved more than he intended, for according to his theory not only are all men, the wise and the foolish, reduced to the same level, but on the plane of sentient experience it is just as true to say that a pig or a tadpole is the (...) measure of all things. (shrink)

How human beings came to exist in this physical world is a question that has preoccupied mankind for as long as history records; every religion offers an answer, and so too have philosophers of natural history from Aristotle and before. The year 2009 will see celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, progenitor of the theory - or fact, as its adherents see it - that gives the secular scientific world the "creation story" dominant today. Social (...) status in every society flows to the people who persuade the mass that they offer the true and accurate explanation of how we humans came to be; but the social and financial benefits that flow to the "truth pronouncers" of society produce sociological and psychological motivations that bias and impair the independent logical assessment of whether the data supports, or contradicts, the story whose wide acceptance produces so many tangible benefits. The discoveries of molecular biology and DNA over the years since 1950 raise, in the minds of a dissident minority of scientists, substantial possibilities that the theory of evolution cannot be considered complete without the operation of some force or element in the material world that we can only conceive of as being akin to the intelligence with which we ourselves address the world. In this paper, the author, holder of an MIT bachelor of science (in architecture) and the latest in a family of seven generations of physicians, scientists, and engineers, from the 1700s to the 2000s, relates lessons learned not only about evolution, molecular biology, and "intelligent design," but also about the accumulated "bad habits" that have developed and encrusted the conduct of science in the 130 years since the foundation of the research-oriented universities in the 1870s. (shrink)

How original was the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham? In John Stuart Mill's opinion, not very original at all. Bentham maintained that pleasure and pain should provide our chief criteria of the moral quality of actions, because they are important above all other things in making our lives go well or ill. But two thousand years before Bentham defended the doctrine of utility that ‘all things are good or evil, by virtue solely of the pain or pleasure which they produce”, a (...) gentle and cultivated man had taught in a garden at Athens that the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain were the most fitting objectives in the life of the wise man. The name of this sage, who endeavoured to provide in his own career an exemplar of his doctrine, was Epicurus of Samos. On Mill's reading of history, utilitarianism and Epicureanism were in essential respects the same. (shrink)

According to Glaucus of Rhegium Democritus was “a disciple of a Pythagorean” (dk 68 A1, 38). The tetralogical catalog of his works prepared by Thrasylus begins its section on ethics with the three following works: Pythagoras; On the Disposition of the Wise Man; On the Things in Hades (dk 68 B0a–c). The very order of the first three ethical works of Democritus could point to some sort of dependence on Pythagoreanism. This was suggested earlier by Frank (1923: 67), who (...) believes that this is due to the fact that Democritus saw Pythagoras as basically the founder of an ethic-religious sect. Without being forced to agree with Frank, it is undeniable that there are many similarities between Pythagorean and Democritean ethics. The Democritean sentences that speak about the sense of shame before oneself as a way of preventing evil deeds (dk 68 B84, 244, and 264) recalls the practice of anamnesis, the examination of conscience in the Pythagorean tradition. Even more important are the parallel uses of measure as a basis for ethical reasoning. This paper aims to review this connection between Pythagorean traditions and Democritus, examining what emerges as the most probable core issue to determine how close this relation between atomists and Pythagoreans could have been: the Aristotelian testimony (de An. 1.2 404a16-20 [dk 58 B40]) on the material conception of the Pythagorean soul. In fact, a corpuscular conception of the soul (“dust in the air”), foreshadowing the psychology of Democritus, is attributed to the Pythagoreans. Is the argument of de An. 1.2 404a16-20 a misunderstanding by Aristotle? Or does this testimony represent an actual dialogue that Pythagoreans were having with atomists in the fifth century bce? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Leibniz’s Universal Jurisprudence: Justice as the Charity of the Wise by Patrick RileySusanna GoodinPatrick Riley. Leibniz’s Universal Jurisprudence: Justice as the Charity of the Wise. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996. Pp. xiii + 338. Cloth, $39.95.Leibniz’s political views are often downplayed, if not simply ignored, by philosophers focusing on his metaphysical accounts of substance and force. That Leibniz himself does not view these two areas as (...) distinct is forcefully argued in Patrick Riley’s detailed account of Leibniz’s theory of justice. Under Riley’s presentation, Leibniz’s definition of justice as the “charity of the wise” depends crucially on both his monadology and his theodicy. And his political maneuverings, particularly with France, are dominated by this unique definition of justice.Riley begins his argument by detailing Leibniz’s objections to Descartes’s voluntarism and Hobbes’s mechanistic view of human nature and the emphasis on power as the foundation of moral truths. The central Leibnizian theme to which Riley returns repeatedly is perfection. A perfect God does not act on whim or power but on reason. Monads are created with the freedom to strive toward perfection. Love, or charity, becomes perfect by becoming universal. Justice is not, as Hobbes claimed, that which is determined to be good for the whole by an absolute power, but a love or benevolence for the whole, striving through reason for the best. Wisdom is the heart of justice, not power. And for Leibniz, wisdom is inseparable from charity. God wills to actualize the best of all possible worlds out of love and wisdom, thus, wise charity.But Leibniz’s view of justice as wise charity is not without problems, most significantly the problem of freedom. In his first chapter, “Foundations,” Riley skillfully raises this problem in the context not only of Leibniz’s political stance on justice but also in the context of his metaphysics and theodicy. It is in the second chapter, “Monadology and Justice,” that Riley does the bulk of the work relating the metaphysics with the moral-political: “... on the knowledge of substance, and in consequence of the soul, depends the knowledge of virtue and of justice” (Leibniz, as quoted in Riley, 51). Political philosophy cannot be done correctly without first acquiring an adequate and proper account of substance, something the materialist Hobbes had failed to do. But because Leibniz has so closely linked his politics with his metaphysics, the perhaps insurmountable problem of freedom in his metaphysics hounds his politics. “If there are no autonomous persons with nonillusory ‘wills’, there cannot be ‘general benevolence’—for benevolence is just [End Page 470] ‘good willing’, and Leibniz invariably equates benevolentia with caritas sapientis. Without a certain kind of will, then, wise charity cannot serve as the heart of a justice which is more than sovereign-ordained law” (61). To prevent Hobbes from ruling the day, Leibniz must, as Riley correctly notes, devise a metaphysics which allows for freedom for both God and man.And here arises the one troubling aspect of Riley’s work. He addresses the problem of freedom in Leibniz’s metaphysics, but there is no discussion of the recent work done by such scholars as Robert Adams, whose book Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist makes significant contributions on exactly this topic. Regarding Leibniz’s serpentine defense of freedom, Riley does little more than bring up the problem and comment that Leibniz had a problem which, ultimately, he seemed unable to resolve. In fact, Riley shows little appreciation for the work done by mainstream scholars in the area of Leibniz’s metaphysics. If Riley’s work centered primarily on Leibniz’s political writings this might not matter, but given that the thrust of the first part of the book is to argue that Leibniz’s political theory is not merely compatible with his metaphysics but arises out of it, so that an understanding of Leibniz’s metaphysics is essential to grasping the logic of his political views, the absence of current scholarship on the metaphysics is troubling. References in footnotes confirm that Riley had read Adams’s book, as well as The Cambridge Companion to Leibniz, which contains David Blumenfeld’s excellent... (shrink)