George Karamanolis breaks new ground in the study of later ancient philosophy by examining the interplay of the two main schools of thought, Platonism and Aristotelianism, from the first century BC to the third century AD. Arguing against prevailing scholarly assumption, he argues that the Platonists turned to Aristotle only in order to elucidate Plato's doctrines and to reconstruct Plato's philosophy, and that they did not hesitate to criticize Aristotle when judging him to be at odds with Plato. Karamanolis offers (...) much food for thought to ancient philosophers and classicists. (shrink)
Ancient philosophers from an otherwise diverse range of traditions were connected by their shared use of aporia - translated as puzzlement rooted in conflicts of reasons - as a core tool in philosophical enquiry. The essays in this volume provide the first comprehensive study of aporetic methodology among numerous major figures and influential schools, including the Presocratics, Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Academic sceptics, Pyrrhonian sceptics, Plotinus and Damascius. They explore the differences and similarities in these philosophers' approaches to (...) the source, structure, and aim of aporia, their views on its function and value, and ideas about the proper means of generating such a state among thinkers who were often otherwise opposed in their overall philosophical orientation. Discussing issues of method, dialectic, and knowledge, the volume will appeal to those interested in ancient philosophy and in philosophical enquiry more generally. (shrink)
The paper argues that ancient dogmatic Platonists, beginning with Antiochus, reconstructed Plato’s ethics in different ways, as a result of their different emphasis on parts of Plato’s work and often argued with each other about what Plato’s ethics actually was. This situation, it is argued, is due to the existence of different strands of ethical views found in Plato’s work itself, such as, for instance, the Protagoras and the Gorgias versus the central books of the Republic and the Philebus on (...) the question of what eudaimonia consists in. The paper argues against the thesis of Julia Annas, outlined in her Platonic Ethics Old and New, that ancient dogmatic Platonists considered the argument of the Republic as being essentially the same with that of all Platonic dialogues and that they unanimously represented Plato’s ethical position as the view that virtue is sufficient for happiness. The testimonies regarding the ethics of Platonists like Antiochus, Plutarch, Numenius, Taurus, or Atticus rather suggest a picture of variance and tension about the reconstruction of Plato’s ethics. Antiochus, Plutarch, and Taurus, for instance, are guided by the theory of the partite soul and maintain that for Plato emotions should be balanced by reason, a view they also find in Aristotle, whereas Eudorus and Atticus appear to favor the elimination of all emotions. Alcinous and, more systematically, Plotinus tend to reconcile and synthesize into a system the different views found in Plato’s dialogues, which brings them to attribute to Plato a complex ethical doctrine. This synthesis corroborates the evidence examined in the paper in support of the view that ancient Platonists recognized diverse strands of ethics in Plato and, far from being unanimous about what Plato’s ethics was, varied significantly in their reconstruction of it. (shrink)
The present paper aims to show that the reconstruction of the formal framework of the proofs in Pr. An. 1.15, as proposed by Malink and Rosen 2013 (‘Proof by Assumption of the Possible in Prior Analytics 1.15’, Mind, 122, 953-85) is due to affront a double impasse. Malink and Rosen argue convincingly that Aristotle operates with two different modal frameworks, one as found in the system of modal logic presented in Prior Analytics 1.3 and 8-22, and one occurring in many (...) of Aristotle’s works, such as the Physics, De Caelo and the Metaphysics. However, they misconstrue the latter framework. More precisely, they misconstrue the domain of significance of what they call the ‘Principle of Necessitation’. As a consequence, bringing the two frameworks into one results into a contradictory modal logic. On the other hand, if the Principle of Necessitation is rectified, the proofs put forward by Malink and Rosen in the same paper are no longer available. (shrink)
De mundo is a protreptic to philosophy in the form of a letter to Alexander the Great and is traditionally ascribed to Aristotle. It offers a unique view of the cosmos, God and their relationship, which was inspired by Aristotle but written by a later author. The author provides an outline of cosmology, geography and meteorology, only to argue that a full understanding of the cosmos cannot be achieved without a proper grasp of God as its ultimate cause. To ensure (...) such a grasp, the author provides a series of twelve carefully chosen interlocking analogies, building a complex picture in the reader's mind. The work develops a distinctly Aristotelian picture of God and the cosmos while paying tribute to pre-Aristotelian philosophers and avoiding open criticism of rival schools of philosophy. De mundo exercised considerable influence in late antiquity and then in the Renaissance and Early Modern times. (shrink)
De mundo is a protreptic to philosophy in the form of a letter to Alexander the Great and is traditionally ascribed to Aristotle. It offers a unique view of the cosmos, God and their relationship, which was inspired by Aristotle but written by a later author. The author provides an outline of cosmology, geography and meteorology, only to argue that a full understanding of the cosmos cannot be achieved without a proper grasp of God as its ultimate cause. To ensure (...) such a grasp, the author provides a series of twelve carefully chosen interlocking analogies, building a complex picture in the reader's mind. The work develops a distinctly Aristotelian picture of God and the cosmos while paying tribute to pre-Aristotelian philosophers and avoiding open criticism of rival schools of philosophy. De mundo exercised considerable influence in late antiquity and then in the Renaissance and Early Modern times. (shrink)
