Philosophers and artists consider the relevance of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy for understanding art and aesthetic experience. This collection of essays brings together diverse but interrelated perspectives on art and perception based on the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Although Merleau-Ponty focused almost exclusively on painting in his writings on aesthetics, this collection also considers poetry, literary works, theater, and relationships between art and science. In addition to philosophers, the contributors include a painter, a photographer, a musicologist, and an architect. This widened (...) scope offers important philosophical benefits, testing and providing evidence for the empirical applicability of Merleau-Ponty’s aesthetic writings. The central argument is that for Merleau-Ponty the account of perception is also an account of art and vice versa. In the philosopher’s writings, art and perception thus intertwine necessarily rather than contingently such that they can only be distinguished by abstraction. As a result, his account of perception and his account of art are organic, interdependent, and dynamic. The contributors examine various aspects of this intertwining across different artistic media, each ingeniously revealing an original perspective on this intertwining. (shrink)

In this paper, I compare the Megarian thesis of Metaphysics IX 3 with other sources on the Megarians in order to clarify two questions: that of the unity and nature of the so-called Megarian school and that of Aristotle’s broader argument in IX 3. I first review the disputed issue of the status of the Megarian school and then examine two hypotheses regarding the identity behind Aristotle’s allusion in IX 3. Third, I explore the connection between Megarianism and Plato’s Euthydemus, (...) a task that helps us to contextualize Aristotle’s anti-Megarian polemic. Lastly, I build on the preceding argument in a re-examination of the Eleatic hypothesis with regard both to the Megarians as a whole and to the thesis that Aristotle transmits. (shrink)

Cicero's De fato: On Hellenistic Conditionals and Free Will. The Serbo-Croatian translation of Cicero's De fato, with comments and detailed analysis of some arguments and problems of the text. -/- (s/h): Tekst Ciceronovog spisa "de fato", prevod, komentari i u dodacima, detaljnija analiza pojedinih argumenata i problema sadržanih u tekstu.

The ‘Dialectical school’ denotes a group of early Hellenistic philosophers that were loosely connected by philosophizing in the — Socratic — tradition of Eubulides of Megara and by their interest in logical paradoxes, propositional logic and dialectical expertise. . Its two best known members, Diodorus Cronus and Philo the Logician, made groundbreaking contributions to the development of theories of conditionals and modal logic. Philo introduced a version of material implication; Diodorus devised a forerunner of strict implication. Each developed a system (...) of modal notions that satisfies the basic logical requirements laid down by modern standard modal theories. In antiquity, Diodorus Cronus was famous for his so called Master Argument, which aims to prove that only the actual is possible. (shrink)

Essays on Aristotle's Sea-Battle, Lazy Argument, Argument Reaper, Diodorus' Master Argument -/- The book is devoted to the ancient logical theories, reconstruction of their semantic proprieties and possibilities of their interpretation by modern logical tools. The Ancient arguments are frequently misunderstood in modern interpretations since authors usually have tendency to ignore their historical proprieties and theoretical background what usually leads to a quite inappropriate picture of the argument’s original form and mission. Author’s primary intention was to draw attention to the (...) complexity of some historical arguments and to the theoretical context in which arguments were created, circulated, developed, and finally tuned. Four well-known ancient arguments – with a common central subject related to the future contingencies problem – are reconstructed from available historical sources: “The Sea Battle”, which is drawn from Aristotle’s treatise De Interpretatione; two arguments, usually ascribed to the Stoics, “The Lazy Argument” and “The Reaper”; “The Master Argument” of the Megarian philosopher Diodorus. Arguments are linguistically and semantically detaily analyzed, formally presented by reflecting some relevant corresponding hypotheses based on physical or logical theories of their ancient authors, and finally covered by appropriate logical tools familiar to a modern reader. Two appendices are added at the closing part of the book. One covering some assumptions relevant for understanding of rival streams in ancient theories of meaning related to the nature of names and naming; the other is devoted to the ancient understanding of logical proposition and attempts to find an adequate Latin translation of the Greek delicate philosophical term “ἀξίωμα”. (shrink)

The section 18b16–⁠25 of the famous chapter 9 of Aristotle’s De interpretatione presents two objections against the assumption that both members of a contradictory pair of future singular statements might be false. This section is unlikely to be genuine, because (1) the first objection is either directly begging the question or misusing a previous argument in a question-begging way, (2) the second objection includes irrelevant observations, and (3) the rebuttal of the said assumption interrupts the intimate connection between the immediately (...) preceding and following sections. (shrink)

At least since Aristotle’s famous 'sea-battle' passages in On Interpretation 9, some substantial minority of philosophers has been attracted to the doctrine of the open future--the doctrine that future contingent statements are not true. But, prima facie, such views seem inconsistent with the following intuition: if something has happened, then (looking back) it was the case that it would happen. How can it be that, looking forwards, it isn’t true that there will be a sea battle, while also being true (...) that, looking backwards, it was the case that there would be a sea battle? This tension forms, in large part, what might be called the problem of future contingents. A dominant trend in temporal logic and semantic theorizing about future contingents seeks to validate both intuitions. Theorists in this tradition--including some interpretations of Aristotle, but paradigmatically, Thomason (1970), as well as more recent developments in Belnap, et. al (2001) and MacFarlane (2003, 2014)--have argued that the apparent tension between the intuitions is in fact merely apparent. In short, such theorists seek to maintain both of the following two theses: (i) the open future: Future contingents are not true, and (ii) retro-closure: From the fact that something is true, it follows that it was the case that it would be true. It is well-known that reflection on the problem of future contingents has in many ways been inspired by importantly parallel issues regarding divine foreknowledge and indeterminism. In this paper, we take up this perspective, and ask what accepting both the open future and retro-closure predicts about omniscience. When we theorize about a perfect knower, we are theorizing about what an ideal agent ought to believe. Our contention is that there isn’t an acceptable view of ideally rational belief given the assumptions of the open future and retro-closure, and thus this casts doubt on the conjunction of those assumptions. (shrink)

This article introduces and clarifies a neglected sense of the word ἤ (‘or’) employed by Aristotle and other authors. In this sense, called ‘indifferent’, ἤ signifies ‘one or the other, regardless of which’. It is shown how attention to this use makes it possible to explain the source of the ambiguity of certain sentences, most obviously, though not exclusively, sentences that make a necessity claim about an embedded disjunction, for example ‘It is necessary that A or B’. Why this sense (...) cannot be explained, as some scholars have suggested, by the distinction between exclusive and inclusive ἤ is also discussed. Finally, it is shown how awareness of this sense might rescue Aristotle from a gross inconsistency. (shrink)

Ancient commentators like Ammonius and Boethius tried to solve Aristotle's “sea battle argument” in On Interpretation 9 by saying that statements about future contingents are “indefinitely” true or false. They were followed by al-Fārābī in his commentary on On Interpretation. The article sets out two possible interpretations of what “indefinitely” means here, and shows that al-Fārābī actually has both conceptions: one applied in his interpretation of Aristotle, and another that he is forced into by the problem of divine foreknowledge. It (...) also explains the relevance of al-Fārābī's remarks as a link between the non-statistical modal theories of Philo and Avicenna. (shrink)

This paper gives an overview of logico-philosophical issues of time and determinism. After a brief review of historical roots and 20th century developments, three current research areas are discussed: the definition of determinism, space-time indeterminism, and the temporality of individual things and their possibilities.

This article aims to show that it is impossible to put Cicero’s testimonies regarding The Fabius Argument in a consistent inferential order. Either we must suppose that additional premises are tacitly assumed in the text or we must com-pare it with other sources, which leads to inconsistencies in the proof’s reconstruction. Cicero’s reconstruction of the progression of the argument has formal shortcomings, and the paper draws attention to some of these deficiencies. He interpreted sources in a revised and intentionally simplified (...) way, with the aim of undermining the views of his opponents, casting them as inconsistent and similar to views held by Diodorus. Rather than being a consistently interpreted argument faithfully transcribed from the Stoic sources, Cicero’s Fabius Argument is ultimately anti-Stoic. (shrink)

Substitute decision-makers for severely disabled neonates who can be kept alive but who will require constant medical interventions and will die at the latest in their teens are faced with a difficult decision when trying to decide whether to keep the infant alive. By and large, the primary focus of their decision-making centers on what is in the best interests of the newborn. The best-interests criterion, in turn, is importantly conditioned by quality-of-life considerations. However, the concept of quality of life (...) is logically and ethically different for patients with a developing as opposed to a developed awareness. Unfortunately, this difference is ignored by current quality-of-life considerations, there are no quality-of-life measures that take this difference into account, and decision-making proceeds entirely without acknowledging this fact. This note outlines why this is a problem and why there is a need for a new set of tools that incorporates this distinction if the substitute decision-makers are to apply the best-interest criterion in a meaningful way. (shrink)

A presente investigação questiona a essência teo-lógica dos futuros contingentes. Para o efeito, analisa-se, primeiramente, a argumentação segundo a qual, sob certas con­dições lógicas, teológicas, ontológicas e cosmológicas anti-necessitantes, detetadas por G. W. Leibniz (conciliando a posição de St. Agostinho com a de L. Molina e W. Ockham), a abertura contingente do futuro parece ser compatível com o regime das “verdades contingentes pré-determinadas”, regime enquadrado teologicamente pelo princípio do “futuro melhor” ou do “único futuro verdadeiro”. No entanto, os futuros contingentes (...) incitam, com e contra Aristóteles, ao desenvolvimento de uma lógica temporal e plurivalente, ao modo de J. Łukasiewicz ou A. Prior. Esta lógica garante a abertura do futuro sem o oneroso custo metafísico da adesão a uma teo-lógica omni-determinante. A crítica do determinismo lógico, daí resultante, afigura-se mais coadunável com as condições pós-metafísicas ine­rentes à episteme agnóstica contemporânea, mas, nesse caso, a abertura do futuro impli­caria uma profunda redefinição das próprias ideias e funções de “Deus”, “matéria”, “história” e “verdade”. (shrink)

Resumen: El presente artículo tiene por objetivo la reconstrucción del argumento dominador atribuido a Diodoro Crono y su revisión filosófica a la luz de la crítica aristotélica al actualismo extremo de la Escuela de Mégara en Metafísica IX, 3. Desde esta perspectiva, el trabajo aspira a situar el proyecto teórico de Diodoro en el marco de su disputa filosófica con la metafísica aristotélica y su concepto de δύναµις, con el fin de traducir esta querella dialéctica en lo que, a nuestro (...) juicio, constituye una disputa teórica de importantes consecuencias prácticas: la disyunción excluyente entre el azar y el destino como paradigmas de interpretación conceptual y de acción moral.: This paper aims to reconstruct and analyze the Master Argument attributed to Diodorus Chronus under the perspective of Aristotle's criticism of extreme actualism in Metaphysics IX. 3. From this point of view, the paper locates Diodorus' theoretical project within the framework of his philosophical dispute with Aristotle's metaphysics and the Aristotelian concept of δύναµις, trying to show that what really lies behind this dialectical confrontation is a theoretical problem of important practical consequences: the excluding disjunction between chance and destiny as paradigms of conceptual interpretation and moral action. (shrink)

The paper tries to demonstrate the validity of Aristotle’s sea-battle argument, which is still considered as invalid by many authors. The first part presents the usual reconstruction of Aristotle’s argument and the reason for its rejection. It presents the late antique adoption of the argument as valid and strong by Ammonios and Boethius as well as its modern defence. In the second part, the elements that together assure the validity of the argument are combined and cast in the form of (...) two premisses, namely fact-correspondence and the unchangeability of facts. It is shown that these two presuppositions together assure the conclusion, i. e. the negation of bivalence for future contingents, and that they are explicitly stated in several of Aristotle’s texts and in Peri Hermeneias 9 in particular. (shrink)

Este artículo presenta una interpretación de dos discutidos pasajes de Metafísica VI 3 y XI 8 en los que se encuentra la argumentación de Aristóteles encaminada a evitar la necesidad universal con base en la existencia de las coincidencias. Esta argumentación ha suscitado múltiples e incompatibles interpretaciones desde la Antigüedad hasta nuestros días. En ellas se ha presentado la argumentación del Estagirita en un abanico que va desde comprenderla como una postura compatible con el más fuerte determinismo, hasta una que (...) requiere un muy generalizado indeterminismo. En diálogo con estas interpretaciones, se defenderá una lectura según la cual estos pasajes están diseñados para argumentar no contra el determinismo causal sino contra la predeterminación. (shrink)

A position that has been called ‘classical indeterminism’ has recently been developed in order to model vagueness: this approach appeals to an object-language ‘determinately’ operator, the semantics of which are defined in such a way as to preserve the principle of bivalence. I suggest that a prominent argument against this strategy, which I call the Field–Williamson argument, fails. The classical indeterminist position in its general form was anticipated by the Aristotelian commentators in their discussions of Aristotle’s famous ‘sea battle’ passage (...) concerning future contingency. But I maintain that, ironically enough, the strategy is less happily applied in this case, where a version of the Field–Williamson argument succeeds. (shrink)

A position that has been called ‘classical indeterminism’ has recently been developed in order to model vagueness: this approach appeals to an object-language ‘determinately’ operator, the semantics of which are defined in such a way as to preserve the principle of bivalence. I suggest that a prominent argument against this strategy, which I call the Field–Williamson argument, fails. The classical indeterminist position in its general form was anticipated by the Aristotelian commentators in their discussions of Aristotle’s famous ‘sea battle’ passage (...) concerning future contingency. But I maintain that, ironically enough, the strategy is less happily applied in this case, where a version of the Field–Williamson argument succeeds. (shrink)

In chapter 9 of De Interpretatione, Aristotle offers a defense of free will against the threat of fatalism. According to the traditional interpretation, Aristotle concedes the validity of the fatalist's arguments and then proceeds to reject the Principle of Bivalence in order to avoid the fatalist's conclusion. Assuming that the traditional interpretation is right on this point, it remains to be seen why Aristotle felt compelled to reject such an intuitive semantic principle rather than challenge the fatalist's inference from truth (...) to necessity. The answer, I contend, lies in Aristotle's theory of truth and truthmakers. (shrink)

Tun und Können erläutert und diskutiert den Gründungstext der Modalontologie: das neunte Buch der Metaphysik des Aristoteles. Aristoteles' Thesen und Argumente werden zum ersten Mal in Gänze mit formalen analytischen Mitteln rekonstruiert und auf ihre Kohärenz und Gültigkeit geprüft. Erstmals verwendet der Autor dazu eine adverbiale Analyse von Ausdrücken des Könnens und des Vermögens als Prädikatmodifikatoren. Das Buch zeigt, dass Aristoteles' Theorie der Vermögen nicht nur eine konsistente, sondern auch eine leistungsfähige Analyse von Dispositionen und Dispositionsprädikaten bietet. -/- Die Neuausgabe (...) wurde vollständig durchgesehen und um weiterführende Anhänge ergänzt. -/- Der Inhalt: Können, Tun und Möglichkeit. Eine Einführung • Die kausale Dimension von Vermögen • Die ontologische Dimension von Vermögen• Eine notwendige Bedingung für Vermögen • Hindernisse und Verwirklichung • Prioritätsfragen • Aristotle’s Theory of Dispositions • Das Problem des Neuen • Planners, Deciders, Performers. (shrink)

Argues that divine timelessness is at best irrelevant and at worst counterproductive for addressing the problem of foreknowledge and future contingents.

A fairly long (~15,000 word) overview of ancient theories of freedom and determinism. It covers the supposed threat of causal determinism to "free will," i.e., the sort of control we need to have in order to be rightly held responsible for our actions. But it also discusses fatalistic arguments that proceed from the Principle of Bivalence, what responsibility we have for our own characters, and god and fate. Philosophers discussed include Aristotle, Epicurus, the Stoics, Carneades, Alexander of Aphrodisias, and Plotinus. (...) Plato is mentioned in passing a few times in connection with other philosophers. (shrink)

Stoicism was one of the new philosophical movements of the Hellenistic period. The name derives from the porch (stoa poikilê) in the Agora at Athens decorated with mural paintings, where the members of the school congregated, and their lectures were held. Unlike ‘epicurean,’ the sense of the English adjective ‘stoical’ is not utterly misleading with regard to its philosophical origins. The Stoics did, in fact, hold that emotions like fear or envy (or impassioned sexual attachments, or passionate love of anything (...) whatsoever) either were, or arose from, false judgements and that the sage—a person who had attained moral and intellectual perfection—would not undergo them. The later Stoics of Roman Imperial times, Seneca and Epictetus, emphasise the doctrines (already central to the early Stoics' teachings) that the sage is utterly immune to misfortune and that virtue is sufficient for happiness. Our phrase ‘stoic calm’ perhaps encapsulates the general drift of these claims. It does not, however, hint at the even more radical ethical views which the Stoics defended, e.g. that only the sage is free while all others are slaves, or that all those who are morally vicious are equally so. Though it seems clear that some Stoics took a kind of perverse joy in advocating views which seem so at odds with common sense, they did not do so simply to shock. Stoic ethics achieves a certain plausibility within the context of their physical theory and psychology, and within the framework of Greek ethical theory as that was handed down to them from Plato and Aristotle. It seems that they were well aware of the mutually interdependent nature of their philosophical views, likening philosophy itself to a living animal in which logic is bones and sinews; ethics and physics, the flesh and the soul respectively (another version reverses this assignment, making ethics the.. (shrink)

Some authors have talken about the problem of the future contingents Aristotle exposed in De Interpretatione IX. But most of them do not explain the role of that chapter in his own work. Last analysis always try to find a formal solution. And this is very significative because De Interpretatione is a treatise that belongs to the semantic of the Organon. In this article we show that: 1. The aim of the problem of future contigents is not only formal and (...) the frame of the Aristotle’s solution. 2. Its implication with others important concepts in his philosophy like “substance”, “truth” and “dialectics”. (shrink)

We argue that the extant evidence for Stoic logic provides all the elements required for a variable-free theory of multiple generality, including a number of remarkably modern features that straddle logic and semantics, such as the understanding of one- and two-place predicates as functions, the canonical formulation of universals as quantified conditionals, a straightforward relation between elements of propositional and first-order logic, and the roles of anaphora and rigid order in the regimented sentences that express multiply general propositions. We consider (...) and reinterpret some ancient texts that have been neglected in the context of Stoic universal and existential propositions and offer new explanations of some puzzling features in Stoic logic. Our results confirm that Stoic logic surpasses Aristotle’s with regard to multiple generality, and are a reminder that focusing on multiple generality through the lens of Frege-inspired variable-binding quantifier theory may hamper our understanding and appreciation of pre-Fregean theories of multiple generality. (shrink)

In the first part of De Interpretatione 9, Aristotle introduces an argument for fatalism that he obviously does not subscribe to. Readers of the chapter wonder how Aristotle replies to that argument. In this paper I claim that the main basis of his reply is the principle of equimodality stated in 19a33 (“statements are true in the same way as the actual things are”). I defend that this principle should be interpreted in the most straightforward way, as saying that the (...) modality with which any statement is true is the same as the modality with which the actual things referred to in the statement are what they are. This entails that something is (or will be) necessarily such and such only if the statement saying that it is (or will be) such and such is necessarily true. By applying this principle to Aristotle’s distinction between two kinds of non-necessary things – those that happen as chance has it and those that happen for the most part (hôs epi to poly) in one way rather than another –, one should conclude that, because these things are contingent, statements about them can only be contingently true. (shrink)

The appropriationist approach to history of philosophy is often accused of being antihistorical and thus unreliable. The appropriationists are only concerned with their own philosophical problems, and they make discriminating use of the historical data as far as it serves their needs. Its rival, the contextualist approach, claims to be an honest, dedicated and reliable treatment of history. The contextualists are willing to make use of the tedious methodology of Classical studies as long as it promises to uncover the true (...) historical data. In this paper I present a case where the contextualists have failed to surpass their rival appropriationists in their quest for veracity. The case is the debate about Aristotle’s De Interpretatione 9, which took place in 1950-1980s. In this debate the contextualists were unable to offer any other results except for those which have already been suggested by the appropriationists. In addition I demonstrate how the contextualists selectively used the arsenal of Classical methodology not to uncover the truth, but to justify their own preconceived interpretations. (shrink)