Parce que le Liber de causis etait au programme de l'enseignement universitaire parisien au XIIIe siecle, il etait naturel pour le professeur, frere Thomas d'Aquin, de composer un commentaire sur ce texte attribue alors a Aristote. Mais parce que, a ce moment meme, le dominicain Guillaume de Moerbeke venait de decouvrir les Elements de theologie de Proclus et de les traduire en latin (18 mai 1268), Thomas, enregsitrant aussitot cet apport nouveau, comprenait que le Liber de causis etait (...) un sous-produit des Elements de Proclus et devait donc etre retire a Aristote. Du meme coup, il saisissait la nature platonicienne de ce texte qui le rapprochait des doctrines du Pseudo-Denys et permettait d'evaluer son platonisme. C'est pourquoi le Commentaire de Thomas sur le Liber de causis offre une presentation des doctrines platoniciennes dans la construction theologiques des premiers principes. Dans l'elaboration de ce commentaire, Thomas se revele un veritable humaniste en avance de deux siecles sur les savants de la Renaissance. (shrink)

This work investigates how ancient philosophers understood productive knowledge or technê and used it to explain ethics, rhetoric, politics and cosmology. In eleven chapters leading scholars set out the ancient debates about technê from the Presocratic and Hippocratic writers, through Plato and Aristotle and the Hellenistic age, ending in the Neoplatonism of Plotinus and Proclus. Amongst the many themes that come into focus are: the model status of ancient medicine in defining the political art, the similarities between the Platonic and (...) Aristotelian conceptions of technê, the use of technê as a paradigm for virtue and practical rationality, technê´s determining role in Platonic conceptions of cosmology, technê´s relationship to experience and theoretical knowledge, virtue as an 'art of living', the adaptability of the criteria of technê to suit different skills, including philosophy itself, the use in productive knowledge of models, deliberation, conjecture and imagination. (shrink)

Plato's Sophist is a dialogue which is key to the understanding of Platonic metaphysics and dialectics: its traditional subtitle is 'On Being.' Thomas Taylor's translation was first published in 1804 as part of his Works of Plato - the first ever complete translation of Plato into English. This Students' Edition volume has extensive notes to help those coming anew to the Sophist to grasp some of the important concepts which stand behind the dialogue. Also added is an extract from (...) Proclus On Forms, Reasons and Dialectic (from his Commentary on the Parmenides); a dissertation, On Ideas, by Thomas Taylor; and two modern essays which the Trust hopes will further the understanding of the newcomer to Plato and his tradition. (shrink)

In November 2014 I had the pleasure of examining Bruxellensis 11377–80. This paper manuscript was owned by Pierre Pantin at his death in 1611; it occupies no. 30 in his catalogue, where the first text, on fols 1–4, was misidentified as ‘Hymni Homeri’. The next owner, André Schott, repeated the error; Omont uses a page-numeration that completely excludes the current fols 1–4.

This volume gathers an international team of renowned scholars in the fields of ancient greek philosophy, in order to explore the continuous but changing dialogue between Platonism and Aristotelianism from the early imperial age to the end of Antiquity. While most chapters concern Platonists (Philo, Plutarch, Plotinus, Syrianus, Proclus, Damascius, Philoponus), and their uses or criticism of Aristotle's doctrines, several chapters are also devoted to Peripatetic authors (Boethius and mostly Alexander of Aphrodisias) and their attitudes towards Plato's positions. Each of (...) the eleven chapters draws the attention to specific polemical contexts and philosophical problems which made Platonists and Aristotelians unite against common adversaries like the Stoics, or split up, not only in the fields of metaphysics and cosmology, but also in epistemology, psychology and ethics. (shrink)

This last chapter presents highlights from the history of the reception of Proclus’ thought. It starts with the reception in late antiquity and the Middle Ages, and subsequently discusses Renaissance and modernity. For the Greek tradition, the authors show how Damascius and pseudo-Dionysius adopt and adapt Proclus’ thought, and briefly touch on a Byzantine critic of Proclus: Nicholas of Methone. For the Arabic reception the authors show how the Discourse on the Pure Good adjusts Proclean metaphysics to Muslim and Christian (...) revelation. For the Latin tradition, Thomas Aquinas’ ‘triangulation’ between different sources, and the fourteenth-century German reworking of Proclus are presented. The authors then discuss the fascinating manuscript tradition of the Renaissance, the metaphysical/theological revival of Neoplatonism in the fifteenth–sixteenth centuries, the reception of Proclus’ mathematics and astronomy in early modern thought, and finally another revival of Neoplatonic metaphysics, in German Idealism. (shrink)

This volume gathers contributions on key concepts elaborated in the Platonic tradition (Proclus, Plotinus, Porphyry or Sallustius) and reconsidered by Arabic (e.g. Avicenna, the _Book of Causes_), Byzantine (e.g. Maximus the Confessor, Ioane Petritsi) and Latin authors (e.g. Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas etc.).

This article examines pivotal aspects of the reception of Proclus' Elementatio theologica in the commentary on the Liber de causis written by Giles of Rome at the end of the 13th century. The article examines Giles's understanding of Proclus’s philosophy in relation to the Neoplatonic framework of the Liber de causis, and shows how this understanding accounts for the theoretical divergences of Giles's and Thomas Aquinas's interpretations.

Aquinas contradicts Isaiah VI. 6 because of his following of the ps. Dionysius, who is in turn reproducing the logical structures of Iamblichus and Proclus. These came to prevail despite doubts raised by earlier medieval theologians with the exception of Eriugena. Here are considered Thomas’ principles of biblical interpretation and the character of his Aristotelianism. His thought is shown to be a form of neoplatonic systematizing as developed by Iamblichus and Proclus.

Les Eléments de théologie de Proclus constituent un monument philosophique radicalement singulier tant par son architecture propre que par la façon dont la tradition l'a revisité. Ordonnant, sous une forme géométrique, les principes de la métaphysique néoplatonicienne, ils ont à la fois constitué celle-ci en système et opéré comme le principal relais de sa transmission aux pensées byzantine, arabe et occidentale. Ce sont ces effets d'héritage et d'adaptation que les textes ici réunis visent à évaluer. Du Liber de causis à (...) Hegel en passant par Thomas d'Aquin, Dietrich de Freiberg, Giordano Bruno, les Platoniciens de Cambridge et Leibniz, se reconstitue ainsi une a grande chaîne des "êtres", réarticulée par la chaîne des raisons, et à chaque fois revivifiée par celle de la transmission. (shrink)

Proclus is the last major Greek philosopher, a prolific Neoplatonic idealist, a polymath, admired by Aquinas, and accorded unusual attention by Hegel. This brief volume contains five hymns by Proclus, translated by Thomas Taylor in 1795, and a listing of his forty-five books, some lost, compiled by Laurence Rosan, the distinguished expert on Proclus.

Proclus is the last major Greek philosopher, a prolific Neoplatonic idealist, a polymath, admired by Aquinas, and accorded unusual attention by Hegel. This brief volume contains five hymns by Proclus, translated by Thomas Taylor in 1795, and a listing of his forty-five books, some lost, compiled by Laurence Rosan, the distinguished expert on Proclus.

Proclus' commentary on Plato's dialogue Timaeus is arguably the most important commentary on a text of Plato, offering unparalleled insights into eight centuries of Platonic interpretation. It has had an enormous influence on subsequent Plato scholarship. This edition offers the first new English translation of the work for nearly two centuries, building on significant recent advances in scholarship on Neoplatonic commentators. It provides an invaluable record of early interpretations of Plato's dialogue, while also presenting Proclus' own views on the meaning (...) and significance of Platonic philosophy. The present volume, the fifth in the edition, presents Proclus' commentary on the Timaeus, dealing with Proclus' account of static and flowing time; we see Proclus situating Plato's account of the motions of the stars and planets in relation to the astronomical theories of his day. The volume includes a substantial introduction, as well as notes that will shed new light on the text. (shrink)

Bringing together two aspects of Thomas Aquinas's thought that have been studied separately: his theory of God's concurrence and his theory of instrumental causality, I show how he uses the latter (which I discuss first) to clarify the Proclusian principle that the first cause has a greater influence on an effect than the proximate causes. Thanks to this theory, Aquinas accounts for the fact that it is God who confers existence to every new being that is produced by natural (...) processes, without however negating the agency of secondary, created causes. (shrink)

Issues of reliability are claiming center-stage in the epistemology of machine learning. This paper unifies different branches in the literature and points to promising research directions, whilst also providing an accessible introduction to key concepts in statistics and machine learning – as far as they are concerned with reliability.

Big Ideas for Little Kids includes everything a teacher, a parent, or a college student needs to teach philosophy to elementary school children from picture books. Written in a clear and accessible style, the book explains why it is important to allow young children access to philosophy during primary-school education. Wartenberg also gives advice on how to construct a "learner-centered" classroom, in which children discuss philosophical issues with one another as they respond to open-ended questions by saying whether they agree (...) or disagree with what others have said. (shrink)

Cette étude essaye d’établir qu’il y a deux notions très différentes de « fondation » à l’œuvre dans les Recherches logiques de Husserl. Dans la IIIème Recherche, où le terme est formellement introduit, lorsqu’il se demande quels sont les contenus qui peuvent exister d’une manière autonome (indépendants) et lesquels peuvent exister uniquement en tant que moments d’autre chose (dépendants), Husserl suit ce que j’appelle un « modèle ontologique ». Selon ce modèle, le concret possède une priorité sur à l’abstrait qui (...) est fondé en lui. Dans la VIème Recherche, en revanche, Husserl s’oriente principalement sur un « modèle gnoséologique » qui voit le complexe comme fondé sur ce qui est relativement simple, étant donné que les expériences d’ordre supérieur (telles les perceptions de types d’objets plus complexes) sont « fondées sur » des expériences plus simples, bien qu’elles ne puissent pas y être réduites. L’exemple principal ici est celui des intuitions catégoriales : fondées sur les intuitions sensibles, elles n’y sont pas réductibles. Mais cette distinction entre deux sens différents du terme de « fondation » peut également nous aider à mieux comprendre de nombreuses thèses husserliennes plutôt controversées. Par exemple, elle peut nous permettre de mieux comprendre dans quelle mesure faire l’expérience d’un être humain comme un tout se fonde sur l’expérience d’un corps physique, et cela même si l’étant que nous rencontrons inclut à la fois des aspects corporels et des aspects spirituels – les deux étant vus, d’une manière essentielle, comme des moments de cette unique personne qui fait l’objet de notre expérience. (shrink)

L'Alcibiade est sans doute l'un des dialogues platoniciens qui a ete le plus lu et le plus apprecie dans l'antiquite: a preuve les multiples citations que l'on en trouve un peu partout ou encore le fait exceptionnel que l'on en a conserve deux commentaires neoplatoniciens. C'est que jamais, a la difference des modernes, les anciens n'ont doute de l'authenticite de ce dialogue, dans lequel certains voyaient meme, comme Jamblique, un resume parfait de la philosophie de Platon.

v. 1. Editorial introduction -- v. 2. The English and Latin texts (i) -- v. 3. The English and Latin texts (ii).

A reassessment of Aquinas’s doctrine of divine infinity, particularly in the light of the previous history of the concept within Western philosophy and theology. From the critical perspective provided by this history the central place which has been claimed for it in Aquinas’s thinking is questioned, as are also its originality and coherence. The notion that the doctrine of divine infinity was introduced to Western thought by Judaeo‐Christianity is rejected; from Anaximander onwards it had been a central concept in Greek (...) philosophy. Aristotle however had rejected it so effectively that, for several centuries afterwards, it seems to have led an ‘underground’ existence until it finally surfaces again in ‘Gnostic’ and related currents of thought. It is from these circles that it finally, and after some resistance, patchily entered orthodox Christian thinking. Likewise Plotinus was not the source of the doctrine, as some have claimed; historical precedence must be given to the Gnostics. Neoplatonism never, despite the prestige of Plotinus, fully accepted the doctrine; in Proclus it is a subordinate emanation from the One, which is beyond Infinity and Infinitude. Nor, because of the influence of Aristotle, does Islamic Neoplatonized Aristotelianism endorse the doctrine. Aquinas’s commitment to it seems to stem from the impact of John of Damascus’s stress upon the doctrine, the translation of whose work greatly influenced Western theology from the late twelfth century onward, together with his need to distance himself from the restrictions of the divine power and freedom found in the Arabic Aristotelian philosophers, whom, in general, he regarded as philosophical authorities. But his position on the doctrine is flawed by equivocation and self‐contradiction, flowing from his attempt to reconcile Christian personalist theism with Neoplatonized Aristotleain necessitarian monism. (shrink)

In this book, T. M. Scanlon offers new answers to these questions, as they apply to the central part of morality that concerns what we owe to each other.

Thomas Reid , the Scottish natural and moral philosopher, was one of the founding members of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society and a significant figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. Reid believed that common sense should form the foundation of all philosophical inquiry. He criticised the sceptical philosophy propagated by his fellow Scot David Hume and the Anglo-Irish bishop George Berkeley, who asserted that the external world did not exist outside the human mind. Reid was also critical of the theory of (...) ideas propagated by Locke and Descartes, arguing that it was incompatible with physical and experiential facts. For Reid, our senses demonstrate that the external world must exist, and this work is organised in chapters examining each of the senses in turn. The book, based on his lectures, was first published in 1764 when Reid was a regent professor at King's College, Aberdeen, and was reissued in 1818. (shrink)

This paper is an exposition and evaluation of the Agustín Rayo's views about the epistemology and metaphysics of mathematics, as they are presented in his book The Construction of Logical Space.

In recent years an increasing number of psychologists have begun to explore the prevalence, causes and effects of ordinary people’s intuitions about moral realism. Many of these studies have lacked in construct validity, i.e., they have failed to measure moral realism. My aim in this paper accordingly is to motivate and guide methodological improvements. In analysis of prominent existing measures, I develop general recommendations for overcoming ten prima facie serious worries about research on folk moral realism. G1 and G2 require (...) studies’ answer choices to be as metaethically comprehensive as methodologically feasible. G3 and G4 prevent fallacious inferences from intuitions about related debates. G5 and G6 limit first-order moral and epistemic influences. G7 address studies’ instructions. And G8 and G9 suggest tests of important psychological presuppositions. (shrink)

This volume is a study of the influence of Timaeus on the development of Western cosmology in three axial periods of European culture: Late Antiquity, Middle Ages and Renaissance.

In recent years, a plethora of high-profile scientific publications has been reporting about machine learning algorithms outperforming clinicians in medical diagnosis or treatment recommendations. This has spiked interest in deploying relevant algorithms with the aim of enhancing decision-making in healthcare. In this paper, we argue that instead of straightforwardly enhancing the decision-making capabilities of clinicians and healthcare institutions, deploying machines learning algorithms entails trade-offs at the epistemic and the normative level. Whereas involving machine learning might improve the accuracy of medical (...) diagnosis, it comes at the expense of opacity when trying to assess the reliability of given diagnosis. Drawing on literature in social epistemology and moral responsibility, we argue that the uncertainty in question potentially undermines the epistemic authority of clinicians. Furthermore, we elucidate potential pitfalls of involving machine learning in healthcare with respect to paternalism, moral responsibility and fairness. At last, we discuss how the deployment of machine learning algorithms might shift the evidentiary norms of medical diagnosis. In this regard, we hope to lay the grounds for further ethical reflection of the opportunities and pitfalls of machine learning for enhancing decision-making in healthcare. (shrink)

Thomas Reid is now recognized as one of the towering figures of the Enlightenment. Best known for his published writings on epistemology and moral theory, he was also an accomplished mathematician and natural philosopher, as an earlier volume of his manuscripts edited by Paul Wood for the Edinburgh Reid Edition, Thomas Reid on the Animate Creation, has shown. The Correspondence of Thomas Reid collects all of the known letters to and from Reid in a fully annotated form. (...) Letters already published by Sir William Hamilton and others have been reedited, and roughly half of the letters included appear in print for the first time. Writing in 1802, Reid's disciple and biographer Dugald Stewart doubted that Reid's correspondence &"would be generally interesting.&" This collection proves otherwise, for the letters illuminate virtually every aspect of Reid's life and career and, in some instances, provide us with invaluable evidence about activities otherwise undocumented in his manuscripts or published works. Through his correspondence we can trace Reid's relations with contemporaries such as David Hume and his colleagues at both King's College, Aberdeen, and the University of Glasgow, as well as his engagement with the most controversial philosophical, scientific, and political issues of his day. If anything, the letters assembled here serve as the starting point for understanding Reid and his place in the Enlightenment. (shrink)

Conciliatory theories of disagreement require that one lower one’s confidence in a belief in the face of disagreement from an epistemic peer. One question about which people might disagree is who should qualify as an epistemic peer and who should not. But when putative epistemic peers disagree about epistemic peerhood itself, then Conciliationism makes contradictory demands and paradoxes arise.

Feeling good: four ways -- Finding that feeling -- The place of pleasure -- Knowing what's what -- Making things happen -- Being good -- Love and friendship -- Putting it together.

This translation and commentary is based on the Critical Text and Indices of Proclus: Commentary on the First Alcibiades of Plato, Amsterdam 1954, by L. G. Westerink. Index II has been of great help in the translation, and the commentary is much indebted to the critical apparatus. Dr. Westerink has also been kind enough to forward his views on the relatively few problems which the Greek text has presented. A further debt is owed to the review of Dr. Westerink's text (...) by Prof. E. R. Dodds in GNOMON 1955 p. 164-1, chiefly for some references and some emendations to the Greek text. W. R. M. Lamb's Loeb translation of Alcibiades I has helped considerably in construing the lemmata, which Signor Antonio Carlini has found to have been inserted by a later hand from a Plato MSS. of the W family. Evidence for this is their discrepancy with the text as read in the main body of the commentary (d. Studi Classici e Orientali, vol. x, Pisa 1961). On the personal side, the whole work has received the benefit of constant advice from Prof. A. H. Armstrong. It was he who first suggested the undertaking, and he has been kind enough to read through the translation and commentary, making many corrections and helpful suggestions. In particular lowe him the parallels with Plotinus and thanks for a Socratic patience in my more obtuse moments. (shrink)

The commentary on Plato's Republic by Proclus (d. 485 CE), which takes the form of a series of essays, is the only sustained treatment of the dialogue to survive from antiquity. This three-volume edition presents the first complete English translation of Proclus' text, together with a general introduction that argues for the unity of Proclus' Commentary and orients the reader to the use that the Neoplatonists made of Plato's Republic in their educational program. Each volume is completed by a Greek (...) word index and an English-Greek glossary that will help non-specialists to track the occurrence of key terms throughout the translated text. The first volume of the edition presents Proclus' essays on the point and purpose of Plato's dialogue, the arguments against Thrasymachus in Book I, the rules for correct poetic depictions of the divine, a series of problems about the status of poetry across all Plato's works, and finally an essay arguing for the fundamental agreement of Plato's philosophy with the divine wisdom of Homer which is, in Proclus' view, allegorically communicated through his poems. (shrink)

Existing research suggests that people's judgments of actual causation can be influenced by the degree to which they regard certain events as normal. We develop an explanation for this phenomenon that draws on standard tools from the literature on graphical causal models and, in particular, on the idea of probabilistic sampling. Using these tools, we propose a new measure of actual causal strength. This measure accurately captures three effects of normality on causal judgment that have been observed in existing studies. (...) More importantly, the measure predicts a new effect ("abnormal deflation"). Two studies show that people's judgments do, in fact, show this new effect. Taken together, the patterns of people's causal judgments thereby provide support for the proposed explanation. (shrink)

A growing number of decision theorists have, in recent years, defended the view that rationality is permissive under risk: Different rational agents may be more or less risk-averse or risk-inclined. This can result in them making different choices under risk even if they value outcomes in exactly the same way. One pressing question that arises once we grant such permissiveness is what attitude to risk we should implement when choosing on behalf of other people. Are we permitted to implement any (...) of the rationally permissible risk attitudes, is there some specific risk attitude that is required when choosing for others, or are we required to defer to the risk attitudes of the people on whose behalf we are choosing? This article elaborates on this question, explains its wider practical and theoretical significance, provides an overview of existing answers, and explores how to go about providing a more systematic account of how to choose on behalf of others in risky contexts. (shrink)

In this important book, Thomas R. Flynn reinterprets and evaluates Sartre's social and political philosophy, arguing that the existential ethics of Sartre's ...