This volume is a new edition of a collection of problems in natural science and medicine which has been variously attributed to Aristotle and to Alexander of Aphrodisias; the collection includes material from both the Hellenistic and Roman periods.

"Orginally published by: Leiden, NV: Koninklijke Brill, 1993.".

Résumé — Alexandre d’Aphrodise a été étudié plus intensément en Europe continentale que dans le monde anglophone. Cet article s’interroge sur les raisons culturelles d’un tel fait. L’une des raisons de l’étude de la philosophie antique en général dans le monde anglophone est la volonté de montrer qu’elle est reliée, et peut rendre service, à des débats philosophiques contemporains. Un cas emblématique nous est fourni par le débat concernant le libre arbitre et le déterminisme. Susanne Bobzien a défendu la thèse (...) qu’alors que les termes du débat contemporain peuvent être décelés au IIe siècle après J.-C., et en particulier dans le traité d’Alexandre Sur le destin, il serait anachronique de les faire remonter à la période hellénistique. La partie finale du présent article se penche sur la façon dont elle rend compte de l’approche post-hellénistique de la question, vue comme le développement, à partir d’un certain nombre de textes aristotéliciens, d’une nouvelle doctrine de la contingence, reflétée dans une série de textes généralement décrits comme médioplatoniciens. On se demande, finalement, quelle relation il faut supposer entre ce développement et les changements, dans la forme et dans le fond, du déterminisme stoïcien.L’accident du déterminisme— Alexander of Aphrodisias has been studied more intensively in continental Europe than in the English-speaking world. This paper examines the cultural reasons for this. One factor in the study of ancient philosophy generally in the English-speaking world is the pressure to show that it relates to, and can be of service in, contemporary philosophical debates. One such case is the debate concerning free-will and determinism. Susanne Bobzien has argued that while the terms of the contemporary debate can be recognised in the second century AD, and in particular in Alexander’s treatise On Fate, it is anachronistic to read them back into the Hellenistic period. The latter part of the present paper examines her account of the origin of the new approach to the question in the development from a number of Aristotelian texts of a new account of contingency, reflected in a range of texts commonly described as Middle Platonist, and asks what relation we should suppose between this development and changes in the formulation and conception of Stoic determinism. (shrink)

An examination by leading scholars of what the ancient Greeks had to say on the relation between the universal and the particular in ethics, psychology, metaphysics and cosmology.

An examination by leading scholars of what the ancient Greeks had to say on the relation between the universal and the particular in ethics, psychology, metaphysics and cosmology.

This volume relates to natural philosophy apart from the study of living things. Topics covered include the principles of scientific inquiry, place, time, motion, the heavens, the sublunary world, meteorology and the study of materials.

This chapter contains sections titled: The Extent of the Problem Collections of Fragments The Reporter's Own Agenda Cicero and Epicurus: The Atomic Swerve Importing Distinctions: Dicaearchus on the Soul, Plutarch on the Octopus The Debate about Happiness Mistakes and Misrepresentations, Simple and Less Simple Conclusion Bibliography.

A collection of the papers and some of the formal responses from a colloquium on the ancient philosopher Aristotle, with one additional paper. The contributors explore Aristotle and how he is perceived and interpreted in different traditions, and by different people.

Three treatises on human physiology by Artistotle's pupil Theophrastus are newly edited and translated. A commentary accompanies each treatise, as do indices of words and subjects. Thre treatises relate to the medical and philosophical literature of the period.

This book comprises essays on the nature of Aspasiusa (TM) commentary, his interpretation of Aristotle, and his own place in the history of thought.

In the present volume, the focus is on natural philosophy, apart from the study of living things. Topics covered include the principles of scientific enquiry, place, time, motion, the heavens, the sublunary world, meteorology and the study of materials.

The first of the projected volumes of commentary to accompany the texts and translations in Theophrastus of Eresus: Sources for his Life, Writings, Thought and Influence , edited by W.W. Fortenbaugh and others.

Richard Sorabji, in his introduction to the series, Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, of which this volume is a part, claims that these works "represent a missing link in the history of philosophy: the Latin-speaking Middle Ages obtained their knowledge of Aristotle at least partly through the medium of the commentaries. Without an appreciation of this, medieval interpretations of Aristotle will not be understood". If this remark is true of any volume in the series, it is certainly true of this one, (...) which presents R. W. Sharples' translation of the second half of Alexander's Quaestiones, a group of inquiries, 69 in total, on Aristotle's work and thought regarding the nature of providence, the soul, coming-to-be and passing-away, the finiteness of the universe, the nature of magnetism, and other topics. (shrink)

This book provides a collection of sources, many of them fragmentary and previously scattered and hard to access, for the development of Peripatetic philosophy in the later Hellenistic period and the early Roman Empire. It also supplies the background against which the first commentator on Aristotle from whom extensive material survives, Alexander of Aphrodisias (fl. c. AD 200), developed his interpretations which continue to be influential even today. Many of the passages are here translated into English for the first time, (...) including the whole of the summary of Peripatetic ethics attributed to 'Arius Didymus'. (shrink)

Two texts that raise problems for Alexander of Aphrodisias' theory of universals are examined. "De anima" 90.2-8 appears to suggest that universals are dependent on thought for their existence; this raises questions about the status both of universals and of forms. It is suggested that the passage is best interpreted as indicating that universals are dependent on thought only for their being recognised as universals. The last sentence of "Quaestio" 1.11 seems to assert that if the universal did not exist (...) no individual would exist, thereby contradicting Alexander's position elsewhere. This seems to be a slip resulting from the fact that species with only one member are the exception rather than the rule. (shrink)

Winner of the 1975 National Book Award, this brilliant and widely acclaimed book is a powerful philosophical challenge to the most widely held political and social positions of our age--liberal, socialist, and conservative.

The abstract structure of inquiry - the process of acquiring and changing beliefs about the world - is the focus of this book which takes the position that the "pragmatic" rather than the "linguistic" approach better solves the philosophical problems about the nature of mental representation, and better accounts for the phenomena of thought and speech. It discusses propositions and propositional attitudes (the cluster of activities that constitute inquiry) in general and takes up the way beliefs change in response to (...) potential new information, suggesting that conditional propositions should be understood as projections of epistemic policies onto the world.Robert C. Stalnaker is a professor in the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell University. A Bradford Book. (shrink)

This paper revisits some foundational questions concerning the abstract representation of a discourse context. The context of a conversation is represented by a body of information that is presumed to be shared by the participants in the conversation – the information that the speaker presupposes a point at which a speech act is interpreted. This notion is designed to represent both the information on which context-dependent speech acts depend, and the situation that speech acts are designed to affect, and so (...) to be a representation of context that is appropriate for explaining the interaction of context and the contents expressed in them. After reviewing the motivating ideas and the outlines of the apparatus, the paper responds to a criticism of the framework, and considers the way it can help to clarify some phenomena concerning pronouns with indefinite antecedents. (shrink)

Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize With a new preface by the author In his most powerful and important book, renowned psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton presents a brilliant analysis of the crucial role that German doctors played in the Nazi genocide. Now updated with a new preface, The Nazi Doctors remains the definitive work on the Nazi medical atrocities, a chilling exposé of the banality of evil at its epitome, and a sobering reminder of the darkest side (...) of human nature. (shrink)

John Glucker, "A Platonic Cento in Cicero", Phronesis 44 (1999) 30-44, argues that the account of the mind's experiences at Cicero, De divinatione 1.115 derives from an unknown Platonist's combination of Plato, Meno 81c5-d1 and Republic 10 614d3-615a5. G.'s connection of what is said by Cicero with these two passages of Plato is persuasive; but in concentrating on the surface references to souls' memory of their experiences in previous lives the Ciceronian account fails to do justice to the underlying significance (...) of both passages. It is also questionable whether an unknown Platonist needs to be invoked as a source; the interpretation of the two Platonic passages could be Cicero's own. (shrink)

John Glucker, "A Platonic Cento in Cicero", Phronesis 44 30-44, argues that the account of the mind's experiences at Cicero, De divinatione 1.115 derives from an unknown Platonist's combination of Plato, Meno 81c5-d1 and Republic 10 614d3-615a5. G.'s connection of what is said by Cicero with these two passages of Plato is persuasive; but in concentrating on the surface references to souls' memory of their experiences in previous lives the Ciceronian account fails to do justice to the underlying significance of (...) both passages. It is also questionable whether an unknown Platonist needs to be invoked as a source; the interpretation of the two Platonic passages could be Cicero's own. (shrink)

What kind of mental state is episodic memory? I defend the claim that it is, in key part, imagining the past, where the imagining in question is experiential imagining. To remember a past episode is to experientially imagine how things were, in a way controlled by one’s past experience of that episode. Call this the Inclusion View. I motive this view by appeal both to patterns of compatibilities and incompatibilities between various states, and to phenomenology. The bulk of the paper (...) defends the account against four objections. Imagining and remembering seem to differ in whether they are active or passive, in the forms of singular content they involve, in their relations to observation and in their relations to belief. I argue that these differences can be accommodated, and some even explained, once we flesh out what else is involved in episodic memory, in addition to imagining the past. (shrink)

Our primary focus is on analysis of the concept of voluntariness, with a secondary focus on the implications of our analysis for the concept and the requirements of voluntary informed consent. We propose that two necessary and jointly sufficient conditions must be satisfied for an action to be voluntary: intentionality, and substantial freedom from controlling influences. We reject authenticity as a necessary condition of voluntary action, and we note that constraining situations may or may not undermine voluntariness, depending on the (...) circumstances and the psychological capacities of agents. We compare and evaluate several accounts of voluntariness and argue that our view, unlike other treatments in bioethics, is not a value-laden theory. We also discuss the empirical assessment of individuals? perceptions of the degrees of noncontrol and self-control. We propose use of a particular Decision Making Control Instrument. Empirical research using this instrument can provide data that will help establish appropriate policies and procedures for obtaining voluntary consent to research. (shrink)

In the Western world it is usually taken as given that we all want happiness, and our educational arrangements tacitly acknowledge this. Happiness, Hope, and Despair argues, however, that education has an important role to play in deepening our understanding of suffering and despair as well as happiness and joy. Education can be uncomfortable, unpredictable, and unsettling; it can lead to greater uncertainty and unhappiness. Drawing on the work of Søren Kierkegaard, Miguel de Unamuno, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Simone Weil, Paulo Freire, (...) and others, Peter Roberts shows why these features of educational life need not be feared; to the contrary, they can be seen as a source of hope and human fulfilment. After years of negotiating an education system dominated by the language of competition, performance, and economic advancement, students and teachers often long for something different; they seek not just measurable success but also opportunities to ask searching questions of themselves and the world they encounter. Happiness, Hope, and Despair makes an important contribution toward meeting this need. It fosters a rethinking of the nature, purpose, and value of education, and opens up possibilities for further scholarly and professional inquiry. (shrink)

Citizen Inquiry: Synthesising Science and Inquiry Learning is the first book of its kind to bring together the concepts of citizen science and inquiry-based learning to illustrate the pedagogical advantages of this approach. It shifts the emphasis of scientific investigations from scientists to the general public, by educating learners of all ages to determine their own research agenda and devise their own investigations underpinned by a model of scientific inquiry. 'Citizen Inquiry' is an original approach to research education that refers (...) to mass participation of the public in joining inquiry-led scientific investigations. Using a range of practical case studies underpinned by the theory of inquiry-based learning, this book has significant implications for teaching and learning through exploration of how new technologies can be used to engage with scientific research. Key features include: a new perspective on science education and science practice through crowd-sourced research explanation of the benefits of this innovative approach to teaching and learning a steady shift of emphasis from theory to application for readers to thoroughly understand the current state of research in the field and its applications to practice examples of practical applications of this approach and recommendations on how successful citizen inquiry applications can be developed This edited volume is essential reading for academic researchers and professional educators interested in the potential of online technology in all levels of education, from primary and secondary level through to further education and lifelong learning. It will be ideal reading on any undergraduate or postgraduate course involving Research Methods in education as well as developments in science education and educational software. (shrink)

The treatise De intellectu attributed to Alexander of Aphrodisias can be divided into four sections. The first is an interpretation of the Aristotelian theory of intellect, and especially of the active intellect referred to in Aristotle, De anima 3.5, which differs from the interpretation in Alexander's own De anima, and whose relation to Alexander's De anima, attribution to Alexander, and date are all disputed. The second is an account of the intellect which is broadly similar to A though differing on (...) certain points. The third is an account of someone's response to the problem of how intellect can enter the human being ‘from outside’ if it is incorporeal and hence cannot move at all; in the fourth the writer who reported Cl criticizes that solution and gives his own alternative one. (shrink)

_A moving meditation on recent geopolitical crises, viewed through the lens of ancient and modern tragedy__ “Spare, elegant and poignant.... If there is a single contemporary book that should be pressed into the hands of those who decide issues of war and peace, this is it.”—John Gray, _New Statesman_ “It is tragic that Robert D. Kaplan’s luminous _The Tragic Mind_ is so urgently needed.”—George F. Will_ Some books emerge from a lifetime of hard-won knowledge. Robert D. Kaplan has (...) learned, from a career spent reporting on wars, revolutions, and international politics in Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, that the essence of geopolitics is tragedy. In _The Tragic Mind_, he employs the works of ancient Greek dramatists, Shakespeare, German philosophers, and the modern classics to explore the central subjects of international politics: order, disorder, rebellion, ambition, loyalty to family and state, violence, and the mistakes of power. The great dilemmas of international politics, he argues, are not posed by good versus evil—a clear and easy choice—but by contests of good versus good, where the choices are often searing, incompatible, and fraught with consequences. A deeply learned and deeply felt meditation on the importance of lived experience in conducting international relations, this is a book for everyone who wants a profound understanding of the tragic politics of our time. (shrink)

It is almost unanimously accepted that Kant denies resultant moral luck—that is, he denies that the lucky consequence of a person’s action can affect how much praise or blame she deserves. Philosophers often point to the famous good will passage at the beginning of the Groundwork to justify this claim. I argue, however, that this passage does not support Kant’s denial of resultant moral luck. Subsequently, I argue that Kant allows agents to be morally responsible for certain kinds of lucky (...) consequences. Even so, I argue that it is unclear whether Kant ultimately endorses resultant moral luck. The reason is that Kant does not write enough on moral responsibility for consequences to determine definitively whether he thinks that the lucky consequence for which an agent is morally responsible can add to her degree of praiseworthiness or blameworthiness. The clear upshot, however, is that Kant does not deny resultant moral luck. (shrink)

This paper provides an overview of the history of the notion of essence in 20th century analytic philosophy, focusing on views held by influential analytic philosophers who discussed, or relied on essence or cognate notions in their works. It in particular covers Russell and Moore’s different approaches to essence before and after breaking with British idealism, the (pre- and post-)logical positivists’ critique of metaphysics and rejection of essence (Wittgenstein, Carnap, Schlick, Stebbing), the tendency to loosen the notion of logical necessity (...) to accommodate certain metaphysical truths in Wittgenstein and others, Quine’s logical rehabilitation of metaphysics and criticism of de re modality, the modal view of essence promoted by the development of quantified modal logic (C. I. Lewis, Barcan Marcus, Kripke) and direct reference theory (Barcan Marcus, Kripke, Putnam), and the emergence of the notion of metaphysical necessity (Kneale, Kripke), and finally Fine’s re-establishment of a Neo-Aristotelian, hyperintensional notion of essence in contemporary metaphysics. (shrink)

Philosophers often consider problems of free will and moral luck in isolation from one another, but both are about control and moral responsibility. One problem of free will concerns the difficult task of specifying the kind of control over our actions that is necessary and sufficient to act freely. One problem of moral luck refers to the puzzling task of explaining whether and how people can be morally responsible for actions permeated by factors beyond their control. This chapter explicates and (...) assesses skeptical, compatibilist, and libertarian approaches to moral luck. First, I argue that what makes the above problems of free will and moral luck distinct is largely their emphasis on different kinds of luck. Second, I describe and evaluate skeptical arguments from constitutive and circumstantial luck that it is impossible to act freely. Third, I explicate and assess various support and implication relationships between various kinds of compatibilism and libertarianism, on the one hand, and causal, constitutive, circumstantial, and resultant moral luck, on the other. (shrink)

Over a career spanning American history from the 1880s to the 1950s, John Dewey sought not only to forge a persuasive argument for his conviction that "democracy is freedom" but also to realize his democratic ideals through political activism. Widely considered modern America's most important philosopher, Dewey made his views known both through his writings and through such controversial episodes as his leadership of educational reform at the turn of the century; his support of American intervention in World War I (...) and his leading role in the Outlawry of War movement after the war; and his participation in both radical and anti-communist politics in the 1930s and 40s. Robert B. Westbrook reconstructs the evolution of Dewey's thought and practice in this masterful intellectual biography, combining readings of his major works with an engaging account of key chapters in his activism. Westbrook pays particular attention to the impact upon Dewey of conversations and debates with contemporaries from William James and Reinhold Niebuhr to Jane Addams and Leon Trotsky. Countering prevailing interpretations of Dewey's contribution to the ideology of American liberalism, he discovers a more unorthodox Dewey—a deviant within the liberal community who was steadily radicalized by his profound faith in participatory democracy. Anyone concerned with the nature of democracy and the future of liberalism in America—including educators, moral and social philosophers, social scientists, political theorists, and intellectual and cultural historians—will find John Dewey and American Democracy indispensable reading. (shrink)

From the ferment of recent debates about the intellectual virtues, Roberts and Wood develop an approach they call 'regulative epistemology', exploring the connection between knowledge and intellectual virtue. In the course of their argument they analyse particular virtues of intellectual life - such as courage, generosity, and humility - in detail.

A persistent methodological problem in primate social cognition research has been how to determine experimentally whether primates represent the internal goals of other agents or just the external goals of their actions. This is an instance of Daniel Povinelli’s more general challenge that no experimental protocol currently used in the field is capable of distinguishing genuine mindreading animals from their complementary behavior-reading counterparts. We argue that current methods used to test for internal-goal attribution in primates do not solve Povinelli’s problem. (...) To overcome the problem, a new type of experimental approach is needed, one which is supported by an alternative theoretical account of animal mindreading, called the appearance-reality mindreading (ARM) theory. We provide an outline of the ARM theory and show how it can be used to design a novel way to test for internal-goal attribution in chimpanzees. Unlike protocols currently in use, the experimental design presented here has the power, in principle and in practice, to distinguish genuine mindreading chimpanzees from those who predict others’ behavior solely on the basis of behavioral/environmental cues. Our solution to Povinelli’s problem has important consequences for a similar debate in developmental psychology over when preverbal infants should be credited with the ability to attribute internal goals. If what we argue for here in the case of nonhuman primates is sound, then the clearest tests for internal-goal attribution in infants will be those that test for attributions of discrepant or ‘false’ perceptions. (shrink)

Robert C. Stalnaker presents a set of essays on the structure of inquiry. First he focuses on the concepts of knowledge, belief, and partial belief, and on the rules and procedures we ought to use to determine what to believe. Then he explores the relations between conditionals and causal and explanatory concepts.

In this essay I sketch some vices of virtue ethics, draw on inference about the philosophical source of the vices, and conclude with a recommendation concerning future efforts in moral theory construction. The source of the vices, I argue, lies in a mononomic or single-principle strategy within normative theory construction, a reductionist conceptual scheme which distorts certain integral aspects of our moral experience. My recommendation is that this strategy be abandoned, for the moral field is not unitary -- mononomic methods (...) are not the best tools for moral theorists. (shrink)