_ X-Men_ is one of the most popular comic book franchises ever, with successful spin-offs that include several feature films, cartoon series, bestselling video games, and merchandise. This is the first look at the deeper issues of the X-Men universe and the choices facing its powerful "mutants," such as identity, human ethics versus mutant morality, and self-sacrifice. J. Jeremy Wisnewski is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Hartwick College and the editor of Family Guy and Philosophy and The Office and Philosophy. (...) Rebecca Housel is a professor at Rochester Institute of Technology, where she teaches about writing and pop culture. For William Irwin's biography, please see below. (shrink)

X-Men is one of the most popular comic book franchises ever, with successful spin-offs that include several feature films, cartoon series, bestselling video games, and merchandise. This is the first look at the deeper issues of the X-Men universe and the choices facing its powerful "mutants," such as identity, human ethics versus mutant morality, and self-sacrifice. J. Jeremy Wisnewski (Oneonta, NY) is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Hartwick College and the editor of Family Guy and Philosophy (978-1-4051-6316-3) and The Office (...) and Philosophy (978-1-4051-7555-5). Rebecca Housel (Rochester, NY) is a professor at Rochester Institute of Technology, where she teaches about writing and pop culture. For William Irwin's biography, please see below. (shrink)

A modern form of narrative, comic books are used to communicate, discuss, and critique issues in business ethics and social issues in management. A description of comic books as a legitimate medium is followed by a discussion of the pedagogical uses of comic books and assessment techniques. The strengths of the pedagogy include crossing cultural barriers, understanding the complexity of individual decision-making and organizational influences, and the universality of dilemmas and values. We provide an initial source for educators on the (...) topics, comic books, plotlines, and other commentary for consideration of use in the classroom from high school to graduate business ethics and social issues in management courses. (shrink)

A modern form of narrative, comic books, are used to communicate, discuss, and critique issues in business and society. A description of comic books as a legitimate medium is followed by a discussion of the pedagogical uses of comic books. The strengths of the pedagogy include crossing cultural barriers, understanding the complexity of individual decision-making and organizational influences, and the universality of dilemmas and values. We provide an initial source for educators on the topics, comic books, plotlines, and other commentary (...) for consideration of use in the classroom from high school to graduate business ethics courses. (shrink)

A modern form of narrative, comic books, are used to communicate, discuss, and critique issues in business and society. A description of comic books as a legitimate medium is followed by a discussion of the pedagogical uses of comic books. The strengths of the pedagogy include crossing cultural barriers, understanding the complexity of individual decision-making and organizational influences, and the universality of dilemmas and values. We provide an initial source for educators on the topics, comic books, plotlines, and other commentary (...) for consideration of use in the classroom from high school to graduate business ethics courses. (shrink)

My target is Kenny’s claim that if God can be thought not to be in the same manner as men or phoenixes, then God too is an essence/existence composite. I argue that our ignorance about the existence of the phoenix and our ignorance about God do not have the same bases and so they do not lead to the same conclusion, namely, a distinction between thing and existence in both cases. The notion of the phoenix is existence neutral because it (...) is reflective of conceptual notes that have to be existence neutral in order to be in existential multiplicities. Our notion of subsistent existence is not existence neutral but it is composed of a formed intention of existence that gives it an independence from the context of the second operation in which it was formed. The first case leads to a situation involving a distinction between essence and existence. Knowledge of the existence of the phoenix adds something over and beyond the essence of the phoenix. In the second case, knowledge of the existence of subsistent existence does not do that because existence is what the formed intention here is of. What knowledge of subsistent existence adds does not belong to it. It belongs to us. It adds our second operation knowledge of the esse of sensible things and our reasoning from that to subsistent existence. (shrink)

This paper addresses the social, cultural, and ethical dynamics of research in regenerative medicine. The author turns to both science fiction and recent developments in regenerative medicine for clues about the future of the body and medical practice, suggesting that regenerative medicine uses the body as its own resource for the purposes of preserving life, and that by attempting to remove the body from the limitations of both mortality and contingency, regenerative medicine fundamentally alters the meaning of human.

The conditional interpretation of general categorical statements like ‘All men are animals’ as universally quantified material conditionals ‘For all x, if x is F, then x is G’ suggests that the logical structure of law statements is conditional rather than categorical. Disregarding the problem that the universally quantified material conditional is trivially true whenever there are no xs that are F, there are some reasons to be sceptical of Frege’s equivalence between categorical and conditional expressions. -/- Now many philosophers will (...) claim that the material conditional interpretation of laws statements, dispositions ascriptions, or any causal claim is generally accepted as wrong and outdated. Still, there seem to be some basic logical assumptions that are shared by most of the participants in the debate on causal matters which at least stems from the traditional truth functional interpretation of conditionals. This is indicated by the vocabulary in the philosophical debate on causation, where one often speaks of ‘counterfactuals’, ‘possible worlds’ and ‘necessity’ without being explicit on whether or to what extent one accepts the logical-technical definition of these notions. To guarantee a non-Humean and non-extensional approach to causal relations, it is therefore important to be aware of the logical and metaphysical implications of the technical vocabulary. -/- In this paper we want to show why extensional logic cannot deal with causal relations. Via a logical analysis of law-like statements ‘All Fs are Gs’ we hope to throw some new light on interrelated notions like causation, laws, induction, hypotheticality and modality. If successful, our analysis should be of relevance for a deeper understanding of any type of causal relations, whether we understand them to be laws, dispositions, singulars or categoricals. (shrink)

In hume's dialogues, Part x, Philo presents the trilemma attributed to epicurus: "is God willing but unable to prevent evil? able but unwilling? both willing and able? whence, Then is evil?" some critics say philo is trying to disprove god's existence. Some say he is not. I say he grants God exists as the first cause in order to show natural religion is impossible. For natural religion must establish god's benevolence, But it cannot combat "moderate scepticism" to establish any moral (...) attribute of god. It would have to show first that men are for the most part happy--A proposition no one can prove both because it is contrary to everyone's feeling and experience and because it is impossible to compute all the pains and pleasures of all men. Philo's argument stands independently of the more frequently discussed four causes argument of part xi. (shrink)

Because Francis Galton (1822-1911) was a well-connected gentleman scientist with substantial private means, the importance of the role he played in the professionalization of the Victorian life-sciences has been considered anomalous. In contrast to the X-clubbers, he did not seem to have any personal need for the reforms his Darwinist colleagues were advocating. Nor for making common cause with individuals haling from social strata clearly inferior to his own. However, in this paper I argue that Galton quite realistically discerned in (...) the reforming endeavors of the 1860s, and beyond, the potential for considerably enhancing his own reputation and standing within both the scientific community and the broader Victorian culture. In addition, his professionalizing aspirations, and those of his reformist allies, were fully concordant with the interests, ambitions and perceived opportunities of his elite social group during the Victorian period. Professionalization appealed to gentlemen of Galton's status and financial security as much as it did to the likes of Thomas Huxley and John Tyndall, primarily because it promised to confer on the whole scientific enterprise an unprecedented level of social prestige. (shrink)

Imprinted genes are monoallelically expressed in a parent‐of‐origin‐dependent manner and can affect brain and behavioural phenotypes. The X chromosome is enriched for genes affecting neurodevelopment and is donated asymmetrically to male and female progeny. Hence, X‐linked imprinted genes could potentially influence sexually dimorphic neurobiology. Consequently, investigations into such loci may provide new insights into the biological basis of behavioural differences between the sexes and into why men and women show different vulnerabilities to certain mental disorders. In this review, we summarise (...) recent advances in our knowledge of X‐linked imprinted genes and the brain substrates that they may act upon. In addition, we suggest strategies for identifying novel X‐linked imprinted genes and their downstream effects and discuss evolutionary theories regarding the origin and maintenance of X‐linked imprinting. BioEssays 28:35–44, 2006. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

When Mill published The Subjection of Women in 1869 he wanted to replace the domination of one sex by the other laws based on ‘a principle of perfect equality’. It is widely complained, however, that even advanced countries have still failed to achieve equality between the sexes. Power and wealth and influence are still overwhelmingly in the hands of men. But equalities of these kinds are not the ones required by the principle of equality that Mill had in mind; and, (...) furthermore, a principle that demanded them would actually be incompatible with Mill’s. The conclusion is not, however, that social policies dealing with men and women are all they should be. It is just that although the fundamental problems of feminism could be – and to a considerable extent still can be – expressed in terms of requirements for justice and equality, we have now reached a stage where concentrating on these ideas can distort the real problems, and may actually impede the kind of progress that is needed. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to analyze the double movement around the legal construct “Señor Natural” that takes place in Las Siete Partidas by Alfonso X, a key concept in the wise King’s political program. On the one hand, the concept of “Señor natural” is reworked and becomes legal, placing the king above any other order; on the other, the obligation regarding the “Señor natural” is established as the best of all “natural obligations”. All this conflates into a new (...) concept of “Señor natural” based on men and the land, which becomes a natural obligation in Partidas, a monarch’s reinforcement to exercise dominium in the totality of the kingdom. (shrink)

“Men can never be free, because they’re weak, corrupt, worthless and restless. The people believe in authority; they’ve grown tired of waiting for miracle or mystery. Science is their religion; no greater explanation exists for them.” (Cigarette Smoking Man, "Talitha Cumi" The X-Files 3X24).

During an April 12, 1860, Senate debate, Senator Jefferson Davis spoke against a bill to fund Black education in Washington, D.C. Davis argued that the United States government was founded “by white men for white men” and “not for negroes.” According to Davis, the inequality of the white and black races was “stamped from the beginning.”Davis’s phrase forms the basis of Ibram X. Kendi’s 2016 National Book Award–winning study, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. (...) Kendi currently serves as the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and as the founding director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. Stamped from the Beginning has won a large... (shrink)

The problem suggested by this passage cannot be properly appreciated unless it is shown first of all that the treatment of poetry and art in the Laws fundamentally agrees with, though of course in some respects it provides a welcome supplement to, the attitude set forth in the Republic and elsewhere by Plato. The demand that music and poetry should ‘imitate’ the good; and that this ‘imitation’ should have meaning and accuracy, and be free from mere emotionalism directly recalls the (...) doctrine of the Republic and other dialogues on the two kinds of imitation, which I have explained in the Classical Quarterly XXII p. 16, XXVI p. 161; the reason for the demand is the same—the imitation of evil has the same effect on character as the companionship of evil men. As for the effect of this ruling on comedy, the Republic is perhaps not over-clear. But the Laws explains that the comic art is to some extent valuable; its pictures of the ludicrous serve as a warning, and also help to make goodness more intelligible by setting it in relief; hence comedy may be performed for the edification of citizens by slaves or hired aliens under certain restrictions such as that a piece shall not have too long a run and that no ridicule of free men is to be permitted . On tragedy the two dialogues are in full agreement; it must become once more a hymn , using for a good purpose those forms of dramatic representation which are allowed to the poet in Rep. 396, and avoiding the mournful and complaining language of profane tragedy, which merely harrows the feelings and which cannot be used without blasphemy at a festival of the gods. (shrink)

During the last congress of the International Association of Bioethics in Beijing, there was a special session on human enhancement. John Harris, pioneer in the discussions on the ethics of enhancement,1 summarised this session, describing the focus of different panelists.2 This session included: Biopsychological enhancements The possibility of regulating emotions through pharmacological means Biases that may affect our judgments against human enhancement Health care inequalities that will follow from the adoption of genetic technology Social impact and costs of adopting the (...) new technology A discussion on women enhancing their physical strength as men through genetic modification .The Beijing panel did not address women’s involvement in the enhancement scenario. Of course, not every aspect of a topic can be covered in one session of a congress and some aspects may remain unaddressed; mainly, because these sessions draw from the research interests of the presenters. However, neither John Harris nor Julian Savulescu has yet addressed women’s crucial involvement in the enhancement scenario. It is the aim of this paper to draw attention to the invisibility of the ‘vessel’ in these discussions. Enhancement may be justified; but clearly, it will also affect women. In this scenario, will women be worse off?LATE ONSET DISEASES AND ENHANCEMENTFirstly, I would like to point out that I believe that enhancement may be a necessary step in the future of human evolution. As I have explained elsewhere,3 health care systems in the developed world are near to collapse under the pressure of late onset chronic diseases. Largely successful in preventing early deaths in the last century, health care systems have prompted a new plague, recognised lately by the World Health Organization as a new pandemic …. (shrink)

Philippe Roy-Lysencourt | : Dans cet article, Philippe Roy-Lysencourt présente les rapports personnels entre Pie X et son Secrétaire d’État, le cardinal Rafael Merry del Val. Il considère tout d’abord la période qui va de la première rencontre entre les deux hommes jusqu’à la nomination de Merry del Val comme Secrétaire d’État ; il examine ensuite les relations de travail et les relations personnelles entre les deux hommes, avant de relater leur dernière rencontre, au chevet de Pie X, qui illustre (...) d’une façon particulière la profondeur de leur amitié. À partir de sources inédites, Philippe Roy-Lysencourt montre que les relations entre les deux hommes étaient fondées sur une estime, un respect et une admiration réciproques, qu’elles étaient caractérisées par une grande confiance mutuelle et que, finalement, les rapports entre les deux hommes étaient si étroits que l’histoire et l’historien ne peuvent dissocier les noms de Pie X et du cardinal Merry del Val. | : In this article, Philippe Roy-Lysencourt presents the personal relationships between Pius X and his Secretary of State, Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val. He first takes into consideration the period that goes from the first encounter between the two men until Merry del Val’s appointment as Secretary of State ; he then examines the working and personal relations between the two men, before discussing their last encounter, at Pius X’s bedside, which illustrates in a particular way the depth of their friendship. Working from unpublished sources, Philippe Roy-Lysencourt shows that the relationship between the two men was based on a reciprocal esteem, respect and admiration, that it was characterized by great mutual trust, and that finally this relationship was so close that history and the historian cannot dissociate the names of Pius X and Cardinal Merry del Val. (shrink)

A fascinating survey of the forces that shape who we are and how we act-from the author of The Calculus Diaries Following her previous tours through the worlds of physics (Black Bodies and Quantum Cats) and calculus (The Calculus Diaries), acclaimed science writer Jennifer Ouellette now turns her attention to the mysteries of human identity and behavior with Me, Myself, and Why. She draws on genetics, neuroscience, and psychology-enlivened as always with her signature sense of humor and pop-culture references-to explore (...) how we become who we are. Ouellette lets readers in on her own surprising journey of self-discover, as she has her genome sequenced, her brain mapped, her personality typed, and even samples a popular hallucinogen. Bringing together everything from Mendel's famous pea plant experiments and mutations in The X-Men to our taste in food and our relationship with avatars and our online selves, Ouellette delivers another fun and enlightening work of popular science that's sure to be enjoyed by her many fans. (shrink)

This chapter provides a quick primer on the volumes of the comic titles Captain America and Avengers. It talks about the beginnings and endings of which usually coincide with major events in the Marvel Universe. The story starts with the first volume of Avengers, since it was in the classic issue #4 of that title that Captain America was found in a block of ice and revived. These long‐running volumes of Captain America and Avengers lasted until 1996. Both series ended (...) when the Avengers were apparently killed in a battle with the villainous Onslaught. After the Avengers vs. X‐Men event, Marvel Comics relaunched many of its books and introduced new ones. The Watcher only knows what volume Captain America and the various Avengers titles are on, but Cap will live in on comics, movies, and TV long after this book has changed the course of American history. (shrink)

In this essay, I take up the question of why so many of the movies made by Hollywood are endless sequels, “prequels,” and remakes of prior blockbuster hits and so many are based on comic books (X-men, Superman, Batman, and so on). I tie the explanation in part to the aforementioned 1950 Supreme Court ruling prohibiting production companies, and in part to broader cultural changes. In particular, I argue that precisely because film producers can no longer make money from the (...) concessions (i.e., the purchases within the theater), but only of the ticket sales, the producers keep producing remakes of known popular movies, rather than make deeply original movies. (shrink)

What can _South Park_ tell us about Socrates and the nature of evil? How does _The Office_ help us to understand Sartre and existentialist ethics? Can _Battlestar Galactica_ shed light on the existence of God? _Introducing Philosophy Through Pop Culture_ uses popular culture to illustrate important philosophical concepts and the work of the major philosophers With examples from film, television, and music including _South Park_, _The Matrix_, _X-Men_, _Batman_, _Harry Potter, Metallica_ and _Lost,_ even the most abstract and complex philosophical (...) ideas become easier to grasp Features key essays from across the Blackwell _Philosophy and Pop Culture_ series, as well as helpful editorial material and a glossary of philosophical terms From metaphysics to epistemology; from ethics to the meaning of life, this unique introduction makes philosophy as engaging as popular culture itself Supplementary website available with teaching guides, sample materials and links to further resources at _www.pop-philosophy.org_. (shrink)

In Nietzsche's philosophical novel, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the central character is the prophet Zarathustra. Zarathustra is the prophet of the yearning for going beyond our merely human selves to which our current pop culture, with its X‐Men and Marvel superheroes, appeals. The Good Place is an important component of this culture. Its main moral message is that human beings should aspire to go beyond themselves. Zarathustra proposes a theory of human history that includes a stage of animal‐like humans foraging on (...) their own, a stage involving identification with groups that think they are superior to each other, and a stage in which human equality becomes the dominant value. If Zarathustra is right, there is a greater possibility for humanity than completing the stage of equality at which we currently find ourselves. There is the stage of overcoming humanity itself, the stage of aiming at superhumanity. (shrink)

Purpose. Objectives of the study are as follows: to remove the reduction of women to a metaphysical subject, to the "castrated Other" through the correlation of postmodern strategies and gender medicine; to institutionalize gender medicine as knowledge and practical activities that improve the quality and span of life of women based on the methodological application of deconstruction, complementarity, differance, "double writing", X-subject treatment and biomedical innovations; the perspective of gender medicine development is the implementation of the concept of "sovereign writing" (...) of postmodern in individual treatment of a person. Theoretical basis. Shock value of the title means farewell to metaphysics in the complex of its derived concepts. The author criticizes the abstract, reduced, marginalized, deviant subject of classical metaphysics and its continuation in psychoanalysis, explores the correlation of postmodern philosophy strategies and biomedical innovations. The allusion to the masterpiece of world cinematography Pasolini’s "Ciao maschio" corresponds to the rhizomatic stylistics of the postmodern. Originality. After feminist transgressions, gender constructivism postmodern philosophy demonstrates a new subject and a new methodology, which formed gender medicine. Differance, distinction, complementarity, X-subject of treatment, chiasmatic movement, "double writing", "sovereign writing" organically turned over and reconstructed modern medicine in gender, biochemical, and hormonal innovative variations. Conclusions. 1. Based on the philosophy and biomedical innovations, a new direction has grown – gender medicine, which has removed the reduction of women to a metaphysical subject, "castrated Other", which has improved the quality of women’s health and span of life. 2. Gender medicine in organic combination with the strategies of deconstruction, complementarity, differance, distinction as hormonal distinction, "double writing" as a "dual protocol" of treatment for the same diseases of men and women, the treatment of X-subject turned out to be "new wisdom", which improves the quality of health and span of life in everyday practice. 3. The prospect of the gender medicine’s development is in the implementation of the "sovereign writing" as an individual treatment of a specific person. (shrink)

During the 1840s and the 1850s botanist Joseph Hooker developed distinct notions about the proper characteristics of a professional man of science. While he never articulated these ideas publicly as a coherent agenda, he did share his opinions openly in letters to family and colleagues; this private communication gives essential insight into his and his X-Club colleagues' public activities. The core aspiration of Hooker's professionalization was to consolidate men of science into a dutiful and centralized community dedicated to national well-being. (...) The nation in turn owed the scientific community for its ministration. When the government bestowed funds and status on men of science it was rewarding science -- not purchasing it. His proposed reforms were piecemeal, immediate, and above all practical. He harbored no taste for vast millenarian transformation, and rested his conception of scientific professionalism upon a respectable High Victorian foundation of patronage and pillars of duty, reciprocity, intimacy, and inequality. The process of professionalization he envisioned was as much shrewd compromise between existing interests as a vindication of principle. His power and prestige from the mid-1850s onward gave him considerable ability to carry out his reform program, although his general success did occasion some undesired consequences for the status of natural-history pursuits. (shrink)

At the beginning of Book X of his last work The Laws Plato turns his attention from violent and outrageous actions in general to the particular case of undisciplined and presumptuous behaviour in matters of religion: “We have already stated summarily what the punishment should be for temple-robbing, whether by open force or secretly. But the punishments for the various sorts of insolence in speech or action with regard to the gods, which a man can show in word or deed, (...) have to be proclaimed after we have provided an exordium. Let this be it: ‘No one believing, as the laws prescribe, in the existence of the gods has ever yet performed an impious action willingly, or uttered a lawless word. Anyone acting in such a way is in one of three conditions: either, first, he does not believe the proposition aforesaid; or, second, he believes that though the gods exist they have no concern about men; or, third, he believes that they can easily be won over by the bribery of prayer and sacrifice”. (shrink)

LOCKE'S DISCUSSION OF ORGANISMS AND PERSONS IN "ESSAY" II.XXVI HAS LED GEACH AND OTHERS TO ATTRIBUTE THE THESIS OF RELATIVE IDENTITY TO HIM; THAT X IS NEVER IDENTICAL WITH Y "TOUT COURT" BUT ONLY RELATIVE TO SOME SORTAL PROPERTY F: X IS THE SAME F AS Y. I ARGUE THAT THIS ATTRIBUTION RESTS ON A MISUNDERSTANDING OF LOCKE'S POSITION. LOCKE INDEED HOLDS THAT AN OLD TREE MAY BE THE SAME OAK AS THE SEEDLING FROM WHICH IT GREW, WHEREAS THE PARTICLES (...) COMPOSING THE TREE AND THE SEEDLING ARE DIFFERENT MASSES OF MATTER. BUT HE ALSO HOLDS THAT PLANTS AND MASSES OF MATTER ARE DISTINCT ENTITIES TO START WITH, EVEN IF THEY OCCUPY THE SAME PLACE AT THE SAME TIME. AND SIMILARLY WITH PERSONS AND MEN. THE RESULT IS A COPIOUS ONTOLOGY, BUT THERE IS NO REASON TO THINK THAT LOCKE WOULD OR SHOULD HAVE BEEN BOTHERED BY THAT. (shrink)

In the title essay of The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art Arthur Danto describes two dominant strains of the philosophy of art in its Platonic beginnings: one that art is dangerous, and thus subject to political censorship or control, and the other that art exists at several removes from the ordinary reality, impotent to effect any meaningful change in the human world.1 These two ways of understanding art, really two charges laid at art’s door, seem contradictory, he writes, until one realizes (...) that the second is a philosophical response to the first. In a ‘‘kind of warfare between philosophy and art’’ philosophy sees art as a rival, as a challenger to the supremacy of reason over the minds of men. Thus Danto describes the premise advanced in Book X of the Republic that art is mimesis, or that of The Ion that the artist lacks knowledge of what he does, as components of a powerfully disabling theory of art, designed not so much to come to terms with the essence of art as to neutralize its power through metaphysical exile, denying art causal efficacy or epistemic validity in the real world. And the history of aesthetics, in Danto’s view, continues this disenfranchisement, whether in the Kantian ephemeralization of art as an object of disinterested judgment, outside the realm of human practical and political concerns, or in the Hegelian ‘‘takeover’’ of art, in which it is demoted as an inadequate form of philosophy. (shrink)

Traditional Franciscan history holds that Francis of Assisi founded an order of lay penitents, which was given both a rule and official approval by Pope Nicholas IV in 1289. In this accepted version of events, the 1289 rule was followed by houses of men and women until the sixteenth century, and only replaced when a desire for greater unity within the Franciscan third order led Leo X to issue a new rule in 1521.2 Despite not standing up to historical scrutiny, (...) studies of the third order seldom question this official narrative.3 Moreover, although the 1521 rule is generally mentioned, little attention is given to either its context or significance.4 When the historical circumstances of this new rule are .. (shrink)

Part One. In our strife to express the meanings of moral terms, we have neglected the one transparently built?in meaning: ?A man ought to keep his promises? could mean ?A man owes it to other men to keep his promises. Such is his debt and duty ? just what is due or owed?. This proposal is supported by the evidence of major languages of the world, ancient and modern, in all of which identical or closely related words serve to express (...) both the idea of material debt and that of moral obligation. But on study the revealing model and analogue of ?moral debt? is found, not in debts of exchange, the simplest and most obvious class of debts, but in debts of shared responsibility. Working from such models we conclude that ?A ought to do X? means X is part of A's share in the cost of the good community, the common cause and stake of all mankind? (shrink)

At the beginning of Book X of his last work The Laws Plato turns his attention from violent and outrageous actions in general to the particular case of undisciplined and presumptuous behaviour in matters of religion: “We have already stated summarily what the punishment should be for temple-robbing, whether by open force or secretly. But the punishments for the various sorts of insolence in speech or action with regard to the gods, which a man can show in word or deed, (...) have to be proclaimed after we have provided an exordium. Let this be it: ‘No one believing, as the laws prescribe, in the existence of the gods has ever yet performed an impious action willingly, or uttered a lawless word. Anyone acting in such a way is in one of three conditions: either, first, he does not believe the proposition aforesaid; or, second, he believes that though the gods exist they have no concern about men; or, third, he believes that they can easily be won over by the bribery of prayer and sacrifice”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Franz Brentano and Intentional Inexistence LINDA L. McALISTER FRANZBRnrCrXr~O,in his important early work Psychologie vom empirischen Stand, punkt (1874), maintains that all human experience is divided into two classes: mental phenomena and physical phenomena,x It is then incumbent upon him to show how these two classes of phenomena are to be distinguished one from another. In Book II, Chapter 1, of the Psychologie, he devotes him.self to this task, (...) and in the course of the chapter he surveys several different ways of making out the distinction. After enumerating examples of men~l phenomena and of physical phenomena, he searches for defining characteristics of mental phenomena. He finds several charac, teristics which he thinks all mental phenomena have and all physical phenomena lack or vice versa, but far and away the most important of these, in Brentano's estimation, and the one whdch has aroused the most interest on the part of later philosophers, is what he calls "intentional inexistence," 2 (or merely "intentional existence"; the prefix "in-" does not indicate negation but rathor location, indicating existence in the mind). As examples of mental phenomena Brentano lists first ideas or presentations (Vorstellungen), whether sensory or issuing from the imagination, and by this he meam not the objects which are presented or which one has before one's mind, but rather the condition or, what Brentano; broadly speaking, calls the act of having such an idea or presentation.3 Thus the acts of hearing something, or seeing or perceiving something would be mental phenomena regardless of whether the object which is, e. g., seen, ds perceived through the visual organs or seen in the mind's eye, so to speak. Other examples are acts of judgment, amongwhich Brentano includes ~:emembering, inferring, believing, doubting; and emotions.such as being happy or sad, lovi~,g and hating, along with which Brentano includes such things as willing, intending, choosing, etc.4 i Oskar Kraus, e.d.,2nd ed. (Leipzig,1924),I, 109. Psych. I, 137. Psych. I, 111. " Psych. I, 112. [423] 424 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY ExamFles of physical phenomena which Brentano mentions are "a color, a figure, a landscape which I see, a chord which I hear, warmth, cold, odor which I perceive; as well as similar images which appear in the imagination." s It appears from the examFles, then, that mental phenomena are all mental acts, in a broad sense, while physical phenomena are, strictly speaking, all instances of sensible qualities, the inclusion of "a landscape" being, apparently, a slip on Brentano's part, as his student, friend and editor Oskar Kraus points out. 6 As mentioned above, Brentano thought that there is one partieula~ mark of mental phenomena which characterizes them better than any other: Every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or mental) inexistence of an object, and what we might call, though not wholly unambiguously, reference to a content, direction toward an object (by which you should not take me to mean a thing), or immanent objectivity. Every mental phenomenon includes something in itself as an object, though they do not all do so in the same way. In presentation something is presented, in judgment something is affmned or denied, in love loved, in hate hated, in desire desired and so on.7 Commentators, perhaps not surprisingly, have disagreed as to the precise nature of the view which Brentano is enunciating in this passage,s Some have supposed that since you can think of, hate, or judge, etc., things which do not exist, e.g., Pegasus, then the immanent object of which Brentano speaks i,s not Pegasus but a "thoughtof Pegasus" (gedachtes Pegasus) which exists in one's mind whenever someone th'mks of Pegasus. Apparently H6fler interpreted the doctrine in this way in a paper which he presented to the Fifth International Psychology Congress in 1905.9.In the light of some passages from Brentano's early writings it appears to be a plausible interpretation. Consider, for example, the following passage: There cannot be anyone who contemplates an A unless there is a contemplated A; and conversely.... The two concepts are not identical but they... (shrink)

Deze tekst vertrekt vanuit een van de meest invloedrijke denkers in de metafysica, namelijk Aristoteles. We lezen hem via de interpretatie van Giorgio Agamben in het artikel On potentiality. 4 Agamben werpt in die tekst een nieuw licht op het onderscheid tussen potentialiteit en act. De Westerse metafysica heeft vaak de act geprivilegieerd boven de potentialiteit. Enkel actuele entiteiten zouden bestaan, terwijl mogelijkheden behoren tot het domein van de verbeelding. Aristoteles ondermijnt deze stelling volgens Agamben. De mens als redelijk dier (...) is een potentieel wezen. De verwerkelijking van zijn essentie is het cultiveren van de rede als potentialiteit. In de mens zijn act en potentialiteit één. Daarom moeten wij begrijpen in welke zin potentialiteiten bestaan en hoe zij zich verhouden tot de act. Het antwoord vinden wij in de verwerkelijking van impotentialiteit, of het vermogen om dingen niet te doen. De mens kan niet enkel x doen, maar ook actief x niet-doen. Bijvoorbeeld in de vasten kan men van niet-eten een project maken. Agambens studie van impotentialiteit verduidelijkt daarmee wat de termen ‘act’ en ‘potentialiteit’ precies betekenen. Agamben stelt voor om elke actualisering te begrijpen als de opschorting van een impotentialiteit. De vaster die begint te eten, schort zijn project tot niet-eten op. Los van deze of gene actualisering is de wereld eerst de verzamelnaam voor alle mogelijke actualiseringen en die mogelijkheden zijn nooit uitgeput in eender welke actualisering van de wereld. De mens is dan het wezen dat, dankzij zijn impotentialiteit, inziet dat de wereld steeds meer is dan enkel wat het geval is. (shrink)

Regarding the relation of Plato’s early and middle period dialogues, scholars have been divided to two opposing groups: unitarists and developmentalists. While developmentalists try to prove that there are some noticeable and even fundamental differences between Plato’s early and middle period dialogues, the unitarists assert that there is no essential difference in there. The main goal of this article is to suggest that some of Plato’s ontological as well as epistemological principles change, both radically and fundamentally, between the early and (...) middle period dialogues. Though this is a kind of strengthening the developmentalistic approach corresponding the relation of the early and middle period dialogues, based on the fact that what is to be proved here is a essential development in Plato’ ontology and his epistemology, by expanding the grounds of development to the ontological and epistemological principles, it hints to a more profound development. The fact that the bipolar and split knowledge and being of the early period dialogues give way to the tripartite and bound knowledge and benig of the middle period dialogues indicates the development of the notions of being and knowledge in Plato’s philosophy before the dialogues of the middle period. -/- Keywords Plato; early dialogues; middle dialogues; being; knowledge; development -/- Introduction The differences between two groups of the early and middle period dialogues have always been a matter of dispute. Whereas the developmentalists like Vlastos, Silverman (2002), Teloh (1981), Dancy (2004) and Rickless (2007) think that from the early to the middle dialogues Plato’s philosophy changes, at least in some essential points, the unitarists like Kahn, Cherniss and Shorey believe that there happens no development and the differences must be taken as natural, ignorable and even pedagogic. In his well-known article, Socrates contra Socrates in PLATO, Vlastos lists ten theses of difference between two groups of dialogues. The first group which includes Plato’s early dialogues he divides to 'elenctic' (Apology, Charmides, Crito, Euthyphro, Gorgias, Hippias Minor, Ion, Laches, Protagoras and Republic I) and 'transitional' (Euthydemus, Hippias Major, Lysis, Menexenus and Meno) dialogues. These transitional come after all the elenctic dialogues and before all the dialogues of the second group which compose Plato’s middle period dialogues, including (with Vlastos' chronological order) Cratylus, Phaedo, Symposium, Republic II-X, Phaedrus, Parmenides and Theaetetus (1991, 46-49). Vlastos asserts strictly that his list of differences are 'so diverse in content and method that they contrast as sharply with one another as with any third philosophy you care to mention, beginning with Aristotole’s' (ibid, 46). Vlastos’ list of differences between two Socrateses is considered a view breaking sharply between the early and the middle dialogues. Besides all ten differences between the two Socrateses in Vlastos’ list that can be supportive for our doctrine here, we intend to focus on some ontological as well as epistemological distinctions that have not completely been discussed hitherto. Contrary to the developmentalist theory of Vlastos, unitarian theory of Charles Kahn wishes to eliminate any substantial difference between the early and the middle dialogues. He distinguishes seven 'pre-middle' or 'threshold' dialogues including Laches, Charmides, Euthyphro, Protagoras, Meno, Lysis and Euthydemus from the other Socratic dialogues which he calls 'earliest group' (1996, 41). The threshold dialogues, Kahn thinks, 'embarke upon a sustained project' that is to reach to its climax in the middle period dialogues, namely Phaedo, Symposium and Republic. Believing in that there is no 'fundamental shift'between the early and middle dialogues (ibid, 40), Kahn thinks the Socratic dialogues are just the 'first stage' with a 'deliberate silence' towards the theories of later periods (ibid, 339). One of the reasons of the surprising fact that Plato gives no hint of the metaphysics and epistemology of the Forms in the early dialogues, he thinks, is the pedagogical advantages of aporia. He thinks that Plato 'obscurely', and mostly because of education, hinted to some doctrines and conceptions in his early dialogues and with the aim of clarifying them only in the later ones (ibid, 66). The seven threshold dialogues, Kahn asserts, 'had been designed from the first' to prepare the pupils and readers for the views expounded in the middle period dialogues (ibid, 59-60). To show that the differences of the two Socrateses of the early and middle period dialogue are in their onto-epistemological grounds and thence cannot be explained by a unitaristic view, we try to draw the ontological and epistemological principles of the early dialogues in the first part below in order to show, in the second part, that those principles have been developed in the middle period dialogues. -/- A. The Onto-Epistemologic Principles of the Early Dialogues Socratic dialogues are paradoxical about knowledge because while being knowledge-oriented always searching for knowledge, they deny it and even never discuss it directly. Three elements of Socrates’ way of searching Knowledge throughout the early dialogues, i.e. Socratic 'what is X?' question, his disavowal of knowledge and his elenctic method combined together produce something like a circle which works, more or less, in the same way in these dialogues. Though this circle is an embaressing inquiry always resulting in ignorance instead of knowledge, its motivation is surprisingly Socrates’ passionate enthusiasm for knowledge, an intensive love of wisdom. The starting point of this circle is Socrates’ confession of having no knowledge which might be explicitly asserted or presupposed, maybe because it was one of the famous characteristics of Socrates; a confession always paradoxically accompanied with his intense longing for knowledge (e.g., Gorgias 505e4-5). Every time Socrates encounters with someone who thinks he knows something (οἴεταί τι εἰδέναι) (Apology 21d5) and tries to examine him. This examination seems to be the simplest one asking just what it is that he knows. Socrates’ elenchus, therefore, is always connected with 'what is X?' (τίς ποτέ ἐστιν) question, a question that most of the early dialogues of Plato are concerned with; 'what is courage?' in the Laches, 'what is piety?' in Euthydemus, 'what is temperance?' in Charmides and 'what is beauty?' in Hippias Major. This question we call here 'Socratic question' and probably is the very question the historical Socrates used to employ, is tightly interrelated with both his disavowal and his elenchus. He disclaims knowledge because he cannot find the answer to the question himself and he rejects others’ since they cannot offer the correct answer too. Every interlocutor can claim he knows X, if and only if he can answer the Socratic question. Otherwise, he is more of an ignorant than of a knower of τί ποτέ ἐστι X. Knowing the answer to this question is, thus, knowledge’s criterion for Socrates. Having found out that he cannot answer what it is which he would claim to know, the interlocutor comes to the point Socrates was there at the beginning. The least advantage of this circle is that he becomes as wise as Socrates does about the subject, becoming aware that he does not know it. At the end of the circle they are both still at the beginning, not knowing what X is. So let us first take a glance at these three elements. Socratic disavowal of knowledge is strictly asserted in some passages. At Apology 21b4-5, Socrates says: -/- I do not know of myself being wise at all (οὔτε μέγα οὔτε σμικρὸν σύνοιδα ἐμαυτῷ σοφὸς ὤν) -/- Moreover, at 21d4-6: -/- None of us knows anything worthwhile (καλὸν κἀγαθὸν εἰδέναι) …. I do not know (οἶδα) neither do I think I know. -/- In Charmides Socrates speaks about a fear about his probable mistake of thinking that he knows (εἰδέναι) something when he does not (166d1-2). The somehow generalization of this disavowal can be seen in Gorgias. After calling his disavowal 'an account that is always the same' (509a4-5), Socrates continues (a5-7): -/- I say that I do not know (οἶδα) how these things are, but no one I have ever met, like now, who can say anything else without being absurd. -/- At the end of Hippias Major (304d7-8), Socrates affirms his disavowal of knowledge of 'what is X?' this time about the fine: -/- I do not know (οἶδα) what that is itself (αὐτὸ τοῦτο ὅτι ποτέ ἐστιν). Some other passages, however, made a number of scholars dubious about Socrates’ disavowal. Vlastos mentions Apology 29b6-7 as an evidence : 'that to do wrong and to disobey one’s master, both god and men, I know (οἶδα) to be evil and shameful'. He thinks that if we give this single text 'its full weight' it can suffice to show that Socrates does claim knowledge of a moral truth (1985, 7). Vlastos’ claim is not admittable since it would be too strange, I think, for a man like Socrates to violate his disavowal claim just after emphasizing it. We can see his claim just before the already mentioned passage: -/- And surely it is the most blameworthy ignorance to believe that one knows what one does not know. It is perhaps on this point and in this respect, gentlemen, that I differ from the majority of men and if I were to claim that I am wiser than anyone in anything it world be in this, that, as I have no adequate knowledge (οὐκ εἰδὼς ἱκανῶς) of things in the underworld, so I do not think I have (οὐκ εἰδέναι) (Apology 29b1-6) Vlastos tries to solve what he calls the 'paradox' of Socrates’ disavowal of knowledge distinguishing the 'certain' knowledge from 'elenctic' knowledge (1985, 11) and thinking that when Socrates avows knowledge, we must perceive it as an elenctic knowledge, a knowledge its content 'must be propositions he thinks elenctically justifiable' (ibid, 18). Irwin’s solution is the distinction of knowledge and belief. He approves that Socrates does not 'explicitly' make such a distinction, but still thinks that Socrates’ 'test for knowledge would make it reasonable for him to recognize true belief without knowledge, and his own claims are easily understood if they are claims to true belief alone' (1977, 40). While I agree with Vlastos up to a point, I strongly disagree with Irwin about the early dialogues. As I will try to show below, we are not permitted to consider any kind of distinction within knowledge in Socratic dialogues because only one category of knowledge is alluded to there and the distinction of knowledge and belief thoroughly belongs to the second Sorcates. Although no kind of distinction can be admittable here, I think Vlastos’ distinction can be accepted only if we regard it as a distinction between knowledge, which is unique and without any, even incomparable, rival, and a semi-idiomatic and ordinary one that is a necessary requirement for any argument, and thus, unavoidable even for someone who does not claim any kind of knowledge. An apparent evidence of this is Gorgias 505e6-506a4: -/- I go through the discussion as I think it is (ὡς ἄν μοι δοκῇ ἔχειν), if any of you do not agree with admissions I am making to myself, you must object and refute me. For I do not say what I say as I know (οὐδὲ γάρ τοι ἔγωγε εἰδὼς λέγω ἃ λέγω) but as searching jointly with you (ζητῶ κοινῇ μεθ᾽ ὑμῶν). -/- The minimal degree of knowledge everyone must have to take part in an argument, conduct it and use the phrase "I know" when it is necessary is what Socrates cannot deny. We can call it elenctic knowledge only if we agree that it is not the kind of knowledge that Socrates has always been searching, the one that can be accepted as the answer of Socratic 'what is X?' question. His disavowal of knowledge is applied only to the knowledge which can truly be the answer of Socratic question and pass the elenctic exam; a knowledge that, I believe, is never claimed by first Socrates. Socrates conducts his method of examining his interlocutors’ knowledge, our second element here, by almost the same method repeated in Socratic dialogues. That whether we are allowed to regard all the examinations of Socrates in the early dialogues as based on the same or not has been a matter of dispute. Vlastos himself (1994, 31) distinguished Euthydemas, Lysis, Menexenns and Hippias Major from the other Socratic dialogues because he thinks Socrates has lost his faith to elenchus in there. Irwin (1977, 38) distinguishes Apology and Crito where Socrates’ own convictions is present. Contrary to some scholars like Benson (2002, 107) who take elenchus in all the Socratic dialogues as a unique method, Michelle Carpenter and Ronald M. Polansky (2002, 89-100) argue pro the variety of methods of elenchus. Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith (2002, 145-160) even reject such a thing as Socratic elenchus which can gather all of the Socrates’ various arguments under such a heading. There can be no solution for the problem of elenchus, they think, is due to 'the simple reason that there is no such thing as 'the Socratic elenchos"'(p.147). Though we consider elenchus a somehow determined process and a part of Socratic circle in the early dialogues, all we assume is that whatever differences it might have in different dialogues, it has the same onto-epistemological principles and, thus, we are not going to take it necessarily as a unique method. This method sets out to prove that the interlocutors are as ignorant as Socrates himself is. That whether elenchus is constructive, capable of establishing doctrines as Vlastos (1994) or Brickhouse and Smith (1994, 20-21) believe or not is another issue to which this paper is not to claim anything. What is crucial for our discussion here is that elenchus does not reach to the very knowledge Socrates is looking for. This is strictly against Irwin who thinks that not only elenchus leads to positive results, 'it should even yield knowledge to match Socrates’ conditions'(1977, 68, cf. 48). He does not explain where and how they really yield to that kind of knowledge. He explains his elenctic method in his apology in the court (Apology 21-22), that how he used to examine wise men, politicians, poets and all those who had the highest reputation for their knowledge and every time found that they have no knowledge. If we accept, as I strongly do, that Socrates’ disavowal of his knowledge is not irony, it might seem more reasonable to agree that the process that has that disavowal as its first step cannot be irony as well. The key of the circle which can explain why Socrates disclaims knowledge and how he can reject others’ claim of having any kind of knowledge lies in the third element, Socratic question. In Hippias Major (287c1-2), Socrates asks: 'Is it not by Justice that just people are Just? (ἆρ᾽ οὐ δικαιοσύνῃ δίκαιοί εἰσιν οἱ δίκαιοι). He insists at 294b1 that they were searching for that by which (ᾧ) all beautiful things are beautiful (cf. b4-5, 8). At Euthyphro 6d10-11 it is said that the Socratic question is waiting for 'the form itself (αὐτὸ τὸ εἶδος) by which (ᾧ) all the pious actions are pious; and at 6d11-e1: -/- Through one form (που μιᾷ ἰδέᾳ) impious actions are impious and pious actions pious. -/- Since the X itself is that by which X is X, knowing 'X itself' is the only way of knowing X. It is probably because of this that Socrates makes the distinction between the ousia as a right answer to the question and effect as a wrong one: -/- I am afraid, Euthyphro, that when you were asked what piety is (τὸ ὅσιον ὅτι ποτ᾽ ἐστίν) you did not wish to make clear its nature itself (οὐσίαν … αὐτοῦ) to me, but you said some effect (πάθος) about it. (Euthp. 11a6-9) -/- 1. Knowledge of what X is Now it is time to look for the onto-epistemological principles of Socratic circle and its three elements. It cannot reasonably be expected from the first Socrates to present us explicitly and clearly formulated principles of his onto-epistemology when such explications cannot be found even in the second Socrates who has some obviously positive theoris. Since there must be some principles underlying this first systematic inqury of knowledge, we must seek to them and be satisfied with elicitation of the first Socratas’ principle. What will be drawn out as his principles cannot and must not, thus, be taken as very fix and dogmatic principles. Some very slightest principles and grounds suffice for our purposes here. The first principle that is the prima facie significance of the Socratic question and his implementation of all those elenctic arguments I call the principle of 'Knowledge of What X is' (KWX): -/- KWX To know X, it is required to know what X is. -/- Aristotle (Metaphysics 1078b23-25, 27-29, 987b4-8) takes Plato’s τί ἐστι question as seeking the definition of a thing that is the same as historical Socrates’ search but applying to a different field. That Plato’s 'what is X?' question was a search for definition became the prevailed understanding of this question up to now. I am going neither to discuss the answer of Socratic question nor to challenge taking it as definition. What I am to insist is that knowledge is attached firmly to the answer of the question: Knowledge of X is not anything but the knowledge of what X is. It entails, certainly, the priority of this knowledge to any other kind of knowledge about X but it also has something more fundamental about the relation of knowledge and Socratic question. Socrates’ exclusive focus on the answer of his question can authorize the consideration of such an essential role for KWX in his epistemolgoy. The total rejection of his interlocutors’ knowledge when they are unable to answer the question can be regarded as a strong evidence for it. Socrates’ elenctic method and his rejection of others’ knowledge in the early dialogues, which all end aporetically with no one accepted as knower and nothing as knowledge, prevent us from finding any positive evidence for this. We have to be content, therefore, of negative evidences which, I think, can be found wherever Socrates rejects his interlocutors’ knowledge when they are not able to give an acceptable answer to his 'what is X?' question. 2. Bipolar Epistemology Socrates’ rejection of his interlocutors’ knowledge has another epistemological principle as its basis. Let me call this principle Bipolar Epistemology' (BE): BE There is no third way besides knowledge and Ignorance. -/- BE says that about every object of knowledge there are only two subjective statuses: knowledge and Ignorance. Socrates’ disavowal, however, says nothing but that he is ignorant of knowledge of X because he does not know what X is. This means that BE is presupposed here. Socrates’ elenchus and his rejection of interlocutors’ having any kind of knowledge are the necessary results of the fact that he does not let any third way besides knowledge and ignorance. The first Socrates never let anyone partly know X or have a true opinion about it, as he would not let anyone know anything about X when he did not know what X is. -/- 3. Bipolar Ontology The principle of BE in first Socrates’ epistemology is parallel to another principle in his ontology. Plato’s bipolar distinction between being and not being is as strict and perfect as his distinction between knowledge and ignorance. This principle I shall call the principle of 'Bipolar Ontology' (BO): BO Being is and not being is not. BO is apparently the same with the well-known Parmenidean Principle of being and not being (cf. Diels-Kranz (DK) Fr. 2.2-5). Euthydemus’ statement against the possibility of false knowledge can be good evidence for this principle: -/- The things which are not surely do not exist (τὰ δὲ μὴ ὄντα … ἄλλο τι ἢ οὐκ ἔστιν). (Euthydemus 284b3-4) -/- He continues (b4-5): -/- There is nowhere for not being to be there (οὖν οὐδαμοῦ τά γε μὴ ὄντα ὄντα ἐστίν). -/- That BE does not let true opinion as a third option besides knowledge and ignorance seems to be related to BO’s rejecting a third option besides being and not being, which is itself the basis of the impossibility of false belief. Socrates’ elaborate discussion of the problem of false belief in Theatetus that leads to a more decisive discussion and finally to some solutions in Sophist can make our consideration of BO for the first group of dialogues authentive. -/- 4. &5. Split Knowledge and Split Being The fourth principle I shall call the principle of 'Split Knowledge' (SK): -/- SK Knowledge of X is separated from any other knowledge (of anything else) as if the whole knowledge is split to various parts. -/- This Principle is hinted and criticized as Socrates’ way of treating with knowledge in Hippias Major: -/- But Socrates, you do not contemplate the entireties of things, nor do people you have used to talk with (τὰ μὲν ὅλα τῶν πραγμάτων οὐ σκοπεῖς, οὐδ᾽ ἐκεῖνοι οἷς σὺ εἴωθας διαλέγεσθαι). (301b2-4) -/- Contrary to Rankin who regards the passage as 'antilogical, almost eristic in tone rather than presenting a serious philosophy of being' (1983, 54), I think it can be taken as serious. Hippias criticizes Sorcates that he does not contemplate (σκοπεῖς) the entireties of things (ὅλα τῶν πραγμάτων), a critique which Socrates is not its only subject but all those whom Socrates accustomed to talk with (ἐκεῖνοι οἷς σὺ εἴωθας διαλέγεσθαι). This last phrase, I think, extends this critic beyond this dialogue to other Socratic dialogues. Hippias’ use of the perfect tense of the verb ἔθω (to be accustomed) is a good evidence of this extension. We can get, thus, these ἐκεῖνοι as Socrates’ interlocutors in his other dialogues that hints that this criticism has the epistemological groundings of the previous dialogues as its subject. What ἐκεῖνοι οἷς σὺ εἴωθας διαλέγεσθαι points to is that Hippias does not have in mind Socrates’ way of treating things only in this dialogue, but he is also criticizing Socrates’ way throughout his dialogues. At 301b4-5, Socrates and his interlocutors’ way of beholding things is described as such: -/- You people knock (κρούετε) at the fine and each of the beings (ἕκαστον τῶν ὄντων) by taking each being cut up in pieces (κατατέμνοντες) in words (ἐν τοῖς λόγοις). This leads us to our next principle that is parallel to, and the ontological side of, SK, the principle of 'Split Being'(SB): -/- SB Everything (being) is separated from any other thing as if the whole being is split to many beings. -/- Socrates and his interlocutors and thus, as we saw, the Socratic dialogues are accused to regard everything as it is separated from all other things. This separation is en tois logois that, I think, can reasonably be taken as saying that Socratic dialogues (it refers of course to the dialogues before Hippias Major) cut up all things which have the same name/definition from all other things and try to understand them separately, without considering other things that are not in their logos. They, for example in Hippias Major, are cutting up to kalon and try to understand what it and all others inside this logos are by separating it from all other things. This is directed straightly against Socratic question and the way Socratic dialogues follow to find its answer, every time separating one logos. As Meyer (1995, 85) points out, every question 'presupposes that the X in question in a logos is something' and 'every answer to every question aims at unity' (84). The critique of Hippias Major is, therefore, at the same time a critique of SK and SB. It is also a critique of KWX because it is only based on KWX that Socratic dialogues could search for the answer of 'what is X' question supposing that knowing what X is is enough for the knowledge of X. SK and KWX are absolutely interdependent. What Socrates and all his previous interlocutors have neglected in Socratic dialogues, Hippias says, was 'continuous bodies of being' (διανεκῆ σώματα τῆς οὐσίας) (301b6). Either this theory actually belongs to the historical Hippias as it is being said or not, it is strictly criticizing SB. We have the same phrase with changing sūma to logos some lines later at 301e3-4: διανεκεῖ λόγῳ τῆς οὐσίας. Although this theory that can be observed as both an ontological and an epistemological theory is rejected by Socrates (301cff.), it is still against first Socrates’ onto-epistemological principles and might let us look at what is rejected as Socratic prineple. -/- 6. Knowledge is of Being The sixth principle that I think is presupposed by the first Socrates, is the 'Knowledge of Being' Principle (KB): -/- KB Knowledge is of Being. -/- This principle is obviously the source of the problem of false knowledge, a very important problem throughout Plato’s philosophy. We face this problem maybe for the first time in Euthydemus. In less than 20 Stephanus’ pages, 276-295, we are encountered with different interwoven problems about knowledge , all grounded in the problem of false opinion. Having challenged the obvious possibility of telling lies at 283e, at 284 Euthydemus discusses it saying that the man who speaks is speaking about 'one of those things that are (ἓν μὴν κἀκεῖνό γ᾽ ἐστὶν τῶν ὄντων)' (284a3) and thus speaks what is (λέγων τὸ ὄν) (a5). He must necessarily be saying truth when he is speaking what is because he who speaks what is (τὸ ὄν) and the things that are (τὰ ὄντα) speaks truth (τἀληθῆ λέγει) (a5-6). This is based on Parmenidean principle of the impossibility of being of not being which Euthydemus restates (284b3-4) and we mentioned discussing BO principle above. The things that are not are nowhere (οὐδαμοῦ) and there is no possibility for anyone to do (πράξειεν) anything with them because they must be made as being before anything else can be done, which is impossible (b5-7). The words, then, are of things that exist (εἰσὶν ἑκάστῳ τῶν ὄντων λόγοι) (285e9) and as they are (ὡς ἔστιν) (e10). The result is that no one can speak of things as they are not. It is this impossibility of false speach that is extended to thinking (δοξάζειν) at 286d1 and leads to the impossibility of false opinion (ψευδής … δόξα) (286d4). The general conclusion is asserted at 287a extending this impossibility to actions and making any kind of mistake. Not only knowledge is of being but speech, thought and action are of being simply because of the fact that nothing can be of not being. -/- B. First Socrates’ Principles in the Middle Period Dialogues Out of what were presupposed or criticized mostly in five dialogues, Euthyphro, Euthydemus, Hippias Major, Laches and Charmides, we tried to draw the first Socrates’ principles. Our inquiry here is directed to find out the fate of these principles in the three dialogues of the middle period, Meno, Phaedo and Republic. To do this, first we ought to check the situation of Socratic circle in these dialogues. The Socratic circle that was predominant in the early dialogues, does not look like a circle here anymore though they certainly have some features in common. Meno, Phaedo and Republic II-X are not committed to the principles of the circle and the whole circle in disrupted in them. The difference of the two Socrateses towards acquiring knowledge is obvious. The Socrates of Meno, Phaedo and Republic is evidently more self-confident that he can get to some truths during his arguments as he does. They are in their first appearance, as almost all other dialogues, committed to Socrates’ disavowal. All of them try to keep the shape of the Socratikoi Logoi genre, which is committed to the historical Socrates’ way of discussion; a dramatic personage who is to challenge his interlocutors, ask them and refuse the answers. Nevertheless, the fact is that what we have in common between two groups of dialogues is mostly a dramatic structure. Whereas the first group’s arguments are based on Socrates’ disavowal and lead to no positive results, the second group is decisively going to achieve some positive results. The aim of the first Socrates was to show others that they are ignorant of what they thought they knew. The new Socrates of Meno, on the opposite, makes so much efforts to show that the slave boy has within himself true opinions (ἀληθεῖς δόξαι) about the things that he does not know (οἶδε) (85c6-7). Despite his lack of knowledge, he has true opinions nevertheless. The way from these true opinions to knowledge, as Socrates states, is not so long. These true opinions are now like a dream but 'can become knowledge of the same things not less accurate than anyone’s' (οὐδενὸς ἧττον ἀκριβῶς ἐπιστήσεται περὶ τούτων) (c11-d1), if they be repeated by asking the same questions. The most outstanding text regarding Socrates’ disavowal is Meno 98b where he explicitly claims knowledge: -/- And indeed I also speak as (ὡς) one who does not know (εἰδὼς) but is guessing (εἰκάζων). However, [about the fact] that true opinion and knowledge are different, I do not altogether expect (δοκῶ) myself to be guessing (εἰκάζειν), but if I say about anything that I know (εἰδέναι) -which about few things I say- this is one of the things that I know (οἶδα). (98b1-5) This passage is very significant about Plato’s disavowal of knowledge. There can hardly be found, I think, anywhere else in Plato’s corpus where Socrates speaks about his knowledge of something as such. He says first that he speaks as someone who does not know. This ὡς οὐκ εἰδὼς λέγω comparing with what he used to say in the first group, οὐκ οἶδα, has this added ὡς. Socrates does not claim strongly anymore that he does not know anything but speaks only as someone who does not know. He needs this ὡς not only because he is going to accept that he does know some, though few, things immediately after this sentence, but also because he needs his previous disavowal to be loosened from Meno on. He does not merely say here that he knows something. It is then different from the examples mentioned before which could be taken as idiomatic or at least not emphatic. Socrates’ remarkable emphasis on distinguishing εἰδέναι from εἰκάζειν departs it from all other passages where he says only he knows something. Moreover, he claims definitely that he has knowledge about few (ὀλίγα) things. From the early to the middle dialogues, Socrates’ attitude to knowledge has totally renewed its face. He brings forth a new concept, true opinion, and he does not speak of knowledge as he used to before; the rough, perfect and unachievable knowledge of the first group has turned to something more smooth, realistic and achievable. Comparing with the early dialogues that did not set out from the first to reach positive results, the middle ones are extraordinarily and surprisingly positive and hence destroy the basis of the Socratic circle. The questions and answers are purposely directed to some specific new theories; most of them are not directly related to the topics or the main questions of the dialogues. They are suggested when Socrates draws the attention of the interlocutor away from the main question because of the necessity of another discussion. Even if the main question remains unanswered, we have still many positive theories, prominently of metaphysical type. These theories are so abundant and dominant in these dialogues, especially Phaedo and Republic, that one might think that they may appear to be arbitrarily sandwiched in there. This helps dialogues to keep their original Socratic structure while they are suggesting new theories. Hence, the Socratic question of 'what is X?', though is still used to launch the discussion, is loosened and is forgotten for most part of the dialogues. Meno that has first a differently formulated question, 'can virtue be taught?', leads finally to the Socratic question of 'What is virtue?'. Phaedo is dedicated to the demonstration of the immortality of soul and the life after death without having a central Socratic question. The case of Republic is more complicated. The first book, on the one hand, has all the criteria of a Socratic circle: its 'what is justice?' question, Socrates’ strong disavowal (e.g. 337d-e), his rejection of all answers and coming back to the first point without finding out any answer. This Book, considered alone, is a perfect Socratic dialogue, as many scholars regard it as early and separated from other books. The books II-X are, on the other hand, far from implementing a Socratic circle. They have still the 'what is justice?' question as their incentive leading question, but they are, in most of the positive doctrines and methods that encompass the main parts, ignoring the question. Even these books that, I believe, are the farthest discussions from the Socratic circle are so cautious not to break the Socratic structure of the dialogue as long as it is possible. What is changed is not the structure of the dialogue but the ontological and epistemological grounds based on which new theories are suggested. -/- 1. Knowledge of the Good We can clearly see in the second group of dialogues that the KWX principle loses the place it had before in our first group. It is not, of course, rejected, but still we cannot say that it has the same situation. KWX that was based on Socratic question, as we discussed before, was the leading principle of the first Socrates’ epistemology and of the highest position. Other epistemological principles, SK directly and BE indirectly, were relying on Socratic question and therefore on KWX. Such a position does not belong to KWX from Meno on. What makes it different in the second Socrates is another principle that is needed it not only as its complementary principle but also as what is more fundamental. Plato, then, does not reject KWX in this period, but, it seems, he transcends to another more basic principle; a principle we shall call the principle of 'Knowledge of the Good' (KG): -/- KG Knowledge of X requires knowledge of the Good. -/- Whereas all the dialogues of our first group are free from any discuscon about KG, it bears a very important role in the second group so as becomes the superior principle of knowledge in Republic. Trying to solve the problem of teachability of virtue, Socrates says that it can be teachable only if it is a kind of knowledge because nothing can be taught to human beings but knowledge (ἐπιστήμην) (Meno 87c2). The dilemma will be, then, whether virtue is knowledge or not (c11-12) and since virtue is good, we can change the question to: whether is there anything good separate from knowledge (εἰ μέν τί ἐστιν ἀγαθὸν καὶ ἄλλο χωριζόμενον ἐπιστήμης) (d4-5). Therefore, the conclusion will be that if there is nothing good which knowledge does not encompass, virtue can be nothing but knowledge (d6-8). What let us discuss KG as an epistemological principle for the second Secrates is the relation he tries to establish between knowledge and the Good which, though is alongside with the mentioned thesis and the idea of virtue as knowledge, goes much deeper inside epistemology asking to regard the Good as the basis of knowledge. The effort of Phaedo cannot succeed in establishing the Good as the criterion of explanation and knowledge since, I think, it needs a far more complicated ontology of Republic where Socrates can finally announce KG. What is said in Republic is totally compatible with Phaedo 99d–e and the metaphor of watching an eclipse of the sun. In spite of the fact that we do not have adequate knowledge of the Idea of the Good, it is necessary for every kind of knowledge: 'If we do not know it, even if we know all other things, it is of no benefit to us without it' (505a6-7). The problem of our not having sufficient knowledge of the Idea of Good is tried to be solved by the same method of Phaedo 99d-e, that is to say, by looking at what is like instead of looking at thing itself (506d8-e4). It is this solution that leads to the comparison of the Good with sun in the allegory of Sun (508b12-13). What the Good is in the intelligible realm corresponds to what the sun is in the visible realm; as sun is not sight, but is its cause and is seen by it (b9-10), the Good is so regarding knowledge. It has, then, the same role for knowledge that the sun has for sight. Socrates draws our attention to the function of sun in our seeing. The eyes can see everything only in the light of the day being unable to see the same things in the gloom of night (508c4-6). Without the sun, our eyes are dimmed and blind as if they do not have clear vision any longer (c6-7). That the Good must have the same role about knowledge based on the analogy means that it must be considered as a required condition of any kind of knowledge: -/- The soul, then, thinks (νόει) in the same way: whenever it focuses on what is shined upon by truth and being, understands (ἐνόησέν), knows (ἔγνω) and apparently possesses understanding (νοῦν ἔχειν). (508d4-6) -/- Socrates does not use agathon in this paragraph and substitutes it with both aletheia and to on. He links them with the Idea of the Good when he is to assert the conclusion of the analogy: -/- That which gives truth to the objects of knowledge and the power of knowing to the knower, you must say, is the Idea of the Good: being the cause of knowledge and truth (αἰτίαν δ᾽ ἐπιστήμης οὖσαν καὶ ἀληθείας) so far as it is known (ὡς γιγνωσκομένης μὲν διανοοῦ). (508e1-4) Knowledge and truth are called goodlike (ἀγαθοειδῆ) since they are not the same as the Good but more honoured (508e6-509a5). KG, which had been implicitly contemplated and searched in Phaedo, is now explicitly being asserted in Republic. As what was quoted clearly proves, this principle is the very one which we can observe as the most fundamental principle of the second Socrates in Republic, corresponding to the role KWX had in the first Socrates. The Form of the Good in Republic, of which Santas speaks as 'the centerpiece of the canonical Platonism of the middle dialogues, the centerpiece of Plato’s metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and …' (1983, 256) much more can be said. Plato’s Cave allegory in Book VIII dedicates a similar role to the Idea of the Good. The Idea of the Good is there as the last thing to be seen in the knowable realm, something so important that its seeing equals to understanding the fact that it is the cause of all that is correct and beautiful (517b). Producing both light and its source in visible realm, it controls and provides truth and understanding in the intelligible realm (517c). -/- 2. Tripartite Epistemology BE is thoroughy rejected in the second Socrates and substituted by its opposite, the principle of 'Tripartite Epistemolgy' (TE): -/- TE Opinion is an epistemological status between knowledge and ignorance. BE of the first Socrates was denying any third way besides knowledge and ignorance which was the foundation of Socratic circle without which Socrates could not reject his interlocutors’ possessing any kind of knowledge. We cannot say, however, that the first Socrates had a third epistemological status in mind but rejected it. Such a status was unacceptable for him so that one can say that he would reject any kind of such status if suggested. There were only two possibilities about knowledge: either one knows something or he does not know it. TE, thus, was not the first Socrates’ discovery and, I think it is not the second Socrates’discovery. All we can see in our second group of dialouges is that he uses this principle as an already demonstrated one. Having examined the slave boy in Meno for the prupose of showing the working of recollection, it truns out that he has some opinions in him while he still does not know. Without trying to prove it, Socrates takes this as the distinction between knowledge and opinion: -/- So, he who does not know (οὐκ εἰδότι) about what he does not know (περὶ ὧν ἂν μὴ εἰδῇ) has within himself true opinions (ἀληθεῖς δόξαι) about the same things he did not know (περὶ τούτων ὧν οὐκ οἶδε) (85c6-7). -/- The same distinction is set between ὀρθὴν δόξαν and ἐπιστήμην at 97b5-6 ff. (also cf. 97b1-2: ὀρθῶς μὲν δοξάζων … ἐπιστάμενος). He connects then their difference to the myth of Daedalus, the statue that would run away and escape. So are true opinions, not willing to remain long in mind and thus not worthy until one ties them down by αἰτίας λογισμῷ (98a3-4). Socrates says that this tying down is anamnesis. We face, in Phaedo, the same relation is settled between knowledge as the process of being tied down and getting the capability to give an account, on the one hand, and anamnesis, on the other hand. When a man knows, he must be able to give an account of what he knows (Phaedo 76b5-6) and since not all people are able to give such an account, those who recollect, recollect what once they learned (76c4). Although the distinction between knowledge and opinion is not explicitly used in Phaedo, referring to the parallel link between knowledge plus account and anamnesis in Phaedo and Meno, one can say that those who cannot recollect are not able to give account and, thus, are in a state of opinion. What is said at Phaedo 84a, though not yet a definite distinction between knowledge and opinion, makes a distinction between their objects so as we can agree that it is presupposed. The soul of the philosopher, Socrates says, follows reason, stays with it forever and contemplates the divine, which is not the object of opinoin (ἀδόξαστον) (84a8, cf. Meno 98b2-5). The distinction of knowledge and belief in Republic has a significant difference with what we discussed in Meno and Phaedo since the distinction of Meno was based on anamnesis and thus more an epistemological distinction. Even in Phaedo that we do not have any elaborate discussion about the distinction, the only hint to the matter at 76 is bound to the theory of anamnesis. In addition to the relation of the distinction with this theory, there is another evidence that does not permit us to consider the distinction as an ontological distinction. Let’s see Meno 85c6-7: -/- So, he who does not know about what he does not know has within himself true opinions about the same things he did not know (τῷ οὐκ εἰδότι ἄρα περὶ ὧν ἂν μὴ εἰδῇ ἔνεισιν ἀληθεῖς δόξαι περὶ τούτων ὧν οὐκ οἶδε). (85c6-7) -/- This last sentence persists that the objects of knowledge and true opinion are the same. What Socrates is to say here is that whereas he does not know X he has true opinion about the same X. I think Socrates’ sentence that the slave boy οὐκ εἰδότι ἄρα περὶ ὧν ἂν μὴ εἰδῇ and his restatement of it by saying περὶ τούτων ὧν οὐκ οἶδε is because he wants to emphasize that the slave boy who does not know, has true opinion about the same thing. Socrates could say this just with using τούτων and there would be no necessity to bring περὶ ὧν ἂν μὴ εἰδῇ for οὐκ εἰδότι if he did not want to emphasize. -/- 3. Tripartite Ontology The distinction between knowledge and true opinion in Republic, on other side, has nothing to do with recollection, but is based on an ontological principle, 'Tripartite Ontology' (TO): -/- TO There are things that both are and are not. -/- This principle I confine, among our three dialogues of the second group, to Republic not extended to Meno and Phaedo, is obviously the opposite of BO. Speaking about the lovers of sights and sounds in the fifth book, Socrates distinguishes them from philosophers because their thought is unable to understand the nature of beautiful itself besides beautiful things (476a6-8) and hence they can only have opinions. The philosopher who, on the contrary, believes in beautiful itself and can distinguish it from beautiful things (476c9-d3), has knowledge because he knows, contrasting others who have opinion because they only opine (d5-6). Since those whose knowledge were degraded as opinion will complain about Socrates’ such calling their thought, he provides them the following argument (476e7-477b1): -/- - Does the person who knows, knows (γιγνώσκει) something (τὶ) or nothing (οὐδέν)? - He knows something (τί). - Something that is (ὂν) or is not (οὐκ ὄν)? - Something that is (ὂν) for how could something that is not be known (πῶς γὰρ ἂν μὴ ὄν γέ τι γνωσθείη)? - Then we have an adequate grasp of this: No matter how many ways we examine it, what completely is (παντελῶς ὂν) is completely knowable (παντελῶς γνωστόν) and what is in no way (μὴ ὂν δὲ μηδαμῇ) is in every way unknowable (πάντῃ ἄγνωστον). - A most adequate one. - Good. Now, if anything is such as to be and also not to be (ὡς εἶναί τε καὶ μὴ εἶναι), won’t it be intermediate (μεταξὺ) between what purely is (εἰλικρινῶς ὄντος) and what in no way is (μηδαμῇ ὄντος)? - Yes, it’s intermediate. - Then as knowledge (γνῶσις) is set over what is (τῷ ὄντι), while ignorance (ἀγνωσία) is of necessity set over what is not (μὴ ὄντι) mustn’t we find an intermediate between ignorance (ἀγνοίας) and knowledge (ἐπιστήμης) to be set over the intermediate, if there is such a thing? -/- From the third status of being we must reach to the third status of knowledge. The simple reading of this text can be an existential reading, taking the "is" of the mentioned sentences as existence. The problem is that when it is said that there is something that both is and is not reading "is" existentially, it sounds too bizarre to be acceptable. It cannot easily be understandable to have something as both existent and non-existent at the same time. This problem arose so many debates and led many scholars to reject the existential reading of "is" and suggest some other readings like predicative or veridical readings. I think though Plato’s complicated ontology of Republic cannot be correctly understood by a simple existential reading, this "is" cannot be free from existential sense of being and, thus, cannot be reduced to just a predicative or veridical sense of being. -/- 4. Bound Knowledges In addition to KG, the Good is also the basis of another principle in the second Socrates, namely the principle of 'Bound Knowledge' (BK): -/- BK Knowledge of everything is bound to the knowledge of the Good. -/- We distinguished BK from KG because we want to insist, in BK, on what had not been insisted upon in KG, that is, the binding role that the Good plays in the second Socrates, contrasting the absence of such a role in the first Socrates. Socrates remembers, in Phaedo, his wonderful keen on natural philosophers' wisdom when he was young. The origin of this enthusiasm was Socrates’ hope to know the cause of everything as they used to claim. When he was searching the matters of his interest on their basis, Socrates says, he became convinced he can get no acceptable answer from them and found himself blind even to the things he thought he knew before. One day he hears Anaxagoras’ theory that 'it is Mind that arranges and is the cause of everything (ὡς ἄρα νοῦς ἐστιν ὁ διακοσμῶν τε καὶ πάντων αἴτιος)' (Phd. 97c1-2 cf. DK, Fr.15.8-9, 11-12, 12-14) and thinks that he can finally find what he has always expected, i.e. something which can explain all things. What I intend to show here is that what makes Socrates hopeful is that Anaxagoras’ theory tries 1) to explain all things by one thing and 2) this explanation is understood by Socrates as if it is based on the concept of the Good. That Socrates was searching for one explanation for all things can be proved even from what he has been expecting from natural philosophers. The case is, nonetheless, more clearly asserted when he speaks about Anaxagoras’ theory. In addition to διακοσμῶν τε καὶ πάντων αἴτιος of 97c2 mentioned above, we have τὸ τὸν νοῦν εἶναι πάντων αἴτιον (c3-4) and τόν γε νοῦν κοσμοῦντα πάντα κοσμεῖν (c4-5) all emphasizing on the cause of all things (πάντα) which can clearly prove that one of the reasons which caused Socrates to embrace it delightfully was its claim to provide the cause of all things by one thing. Another reason was that Anaxagoras’ Mind, at least in Socrates’ view, was attempting to explain everything by the concept of the Good. This connection between Mind and Good belongs more to the essential relation they have in Socrates’ thinking than Anaxagoras’ theory because there are almost nothing about such a relation in Anaxagoras. The reason for Socrates’ reading can be that Mind is substantially compatible with Socrates’ idea of the relation between good and knowledge. Both the thesis 'no one does wrong willingly' and the theory of virtue as knowledge we pointed to above are evidences of this essential relation. Nobody who knows that something is bad can choose or do it as bad. The reason, when it is reason, that means when it is as it should be, when it is wise or when it knows, works only based on good-choosing. In this context, when Socrates hears that Mind is considered as the cause of everything, it sounds to him like this: good should be regarded as the basis of the explanation of all things. We see him, thus, passing from the former to the latter without any proof. This is done in the second sentence after introducing Mind: -/- I thought that if this were so, the arranging Mind would arrange all things and put each thing in the way that was Best (ὅπῃ ἂν βέλτιστα ἔχῃ). If one then wished to find the cause of each thing by which it either perishes or exists, one needs to find what is the best way (βέλτιστον αὐτῷ ἐστιν) for it to be, or to be acted upon, or to act. On these premises then it befitted a man to investigate only, about this and other things, what is the most excellent (ἄριστον) and best (βέλτιστον). The same man must inevitably also know what is worse (χεῖρον), for that is part of the same knowledge. (97c4-d5) This passage is a good evidence of Socrates’ leap from Anaxagoras’ Mind to his own concept of the Good that can explain why Socrates found Anaxagoras theory after his own heart (97d7). Mind is welcomed because of its capability for explanation on the basis of good to 'explain why it is so of necessity, saying which is better (ἄμεινον), and that it was better (ἄμεινον) to be so' (97e1-3). What Socrates thought he had found in Anaxagoras can indicate what he had been expecting from natural scientists before. Socrates could not be satisfied with their explanations because they were unable to explain how it is the best for everything to be as it is. It can probably be said, then, that it was the lack of the unifying Good in their explanation that had disappointed him. We must insist that we are discussing what Socrates thought that Anaxagoras’ theory of Mind should have been, not about Anaxagoras’ actual way of using Mind. Phaedo 97c-98b, is not about what Socrates found in Anaxagoras but what he thought he could find in it. On the contrary, it should also be noted that it was not this that was dashed at 98b, but Anaxagoras’ actual way of using Mind. It was Anaxagoras’ fault not to find out how to use such an excellent thesis (98b8-c2, cf. 98e-99b). Socrates gives an example to show how not believing in 'good' as the basis of explanation makes people be wanderers between different unreal explanations of a thing. His words δέον συνδεῖν (binding that binds together) as a description for the Good we chose as the name of BK principle: They do not believe that the truly good and binding binds and holds them together (ὡς ἀληθῶς τὸ ἀγαθὸν καὶ δέον συνδεῖν καὶ συνέχειν οὐδὲν οἴονται). (99c5-6) -/- Having in mind Plato’s well-known analogy of the sun and the Good at Republic 508-509, we can dare to say that his warning of the danger of seeing the truth directly like one watching an eclipse of the sun in Phaedo (99d-e) is more about the difficulty of so-called good-based explanation than its insufficiency, a difficulty which is precisely confirmed in Republic (504e-505a, 506d-e). Moreover, BK is asserted in a more explicit way in the Republic, where the Good is considered not only as a condition for the knowledge of X, as was noted above discussing KG, but also as what binds all the objects of knowledge and also the soul in its knowing them. At Republic VI, 508e1-3, when Socrates says that the Form of the Good 'gives truth to the things known and the power to know to the knower (τοῦτο τοίνυν τὸ τὴν ἀλήθειαν παρέχον τοῖς γιγνωσκομένοις καὶ τῷ γιγνώσκοντι τὴν δύναμιν ἀποδιδὸν)', he wants to set the Good at the highest point of his epistemological structure by which all the elements of this structure are bound. This binding aspect of the Good is by no means a simple binding of all knowledges or all the objects of knowledge, but the most complicated kind of binding as it is expected from the author of the Republic. The kind of unity the Good gives to the different knowledges of different things is comparable with the unity which each Form gives to its participants in Republic: as all the participants of a Form are united by referring to the ideas, all different kinds of knowledge are united by referring to the Good. If we observe Aristotle's assertion that for Plato and the believers of Forms, the causative relation of the One with the Forms is the same as that of the Forms with particulars (e.g. Metaphysics 988a10-11, 988b4), that is to say the One is the essence (e.g., ibid, 988a10-11: τοῦ τί ἐστὶν, 988b4-6: τὸ τί ἢν εἶναί) of the Forms besides his statement that for them One is the Good (e.g., ibid, 988b11-13) the relation between the Good and unity may become more understandable. Since the quiddity of the Good (τί ποτ᾽ ἐστὶ τἀγαθὸν) is more than discussion (506d8-e2), we cannot await Socrates to tell us how this binding role is played. All we can expect is to hear from him an analogy by which this unifying role is envisaged, the sun. The kind of unity that the Good gives to the knowledge and its objects in the intelligible realm is comparable to the unity that the sun gives to the sight and its objects in the visible realm (508b-c). The allegory of Line (Republic VI, 509d-511), like that of the Sun, tries to bind all various kinds of knowledges. The hierarchical model of the Line which encompasses all kinds of knowledge from imagination to understanding can clearly be considered as Plato’s effort to bind all kinds of knowledges by a certain unhypothetical principle. The method of hypothesis starts, in the first subsection of the intelligible realm, with a hypothesis that is not directed firstly to a principle but a conclusion (510b4-6). It proceeds, in the other subsection, to a 'principle which is not a hypothesis' (b7) and is called the 'unhypothetical principle of all things' (ἀνυποθέτου ἐπὶ τὴν τοῦ παντὸς ἀρχὴν) (511b6-7). This παντὸς must refer not only to the objects of the intelligible realm but to the sensible objects as well. Plato does posit, therefore, an epistemological principle for all things, a principle that all things are, epistemologically, bound and, thus, unified by. -/- 5. Bound Beings The ontological aspect of BK we shall call the principle of 'Bound Beings' (BB): -/- BB Being of all things are bound by the Good. -/- We saw in our principle of Split Being (SB) how the first Socrates was criticized because of his approach to split being and separate each thing from other things. The principle of Bound Beings intends to make the things more related, a duty which is done again by the Good. In the allegory of Sun, there are two paragraphs that evidently and deliberately extend the binding role of the Good to the ontological scene: -/- You will say that the sun not only makes the visible things have the ability of being seen but also coming to be, growth and nourishment. (509b2-4) -/- This clearly intends to remind the ontological role the sun plays in bringing to being all the sensible things in order to display how its counterpart has the same role in the intelligible realm (b6-10): -/- Not only the objects of knowledge (γιγνωσκομένοις) owe their being known (γιγνώσκεσθαι) to the Good, but also their existence (τὸ εἶναί) and their being (οὐσίαν) are due to it, though the Good is not being but superior to it in rank and power. That the Good is here represented as responsible for being of things in addition to their being known means, in my opinion, that Plato wants to posit BB in addition to BK. The allegory of Cave at the very beginning of the seventh Book (514aff.) can be taken as another evidence. The role of the Good, one might say, is confined to the intelligible realm because it is asserted that the role the Good plays in this realm is corresponding to that of the sun in the visible realm. The fact that Plato wants to observe the Good also as the ontological cause of the sensible things is obvious from his saying, in the allegory of Cave, that the Form of the Good 'produces light and its source (τὸν τούτου κύριον) [i.e. the sun] in the visible realm' (517c3). We can conclude, then, that the ontological function of the Good is not confined to the intelligible realm in which it is the lord and provides truth and understanding (c3-4) because it is also responsible to produce τὸν κύριον of light. 6. Proportionality of Being and Knowledge Insofaras BE and BO principles of the first Socrates gave way to TE and TO principles of the second Socrates, we cannot expect him to preserve KB in the same way as it was in the first Socrates. The new tripartite ontology and epistemology necessitates some modifications in KB which results in the principle of 'Proportionality of Being and Knowledge' (PBK): -/- PBK To every class of being there is a proportionate category of knowledge. -/- This principle, of course, does not entail the refutation of KB and thus is not kind of rejecting PBK but only a more complicated version of it. Based on PBK, we can still agree that knowledge is of being (KB) but the issue is that since none of the concepts of knowledge and being in the second Socrates are as simple as they were for the first Socrates, we need a more complicated principle for their relation here. Although from Meno 97a where the distinction of knowledge and true opinion is drawn out in the second group of the dialogues, we can expect a new relation, it is articulated in its most complete way in Republic and specifically in the allegory of Line. All the beings are divided there hierarchically to four classes, to each of them belongs a class of knowledge: imagination to images, belief to the sensible things (more correctly: the things of which they[in previous class] were images (ᾧ τοῦτο ἔοικεν)), thought to mathematical objects (?) and understanding to the Forms and the first principle. The degree of clarity that each of the classes of knowledge shares in (σαφηνείας ἡγησάμενος μετέχειν) is proportionate to the degree that its object shares in truth (ἀληθείας μετέχει). (511e2-4) -/- Conclusion From the six onto-epistemilogical principles of the first Socrates, four principles turn to their opposite in the middle period dialogues. While bipolar epistemology and ontology of the early dialogues give place to tripartite epistemology in the middle period dialogues and tripartite ontology in Republic, the split knowledge and being of the first Socrates are inclined to be substituted by bound knowledges and bound beings in the second Socrates and specifically in Republic. Not all our system of principles in this article is necessarily determinative. Either they are rightly formulated or not, our result would not be vulnerable if we accept that 1) making the distinction of knowledge and belief, 2) accepting the being of not being and 3) trying to bind both being and knowledge by the concept of the Good happens only in middle period dialogues, having been absent in the early ones. These are the favourite results all those somehow arbitrary and even oversimplified principles were to illustrate; that there is kind of a development in the epistemological as well as the ontological grounds of Plato’s philosophy. -/- Notes . (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 69 in pre-Socratic scholarship. But he does not do justice to the religious mood which pervades the whole poem (a mood which is set by the prologue which casts the whole work into the form of some kind of religious revelation). The prologue is considerably more than a mere literary device, and the poem is more than logic. Generally, Jaeger9 and Guthrie are surely correct in (...) their judgment that any adequate interpretation of Parmenides' work (as well as that of the other early Greek thinkers) must be willing to take into account its essentially theological character and religious inspirationl~ not always grasped through strict analysis and exegesis. g Theolooy of the Early C-reekPhilosophers, trans. Edward S. Robinson (Oxford, 1947), p. lff, 90ft. agCf. Guthrie's excellent statement: "...Parmenides was at one with Heraclitus in claiming a prophetic or apocalyptic authority for his teaching." And again, the Greeks believed in "an inspiration whereby-the poet is granted deeper insight into the truth than other men" (p. 6). ED. L. MILLER University of Colorado AN UNKNOWN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH TRANSLATION OF SEXTUS EMPIRICUS* I. Introduction Included in a collection of manuscripts and early printed books recently acquired by the Library of the University of California, Los Angeles, from the Paris bookdealer Paul Jammes ~ are three manuscripts attributed to a certain Nicolas de la Toison, Baron de Bussy. Two of the three volumes contain extensive Latin commentaries on the major writings of Aristotle.2 The third is a miscellaneous volume written in three different hands, which contains, among other things, a complete French translation of the extant writings of Sextus Empiricus (c. A.D. 160-210).3 I * I would like to express my thanks to Mr. Richard O'Brien, Western European Bibliographer of the UCLA Library, for his help in numerous ways, who made it possible for me to consult this material during my sojourn in Los Angeles, even before it had been officially catalogued by the Library. I would also like to thank Professors Donald Kalish and Robert Yost of the UCLA Department of Philosophy for their support in making it possible for the collection to be purchased. 1For a brief description of the collection as a whole see Charles B. Schmitt, "Acquisition of Early French Books and Manuscripts", UCLA Librarian, XIX (1966)~25. 2These two manuscripts are bound m red leather with gold tooling. Thear present shelf mark is Collection 968, Box 2. On the spines is written: (1) PHILOSOPHIA.TO.I, and (2) METAPHYSIC ET PHYSICA TO.2. They measure approximately 10 X 14 cm. and each contains about 600fois. At the beginning of Vol. I, in a later hand (19th century?), we read: "Nicolas de la Thoison, baron de Bussy, qui 6crivit ces m6moires, 6tait conseiller laic au Parlement de Bourgogne. Il fur pourru par la r6signation de Pierre Catherine le IV Ddcembre M.DC.XLV et regu le XXIX janvier M.DC.XLVI. I1portait: de queueles dune bands d'or charges en coeur d'une quints feuiUe d'azur--ainsi qu'on le volt dans le Parlement de Bourgogne [Dijon, 1649]de Pierre PaiUot, p. 326." There is also a drawing of the coat-of-arms which has been described. That the de la Toison coat-of-arms is a quintefeuille is verified by Theodore de Renesse, Dictionnaire des figures h$raldiques (Brussels, 1894-1903) III, 461. The passage cited above from the manuscript is directly quoted from Pierre Paillot, Le Parlement de Bouroongne [I], son origins, son $tablissemerit, et son progr~s (Dijon, 1649), p. 326. s A description of this manuscript will be found in the Appendix. 70 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY shall here only give a preliminary survey of this third manuscript, pointing out some of the more interesting features and mentioning some problems connected with it which should be investigated further in more detail. As is now well-known the writings of Sextus Empiricus, which form the major extant compendium of ancient skeptical philosophy, had quite a significant impact on sixteenth and seventeenth-eentury thought, after their reintroduction in the sixteenth century. ~ Sextus' works were available in printed Latin editions after 15695 and the Greek text was printed in... (shrink)

_TABLE OF CONTENTS:_ Foreword to the Second Edition. I. THE MAN AND HIS WRITINGS: How Augustine Came to the Episcopacy ; Augustine Chooses Eraclius as His Successor ; Augustine on His Own Writings. II. FAITH AND REASON: Belief is Volitional Consent ; To Believe Is to Think with Assent ; Believing and Understanding ; Authority and Reason ; Two Ways to Knowledge ; Reason and Authority in Manicheism ; The Relation of Authority to Reason ; If I Am Deceived, I (...) Am Alive ; I Know that I Am Alive ; Knowledge and Wisdom ; Error and Ignorance. III. THREE LEVELS OF REALITY: Creator, Human Soul, Body ; Natures on Three Levels ; Soul, Ruled by God, Rules Its Body ; Soul: Above the Sensible, Below God ; God, Mutable Spirits, and Bodies ; Divine, Psychic and Bodily Nature ; Causality: Divine, Psychic and Bodily ; Divine Ideas as Prototypes ; God Set Spiritual Creation Above the Corporeal ; Evil: the Privation of the Good. IV. MAN’S SOUL: Existence, Life, Sense and Reason ; Sensation as an Activity of the Soul ; Memory, Understanding and Will ; The Wonders of Memory ; Three Levels of Vision. V. THE WORLD OF BODIES: All Bodily Natures Are Good ; Invisible Seeds in the Elements ; The Elements Contain Seminal Reasons ; Measure, Number, and Weight ; Concerning Formless Matter ; Place, Time and the Physical World ; The Wonders of Nature ; God Works Throughout Nature ; Man’s Natural Endowments ; The Physical World and the Christian. VI. APPROACHING GOD THROUGH UNDERSTANDING: Creation is a Great Book ; The Journey of the Soul to God ; The Soul’s Ascent to God ; The Whole World Proclaims Its Maker ; Ascending to the Supreme Truth ; Plato’s View of God ; How to Think About God ; The Problem of Speaking About God ; God Is the Selfsame ; A Divine Invocation ; Late Have I Loved Thee. VII. MORAL AND RELIGIOUS LIFE: All Men Desire Happiness ; Man’s Greatest Good ; Good Love and Bad Love ; Moral Evil Stems from Bad Will ; Two Precepts of Love ; On Diversities of Local Customs ; Doing Good to Body and Soul ; The Evil of Telling a Lie ; Lying and Concealing the Truth ; Faith, Hope and Charity ; No Virtues Apart from God ; Our Reward Is Not in This Life. VIII. DIMENSIONS OF GRACE: What the Grace of God Is ; Augustine Was Never a Pelagian ; What True Grace Is ; The Work of Grace ; How Freedom Is Restored by Grace ; God’s Foreknowledge and Human Willing ; Grace Before and After the Fall ; Grace and Good Works ; Prevenient Grace ; Grace and Human Miseries ; The Beatific Vision. IX. THE TWO CITIES: Augustine’s Analysis of the City of God ; How the Two Cities Differ ; Two Loves Make Two Cities ; Two Cities Formed by Two Loves ; The Unimportance of Externals ; Relation of the Heavenly and Earthly Cities ; Jerusalem and Babylon ; Summary of the Two Cities ; All Nations Are in the City of God ; The Church and the City of God ; The Foundation of the Holy City ; Religion and Human Destiny ; The Meaning of a People ; Peace: the Tranquility of Order ; Two Kingdoms After the Resurrection. X. PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Belief and Historical Events ; The Universality of Providence ; Meaning in History ; Six Ages in Biblical History ; Symbolic Meaning of Jewish History ; Christ in History ; The Two Cities in History ; What Is Time? ; Critique of Cyclicism. APENDIXES: I. Selected, Annotated Bibliography. II. Alphabetical List of Augustine’s Writings. III. Glossary of Terms. INDEX. (shrink)

The Platonic myth in Book X of The Republic tells us how the choice of “destinies” is carried out by human souls about to be born. The revenant Er, in his particular nekia, returns to life to tell all he has seen and heard: that what life bring us is related to the good or bad choice of our future life trough a draw carried out under the eyes of Necessity and her three daughters: Lachesis, Clotho and Atropo, who weave (...) the destiny of men (The Republic, Book X, 617e): Theintelligible character of this choice has the burden of a determinism ab origine without possibility of rewriting it, making our fate an inalterable journey. Kant could say the same in KrV, although it is true that the doctrine of the “intelligible character” only appears specifically in 1781, in the light of the Third Antinomies, in the“Dialectic” of the Critique of Pure Reason. Anyway, its long shadow appears in other texts (as in Religion Within Limits of Reason Alone of 1793)– that each one of voluntary acts of men: “it is predetermined, well before it occurs, in the empirical character of man” (KrV, A 553 / B 581) would suppose that this intelligiblecharacter would have to be understood together with the problem of freedom and decision. That threshold pointed out by Kant will be trespassed by Schelling, who will form a concept of freedom of a metaphysical character (libertas ex) which will send us to an origin, beyond all times, in which the de-cision, as ex-cision, restructures and sets in order our time. Cut or beginning, it is a wound without stitches which implies the proper opening of being into existence. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 177 Amsterdam, appears in the series of the International Archives of the History of Ideas, published under the direction of P. Dibon of Nijmegen and R. Popkin of the University of California at San Diego and a distinguished international editorial committee. Other volumes demonstrate the philosophical respectability of the collection: three on Descartes and Cartesianism, one on Berkeley's immaterialism, three on Pierre Bayle, the rest on philosophical (...) topics from the Renaissance to the 19th century. In this gallery, these letters by a not very good French poet---who was yet an acute and rather individualistic judge of men and books, already one of the arbiters of intellectual and artistic life in France--may seem a little out of place. Yet, to many historians of intellectual affairs, the firm establishment of dates and personal relationships is a matter of much importance, and documents such as these, largely devoted as they are to the communication of news about books and writers, the activities of rulers and ambassadors, printers and curious travelers, can be a substantial aid in determining the structure of an historical moment, the succession and interrelationship of events. One is willing to grant that much of what Chapelain wrote to Heinsius is trivial and concerns books and literary news of slight importance, that a delicate irony makes less of some of his comments than they were worth at the time. The triviality itself is a clue to the temper of Paris during the Fronde and in the late years of the regency of Mazarin. Great ideas were not being discussed in public when Pascal was writing his Pensdes; the irony is a mode of defense against involvement, and fashionable at the time. Bray's elaborate introduction is more concerned with the artistic and subjective aspect of the letters than with their contribution to intellectual history. In about a hundred pages, he discusses his author's method of writing, the genre which this kind of letter represents, the artistry it exhibits, from basic structure to stylistic ornamentation, and finally the human and even ethical implications of this collection. His notes are full and informative; identifications are well documented and cross-referencing in the notes and in the index of names make the volume a usable source of information, even though it cannot be recommended as stimulating debate or lively narrative. The topics discussed by Chapelain range over a considerable area, without becoming controversial. There is one exceptional letter in which he instructs Heinsius in adapting his integrity to the role of a diplomat; he must acquire "un peu de dissimulation" to oppose to "l'ing~nuit~ du Parnasse." There are references to civil strife, to foreign affairs, to the rivalry of Dutch and English navies, to the sympathy of the French for the Swedish Lutheran dynasty as opposed to the Catholic ttapsburgs and the ecclesiastical electors of Mainz, Cologne, and Trier. Queen Christina of Sweden plays a continually less attractive part as the letters proceed to their end; and Christiaan Huygens, the Duc de Montausier, Ismael Boulliau, Guez de Balzac, and Gilles M4nage figure more or less regularly in these pages. Of philosophers there is little mention, and of discussion of ideas for their own sake still less. The letters are, like many another collection deriving from the age before the learned and scientific journals, a source of valuable information about certain persons and certain books; they are hardly a serious contribution to the history of ideas. H~covaT BROWN Brown University Pascal. By J. H. Broome. (New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1966. pp. x + 250. $6.00.) The most remarkable feature of this work is that it locates and forcefully interprets philosophical themes common to all of Pascal's widely=diversified writing. In his works on the vacuum, the computer, geometry, hydrostatics, Grace, freedom and the art of persuasion as well as the Pens~es, Broome locates five regular features of Pascal's thought: 1) the three orders (pp. 103-4, inter alia); 2) the deux infinis (p. 146); 3) a theory of knowl- 178 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY edge; 4) a dialecticalmethod; and 5) a theory of communication. The former two themes are commonly discussed by students of... (shrink)

Barbara Jordan (1936–1996), a formidable politician, won election to the Texas Senate (1966) and to the US Congress (1972). She became one of the most celebrated African‐American politicians of the twentieth century, acclaimed both by white and black. Jordan was a voluntarist, viewing individuals as able to change the world through their own actions. She was committed to the American dream of inclusion, and also to the importance of positive ties to elites; to coping with the ‘world as it is’, (...) to the futility of confrontation, and also to changing and influencing the attitudes of men at the top. Jordan opposed civil disobedience, nonviolent or not. Yet she admired symbols of defiance like Malcolm X and Mohammed Ali. A highly public figure, she was also exceptionally self‐repressed. Critics likened her to the conservative Booker Washington, yet she was a staunch defender of voting rights and a radical integrationist. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Philosophy of Bishop Stillingfleet RICHARD H. POPKIN EDWARD STILLINGFLEET(1635-1699), the Bishop of Worcester, is known only as Locke's opponent. Although he was a leading figure in seventeenth century intellectual history, he is now almost completely forgotten.1 He is only mentioned once in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy as the first person to write against Deism. 2 His texts have been ditlicult to locate, and have hardly been studied. Although (...) Locke's answers to him comprise a large volume in Locke's Works, little interest has been shown in Stillingfleet's side of the story. His letters to Locke were last printed in the 1710 edition of his works. (I am now publishing a photoreproduction edition of the attacks on Locke, and a photoreproduction of the six volumes of his works is due soon.) In spite of this neglect, Stillingfleet was a quite interesting figure. He was not a simple moss-back, a religious reactionary, fighting progressive theories like Locke's. Rather, he was trying to maintain some basis for religious belief in the face of the intellectual upheavals in the seventeenth century. For over forty years he struggled against a wide range of philosophical and theological developments of the time that he saw as leading to scepticism and infidelity. Stillingfleet attempted to defend the reasonableness of Christianity in an intellectual world dominated by the new science, the new philosophy, the religious wars, the rise of irreligion, Bible criticism, and Spinozism. In the new scientific, philosophical and theological context he sought to show how an intelligent, reasonable man could maintain his religious views as more probable than their denials. And, he tried to show the perils involved in various new lines of thought. As he wrote to Locke, "in an age wherein the Mysteries of Faith are so much exposed by the Promoters of Scepticism and Infidelity, it is a thing of dangerous consequence to start such new methods of Certainty as are apt to leave men's minds more doubtJull than before." 3 Stillingfleet criticized various new views of thinkers like Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza and Locke, and tried to show that they were unreasonable and x No section is devoted to Stillingfleet in Charles de R~musat's Histoire de la Philosophie en Angleterre depuis Bacon jusqu'gt Locke, 2 vols. (Paris, 1875). He is of course briefly treated by Locke scholars, but only in relation to Locke. 2 Ernest C. Mossner, "Deism," Encyclopedia of Philosophy ('New York, 1967), II, 328. 3 Edward StiUingfleet,The Bishop o~ Worcester's Answer to Mr. Locke's Letter (London, 1697), pp. 37-38. [303] 304 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY destructive. Instead he advocated a commonsense philosophy incorporating Aristotelian and Stoic elements, as an adequate basis for a reasonable view of the world. Stillingflect's critique of empiricism, in its Epicurean and Lockean forms, revealed some of the basic difficulties in this emerging philosophy. His own views in some ways foreshadowed the counter-philosophy that Thomas Reid was to offer a century later against the full-blown empirical scepticism of Hume. And Hume's essay "Of Miracles" can, I believe, be seen as the reductio ad absurdum of Stillingfleet's commonsense philosophy. In this paper I shall try to sketch out Bishop Stilhngfleet's philosophy, and to indicate the role it played in the history of British empirical thought. The Bishop's attack on Locke only occurred at the very end of his long and fruitful intellectual career. (He died during the debate in 1699.) To appreciate why he was so concerned with exposing the sceptical and irreligious tendencies in Locke's thought, and the potential conflicts between empiricism and the tenets of Judeo-Christianity, one has to look at his entire theological and philosophical career. Stillingfleet was one of the most erudite divines of the seventeenth century, a leading member of the brilliant group of Anglican theologians, including, besides himself, William Chillingworth, Bishop John Wilkins (the founder of the Royal Society), and Archbishop John Tillotson.4 Stillingfleet was extremely sensitive to the fundamental issues being raised in the religious, scientific and philosophical debates of the time, and tried, like his fellow Anglican divines, to develop a commonsense semirational, semiempirical defense... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.4 (2004) 489-490 [Access article in PDF] Ian M. Crystal. Self-Intellection and its Epistemological Origins in Ancient Greek Thought. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing, 2002. Pp. x + 220. Cloth, $79.95. In this excellent re-working of his King's College Ph.D. thesis, Ian Crystal presents an account of the problem of self-intellection in Greek philosophy from Parmenides through Plotinus. The problem, at least as it (...) appears in ancient Greek philosophy, is connected to the way in which a faculty of soul relates to its proper object. For example, the proper object of the visual faculty is light, that of the auditory faculty sound, and it is the difference in kind between these proper objects that requires different faculties of soul in any account of how it is that we come to grasp the two different kinds of sensory data. Reason is itself a faculty of soul that is supposed to correspond to objects of cognition, but since it is possible to grasp, cognitively, the structure of this faculty the question arises: May this faculty function as its own object? The question is famously answered in the affirmative in Aristotle's treatise De anima at 430a2-5 on the grounds that any immaterial object of cognition is identical to thought itself (epi men gar tôn aneu hulês to auto esti to nooun kai to nooumenon).While this may seem like a peculiarly Aristotelian analysis of cognition (relying, as it does, on Aristotle's distinction between matter and form and his rather cryptic claim that the faculties of soul are actually what their proper objects are potentially), Crystal traces the idea both backwards and forwards in time, rooting the problem in Parmenides' general account of faculties of soul and tracing it through Plotinus's sophisticated account of noetic intellect, with visits along the way not only with Aristotle but Plato and the Stoics as well.The book is divided into three parts. In the first ("The Epistemological Origins") Crystal examines the evolution of the philosophical analysis of cognition from Parmenides through Plato. Parmenides, on this account, was the first to offer anything like a philosophical treatment of intellect (Greek nous). In particular, Parmenides distinguishes between a faculty of intellection and an object of that faculty. Plato, consciously working in the Parmenidean tradition, further analyses mind into its faculties and their proper objects but also gives a more detailed analysis of the epistemological subject. Specifically, Plato's treatment of the faculty in the Theaetetus provides an account of the structure of our cognitive faculty and how that structure relates to the metaphysics of the external world. It is here that Crystal recognizes the emergence of a linguistic component in the epistemic subject's cognitive activity (101; cf. Theaetetus189e6-190a6).Part II ("The Emergence of Self-Intellection") consists of a single chapter in which Crystal reads Aristotle's treatment of self-intellection in the De anima as "Aristotle's epistemological response to Plato." Since self-intellection per se really only emerges for the first time in the De anima, this chapter is in some sense the meatiest part of the book. We are given first a careful treatment of Aristotle's account of perception in DA3.2, affection in DA2.5 and De generatione et corruptione1.7, and the central problem of self-consciousness in DA3.2. The argument moves quickly here but Crystal's analysis is precise and clear. Next comes the analysis of the cognitive structure of intellect itself in DA3.4 and Crystal's account of how Aristotle's two aporiai (How can intellect be both a passive affection and something simple and impassive; and Is intellect itself an intelligible object) are responses to Plato's account of cognition at Theaetetus197c1-200d4 (the Aviary passage) on the one hand and to the general lack of an account of intelligible objects in the Theaetetus on the [End Page 489] other. On Crystal's account, Aristotle improves on Plato in the sense... (shrink)