These fifteen essays on Nietzsche's indebtedness to the Classical Tradition were composed by scholars in the fields of philosophy, theology, German and Classics. The essays roughly cover the following epochs: the age of the Fathers of the Western Church, medieval scholasticism, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, Weimar Classicism, Romanticism and the several other intellectual trends and movements in the nineteenth century. Collection includes three essays comparing Nietzsche's perceptions of Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates with those (respectively) of Augustine, Aquinas, and Hamann. (...) Three essays treat Nietzsche's relationship to Goethe, Schiller, and Heine. Three deal with Nietzsche and French literature or thought, one explores possible parallels between Nietzsche and Dante, another the extent of his debt to Byron. Four contributions center on Nietzsche's view of tragedy, and an older study has been expanded to show the underlying harmony of Nietzsche's conception with that of the French classical tragedians. This book affirms and fulfills the need for serious scholarship by the student of Nietzsche unable to work in German, while presenting a readable cross-section of the work being done relating Nietzsche to the intellectual tradition from which he sprang. (shrink)

Bringing between two covers the most influential and accessible articles on Plato's Republic, this collection illuminates what is widely held to be the most important work of Western philosophy and political theory. It will be valuable not only to philosophers, but to political theorists, historians, classicists, literary scholars, and interested general readers.

PLATO: PROTAGORAS, trans, with Notes by C. C. W. Taylor. Clarendon Press: O.U.P., 1976. vii+230 pp. £7.50 cloth, £3.75 paper.

The volume presents essays on the philosophical explanation of the relationship between body and soul in antiquity from the Presocratics to Galen. The title of the volume alludes to a phrase found in Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus, referring to aspects of living behaviour involving both body and soul, and is a commonplace in ancient philosophy, dealt with in very different ways by different authors.

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

This book collects texts from three specialists in ancient philosophy which deal with the question of perceptive and intellective knowledge in antiquity. They try to present, in their different analyzes, the complex interrelationship among perception and thought in ancient authors, like Heraclitus, Parmenides, Democritus, Plato and Aristotle. The purpose of the texts is to expose the visible field - the perceptual knowledge domain - interacts with the invisible - the domain of reason and thought. In other words, that among (...) them there is no a radical separation of these two areas, although they are clearly distinct. (shrink)

In E.N. I. c. 5 Aristotle is considering divers views as to what constitutes Eudaimonia. He told us in c. 4, 2–3 that there are many conflicting opinions on the subject. The Many identify Happiness with some palpable good, such as pleasure, wealth, honour, but the Wise identify it with something beyond the Many, while [Plato] denied it to be any specific good at all. Of all these views we should consider such as have many adherents or are considered (...) to be reasonable. Accordingly, the Universal Good is considered in c. 6 after consideration in c. 5 of five particular goods—pleasure in the form of bodily pleasure, honour, wealth, virtue [and, implied in the theoretic Life, wisdom]. These five goods are brought into relation with four Lives—viz. pleasure with the apolaustic; honour and virtue with the political; [wisdom] with the theoretic; wealth with the business or money-making Life; and the first three Lives are called προέχοντες. There is nothing in this introduction of the Lives to astonish us; for, as Aristotle himself tells us, τò ληθς ν τοȋς πρακτικοȋς κ τν ργων κα τοû βίου κρίνεται . But there is much difference of opinion as to the argument he draws from the Lives. According to the view now submitted for consideration, the argument is that when a specific good, which some suppose to be Eudaimonia, is also the end of a ‘pre-eminent’ Life, then there is some prima facie probability in the view that that specific good is Eudaimonia. (shrink)

happens, how it happens, and why it happens. Our assumption ought to be that this is as true in education as it is in atomic physics. But this leaves many other questions to answer. The crucial ones: What kind of science is proper or appropriate to education? How does it differ from physics? What is wrong with the prevai1~ ing, virtually unopposed research tradition in education? What could or should be done to replace it with a more adequate tradi tion? (...) What concepts are necessary to describe and explain what we find there? It is in this realm that we find ourselves. Where to start? One place - our place, needless to say - is with one limited but central concept in education, teaching. A long philosophical tradition concerned with the nature of teaching goes back (along with everything else) to Plato, divulging most recent ly in the work of such philosophers as B. O. Smith, Scheffler, Hirst, Komisar, Green, McClellan, Soltis, Kerr, Fenstermacher, et al. An empirical tradition runs parallelto the philosophers -it has its most notable modern proponents in Gage, the Soars, Berliner, Rosen shine, but its roots can be traced to the Sophists. These two tradi tions have been at loggerheads over the centuries. (shrink)

The form of beauty is the ultimate correlate of love in Socrates' account of Diotima's teaching in the Symposium . To arrive at this insight, Socrates aims to show the `absurdity' of adopting any more specific correlate as a definition of the very nature of love. Were love defined as love `for a father or a mother', we could never love anyone who was not our father or our mother. An obvious absurdity.

The first solid bit of argumentation you get in Plato's Phaedo goes something like this: Whatever comes to be, comes to be from its opposite. If at a certain time t a given thing a begins to be F, before that time t it must have been non-F. Wherever a pair of predicates, F and G, are genuine contradictories; where, that is, they stand to each other in the same relation as F stands in to non-F; it is necessarily (...) true that if a began to be F at t before then a was G. The only trouble comes from the difficulty of finding substitutes for F and G that people will allow to be genuine contradictories. It the butter began to be soft at four o'clock, we may suggest, before four it was hard. A tiresome opponent will retort that there is a state in which butter cannot properly be called either hard or soft. We try again: If Ann began to be asleep at eight, before eight she was awake; if my shirt became dirty on Tuesday, before Tuesday it was clean; if Bonzo died last week, before last week he was alive. And when the advocate of the borderline state reminds us of the various twilight areas of consciousness or cleanliness, we are reduced to legislation: “asleep” shall henceforth apply to every mental state short of complete wakefulness, “alive” to every condition of the body before the onset of putrefaction, “clean” to every shirt incapable of producing a certain measurable discoloration in the water in which it is washed. “Let F and G be contradictories”, we still guardedly maintain: “then if a comes to be F at time t, before time t a was G”. (shrink)

The first solid bit of argumentation you get in Plato's Phaedo goes something like this: Whatever comes to be, comes to be from its opposite . If at a certain time t a given thing a begins to be F , before that time t it must have been non- F . Wherever a pair of predicates, F and G , are genuine contradictories; where, that is, they stand to each other in the same relation as F stands in (...) to non- F ; it is necessarily true that if a began to be F at t before then a was G . The only trouble comes from the difficulty of finding substitutes for F and G that people will allow to be genuine contradictories. It the butter began to be soft at four o'clock, we may suggest, before four it was hard. A tiresome opponent will retort that there is a state in which butter cannot properly be called either hard or soft. We try again: If Ann began to be asleep at eight, before eight she was awake; if my shirt became dirty on Tuesday, before Tuesday it was clean; if Bonzo died last week, before last week he was alive. And when the advocate of the borderline state reminds us of the various twilight areas of consciousness or cleanliness, we are reduced to legislation: “asleep” shall henceforth apply to every mental state short of complete wakefulness, “alive” to every condition of the body before the onset of putrefaction, “clean” to every shirt incapable of producing a certain measurable discoloration in the water in which it is washed. “Let F and G be contradictories”, we still guardedly maintain: “then if a comes to be F at time t , before time t a was G ”. (shrink)

O anthropos de Protágoras: do singular ao comum Resumo: Com base no Teeteto de Platão, busca-se compreender a dimensão do termo ánthropos na famosa sentença de Protágoras. Segundo a crítica platônica, Protágoras parece entender corpo e alma como diferentes tipos de percipientes: os órgãos sensoriais corporais percebem a aparência imediata de algo que provoca a sensibilidade; a alma, por sua vez, ‘percebe’ por ter julgamentos admitidos pela aprendizagem e experiência. O homem-medida protagórico, do tema da realidade sensível, conduz-nos à formulação (...) do problema em termos de julgamento e opinião, e a medida, que inicialmente é atribuída a cada indivíduo, para além de cada ser humano, é reputada a cada cidade. Palavras-chave: Homem-medida; Protágoras; Paideia; Democracia; Teeteto. The ánthropos of Protagoras: from singular to common Abstract: Based on Plato's Theaetetus, we seek to understand the dimension of the term ánthropos in the famous sentence of Protagoras. According to Platonic criticism, Protagoras seems to understand body and soul as different types of percipients: the bodily sensory organs perceive the immediate appearance of something that provokes sensitivity; the soul 'perceives' by having judgments admitted by learning and experience. The protagorical measure-man, from the theme of sensible reality, leads us to formulate the problem in terms of judgment and opinion, and the measure, which is initially attributed to each individual, in addition to each human being, is reputed to each city. Keywords: Man-measure; Protagoras; Paideia; Democracy; Theaetetus. El antropos de Protágoras: del singular al común Resumen: Con base en el Teeteto de Platón, buscamos comprender la dimensión del término ánthropos en la famosa oración de Protágoras. Según la crítica platónica, Protágoras parece entender el cuerpo y el alma como diferentes tipos de perceptores: los órganos sensoriales corporales perciben la aparición inmediata de algo que provoca la sensibilidad; el alma, a su vez, "percibe" al admitir juicios mediante el aprendizaje y la experiencia. El hombre-medida protagórico, desde el tema de la realidad sensible, nos lleva a formular el problema en términos de juicio y opinión, y la medida, que inicialmente se atribuye a cada individuo, además de cada persona, se le atribuye a cada ciudad. Palabras clave: Hombre medida; Protágoras; Paideia; Democracia; Teeteto. Data de registro: 15/07/2021 Data de aceite: 15/03/2022. (shrink)

The suggestive vision of Plato’s thought offered us by the author is framed by perfectly identifiable co-ordinates: an anthropological foundation of his philosophical thought, an interpretation of subjectivity and consciousness from a transcendental viewpoint, and, finally, a concept of ontology in which the Leitfaden comes to be the polarity between being and existence, much like Heidegger’s "Ontological Difference." It is, then, not strange that Plato’s philosophy should be analyzed from the standpoint of a double tension, the tension existing (...) between the order of the "transcendental" and the order of the "ground," and that between an ontology of being and an ontology of existence. (shrink)

Classical science and in fact Post-Newtonian science up till the early twentieth century were mired in a deterministic interpretation of realities. The deterministic hypothesis in science holds that everything in nature has a cause and if one could know the antecedent causes, he could predict the future with certainty. But quantum mechanics holds that sub-atomic particles, though the ultimate materials from which all the complexity of existence in the universe emerges, do not obey deterministic laws, hence, their activities are causally (...) indeterminate and could only be understood with probability. This paper argues that quantum mechanics can not totally be free from determinism, for it has subtly conceded to determinism in holding that the sub-atomic particles are the building blocks of the macro world, and that there is interconnection between entities in the universe, even at the nonmanifest level. The probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics only betray our human limitation of the knowledge of nature, which, I believe still have lots of tricks in our sleeves over mankind. (shrink)

The Roman philosopher Boethius is best known for the _Consolation of Philosophy_, one of the most frequently cited texts in medieval literature. In the _Consolation_, an unnamed Boethius sits in prison awaiting execution when his muse Philosophy appears to him. Her offer to teach him who he truly is and to lead him to his heavenly home becomes a debate about how to come to terms with evil, freedom, and providence. The conventional reading of the _Consolation_ is that it is (...) a defense of pagan philosophy; nevertheless, many readers who accept this basic argument find that the ending is ambiguous and that Philosophy has not, finally, given the prisoner the comfort she had promised. In _The Prisoner's Philosophy_, Joel C. Relihan delivers a genuinely new reading of the _Consolation_. He argues that it is a Christian work dramatizing not the truths of philosophy as a whole, but the limits of pagan philosophy in particular. He views it as one of a number of literary experiments of late antiquity, taking its place alongside Augustine's _Confessions_ and _Soliloquies_ as a spiritual meditation, as an attempt by Boethius to speak objectively about the life of the mind and its relation to God. Relihan discerns three fundamental stories intertwined in the _Consolation_: an ironic retelling of Plato's _Crito,_ an adaptation of Lucian's _Jupiter Confutatus,_ and a sober reduction of _Job_ to a quiet dialogue in which the wounded innocent ultimately learns wisdom in silence. Relihan's claim that Boethius's text was written as a Menippean satire does not rest merely on identifying a mixture of disparate literary influences on the text, or on the combination of verse and prose or of fantasy and morality. More important, Relihan argues, Boethius deliberately dramatizes the act of writing about systematic knowledge in a way that calls into question the value of that knowledge. Philosophy's attempt to lead an exile to God's heaven is rejected; the exile comes to accept the value of the phenomenal world, and theology replaces philosophy to explain the place of human beings in the order of the world. Boethius Christianizes the genre of Menippean satire, and his _Consolation_ is a work about humility and prayer. _“Acknowledging that the _Consolation of Philosophy_ is ‘over-familiar and under-read,’ Joel Relihan puts to the side old bromides about the work and instead pays careful attention to the narrative Boethius constructs, grounding his readings in the contexts the work cultivates, especially its Menippean elements. The result is perhaps the first satisfying reading of the _Consolation_ to be produced, a satisfaction felt also in the ways Relihan mirrors Boethius himself in the thoroughness of his scholarship and the elegance of his exposition. No one who studies Boethius will be able to ignore this book.“ — Joseph Pucci, Brown University _ "Anyone who has been fascinated, intrigued, or perhaps puzzled by the meaning, structure, or argument of Boethius's _Consolation of Philosophy_ will find Joel Relihan's new book a welcome addition to the study of this core text of the early medieval world whose influence extends to the present time. Relihan's study is a tour de force that belongs in the library of all those who appreciate Boethius's depth and subtlety. Fortune's wheel has indeed turned in the favor of those who wish to explore with Relihan the intricacies and brilliance of the _Consolation_." —_Fr. John Fortin, O.S.B., Saint Anselm College _. (shrink)

Certain proximities between two distinguished but very dissimilar contemporaries, Quintilian and Tacitus, may be stated. Contemporary they were, though the former, born probably a little before A.D. 40, was older by about twenty years. Both were from outside Rome, Quintilian certainly of provincial, Spanish, origin, Tacitus very probably from one of the Galliae, yet both exemplars of Romanitas.

A en croire Platon, Héraclite, à l'encontre d'Empédocle, professait une coïncidence de l'un et du multiple. Pour Aristote, c'est tout le contraire: Héraclite, de même qu'Empédocle, enseignait une alternance de l'un et du multiple. Comment expliquer ce désaccord ? En exposant sa théorie de l'unité des opposés, Heraclite ne s'est pas toujours exprimé de la même façon. Aristote aurait compris de travers des formules où l'unité se range du côté de l'un des opposés. Plato and Aristotle presumably read the (...) same text of Heraclitus, and yet they come up with entirely opposite accounts of its meaning Plato thinks that Heraclitus and Empedocles disagree. Aristotle, that they agree. Scholars have failed to solve this conundrum, because they have failed to recognise in the fragments of Heraclitus the Obscure alternative forms of the law of the unity of opposites. Aristotle (wrongly) took one formulation of the law of the unity of opposites to imply an endless succession of the one and the many, and therefore the agreement of Heraclitus with Empedocles. (shrink)

In 1943 one of the authors of this paper set out a case for the view that the sixth book of Polybius' Histories contained two layers, written at different times, and indicating a change in the historian's assessment of the achievements and merits of the Roman hegemony. The arguments there put forward met with some acceptance; but the recent burst of interest in the problems of the sixth book has shown that unanimity is still remote. Among scholars writing since 1943, (...) one, G. B. Cardona, is a ‘separatist’ who accepts the views of De Sanctis; another, W. Theiler, believes that three ‘layers’ of composition can be detected and isolated; three, E. Mioni, H. Erbse, and H. Ryffel, are ‘Unitarians’, but vary in the date they assign to the composition of the Histories; and K. Ziegler in his R.E. article on Polybius argues for composition in the sixties followed by a revision and publication before 146. (shrink)

In 1943 one of the authors of this paper set out a case for the view that the sixth book of Polybius' Histories contained two layers, written at different times, and indicating a change in the historian's assessment of the achievements and merits of the Roman hegemony. The arguments there put forward met with some acceptance; but the recent burst of interest in the problems of the sixth book has shown that unanimity is still remote. Among scholars writing since 1943, (...) one, G. B. Cardona, is a ‘separatist’ who accepts the views of De Sanctis; another, W. Theiler, believes that three ‘layers’ of composition can be detected and isolated; three, E. Mioni, H. Erbse, and H. Ryffel, are ‘Unitarians’, but vary in the date they assign to the composition of the Histories; and K. Ziegler in his R.E. article on Polybius argues for composition in the sixties followed by a revision and publication before 146. (shrink)

In this collection of fourteen essays, first published in 1943, Herbert Read extends and amplifies the points of view expressed in his successful pamphlet _To Hell with Culture_, which has been reprinted here. The ‘politics of the unpolitical’ are the politics of those who strive for human values and not for national or sectional interests. Herbert Read defines these values and demands their recognition as a solvent of social and cultural crises’, and looks forward to the future with constructive vision. (...) This book will be of interest to students of politics, history, and philosophy. (shrink)

Certain proximities between two distinguished but very dissimilar contemporaries, Quintilian and Tacitus, may be stated. Contemporary they were, though the former, born probably a little before A.D. 40, was older by about twenty years. Both were from outside Rome, Quintilian certainly of provincial, Spanish, origin, Tacitus very probably from one of the Galliae, yet both exemplars of Romanitas.

My aim in this paper is to draw Plotinus and Derrida together in a comparison of their respective appropriations of the famous “receptacle” passage in Plato's Timaeus (specifically, Plotinus' discussion of intelligible matter in Enneads 2.4 and Derrida's essay on Timaeus entitled “Kh ō ra”). After setting the stage with a discussion of several instructive similarities between their general philosophical projects, I contend that Plotinus and Derrida take comparable approaches both to thinking the origin of the forms and to (...) problematizing the stability of the sensible/intelligible opposition. With these parallels in focus, I go on to explain how examining such points of contact can help us to dismantle the canonical constructs of “Plotinus the metaphysician” and “Derrida the anti-metaphysician” that have obscured important connections between Neoplatonism and deconstruction, and suppressed latent resources within the Platonic tradition itself for deconstructing the dualistic ontology of so-called “Platonic metaphysics.”. (shrink)