Chez les commentateurs platoniciens de l’époque impériale, l’un des problèmes majeurs liés à la théorie des Idées concernait le domaine d’application de cette doctrine. L’exégèse de la première partie du Parménide de Platon donnait occasion à diverses discussions sur ce sujet. Le Commentaire de Proclus sur le Parménide est sans doute la plus précieuse source qui soit parvenue de l’Antiquité jusqu’à nous pour la reconstitution de ces débats. Alors que la grande majorité des commentateurs anciens étaient convaincus que les Idées (...) ont un domaine assez restreint, le Commentaire de Proclus nous révèle l’existence d’une lecture alternative, selon laquelle il y a des Idées de « toutes choses ». Proclus relie cette interprétation alternative en particulier à l’existence des Idées de choses mauvaises et d’individus, probablement parce que ces deux classes d’objets étaient vraiment les dernières choses dont un platonicien orthodoxe voudrait admettre des Idées. Amélius est le seul néoplatonicien connu pour avoir soutenu l’existence des Idées de choses mauvaises. Dans cet article j’essaie de montrer que, selon toute vraisemblance, Amélius est également la cible de la réfutation des Idées d’individus par Proclus dans son Commentaire. La conclusion qui s’ensuit naturellement est qu’Amélius était très probablement l’un de ces philosophes qui, d’après Proclus, admettaient des Idées « de toutes choses ». (shrink)

In Proclus, like in Plato, we find statements about the Forms that at least appear to allow self-predication of Forms. In his discussion of the Parmenides’s Third Man Argument, however, Proclus argues that Forms and their participants are not synonymous, which means that the property that the Form causes in its participants cannot be predicated of the Form itself. In this paper, I try to show how such seemingly self-predicative statements about the Forms are to be understood in the context (...) of Proclus’ metaphysics. I will argue that, in Proclus, statements such as ‘ the Form of Large is truly Large’ should be considered what I will call ‘causal predications’. Causal predication does not attribute any property to a subject, but only concerns the subject’s causal efficacy in relation to that property. (shrink)

This paper analyses the central function that the Forms of Likeness and Unlikeness perform in the metaphysics of Proclus. Mainly drawing from Proclus’ Commentary on the Parmenides, the focus will be on the double role of these Forms as causes of the relations of likeness between different sensible particulars on the one hand and of the relations between sensible particulars and the Forms in which they partake on the other. It will be argued that the relations of likeness between sensible (...) particulars, while not identical to the corresponding relations between particulars and Forms, can nonetheless be related to the causal operation of the same Forms. One can therefore conclude that Proclus’ account of the causality of Likeness and Unlikeness – despite its complexity, which is partly due to the combination of exegetic and more systematic considerations – is consistent. (shrink)

Taking the recent publication of Sebastian Gertz’ translation of three late Platonic Introductions by Elias, David and Olympiodorus as a starting point, this review paper provides an assessment of Gertz’ translation and textual choices. In addition, it also provides an original contribution to the study of these texts by proposing an emendation of David’s text, and by discussing some of the source-texts of the three Introductions and of their parallels in the ancient commentary tradition. One case elaborated on in somewhat (...) greater detail concerns Olympiodorus’ arguments against scepticism. (shrink)

This paper provides a case study for the use of syllogistic reconstructions in the commentaries on Plato by the fifth-century commentator Proclus. The paper discusses Proclus’ reconstruction of the argument about the range of the Forms in Plato’s Parmenides (130b–e). In his commentary on this dialogue, Proclus reports a syllogistic reconstruction of the argument proposed by some of his predecessors. In this reconstruction, the argument as a whole is interpreted as a straightforward attack on the existence of Forms, while the (...) different premises of the hypothetical syllogism represent the respective positions of Parmenides and Socrates in the discussion. For Proclus, however, the argument about the range of Forms is not meant to be critical of the Forms, but rather provides a positive instruction about their range of application. I argue that while Proclus finds the syllogism a useful tool to reconstruct the different positions in the exegetical history of the argument, he does not accept it as an adequate reconstruction on his own account. The argument can be traced back most likely to the so-called ‘logical’ interpretations of the Parmenides that Proclus discusses – and dismisses – in the prologue to his commentary. (shrink)

Essays on key moments in the intellectual history of the West This book forms a major contribution to the discussion on fate, providence and moral responsibility in Antiquity, the Middle Ages and Early Modern times. Through 37 original papers, renowned scholars from many different countries, as well as a number of young and promising researchers, write the history of the philosophical problems of freedom and determinism since its origins in pre-socratic philosophy up to the seventeenth century. The main focus points (...) are classic Antiquity (Plato and Aristotle), the Neoplatonic synthesis of late Antiquity (Plotinus, Proclus, Simplicius), and thirteenth-century scholasticism (Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghent). They do not only represent key moments in the intellectual history of the West, but are also the central figures and periods to which Carlos Steel, the dedicatary of this volume, has devoted his philosophical career. (shrink)

This volume explores the tremendous influence of Plato's Phaedrus on the philosophical, religious, scientific and literary discussions in the first two millennia of the dialogue's reception history. It will appeal to readers interested in the Ph.

Questo libro, come chiariscono i curatori, è il risultato di un progetto scientifico sullo studio dei commentari neoplatonici del Fedone, già realizzatosi in un convegno del 1970 diretto da Westerink, e poi ampliatosi in un convegno sulla storia delle interpretazioni del dialogo nell’antichità realizzatosi nel 2012 a Bruxelles: non più solo platonici, ma anche aristotelici, stoici, scettici. Dopo un’ «Introduzione», redatta dai tre editori, i saggi raccolti sono 13, a cura di Sylvain Delcomm...

This review considers Semantic Syntax and Slavic Transformational Syntax particularly in the light of their contributions to the theory of grammar. Semantic Syntax is shown to have a polemical bias against the Aspects model and toward generative semantics. Its editor's position in the constellation of semantic logicians is defined; pro-Chomskian objections to the logical-cognitive semantic theory are advanced. Slavic Transformational Syntax is comprised of essays with a wide range of theoretical stances; the insights of the radical case grammar of James (...) Miller are compared with those of Semantic Syntax. Remarks on deixis by Richard Brecht are discussed in relationship to semantic-logic approaches. Certain similarities of Jakobsonian functionalism and generative semantics are discussed. (shrink)

AimsThis preliminary study aimed to investigate therapy-induced electrophysiological changes in persons with primary progressive aphasia. The investigated event-related potential components associated with language processing were the mismatch negativity, P300, N400, and P600.MethodsA linguistic ERP test battery and standardized language assessment were administered in four patients with PPA of which two received speech-language therapy and two did not receive therapy. The battery was administered twice with approximately 6 months in between in each patient. The results of the follow-up assessments were compared (...) to the results of the initial assessments.ResultsAlthough the results of the behavioral language assessment remained relatively stable between the initial and follow-up assessments, changes in the mean amplitudes, onset latencies, and duration of the ERP components were found in the four patients. In the two patients that did not receive SLT, an increased delay in 50% and a decreased mean amplitude in 25% of the measured ERP components were found. The electrophysiological changes found in the patients that received SLT were variable. Interestingly, the mismatch negativity and the N400 effect elicited by the categorical priming paradigm were less delayed and had an increased mean amplitude at the follow-up assessment in the patient with the non-fluent variant who received SLT. In this patient, the P600 component was absent at the initial assessment but present at the follow-up assessment.ConclusionAlthough no clear patterns in electrophysiological changes between patients who received SLT and patients who did not receive SLT were found by our preliminary study, it seems like the SLT induced improvements or compensation mechanisms in some specific language comprehension processes in the patient with the NFV. The results of this study are still preliminary because only four heterogeneous patients were included. Future studies should include larger patient groups of the three clinical variants because the therapy-induced electrophysiological changes might differ depending on the clinical variant and the underlying pathology. (shrink)

The problem of disease definition is related to theproblem of proving that a certain agent is thenecessary cause of a certain disease. Natural kindterms like ‘rheumatoid arthritis’ and ‘AIDS’ refer toessences which are discoverable rather thanpredeterminate. No statement about such diseases isa priori necessarily true. Because theories onnecessary causes involve natural kind semantics,Koch's postulates cannot be used to falsify or verifysuch theories. Instead of proving that agent A is thenecessary cause of disease D, we include A in atheoretical definition of (...) D, take this to representthe real meaning of ‘D’, and discard thepretheoretical definition. This is illustrated byKoch's own attempt to prove he had discovered thenecessary cause of tuberculosis. Methodologicalarguments about disease causation require a clear viewof our use of diagnostic terms. Medical lexicographersshould do more to provide such a view. (shrink)

The commentary of the Italian physician and philosopher Pietro d'Abano on Bartholomew of Messina's Latin translation of Pseudo-Aristotle's 'Problemata Physica', published in 1310, constitutes an important historical source. In a section of the corpus Aristotelicum that was not part of the standard curriculum at the medieval university, the commentary of Pietro d'Abano investigates the complex relationship between text, translation, and commentary. The eight articles in this volume provide valuable insights into the manner in which Pietro d'Abano deals with the problems (...) of a translated text. They emphasize the idiosyncrasy of his approach in comparison to his contemporaries and successors, the particularities of his commentary in light of the habitual exegetical practices applied in the teaching of curricular texts, as well as the influence of philosophical traditions outside the strict framework of the medieval arts faculty. (shrink)

Philosophe apatride, porte-voix des 'bons Européens' au XIXe siècle, Nietzsche se fit le représentant d'un européanisme assez contraire aux vues de son temps. Une posture intempestive et paradoxale car elle signifiait la dévalorisation des valeur suprêmes qui régissaient la vie des Européens, depuis deux millénaires. Dès lors, comment Nietzsche entendait-il 'penser l'Europe', au moment même où celle-ci menaçait, selon lui, de voir ses fondements culturels remis en question? Sans doute en prophétisant l'avènement du 'nihilisme européen', tout en remontant le cours (...) du temps et en pensant une généalogie de l'Europe pour, ensuite, dresser sa vision de 'deux siècles' à venir. C'est, en somme, une sorte de futurologie, adressée aux 'Européens d'après-demain'. Ce que nous sommes désormais. Ce livre rassemble des contributions majeures qui tentent de cerner ces 'pensées pour après-demain' et l'européanisme nietzschéen, mais aussi ce qu'ils disent de son actualité, toujours féconde pour éclairer les questions de notre temps. (shrink)

Abstract: This paper examines Mark Blaug's position on the normative character of Paretian welfare economics: in general, and specifically with respect to his debate with Pieter Hennipman over this question during the 1990s. The paper also clarifies some of the confusions that emerged within the context of this debate, and closes by providing some additional arguments supporting Blaug's position that he himself did not provide.

This memoiristic essay is a contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium titled “Fuzzy Studies: On the consequence of blur.” While probing his personal memories and making a case for devaluing our intellectual constructs, the author, an anthropologist, examines paintings by Paul Cézanne and Pieter Bruegel, poems by Wallace Stevens and W. H. Auden. The essay argues that each self-deluding “reality” we construct is only temporary, destined to fall back into the elusive, undifferentiated zone of overlap and ambiguity from which (...) it has emerged. Therefore, the author urges, we should temper the intellectual “rage for order” with an openness to chaos and contingency, along with sustained and careful attention to creative works and religious practices in which the mind appears to grasp its limits. In this way, we may substitute what Stevens called “ghostlier demarcations” for our clear, exact, and self-deceptive certainties. (shrink)

Professor d’Hoine claims that Proclus assigns a specific ontological function to the Form of Likeness in his Commentary on the Parmenides. According to d’Hoine, for Proclus, each individual must, qua individual striving to imitate the form, present a difference; this difference or unlikeness of one member of a coordinate kind to another, the plurality of participants in a Form, is Form’s by the Form of Unlikeness. And in a similar way, the Form of Likeness then guarantees the imitation of the (...) Form by the particular. I try to show that in other passages in Proclus’ oeuvre, likeness extends to include many more relationships than the Forms instantiation as a material particular. Hence, Likeness is not confined to this specific ontological function. (shrink)

Cet article relate le commencement des apports du jésuite Pieter Frans Smulders avant la première période du Concile Vatican II. Ce commencement s'est produit de la mi-août à début septembre 1962, avec l'analyse incisive par Smulders des sept schémas conciliaires initiaux comme faisant partie d'une consultation avant Concile au bénéfice de l'Archevêque Giuseppe Beltrami, Nonce apostolique des Pays-Bas. Cette analyse apparaît en annexe.

Poursuivant une précédente recherche sur les travaux de P. Smulders , L'A. présente les résultats d'une étude sur la genèse du «Dei Verbum», examinant les acticités théologiques de Pieter Smulders au cours de la première période du deuxième Concile du Vatican, où il travailla comme expert théologique au service de la Conférence épiscopale d'Indonésie. Il élabore une analyse critique du projet «De fontibus revelationis» élaboré par Smulders à l'usage des évêques.

The debate on the conventionality of simultaneity and the debate on the dimensionality of the world have been central in the philosophy of special relativity. The link between both debates however has rarely been explored. The purpose of this paper is to gauge what implications the former debate has for the latter. I show the situation to be much more subtle than was previously argued, and explain how the ontic versus epistemic distinction in the former debate impacts the latter. Despite (...) claims to the contrary, I conclude that special relativity leaves the debate on the dimensionality of the world underdetermined. (shrink)

The aim of this doctoral dissertation is to closely explore the nature of Einstein’s block universe and to tease out its implications for the nature of time and human freedom. Four questions, in particular, are central to this dissertation, and set out the four dimensions of this philosophical investigation: (1) Does the block universe view of time follow inevitably from the theory of special relativity? (2) Is there room for the passage of time in the block universe? (3) Can we (...) distinguish past from future in the block universe? (4) Is there room for human freedom in the block universe? Although the answer of most philosophers would be yes, triple no, my own answer, controversially, is no, triple yes. -/- I thereby challenge the status quo with respect to each of these metaphysical questions, and argue that none of these questions can be answered from looking at physics alone. Physics may constrain our metaphysics, but it certainly does not settle it. What is needed in order to answer these questions, are additional metaphysical assumptions that fall outside the scope of modern physics. My primary goal in this dissertation, therefore, is not to settle the debates on the nature of time and human freedom, but to clarify them by expliciting the metaphysical assumptions that are otherwise left implicit. (shrink)

To this day, a hundred and fifty years after Mendeleev's discovery, the overal structure of the periodic system remains unaccounted for in quantum-mechanical terms. Given this dire situation, a handful of scientists in the 1970s embarked on a quest for the symmetries that lie hidden in the periodic table. Their goal was to explain the table's structure in group-theoretical terms. We argue that this symmetry program required an important paradigm shift in the understanding of the nature of chemical elements. The (...) idea, in essence, consisted of treating the chemical elements, not as particles, but as states of a superparticle. We show that the inspiration for this came from elementary particle physics, and in particular from Heisenberg's suggestion to treat the proton and neutron as different states of the nucleon. We provide a careful study of Heisenberg's last paper on the nature of elementary particles, and explain why the Democritean picture of matter no longer applied in modern physics and a Platonic symmetry-based picture was called for instead. We show how Heisenberg's Platonic philosophy came to dominate the field of elementary particle physics, and how it found its culmination point in Gell-Mann's classification of the hadrons in the eightfold way. We argue that it was the success of Heisenberg's approach in elementary particle physics that sparked the group-theoretical approach to the periodic table. We explain how it was applied to the set of chemical elements via a critical examination of the work of the Russian mathematician Abram Ilyich Fet the Turkish-American physicist Asim Orhan Barut, before giving some final reflections. (shrink)

Human freedom is in tension with nomological determinism and with statistical determinism. The goal of this paper is to answer both challenges. Four contributions are made to the free-will debate. First, we propose a classification of scientific theories based on how much freedom they allow. We take into account that indeterminism comes in different degrees and that both the laws and the auxiliary conditions can place constraints. A scientific worldview pulls towards one end of this classification, while libertarianism pulls towards (...) the other end of the spectrum. Second, inspired by Hoefer, we argue that an interval of auxiliary conditions corresponds to a region in phase space, and to a bundle of possible block universes. We thus make room for a form of non-nomological indeterminism. Third, we combine crucial elements from the works of Hoefer and List; we attempt to give a libertarian reading of this combination. On our proposal, throughout spacetime, there is a certain amount of freedom that can be interpreted as the result of agential choices. Fourth, we focus on the principle of alternative possibilities throughout and propose three ways of strengthening it. (shrink)

This book is about how to understand quantum mechanics by means of a modal interpretation. Modal interpretations provide a general framework within which quantum mechanics can be considered as a theory that describes reality in terms of physical systems possessing definite properties. Quantum mechanics is standardly understood to be a theory about probabilities with which measurements have outcomes. Modal interpretations are relatively new attempts to present quantum mechanics as a theory which, like other physical theories, describes an observer-independent reality. In (...) this book, Pieter Vermaas summarises the results of this work. The book will be of great value to undergraduates, graduate students and researchers in philosophy of science, and physics departments with an interest in learning about modal interpretations of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

According to Leininger, presentists and growing blockers cannot explain why past and present regularities persist in the future. In order to do so, they would have to appeal to enforcers, such as causation, laws or dispositions. But in a world with no future, these enforcers are powerless and cannot guarantee future regularity. I disagree and argue that Leininger’s coordination problem can be met by distinguishing type- from token-level necessitation. Whereas token-level necessitation is cross-temporal and subject to Leininger’s coordination problem, type-level (...) necessitation is atemporal and immune to the coordination problem. For this solution to work, though, type-level necessitation must be ontologically prior to token-level necessitation. This forces us to adopt a Platonist position according to which universals are transcendent, and not immanent. (shrink)

Abstractabstract:Most of Charles Darwin's ideas have withstood the test of time, but some of them turned out to be dead ends. This article focuses on one such dead end: Darwin's ideas about the connection between piloerection and mental illness. Piloerection is a medical umbrella term to refer to a number of phenomena in which our hair tends to stand on end. Darwin was one of the first scientists to study it systematically. In The Expression of the Emotions in Man and (...) Animals (1872), he discusses piloerection in the context of his analysis of the expressions involved in fear and anger, relying heavily on the evidence provided by one of his correspondents, the British psychiatrist James Crichton Browne. This essay reveals how Darwin's initial doubts about the similarity between piloerection in animals and psychiatric patients were eased when studying photographic portraits of female psychiatric patients sent to him by Crichton Browne. It considers arguments against Darwin's reading of these portraits and the apparent contrast between this reading and his own skepticism, in later years, about the value of documentary photography. The article concludes with some notes regarding the reception of Darwin's ideas about psychopathology. (shrink)

The block universe theory of time is commonly said to be incompatible with temporal becoming. This confuses Maudlin who upholds both eternalism and passage. The aim of this paper is to answer Maudlin’s plea for clarification by distinguishing four degrees of temporal becoming. After discussing their respective compatibility with the block universe, I show that Maudlin asks much less from temporal becoming than most philosophers of time. Consequently, his form of becoming is compatible with the block universe, whereas the stronger (...) forms of becoming are not. (shrink)