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Michael Wiitala [14]Michael Oliver Wiitala [3]
  1. The Argument against the Friends of the Forms Revisited: Sophist 248a4–249d5.Michael Wiitala - 2018 - Apeiron 51 (2):171-200.
    There are only two places in which Plato explicitly offers a critique of the sort of theory of forms presented in the Phaedo and Republic: at the beginning of the Parmenides and in the argument against the Friends of the Forms in the Sophist. An accurate account of the argument against the Friends, therefore, is crucial to a proper understanding of Plato’s metaphysics. How the argument against the Friends ought to be construed and what it aims to accomplish, however, are (...)
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  2. The Koinōnia of Non-Being and Logos in the Sophist Account of Falsehood.Michael Wiitala - 2022 - Areté. Revista de Filosofía 34:235-249.
    At Sophist 260e3-261a2, the Eleatic Stranger claims that in order to demonstrate that falsehood is, he and Theaetetus must first track down what speech (logos), opinion (doxa), and appearance (phantasia) are, and then observe the communion (koinōnia) that speech, opinion, and appearance have with non-being. The Stranger, however, never explicitly discusses the communion of speech, opinion, and appearance with non-being. Yet presumably their communion is implicit in his account of falsehood, given his claim that observing that communion is needed in (...)
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  3. Causes in Plato’s Phaedo.Michael Wiitala - 2022 - Plato Journal 23:37-50.
    As Socrates recounts his search for causes (aitiai) in the Phaedo, he identifies the following as genuine causes: intelligence (nous), seeming best, choice of the best, and the forms. I argue that these causes should be understood as norms prescribing the conditions their effects must meet if those effects are to be produced. Thus, my account both explains what Socrates’ causes are and the way in which they cause what they cause.
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  4.  67
    The Forms in the Euthyphro and the Statesman: A Case against the Developmental Reading of Plato’s Dialogues.Michael Oliver Wiitala - 2014 - International Philosophical Quarterly 54 (4):393-410.
    The Euthyphro is generally considered one of Plato’s early dialogues. According to the developmental approach to reading the dialogues, when writing the Euthyphro Plato had not yet developed the sort of elaborate “theory of forms ” that we see presented in the middle dialogues and further refined in the late dialogues. This essay calls the developmental account into question by showing how key elements from the theory of forms that appear in the late dialogues, particularly in the Statesman, are already (...)
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  5.  7
    Being and Existence in the Consolation of Philosophy.Michael Wiitala - 2024 - In Boethius' _Consolation of Philosophy_: A Critical Guide. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. pp. 169-185.
    This chapter examines the notion of being in the Consolation of Philosophy and contrasts it with modern notions of existence. The notions in the Consolation relevant to this inquiry are those expressed by the verbs esse and exsistere. The chapter argues that the basic notion of exsistere in the Consolation should be understood as “to be manifest,” while the basic notion of esse should be understood as “to be something or other” or “to be intelligible.” Furthermore, the chapter demonstrates that (...)
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  6.  53
    Dionysius the Areopagite on Whether Philosophy Should be Used in Service of Religion.Michael Wiitala - 2021 - Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 95:53-65.
    Should one use philosophy in service of religion? I argue that Dionysius the Areopagite gives a negative answer to this question. The relevant text is Dionysius’ Letter 7, in which he explains why he does not use philosophy to attack Greco-Roman paganism. Philosophy, according to Dionysius, is something divine. In fact, in Letter 7 he goes so far as to identify philosophy with what St. Paul calls the “wisdom of God.” As a result, philosophy should not be treated as a (...)
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  7.  62
    That Difference is Different from Being: Sophist 255c9-e2.Michael Wiitala - 2022 - Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 62:85-103.
    The argument by which the Eleatic Stranger differentiates the kinds being and different (255c9-e2) is one of the most controversial in Plato’s Sophist. In it the Stranger introduces the vexed distinction between beings that are auta kath’ hauta, ‘themselves according to themselves’, and those that are pros alla, ‘relative to others’ (255c13-14). Although commentators have developed many interpretations of the argument, there is a key yet hitherto unrecognized ambiguity in the syntax of the counterfactual conditional at 255d4-6, concerning whether the (...)
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  8. Non-Being and the Structure of Privative Forms in Plato’s Sophist.Michael Wiitala - 2015 - Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy 19 (2):277-286.
    In Plato’s Statesman, the Eleatic Stranger explains that the division of all human beings into Greek and barbarian is mistaken in that it fails to divide reality into genuine classes or forms (eidē). The division fails because “barbarian” names a privative form, that is, a form properly indicated via negation: non-Greek. This paper examines how the Stranger characterizes privative forms in the Sophist. I argue that although the Stranger is careful to define privative forms as fully determinate, he nevertheless characterizes (...)
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  9.  83
    Desire and the Good in Plotinus.Michael Oliver Wiitala - 2013 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 21 (4):649-666.
    Plotinus calls the first principle the One and the Good. According to Plotinus, ‘Good’ is an appropriate name for the One because the One is that which all things desire. Since he says that the One is beyond knowledge, beyond language, beyond intellect, and beyond being, however, what philosophical evidence can he provide for his claim that the One is that which all desire? In this article I offer some philosophical evidence, aside from mystical union with the One, for why (...)
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  10.  59
    Every Happy Man is a God: Deification in Boethius.Michael Wiitala - 2019 - In Jared Ortiz (ed.), Deification in the Latin Patristic Tradition. Studies in Early Christianity. pp. 231-252.
    Boethius is unique among Christian authors in late antiquity in that his account of deification makes no explicit reference to Christ. Instead, he develops a distinctly Neo-Platonic notion of deification, which he puts in the mouth of Lady Philosophy. According to Lady Philosophy, human beings are made divine through participation in God, who is understood as happiness itself, goodness itself, and unity itself. On the basis of this identification of happiness and God, Lady Philosophy concludes that the happiness human beings (...)
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  11.  41
    Searching for the 'Why': Plotinus on Being and the One beyond Being.Michael Wiitala - 2018 - In Sean D. Kirkland & Eric Sanday (eds.), A Companion to Ancient Philosophy. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press. pp. 275-286.
    There is a tendency among contemporary scholars of ancient Greek philosophy to think that Plotinus’ philosophical orientation is significantly different from that of Plato. One such difference is that Plotinus seems to be more interested in systematically presenting and articulating a specific set of philosophical doctrines than Plato was. After all, Plotinus lived and wrote in a context in which there were a number of highly developed philosophical schools—the Stoics, Peripatetics, Gnostics, and Epicureans, just to name a few—and is interested (...)
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  12.  74
    Anselm’s Ontological Argument and Aristotle’s Elegktikōs Apodeixai.Michael Oliver Wiitala - 2012 - Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 86:129-140.
    Saint Anselm’s ontological argument is usually interpreted either (1) as an attempt to deductively prove God’s existence or (2) as a form of prayer, which is not intended to “prove” God’s existence, but rather to deepen the devotion of those who already believe. In this paper I attempt to find a mean between these two interpretations, showing that while Anselm’s argument is not a deductive proof, it is nevertheless a proof of God’s existence. I argue that Anselm’s ontological argument is (...)
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  13.  40
    Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy: A Critical Guide.Michael Wiitala (ed.) - 2024 - Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
    The first collection of philosophical essays devoted to Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, one of the most widely read and influential texts in medieval Europe. Thirteen essays, reflecting the diverse approaches taken in contemporary scholarship, attend to its literary features and philosophical content, and demonstrate its ongoing vitality.
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  14.  67
    It Depends on What One Means by “Eternal”: Why Boethius is not an Eternalist.Michael Wiitala - 2010 - Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 84:253-261.
    Objections to the traditional view that God knows all of time eternally stand or fall on what one means by “eternally.” The widely held supposition, shared by both eternalists and those who oppose them, such as Open Theists, is that to say God knows all of time eternally entails that he cannot know all of time from atemporal perspective. In this paper I show that Boethius’s characterization of God’s eternal knowledge employs a different meaning of “eternal,” which is incompatible with (...)
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  15.  65
    Contemplation and Action within the Context of the Kalon.Michael Wiitala - 2009 - Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 83:173-182.
    In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle seems to take it for granted that the contemplative man is morally virtuous. Yet in certain passages he suggests that morally virtuous actions can impede contemplation (theōria). In this paper I examine the relationship between contemplation and morally virtuous action in Aristotle’s ethics. I argue that, when understood within the context of the motivating power of the kalon, contemplation and morally virtuous action are related to one another in such a way that one cannot be (...)
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  16.  49
    In What Sense Does the One Exist? Existence and Hypostasis in Plotinus.Michael Wiitala & Paul DiRado - 2018 - In John F. Finamore & Danielle A. Layne (eds.), Platonic Pathways: Selected Papers from the Fourteenth Annual Conference of the International Society for Neoplatonic Studies. The Prometheus Trust. pp. 77-92.
    In their chapter, “In What Sense Does the One Exist? Existence and Hypostasis in Plotinus,” Paul DiRado and Michael Wiitala consider the problem of the One’s existence. Starting with the modern philosophical distinction between the “is” of predication and the “is” of existence, they show that Plotinus does not make such a distinction. The reason for this, they argue, is that Plotinus does not share with modern philosophers a univocal notion of existence. For Plotinus, both the verb “einai” and the (...)
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  17.  49
    Plato: A Guide for the Perplexed. [REVIEW]Michael Wiitala - 2009 - American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 83 (4):630-634.
    Review of Gerald A. Press, Plato: A Guide for the Perplexed.
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