Wat heeft Jeruzalem met Athene te maken?' is het gevleugelde woord van de kerkvader Tertullianus. Het is een vraag die kerk en theologie van meet af aan heeft bezig gehouden en verschillende antwoorden heeft opgeleverd. Het is een vraag die nog steeds actueel is. Zo ongeveer de laatste dertig jaar is er op het gereformeerde erf in ons land sprake van een zekere herleving van de scholastieke theologie, die immers ontstaan is uit een samentreffen van het Griekse en het christelijke (...) denken. Er zijn de laatste decennia veel publicaties verschenen waarin het negatieve imago van de scholastieke theologie wordt verwisseld voor een positieve herwaardering en verdere toepassing. Veelal wordt in deze publicaties gesteld dat de scholastiek het christelijke dogma niet inhoudelijk heeft aangetast. Het zou veeleer gaan om de toepassing van een bepaalde methode of werkwijze, zoals die in de middeleeuwse scholen gestalte heeft gekregen. (shrink)

‘Only the naïve or innocent observer’, says Sir Moses Finley in his book Politics in the ancient world, ‘can believe that Pericles came to a vital Assembly meeting armed with nothing but his intelligence, his knowledge, his charisma and his oratorical skill, essential as all four attributes were.’ Historians of the Roman Republic have been assiduous in studying clientelae,factiones and ‘delivering the vote’, but much less work has been done on the ways in which Athenian politicians sought to mobilise (...) support. There have been studies of family connections and of links between individual politicians; there have been studies of the associations known as hetaireiai; but many questions remain unanswered. W. R. Connor in The new politicians of fifth-century Athens contrasted an old style of politics, based on ties of philia within the upper classes, with a new style, which spurned philia and appealed directly to the people. Even in his old style, the votes of the ordinary, middling-to-poor citizens counted for more in the straightforward Athenian assembly than in the Roman comitia with their complex systems of block votes. Connor limits political friendship to the upper classes; he pours cold water on Sealey's suggestion that rich families might have brought pressure to bear on their tenants and other dependants ; but apart from general references to largesse he does not really explain how an old-style Cimon or a new-style Cleon would ensure that the assembly was full of voters willing to elect him as general or approve a motion which he proposed. J. K. Davies has tried to take the matter further in Wealth and the power of wealth in classical Athens. (shrink)

In Euripides' Hippolytus, Phaedra, wife of Theseus, king of Athens, falls in love with the unsuspecting Hippolytus, Theseus' son by the amazon Antiope. Phaedra's passion is the work of the goddess Aphrodite, who wants to revenge herself on Hippolytus because he has rejected her and devoted himself to the chaste Artemis. Through Paedra's nurse Hippolytus is made aware of her love and invited to her bed. He emphatically rejects her offer and violently abuses Phaedra and her nurse. To save (...) her honour Phaedra commits suicide and leaves a note accusing Hippolytus of raping her. Theseus, confronted on his return from an expedition with the suicide and the note, banishes Hippolytus and prays to his father, the seagod Poseidon, to fulfil one of the three wishes he has granted him and kill Hippolytus. Leaving Troezen, Hippolytus is killed when his horses are frightened by a monster thrown on shore by Poseidon from a giant wave. Theseus is brought to realize his mistake by the goddess Artemis who appears to him and reveals the truth. The play ends with the reconciliation of Theseus and the dying Hippolytus. This, in bare outline, is what happens in the play. It is what might be called its subject. The play is about these events and characters. Now it is also possible to give another type of description of Euripides' play. For the play does not merely have a subject but also a theme. While it is straightforward and unproblematic to give a description of the subject of the play a statement of its theme presents difficulties. The subject is, in an obvious sense, given for any competent speaker of the language in which the work is written. The theme, on the other hand, emerges from the subject in conjunction with other features of the work, and it emerges through the reader's constructive labour. There is no theme for the reader who is unwilling or unable to engage in this constructive labour. (shrink)

In Euripides' Hippolytus, Phaedra, wife of Theseus, king of Athens, falls in love with the unsuspecting Hippolytus, Theseus' son by the amazon Antiope. Phaedra's passion is the work of the goddess Aphrodite, who wants to revenge herself on Hippolytus because he has rejected her and devoted himself to the chaste Artemis. Through Paedra's nurse Hippolytus is made aware of her love and invited to her bed. He emphatically rejects her offer and violently abuses Phaedra and her nurse. To save (...) her honour Phaedra commits suicide and leaves a note accusing Hippolytus of raping her. Theseus, confronted on his return from an expedition with the suicide and the note, banishes Hippolytus and prays to his father, the seagod Poseidon, to fulfil one of the three wishes he has granted him and kill Hippolytus. Leaving Troezen, Hippolytus is killed when his horses are frightened by a monster thrown on shore by Poseidon from a giant wave. Theseus is brought to realize his mistake by the goddess Artemis who appears to him and reveals the truth. The play ends with the reconciliation of Theseus and the dying Hippolytus. This, in bare outline, is what happens in the play. It is what might be called its subject. The play is about these events and characters. Now it is also possible to give another type of description of Euripides' play. For the play does not merely have a subject but also a theme. While it is straightforward and unproblematic to give a description of the subject of the play a statement of its theme presents difficulties. The subject is, in an obvious sense, given for any competent speaker of the language in which the work is written. The theme, on the other hand, emerges from the subject in conjunction with other features of the work, and it emerges through the reader's constructive labour. There is no theme for the reader who is unwilling or unable to engage in this constructive labour. (shrink)

The Hiero is an account in Socratic conversational form of a meeting between Simonides the poet and Hiero the tyrant of Syracuse; it was written by Xenophon of Athens in the fourth century b.c., but is set in the fifth, when the historical Simonides and Hiero lived and met. The subject they are portrayed discussing is the relative happiness of the tyrant and private individual. Plato also makes this a topic of discussion in his Republic. However, whereas Plato (...) writes a regular Socratic dialogue, Xenophon does not, for though he represents his characters using Socratic conversation, Socrates himself does not appear; the characteros of the Hiero are Simonides and Hiero, poet and tyrant. This is the problem of the Hiero. It requires explanation. The action of the Hiero is initiated by Simonides and begins in the following way: Simonides the poet once came to the court of Hiero the tyrant. When they were both at leisure, Simonides said, ‘Would you be willing to tell me, Hiero, something you are likely to know better than I?’ And Hiero said, ‘What is it that I should know better than you, who are such a wise man?’ He replied, ‘I know that you were once a private individual and are now a tyrant. Since you have experienced both conditions, you are likely to know better than I how tyrannical life differs from private life in respect of men's pleasures and griefs’ . The identification of Simonides as a wise man who nevertheless seeks wisdom from others establishes his Socratic nature from the start. (shrink)

During the fourth century, the amount of money Athenians got from the polis for volunteering to sit on a jury and for attending the assembly diverged significantly. Jury pay remained at 3 obols a day, despite inflation, while the pay given for a principal assembly eventually rose from 1 obol to 9 obols—outpacing inflation and overcompensating most citizens for their time. What demographic reconstruction of the jury can explain why the real value of jury pay never declined to the point (...) that too few Athenians volunteered? Self-reliant citizens must have dominated the jury pool, and penêtes with young adult children would have volunteered most often. Having an additional source of household labour reduced the opportunity cost of jury service for these Athenians and made their participation more resilient in the face of the declining value of pay. Citizens who faced greater opportunity costs probably participated less over time, meaning that fourth-century juries gradually became less diverse. By contrast, the growth in assembly pay can best be understood in terms of the ‘Lycurgan’ agenda of the 330s and the 320s. Greater pay helped to ensure that the assembly's newly expanded meeting place on the Pnyx was filled to capacity with citizens from all over Attica. The result was a massive spectacle that celebrated a threatened democracy and stimulated the polis economy. Since the courts lacked the same capacity for spectacle, there was no political motivation to pay jurors more. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Enviornment 6.2 (2001) 119-124 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Eugene Odum: Ecosystem Ecologist and Environmentalis Eugene Odum: Ecosystem Ecologist and Environmentalist. Betty Jean Craige. The University of Georgia Press, Athens, 2001, pp. 226. $34.95. ISBN 0-8203-2281-4 (Hardback) A serendipity initiated this review. A half hour before checking my voice mail and receiving the invitation to write this review, I stood at the University of (...) Georgia Press table at the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE) conference in Flagstaff, Arizona. Picking up Betty Jean Craige's new text, I thought to myself, "This book looks interesting! I'm going to have to read it!" Not only did that wish come true; now I have the opportunity to share my thoughts.Prima facie, it may seem odd to print a review on a biography of a scientific ecologist in an environmental ethics journal. In fact, however, nothing could be more appropriate. The science of ecology is directly relevant--even essential--to the ethics of the environment: the human/nonhuman dynamic is contingent upon the identity of human beings, the essence of natural systems, and the interactive relationship between the two. As an environmental philosopher, it was this realization which directed me to the life sciences. [End Page 119]I recommend that environmental philosophers read Craige's book for at least three reasons. First, as just mentioned, the science of ecology addresses some of the necessary conditions for developing an environmental ethic--the ontology of natural systems and the relationship of biota (including Homo sapiens) with the abiotic environment.Second, and more specifically, Odum is a scientist of special concern to environmental philosophers--not to mention moral philosophers and philosophers of science--with his reticence to take seriously the is/ought (or fact/value) gap first identified by the great David Hume. As is widely known, philosophers and scientists who maintain the existence of such a gap contend that it is logically impossible to derive value-laden statements, such as ethical statements, from value-free statements, such as factual statements. According to this line of reasoning, the only way to move from the observation that human activity is causing species extinction to the imperative PRESERVE SPECIES! is another normative assumption that anthropogenic species extinction is bad. Thus Odum is at loggerheads with Bertrand Russell when the philosopher writes: "... questions as to 'values' lie wholly outside the domain of knowledge. That is to say, when we assert that this or that has 'value,' we are giving expression to our own emotions, not to a fact[.]" Siding with Russell against Odum, many ecologists refrain from making ethical (and hence environmentalist) injunctions.What makes Odum especially fascinating is that he recovered from the hangover of Modernity which numerous scientists and philosophers still suffer from: the inability of moving from descriptive science to prescriptive ethics. As Craige remarks over and over again, Odum moves easi-ly between ecology and environmentalism (p. 64): "His inclusion of human beings in ecosystems turned ecosystem ecologists into environmentalists--that is, advocates of policies and social behaviors protective to the natural environment--erasing the line traditional to Western thought between science and politics" (p. 45. See also p. xvii, p. 41). Odum's attitude marks a major breakthrough for the project of grounding environmental ethics in ecological science.Third, Odum is a great scientist whose work is relevant to a host of other philosophical issues. In our recent book, The Philosophy of Ecology: From Science to Synthesis (University of Georgia Press, 2000), Frank Golley and I struggled not to include a piece by Odum in every section of the book. Odum's work has implications for every area in the philosophy of ecology: the ontology of the ecological entity, the reductionism/holism [End Page 120] debate, the rationalism/empiricism debate, evolutionary ecology, and the relationship of ecology to ethics. In light of my work in the philosophy of ecology and familiarity with Odum's research--not to mention meeting him personally several times--I find several of Craige's statements perplexing. When she writes... (shrink)

According to the Aristotelian Constitution of the Athenians , the Assembly in Athens met four times every prytany. At each one of these meetings certain topics had to be discussed or voted on. For instance, a vote concerning the conduct of magistrates presently in office was to be taken at the κυρα κκλησα. At another meeting anyone who wished to could request a discussion of any matter, be it private or public. Nothing is said in this passage or (...) anywhere else in the Constitution of the Athenians about the possibility of holding additional meetings of the Assembly in times of emergency, but in a few passages in the Attic orators we find the term κκλησία σύγκλητος used. The scholia to these passages and some entries in the ancient lexica indicate that this term refers to an extra meeting of the Assembly which could be convened at short notice in order to deal with emergencies. On the basis of this information, scholars have in the past concluded that the Assembly normally met four times each prytany in the Classical period, but that extra meetings, called κκλησία σύγκλητο, could also be held if the need arose. Recently, however, M. H. Hansen, whose work on many aspects of the Assembly has greatly increased our understanding of Athenian democracy, has challenged this communis opinio. Hansen argues that the evidence found in the scholia and lexica is unreliable and should be disregarded. In his view, several passages in the speeches of Aeschines and Demosthenes and some fines in IG ii 212 indicate that the Assembly met a fixed number of times each prytany, no more, no less. (shrink)

La tecnología reproductiva alcanzó un nuevo récord en 2017 con el nacimiento de un infante de sexo femenino que se desarrolló dentro del útero de una donante fallecida. No se registraron complicaciones inusuales en el procedimiento ni en lo referente a la salud de la madre. Tres años antes, ensayos clínicos suecos señalan el nacimiento de dos infantes de sexo masculino provenientes de úteros extraídos de donantes vivas, vinculados a las madres. La ciencia había logrado curar el factor de infertilidad (...) uterino absoluto (AUFI por sus siglas en inglés), en mujeres con esta condición. Es importante que, si bien algunos ajustes en el procedimiento dominarán el desarrollo futuro, especialmente en los aspectos clínicos, no debemos olvidar las consideraciones éticas. Por lo anterior, esta revisión documental se centra en cómo se ven los trasplantes de útero de donantes fallecidas dentro de los datos disponibles en tres contextos principales: la antropología del ser humano, la medicina y la sociología, con énfasis en ciertas construcciones culturales de la sociedad liberal moderna. Subyacente al diagnóstico está el hecho de que el útero es un órgano no vital en la fisiología humana, y los trasplantes de útero de donantes fallecidas (DD UTX por sus siglas en inglés) plantean nuevos desafíos en la ética. En esta revisión se presentan los sesgos observados en los datos, las limitaciones de un procedimiento de menos de diez años y las conclusiones a las que llegamos. (shrink)

George Herbert Mead argues that human society is comprised of six basic institutions—language, family, economics, religion, polity, and science. I do not believe that he can be criticized for making institutions the cornerstones of a society, but he can definitely be criticized for his explanation of how our basic institutions originate, how these institutions operate in society after their inception, and how they later change, modifying society in the process. The problem with Mead's explanation of these three critical matters is (...) that he based them on his principle of “sociality” rather than on the principle of “domination.” If Mead's principle of sociality is replaced by the principle of domination and his notion of the “generalized other” is replaced by the notion of the “phantom community,” then most of these problems can be largely solved. Thus, in this paper, I will not only point out the key problems in Mead's theory of society, but I will also offer solutions to them based on the notions of domination and the “phantom community.” The end product is a “radical interactionism” that surpasses Mead's original interactionism in identifying the part that both domination and the composite “other” play in every known human society—big and small, and past and present. (shrink)

A plea has been made for replacing the perspective of “symbolic interactionism” with a new interactionist's perspective—“radical interactionism.” Unlike in symbolic interactionism, where Mead's and Blumer's ideas play the most prominent roles, in radical interactionism's, Park's ideas play a more prominent role than either Mead's or Blumer's ideas. On the one hand, according to Mead, the general principle behind the organization of human group life was once dominance, but it is now “sociality.” On the other hand, according to Park, this (...) general principle is now and has always been dominance. Blumer takes a position much closer to Mead's than Park's arguing that the general principle underlying the organization of human group life is sociality. Under certain special conditions, however, it can become dominance. Although like radical interactionism, symbolic interactionism is rooted in pragmatism, unlike in radical interactionism, symbolic interactionism is still plagued with strains of utopian thought, among which the notion of sociality is the most virulent. Sociality may be the principle on which human group life is organized in heaven, but, down here on earth, it remains organized on the basis of domination. Thus, radical interactionism provides a much-needed antidote to the idealistic overtones still found in symbolic interactionism. (shrink)

Books reviewed:Mark BevirThe Logic of the History of Ideas.

The purpose of this research is to determine the variables influencing college students' engagement in swimming activities, as well as the significant themes that often appear in these occurrences. A descriptive research design was used to identify the factors influencing college students' perception of participating in swimming activities. Descriptive research is a type of nonexperimental study that aims to describe the features of phenomena as it occurs. It was found out that participating in swimming activities provides various benefits, some of (...) these include helping build endurance, muscle strength, and cardiovascular fitness, enhanced swimming skills, and maintaining a healthy weight. As a result, the implementation of active recreational activities in schools must be reinforced, not simply for the purpose of participation, but also because students are driven to do so. And these activities must be carried out not just on school grounds, but also at home and in the community. (shrink)

Three dialogues - The Therapon, The Alphaeus and The Platon - are written in the Platonic style. The Therapon is an imagined exchange of ideas between Socrates and his jailer during Socrates' last night on Earth: it is sub-titled On the Nature of Ideas. The Alphaeus starts with a wealthy and self-satisfied man attacking Socrates and his philosophical ways soon after he has been charged to appear before the court of Athens - but ends with dramatic changes: it is (...) sub-titled Concerning Human Happiness. The Platon explores what might have passed between Socrates and Plato during their last meeting together: it is sub-titled On Soul. (shrink)

Plato's confrontation with Dionysius I, the so-called “tyrant of Sicily,” became famous as a cautionary tale of the perils of offering unwelcome advice to a powerful prince. Within early modern England, this tale took on added currency in the context of humanists' ambitions to serve as counselors in the court of Henry VIII. The humanist scholar Thomas Elyot (1490–1546), who briefly and unsuccessfully served at Henry's court, re-created Plato's exchange with Dionysius I in his dramatic dialogue The Knowledge Whiche Maketh (...) a Wise Man (1533). In his dialogue, Elyot imagines Plato returning to Athens after his brief period of enslavement, where he meets the philosopher/rhetorician Aristippus. Aristippus challenges Plato by positing that Plato's dangerous words to Dionysius violated rhetorical tenets of propriety and timing. In the course of their extended exchange, two different versions of the rhetoric of counsel surface—one based on principles of philosophy and one based on strategic rhetoric. (shrink)

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, –that is allYe know on earth, and all ye need to know”.Hippias of Elis travels throughout the Greek world practicing and teaching the art of making beautiful speeches. On a rare visit to Athens, he meets Socrates who questions him about the nature of his art. Socrates is especially curious about how Hippias would define beauty. They agree that "beauty makes all beautiful things beautiful," but when Socrates presses him to say precisely what he (...) means, Hippias is unable to deliver such a definition. The more Socrates probes, the more absurd the responses from Hippias become. This is one of Plato's best comedies and one of his finest efforts at posing the difference between particular things and universals.Aristotle's Poetics is best known for its definition and analysis of tragedy, but it also applies to truth and beauty as they are manifested in the other arts. In our age when the natural and social sciences have dominated the quest for truth, it is helpful to consider why Aristotle claimed "poetry is more philosophical and more significant than history." In this postmodern era when the arts have been separated from ethics, it is worthwhile to consider Aristotle's way of connecting goodness and beauty. (shrink)

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, –that is allYe know on earth, and all ye need to know”.Hippias of Elis travels throughout the Greek world practicing and teaching the art of making beautiful speeches. On a rare visit to Athens, he meets Socrates who questions him about the nature of his art. Socrates is especially curious about how Hippias would define beauty. They agree that "beauty makes all beautiful things beautiful," but when Socrates presses him to say precisely what he (...) means, Hippias is unable to deliver such a definition. The more Socrates probes, the more absurd the responses from Hippias become. This is one of Plato's best comedies and one of his finest efforts at posing the difference between particular things and universals.Aristotle's Poetics is best known for its definition and analysis of tragedy, but it also applies to truth and beauty as they are manifested in the other arts. In our age when the natural and social sciences have dominated the quest for truth, it is helpful to consider why Aristotle claimed "poetry is more philosophical and more significant than history." In this postmodern era when the arts have been separated from ethics, it is worthwhile to consider Aristotle's way of connecting goodness and beauty. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Socrates Café Café Philosophique Philosophy for Everyone Sophistry The Examined Life Oblivion Conclusion (Who is Ben's Mom?).

The article examines the inaugural encounter of the Greek theory of tyranny and the Roman institution of dictatorship. Although the twentieth century is credited for fusing the tyrant and the dictator into one figure/concept, I trace the origins of this conceptual synthesis in a much earlier historical period, that of the later Roman Republic and the early Principate, and in the writings of two Greek historians of Rome, Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Appian of Alexandria. In their histories, the traditional interest (...) in the relationship between the king and the tyrant is displaced by a new curiosity about the tyrant and the dictator. The two historians placed the two figures alongside one another and found them to be almost identical, blurring any previous empirical, analytical, or normative distinctions. In their Greco-Roman synthesis dictatorship is re-described as `temporary tyranny by consent' and the tyrant as a `permanent dictator.' Dictatorship, a venerated republican magistracy, the ultimate guardian of the Roman constitution, is for the first time radically reinterpreted and explicitly questioned. It meets its first critics. (shrink)

Independent on Sunday October 2nd One of the country's lead­ing philosophical counsellers, and chairman of the Society for Philosophy in Practice (SPP), Tim LeBon, said it typically took around six 50 ­minute sessions for a client to move from confusion to resolution. Mr LeBon, who has 'published a book on the subject, Wise Therapy, said philoso­phy was perfectly suited to this type of therapy, dealing as it does with timeless human issues such as love, purpose, happiness and emo­tional challenges. `Wise (...) Therapy, is part of a series aimed at promoting an integrative attitude as its ethos. Among all the many perspectives of psychotherapists and counselors, philosophy needs to take its place and needs to find its voice. Tim LeBon has provided an effective means by which counselors can bring philosophy into their work with clients' - APPA journal `Tim Le Bon's Wise Therapy is a comprehensible and well argued book dealing with the practical therapeutic applications of philosophical research that may well be of interest to philosophers but -- as the author himself intends -- will be of most obvious benefit to therapists and counselors, both by informing their dialogue with clients in new ways and by helping them become more informed about ways to resolve the ethical dilemmas arising within the context of their own work' - Metapsychology `A fascinating workshop for therapists and clients, backed up a thorough degree if philosophical acuity' - Journal of the Society for Existential Analysis `I strongly recommend the book for philosophers as well as practitioners, teachers, students and supervisors in counselling and psychotherapy' - Self and Society `Provides some additional and valuable arrows for the therapist's quiver' - Irvin Yalom, author of Love's Executioner `Like Aristotle, Tim LeBon examines what is said and extracts what is best from it…. There are many fascinating exercises designed to bring out and enlighten the client's values, conception of the good life, well-being, happiness, pleasure, and the proper place of reason in life…. Wise Therapy is well written and engaging. The case histories are illuminating examples of therapeutic techniques at work, the thought experiments are well designed, and the philosophical position adapted from the internal debates of the philosophers is level headed…. I recommend it highly to philosophers with an interest in counselling, and psychological counsellors with an interest in philosophy' - Jeff Mason, The Philosophers' Magazine `Tim LeBon has… authored a text which should become a staple on the philosophical counsellor's bookshelf…. Wise Therapy is a concise, well-written book…. His ability to relate philosophical concepts to counselling concerns is admirable and attests to the skill and knowledge he possesses as a working counsellor. But, by far the most important part of Tim LeBon's book to PC is the last chapter, "The Counsellor's Philosophical Toolbox"' - Craig Munns in The Examined Life ` Tim LeBon has done a good job of offering practical approaches to some of the most important and vexing issues that arise in counselling…. Tim LeBon's book contains helpful suggestions, practical information, and useful examples, and would make a good addition to the library of any counsellors willing to allow philosophy to turn mere client sessions into wise therapy' - Peter Raabe, Practical Philosophy Wise Therapy is an original and practical guide to how philosophy can benefit counselling and psychotherapy. Tim LeBon argues that therapy, informed by philosophy, can help clients make better decision and achieve emotional wisdom. He uses philosophical approaches to explore issues of right and wrong, the emotions and reasons, well-being and the meaning of life, and develops a 'counsellor's toolbox' of techniques that can help practitioners apply the wisdom of philosophy to good therapeutic practice. For counsellors who may find philosophical approaches to therapy useful, this work addresses key philosophical topics - the emotions, free will, the meaning of life and ethics. It is jargon-free where possible and assumes no previous philosophical training. From The Independent, 16th November 2004 Plato is my agony aunt It was the end of a love affair that broke her heart. Could the wisdom of the great philosophers show her how to be happy again? Claire Smith tries a novel form of therapy "The unexamined life is not worth living," Socrates said. Nor is the life you're left with after your boyfriend has left you for another woman - at least, that's how it felt in October last year when mine broke rank and went off with an art student from Cleveland, Ohio. We were over there for the opening of his new art exhibition. He'd flown over four days before me and had met her at a party. Supposedly, they "connected". The five months that followed were a roller-coaster of confusion, vitriol and despair. I knew there'd been problems in our relationship. We saw the world very differently; he delighted in the charm of the ordinary, I wanted maximum divinity. He walked; I galloped. He drank tea; I loathed the stuff. But, along the banks of the Thames, we'd made a promise to always stick together. Our love was something unique: "transcendental", I called it. And besides, we recycled. Surely a commitment to save the world would save our relationship? Alas, no. So there I was, a woman scorned. Hell truly hath no greater fury. And what made it worse was that I still believed in our transcendental love. If I wanted to change the way I was feeling, I needed to alter the way I was thinking. But how? A few bottles of wine and a sharp blow to the head might have done the trick. Fortunately, there's an older, more trusted way of turning your head on its head that counsellors are starting to use: philosophy. The idea of employing Plato as an agony aunt was begun in 1981 by the German philosopher Gerd Achenbach. Although philosophy spends a lot of its time asking real-life questions that affect real-life people - What is happiness? And is it always wrong to lie? - most of the debate goes on in ivory towers. What Achenbach and subsequent philosophers including Tim LeBon, the chairman of the UK's Society for Philosophy in Practice, wanted to do was "give practical application" to this gigantic library of great thoughts. So how does it work? Like most types of therapy, you sign up for a set of sessions. "Two would give you a new perspective on one issue; six would help you to make a major life-decision, like a career change; with 12 you can start to rethink your entire life philosophy," explains LeBon. Each session lasts 50 minutes and costs £50 - and, no, you don't have to have any previous knowledge of philosophy. "If you think of Friends, it would suit Ross and Chandler more than Joey," LeBon says. "It's for anyone who wants to make their emotions more intelligent. Or for those who have tried other kinds of therapy, and want something more cerebral." The first session begins with the patient venting off about whatever's troubling them. The rant over, the counsellor then picks out some key concepts that are crucial to the problem - in the case of heartbreak, it is love and happiness that come hurtling to the fore - and then gets the patient to define what they mean. So, what is love? What is happiness? To kick-start the patient's thinking, LeBon describes what a great philosopher had to say about it. In my case, he tells me what Plato wrote about love in his Symposium: that to stop man fighting the gods, Zeus decided to cut each human in two, so they would lose their strength. "This, then, is the source of our desire to love each other," Plato said. "Each of us is a 'matching half' of a human whole, because each was sliced like a flatfish, two out of one, and each of us is always seeking the half that matches him." This method of probing what we might think are "obvious" ideas, such as love and happiness, was devised by Socrates in the squares of Athens. "The only I thing I know is that I know nothing at all," he boasted. What Socrates showed was that although many of the thinkers of his time thought they knew what justice, happiness and goodness meant, their understanding was tied in to their personal agenda and world view, and, what's more, when pushed, their ideas often contradicted themselves. A bit like me on love. Whereas part of my understanding of love was something that gave life meaning, made it worth living and bound us together, I also believed that true love was "transcendental": that it was out of this world, and it didn't matter if the two people who loved each other couldn't get along in the day-to-day. Love was bigger than the mundane. But when it came to the next stage of the therapy, critical thinking - "to check out whether your assumptions stand up to examination" - I walked head first into a contradiction. If I think love's purpose is to make life worth living, but then say it's irrelevant to daily life, surely my two ideas of love are not compatible? As the cogs in my brain start to creak into motion, I feel myself taking a step back from my predicament: thinking about how I've been thinking. This idea I had of transcendental love might have started off as a romantic dream. But when the relationship stopped working, and I found myself feeling trapped and frustrated, I used it to justify the mechanics of a relationship that just didn't work in the daily grind. I used it to lie to myself. In the final stage, LeBon gets me to start thinking about how to go forward. "You can't change what has happened," he says. "You can't change that he's left you, or how you behaved in the relationship. So, as the Stoics did, let's work on controlling the controllables: the things that you can change." To work out what can be changed, he gets me to try out a thought experiment, a method often used in philosophy to imagine other worlds where people can have different codes of behaviour. Thought experiments shatter your preconceived ideas of how the world should be and let your imagination run wild to how the world could be. "I find Viktor Frankl very useful here, the Austrian psychiatrist and concentration-camp survivor who actually believed that everything in life happens for a purpose," LeBon says. "Suppose this break-up did happen for a reason that will work to your benefit," he suggests. "What might that be? The answer might be that you can now focus on something important that was denied in the relationship. Or - the Hollywood version - so you'll meet someone who is really right for you." Temporarily freed of any sense of responsibility for the relationship that was, and its sorry demise, the list came fast. I could now travel more; he didn't like me travelling on my own, but too often he didn't want to go anywhere, preferring to stay in his studio and make art. I'd love to meet someone with a similar sense of adventure to mine. For the first time in two years, I was being honest with myself about what I really wanted - listening to those voices that we all have inside our heads, and too often try to muzzle. So did philosophy save me? Well, I'm now dating a travel writer I have to run to keep up with. I still haven't got over the fact that my replacement came from Cleveland, Ohio. But I guess I never will. Tim LeBon can be reached by e-mail at [email protected] A FEW WORDS FROM THE WISE Compiled by Ed Caesar · "At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet" - Plato · "There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness" - Friedrich Nietzsche · "That man shall live as his own master and in happiness who can say each day 'I have lived'" - Horace · "The good of man is the active exercise of his soul's faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue... Moreover this activity must occupy a complete lifetime; for one swallow does not make spring, nor does one fine day; and similarly one day or a brief period of happiness does not make a man supremely blessed and happy" - Aristotle · "There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than friendship" - Thomas Aquinas · "Whatever you do... love those who love you" - Voltaire · "Happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination" - Immanuel Kant · "Happiness is a state of which you are unconscious. The moment you are aware that you are happy, you cease to be happy" - Jiddu Krishnamurti · "Love is an ideal thing. Marriage is a real thing" - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe I shrink, therefore I am Therapy has many answers, but some questions require the help of a philosopher, says Clint Witchalls Sunday November 21, 2004 The Observer Danny had worked in the City of London for 10 years. As a research analyst, stockbroker and fund manager, he'd made a lot of valuable contacts, earnt a lot of cash, and learnt some important business skills. However, as he approached his mid-thirties, he no longer felt good about himself or what he did for a living, and he found his colleagues cold and unfriendly. A chronic illness made him realise his mortality, and he began to reassess his priorities. Danny had been struggling with his career conundrum for nearly five years when he met David Arnaud, a philosophical counsellor. After a few soul-searching sessions, Danny arrived at a decision. Today, he teaches economics to sixth-formers, and he loves it. 'It's a much better lifestyle,' he says. Many people are turning to philosophical counsellors to get answers to questions such as: 'How do I make sense of myself?' 'What is important to me?' 'Where am I going?' These are perhaps not the sort of questions that require psychiatric intervention, but Arnaud, who recently completed the first empirical study of philosophical counselling in the UK, has found that within just five sessions the majority of clients, with important decisions to make, tend to move from a state of concern and confusion to a resolution. Modern philosophical counselling can be traced back to 1981, when the philosopher Gerd Achenbach opened the first practice near Cologne. Achenbach referred to the new discipline as 'therapy for the sane.' Today, there are hundreds of philosophical counsellors around the world, with the movement particularly strong in the US, Britain and the Netherlands. 'The dilemmas people face aren't always primarily psychological,' says Alex Howard, a philosophical counsellor from Newcastle. 'If people face problems that are social or economic, it doesn't make sense to define their problems in purely psychological terms.' Tim LeBon, a founder member of the Society for Philosophy in Practice (SPP) and author of Wise Therapy, adds: 'We are faced with far more life choices than our grandparents, yet have far fewer resources to deal with them. Our grandparents may have gone to a priest or to other family members for advice; most people don't trust these solutions any more and so want to make their own well-informed, well thought-out choices. Philosophical counselling can help these people - people in mid-life crises who are wondering how to make the most of the rest of their life. People who want to take stock of their values.' Where stressed executives might once have been prescribed a course of tranquillisers or antidepressants, they can now get a dose of Bertrand Russell instead: 'Success is too dearly purchased if all the other ingredients have been sacrificed to obtain it.' While some philosophical counsellors do recommend books for their clients to read, most sessions are about helping the client identify faulty thoughts. For example, a briefing in Aristotelian logic might show a client why their beliefs are erroneous. The person might infer that they're a screw-up because they've screwed up. The counsellor could point out that they're making an error called 'fallacy of composition' - that is, what's true of the part isn't necessarily true of the whole. In philosophical counselling, problems aren't pathologised as they are by the psychiatric profession, and the dialogue between client and counsellor is more like a meeting of equals, compared to many therapies where the client is treated like a patient and seen as someone who is, in some way, inadequate. 'Anybody can benefit from philosophical counselling,' says Howard. 'But it does require someone who is willing to take stock.' Lou Marinoff, author of international bestseller Plato Not Prozac! has done much to promote philosophical counselling. 'Some people who have stabilised their neurochemistry and validated their emotions now wish to examine or re-examine the criteria of their beliefs, the principles of their conduct, or the meaning of their lives,' he says. 'With whom shall they do this? Psychologists and psychiatrists can shed light on such issues - as can rabbis, priests, imams and gurus. Philosophers are now rejoining the ranks of helpers.' LeBon believes certain therapies (such as cognitive behavioural therapy) don't go far enough in helping their clients. 'For instance, if you are anxious about your relationship, a cognitive therapist would try to dispute your catastrophising and jump to conclusions to make you feel less anxious,' says LeBon. 'A philosophical counsellor would do this, but would also look for existential meaning in your anxiety - perhaps you really don't want to be in the relationship and that is what your anxiety is telling you.' LeBon also gives short shrift to psychoanalysts. 'There's very little evidence for the Freudian unconscious, and it's time to move on to more intellectually satisfying and helpful therapies,' he says. However, Alain de Botton, the man who popularised philosophy as self-help, isn't ready to bury psychologists and their ilk just yet. 'The truth is that psychoanalysis grew out of philosophy - it's not some completely new idea, and in fact, done properly, psychoanalysis is philosophical anyway. It may even be dangerous to the mental health of some people to suggest a philosopher rather than a properly trained analyst. The knowledge of analysts when it comes to many emotional problems is now much greater than that of most philosophers.' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004. (shrink)

In September 2017 Alexander Nehamas kindly accepted our invitation to have a meeting in Athens in order to discuss several issues of philosophical interest; with his latest publication On Friendship as a starting point we soon moved over to a multitude of topics Nehamas has so far dealt with. The whole conversation spirals around the probably most challenging and demanding issue as far as practical philosophy is concerned – yet one every moral agent needs to provide an adequate (...) answer to during his lifetime: Values. Do they exclusively belong to the domain of morality? Nehamas claims that “although moral values […] are important […], they are not the only values that determine whether a life is or is not worthwhile”. This view inevitably shifts the focus from individual values - even fundamental ones such as friendship, art and truth- to the real issue: What is a good life, after all? (shrink)

The Menexenus is also known as Plato's Epitaphios or Funeral Oration. The body of the work is a fictional funeral oration, composed as an example of what should be said at a public funeral for Athenians who have fallen in war. The oration is framed by an encounter between Socrates and a certain Menexenus, an eager young man who thinks he has reached the end of education and philosophy, but who is still rather young to take an active party in (...) the city's affairs. Nevertheless, he is anxious to follow in the tradition of his family, which has always provided someone to look after the Athenians . Menexenus' interest in public affairs has led him to attend a meeting of the Council at which a speaker was to be chosen to compose and deliver the funeral oration at the imminent public funeral. However, no final decision was reached at the meeting, and Menexenus remarks that by the time the choice is made, the speaker will have almost to improvise his speech. Socrates gently mocks Menexenus' respect for public orators, saying that speeches about a dead person follow a predictable pattern; a speaker exaggerates all a dead person's good points and minimizes all the bad, so that one who has died appears a paragon of virtue even if he was not really good for much. Socrates claims that listening to such public orations, when not only individuals but also the state is eulogized, always makes him feel that in living in Athens he is living in the Islands of the Blessed. (shrink)

Schiller's political thought has been subject to conflicting interpretations. Taking Schiller's historical essay The Legislation of Lycurgus and Solon as a point of departure, this article locates him more precisely within the context of eighteenth-century debates on republicanism and moral philosophy. One of Schiller's central criteria in the evaluation of different republics is the question of how they comply with man's sensual and passionate nature. By attacking Sparta's constitution as despotic and unfit to meet human self-realization, he dissociated himself from (...) Rousseau and repudiated classical republican models. Instead, Schiller sided with modest proponents of luxury and progress by defending Athens' abundant and polite lifestyle. In response to the French revolution, Schiller developed his own aesthetic model of cultivating senses and passions to achieve a free society. Despite significant liberal elements, he thereby remained true to the republican principle that freedom and self- realization can only be achieved in the political community. (shrink)

This paperback edition of Dodds's standard edition of Plato's Gorgias is designed to meet the needs both of undergraduates and professional scholars. The text and apparatus criticus are based on a fresh survey of the evidence: two major manuscripts are here for the first time fully collated, and account has been taken both of new papyri and of the exceptionally rich indirect tradition. The text is supplemented by a full introduction giving details on the subject and structure of the dialogue, (...) its characters and intended historical setting, the real date of composition, and the background to Plato and Athens at the time of composition. The commentary, besides explaining Platonic usages and discussing textual points, aims to treat the historical, philosphical, and literary questions which arise from the text. (shrink)

Under Alexander the Great the Greeks conquered Asia. This extraordinary undertaking was made possible, beside the military achievement, by the Greek thought and philosophy. The belief in the superiority of the Greek over the barbarian and freedom of the first and slavery of the second rendered the conquest and domination of Asia into a noble "mission of civilization". What is more, Western historians of philosophy and culture have used this Greek self-understanding to legitimate the view of Western cultural superiority based (...) on universalism.But the expedition and conquest was also an amazing opportunity of meeting and knowing directly "the Other". What Alexander discovered was that the world was much larger than it was thought in Athens and the barbarians were not so unreasonable as Aristotle believed. All these things, that raged the king's contemporaries, are very well kept by his legend. The deep sense of his adventures is revealed by the legend. Alexander, passionate for adventure, discovery, curious to know "the Other" is the hero that fights the absolute "other": the foreigner, the barbarian, the monster. But with all his actions he demonstrates that "the Other" can be recognized, understood and even loved.And maybe his extraordinary discovery should guide us as a model in the turbulent times we live in which cultural differences become more and more important. (shrink)

Under Alexander the Great the Greeks conquered Asia. This extraordinary undertaking was made possible, beside the military achievement, by the Greek thought and philosophy. The belief in the superiority of the Greek over the barbarian and freedom of the first and slavery of the second rendered the conquest and domination of Asia into a noble "mission of civilization". What is more, Western historians of philosophy and culture have used this Greek self-understanding to legitimate the view of Western cultural superiority based (...) on universalism.But the expedition and conquest was also an amazing opportunity of meeting and knowing directly "the Other". What Alexander discovered was that the world was much larger than it was thought in Athens and the barbarians were not so unreasonable as Aristotle believed. All these things, that raged the king's contemporaries, are very well kept by his legend. The deep sense of his adventures is revealed by the legend. Alexander, passionate for adventure, discovery, curious to know "the Other" is the hero that fights the absolute "other": the foreigner, the barbarian, the monster. But with all his actions he demonstrates that "the Other" can be recognized, understood and even loved.And maybe his extraordinary discovery should guide us as a model in the turbulent times we live in which cultural differences become more and more important. (shrink)

This paperback edition of Dodds's standard edition of Plato's Gorgias is designed to meet the needs both of undergraduates and professional scholars. The text and apparatus criticus are based on a fresh survey of the evidence: two major manuscripts are here for the first time fully collated, and account has been taken both of new papyri and of the exceptionally rich indirect tradition. The text is supplemented by a full introduction giving details on the subject and structure of the dialogue, (...) its characters and intended historical setting, the real date of composition, and the background to Plato and Athens at the time of composition. The commentary, besides explaining Platonic usages and discussing textual points, aims to treat the historical, philosphical, and literary questions which arise from the text. (shrink)

I comment on some of the points made in John Caiazza's thesis on techno‐secularism and offer some of my own further reflections on the subject. Tertullian's rhetorical question about Athens and Jerusalem has universal relevance, not just for Western culture, and, notwithstanding the many positive contributions of science and technology to human culture and civilization, they may not take the place of religion of one kind or another in the foreseeable future. What is needed is to transform religions in (...) ways that meet the challenges of a world drastically transformed by science and technology. (shrink)

In the midst of his account of the events, Thucydides says that it was difficult to switch Athens from democracy to the oligarchic rule of the Four Hundred (8.68.4). Most modem scholars have agreed, viewing the rise of the Four Hundred primarily as a coup effected by violence, terror and deceit. This interpretation does not conform to Thucydides' narrative (8.47-70), however, which shows that it was not very hard to end the Athenian democracy. Although terror, violence and propaganda have (...) their place in Thucydides' account, modem treatments overemphasize them and so ignore or gloss over Thucydides' charge that the Athenian people did not resist oligarchy very strenuously and so bear a large share of responsibility for it. In Thucydides' narrative Peisander et al. are open about plans for oligarchy (if not for the extremely limited oligarchy that they eventually put in place at Kolonos) both on Samos and in Athens, and meet little resistance from democratic supporters. In addition, Thucydides' rhetoric repeatedly mutes what resistance there is, as if to underscore its weakness. Thucydides' Athenians for the most part quickly and easily abandon their democracy. There was a 'terror' campaign, but its scope, effect and need has been exaggerated. In particular, there is no reason to think that the location of the Kolonos meeting - where the Athenians voted the limited oligarchy of the Four Hundred into power-terrified them into doing so. Thucydides' comment on the difficulty of the task of the Four Hundred is ironic. There is a jarring contrast between Thucydides' judgement and his narrative which, when recognized, compels readers to re-examine their own assumptions and expectations. The attention modem commentators have given to Thucydides' words about intimidation and propaganda have left them deaf to the other interesting story Thucydides has to tell about the role the Athenian demos played in the move to oligarchy. (shrink)

Greek New Comedy, as we know it from references and fragmentary MSS., is the meeting-place of three confluent streams—comedy of manners, Aristophanic comedy, and tragedy. From Sicilian comedy, through Epicharmus at Syracuse and Crates and Pherecrates at Athens, it inherited certain stock stage figures, and a tradition of ‘invented’ plots and sententious speech. Old Comedy it resembled in its fun and informality and many stage conventions; and, indeed, the resemblance was so marked, in at least one of the (...) later plays of Aristophanes, that the writer of his life, mistaking effect for cause, claimed the lost Cocalus as the original model of New Comedy. Perhaps most important of all was the influence of tragedy; and this influence may be estimated by a direct comparison between Euripides and Menander, both in the spirit and form of their plays and in the social and philosophic theories underlying them. (shrink)

It is generally agreed that the Protagoras recounts a single meeting which took place in the late 430s. If this is correct, then, as has long been recognized, the dialogue contains a number of disturbing anachronisms. It is the purpose of this study to question the supposition of a single dramatic date. I argue that Plato did not record the events of a single meeting in the dialogue, but that he drew upon the action and dialogue of more (...) than one meeting in the course of Protagoras' visits to Athens. If it can be shown that this is the way in which Plato composed the dialogue, then he is not guilty of the glaring anachronisms in the Protagoras with which he is charged. At the end of this study I suggest a reason for Plato's choice of this method of composition. First, however, the evidence for Protagoras' visits to Athens should be considered. (shrink)

This paperback edition of Dodds's standard edition of Plato's Gorgias is designed to meet the needs both of undergraduates and professional scholars. The text and apparatus criticus are based on a fresh survey of the evidence: two major manuscripts are here for the first time fully collated, and account has been taken both of new papyri and of the exceptionally rich indirect tradition. The text is supplemented by a full introduction giving details on the subject and structure of the dialogue, (...) its characters and intended historical setting, the real date of composition, and the background to Plato and Athens at the time of composition. The commentary, besides explaining Platonic usages and discussing textual points, aims to treat the historical, philosphical, and literary questions which arise from the text. (shrink)

Not only in Polish philosophical literature non-Christian Neoplatonism of Late Antiquity still lie in the unexplored gap between two domain of the history of philosophy, that of ancient one and that of medieval. The paper has had two aims: to briefly present Proclus' activity at Athens as a commentator on Plato, especially as a commentator on the "Timaeus" and on the "Parmenides", and to set forth the statement, which is hoped that it has been sufficiently proved through philological and (...) philosophical analyses of selected quotation from Proclus, Marinus and Plotinus, that for Proclus, such as for the rest of Neoplatonists of that period, above mentioned activity (i.e. explaining Plato by writing huge commentaries) was essentially a way of expressing new ideas and their own original thought. The author suggest that some of the Proclus' commentaries on Plato might have simply into being as a kind of notes or records of the meetings at the 'Academy', where Proclus with his students was reading and explicating some dialogues selected out of all the Platonic writing. The obvious evidence of that is the structure of Proclean commentaries and especially such a fact that he is quoting and analyzing Platonic texts line by line. The paper also contains the Polish translation of the part of the book III of Proclus' "Commentary on Plato's Parmenides" as a kind of textual illustration of its theses. (shrink)

The difficulty in the apostrophe of the has been noticed by commentators. So Barrett : ‘/ this cannot mean that the Amazon from Hipp, now that he is exiled: in all the forms of her legend … she meets a violent death at a time which cannot be long after Hipp.'s birth, and it is inconceivable that Eur. should mean his audience to think of her as still alive in Trozen or Athens.’ What seems to have passed unnoticed is (...) that there are, in this choral ode , two other passages which also suffer from at least prima facie incongruities with details of the story well known to the audience. (shrink)

The contrast between the philosopher and the sophist is subtle and significant. The significant difference is identified by Socrates when he claims, in the Apology 21d, to be the wisest man in Athens: “Neither of us has any knowledge to boast of, but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance.” Nearly two and one half millennia later, business ethics has transported street corner conversation into the meeting (...) room and board room, where ethical leadership is cultivated or stifled. Are these conversations about ethics philosophy, or are they sophism? In this paper, I will evaluate the philosophical soundness of business ethics as it is practiced in business situations. My objective will be to outline the unfulfilled value of philosophical wisdom to ensuring the value of business ethics, and business, to society at large. (shrink)

It is easier to criticize others and their foreign way of life, than to turn the mirror of critical reflection upon one’s own customs and laws. I argue that Plato follows this basic premise in the _Timaeus_ when he constructs a story about Atlantis, which Solon, the Athenian, learns during his travels to Egypt. The reason why Plato appeals to the distinction that his Greek audience makes between themselves and the ξένοι is pedagogical. On the example of the conflict between (...) Atlantis—a mythical and, therefore, a foreign polis— and ancient Athens, Plato seeks to remind the Greeks what even a mighty polis stands to lose if it pursues expansionist war. On the example of the failure that befalls the mythical Atlantis, and on the basis of the religious similarity between ancient Athens and ancient Sais (21e), Plato bridges the distance between the Greeks and the Egyptians, who would have been seen as actual (as opposed to mythical) ξένοι. The next step that Plato encourages his contemporaries to take is this: look at the history of Egypt (8 – 7BC) and the internal conflicts that led to the demise of the last bastion of Egyptian power—Sais—and recognize in the internal political intrigues of the “Athens-loving” (21e) ξένοι the pattern of the destructive actions of the Greeks. Plato moves from the less to the more familiar—from the story about a mythic past and Atlantis, to ancient Athenians, to ancient Egyptians, to the Egyptians and Athenians of Solon’s time. The meeting between the ξένοι—the Egyptians at Sais—and the quintessentially Athenian Greek, Solon (7BC – 6BC), undeniably problematizes the customs, national identity, and political dealings of Plato’s contemporaries, the Greeks in the 5BC – 4BC. By the time that Plato writes the _Timaeus_, circa 360BC, in the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War, Athens is all but undone. However, the fate of Greece is not yet sealed. Why turn to Egypt? Toby Wilkinson’s (2013) description of the Egyptian kingdom offers a clue: “The monarchy had sunk to an all-time low. Devoid of respect and stripped of mystique, it was but a pale imitation of past pharaonic glories” (_The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt _431). The Greeks face that same prospect, but how to make them see? Direct criticism (the Philippic addresses of Demosthenes, for example) fails. Plato devises a decoy—make Greeks reflect on the repercussions of their poor political decisions by seeing them reflected in the actions and the history of the Egyptians—the Greek-loving and, by Plato’s time, defeated ξένοι. (shrink)