This paper aims to investigate certain aspects of Weyl’s account of implicit definitions. The paper takes under consideration Weyl’s approach to a certain kind of implicit definitions i.e. abstraction principles introduced by Frege.ion principles are bi-conditionals that transform certain equivalence relations into identity statements, defining thereby mathematical terms in an implicit way. The paper compares the analytic reading of implicit definitions offered by the Neo-Fregean program with Weyl’s account which has phenomenological leanings. The paper suggests that Weyl’s account should be (...) construed as putting emphasis on intentionality of human mind towards certain invariant features of the elements of initial domains of discourse that are involved in equivalence relations. Definition of terms like direction, shape, number etc. is achieved by a kind of transformation of those invariants into ideal objects that is involved in intuition. Then the paper argues that at the period of 1926 Weyl’s writings on implicit definitions, he is inclined to endorse symbolic construction as a way to explicate the objectivity of certain processes as those that are carried out in case of implicit definitions. (shrink)

This paper addresses the issue of stipulation in three cases of implicit definitions. It argues that the alleged implicit definitions do not have a purely stipulative status. Stipulation of the vehicles of the implicit definitions in question should end up with true postulates. However, those postulates should not be taken to be true only in virtue of stipulation since they have extra commitments. Horwich’s worry emerges in all three kinds of implicit definitions under consideration, since the existence of meanings so (...) that the alleged postulates are true depends on extra requirements that should be fulfilled. Moreover, if Ramseyfication method is applied to the three kinds of implicit definition, they are split up into two components from which the first one is broadly factual while the second one is purely stipulative. The paper argues that their definitional task in each case should be assigned to their second component i.e. their Carnap-conditional. (shrink)

In this paper I address G. C. Rota’s account of mathematical identity and I attempt to relate it with aspects of Frege as well as Husserl’s views on the issue. After a brief presentation of Rota’s distinction among mathematical facts and mathematical proofs, I highlight the phenomenological background of Rota’s claim that mathematical objects retain their identity through different kinds of axiomatization. In particular, I deal with Rota’s interpretation of the ontological status of mathematical objects in terms of ideality. Then (...) I detect certain similarities among Rota’s views and Frege’s account of the constitution of arithmetical identity on the grounds of 1–1 correspondence. I point out an epistemic as well as an ontological aspect of this issue. In the sequel, I attempt to deal with the problem of “mixed identities” in mathematics stated by Benacerraf by taking in account Rota’s use of the phenomenological notion “Fundierung”. (shrink)

Classical Athens assimilated and disenfranchised a large, free immigrant population of “metics” on the basis of blood, generation after generation. Yet immigration politics remain a curiously displaced context for interpreting ancient Greek political thought and its instructive criticisms of democratic citizenship. Accordingly, Euripides’s Ion—the only classical text devoted to exploring the founding myth Athens used to naturalize metics’ exclusion from citizenship–is underexamined by political theorists. Attending to the play’s metic figurations and historical-poetic contexts, this essay argues that the Ion is (...) a hitherto unappreciated immigration fable about the paradoxes of blood-based citizenship. Drawing ultimately on the work of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, it shows that the tragedy is a still-relevant political critique of the practices of concealment and disclosure—so dominant in today’s U.S. immigration rights debate—that make political status look prior to and generative of citizenship practice. (shrink)

In this paper we offer a critical account of Aristotelian theory of time. After a brief presentation of the main views of Aristotle on the infinite, we focus the attention to the status of points with respect to the potentiality-actuality distinction. Then we address Aristotle’s views on time on the basis of the Aristotelian notion of continuity. We construe the “nows” as potentialities awaiting to be actualized. We show that it is the intervention of an agent, who, through finitely many (...) unitary mental acts of noticing or perceiving, guarantees the actualization of particular “nows”, constructs or brings into existence time intervals and through their comparison measures them, so producing what Aristotle calls time. (shrink)

In his article “Constructive Empiricism Now” van Fraassen chooses an extremely interesting example to defend his thesis that scientific theories are only representations, so that the aim of science is to give us reliable, empirically adequate, descriptions of the observable aspects of the world. For him, there is no continuum of observable/unobservable, as he draws a line of distinction at a point that eliminates from his ontology such cases as fields of forces and sub-atomic particles. As a result, he puts (...) forward the position that electronic images in the microscope and subatomic particles are “public hallucinations” and not “real things”. What I thus propose to do is to examine van Fraassen’s anti-realism through the looking class of realism, my aim being to defend a realist view of science: To this purpose, I will focus on two main issues: (a) the question of representations in science and in particular of images we “see” through a microscope and (b) the question of the criteria for defining physical reality. In this context, I will argue that van Fraassen’s definition of the “real” is an anti-realist version of the positivist trend, which cannot fit in the picture of science that emerges today. To understand, thus, the world of physics we need to re-examine our definition of reality and make space for an ontology that goes beyond the well-defined spatio-temporal existence of what van Fraassen calls a “real thing”. (shrink)

Depuis les années 1980, une production historiographique croissante examine les rapports de genre comme une composante essentielle de la formation de la Grèce moderne et contemporaine en utilisant le genre comme catégorie analytique de base, avec la classe et la nation ; elle a mis en évidence, entre autres, le contenu genré du nationalisme, sous différents aspects. Or, l’historiographie du nationalisme grec tend encore aujourd’hui à ignorer les questions du genre et les connaissances accumul...

his paper is a reply to Demetra Sfendoni‐Mentzou; it defends a realist—indeed a platonist—account of laws of nature.

It gives me great pleasure and honor to introduce myself as the incoming Editor-in-Chief of Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought. For the last decade I have served as an Associate Editor and the Book Review Editor of the journal. I am very excited about charting new paths for the journal, while continuing to publish first-rate scholarship in our area strengths. Although ‘polis’ is a Greek word that identifies a specific Greek historical political institution, in many (...) important ways the culture of Greek political thought interacted with the political culture of Regal, Republican, and Imperial Rome through Greek settlements in the Western Mediterranean, Roman military conquest, and cultural Hellenization. In the last year the editorial staff of Polis decided to expand the domain of our journal to include scholarship on Roman political thought and Greek-language political thought from the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial periods. Although Polis has been publishing reviews of books devoted to these new domains for several issues, it is quite gratifying to publish an entire special issue, edited by Grant Nelsestuen and Associate Editor Daniel Kapust, devoted to Roman political thought. Additional articles on Roman political thought are in the journal’s publication queue and we look forward to becoming an important venue for the publication of original scholarship and book reviews on Roman political thought and its subsequent reception, along with our original remit for Greek political thought and its reception. The editorial staff of Polis has undergone a number of changes in conjunction with my new role. First and foremost, my mentor and predecessor Kyriakos Demetriou has retired from the position of Editor-in-Chief and become a member of our Editorial Board. I have had the privilege of working with Kyriakos for over 15 years, during which time he transformed the newsletter of the Society for Ancient Greek Political Thought into a pre-eminent peer-reviewed academic journal. I may only hope 15 years from now, that Polis has continued to grow as a source for landmark scholarship on Greek and Roman political thought. During the editorial transition, Associate Editors Rosanna Lauriola and Essam Safty have left our editorial staff. We are grateful for their service to the journal and wish them well in their scholarly endeavors. Finally, I am pleased to announce several additions to our editorial staff. Dimitri El Murr, Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Université Paris Sciences et Lettres), has joined the journal as an Associate Editor responsible for the refereeing and editing of Francophone submissions to Polis. Demetra Kasimis, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, has joined as an Associate Editor responsible for the refereeing of submissions on the political aspects of Greek literature (such as epic, tragedy, and comedy). Matthew Simonton, Associate Professor of History at Arizona State University, has joined the journal as an Associate Editor and Book Review Editor. Finally, Dr. Alexandra Wilding has joined our editorial staff as the journal’s copy-editor. Learn from and enjoy the scholarship of our current issue. Submit to Polis your scholarship on ancient Greek and Roman political thought. Be a part of the future of Polis. Thornton Lockwood Editor-in-Chief. (shrink)

In 1997 an international conference on Aristotle and modern science took place in Thessaloniki. Aristotle’s view of nature—his criticism of the atomists, on the one hand, and modern science, on the other—seem to be widely opposed, but in recent years science has changed so much that scientists resort to certain basic notions of Aristotle’s natural philosophy to underpin their theories and make material nature more intelligible. In a first paper Hilary Putnam argues against Victor Gaston that Aristotle’s theory of cognition (...) is a “ direct realism” and not as many say a theory based on representation. Perception and thinking are in direct contact with things and their properties. In a charming comparison Bas C. van Fraassen argues that both tragedy and science are subspecies of representation. As in poetry, in science the inexplicable is kept off stage. John P. Anton is confident that the revival of Aristotle’s model of science can provide a solution to the question of the unity of the various sciences. He levels a stinging attack at Putnam’s interpretation of Aristotle’s theory of cognition. Lambros Couloubaritsis voices amazement that in Physics IV Aristotle says nothing about the creative capacity of time, but believes that the notion of “appropriate time” will bring this out. James R. Brown argues that the main stream of science stemming from the seventeenth century is a fusion of the Platonic and mechanic traditions, but that in recent years Aristotle has made an impressive comeback. He examines to what extent the notion of potentiality may be in agreement with and help explain certain physical facts perceived by common sense observation, although it does no justice to quantum “ bizarreness”. He sees better help in the Platonic account of formal causality. Speaking about levels of reality Basarab Nicolescu believes that the universe is self-creating, showing an open structure. A flow of information traverses the various levels of reality. The notion of potency, we are told by Ephtichios Bitsakis, exercises quite some attraction on scientists. Indeed, Aristotle is a precursor of scientific realism, but his theories are marred by many inconsistencies: the Prime Mover, final causality, and entelechy contradict his dynamic view of nature and should be abandoned. In the transformation of massive particles into nonmassive ones the actual mass becomes potential. Thomas M. Olshewsky points out that Aristotle has a differentiated notion of prime matter and rejects absolute prime matter. Jagdish Hattiangadi suggests giving up the idea of substance. Demetra Sfendoni-Mentzou also tackles “the always actual question” of what matter is for Aristotle. Nowadays the idea of stable particles has disappeared and we have to deal with what is potentially real. (shrink)

The two versions of the myth of Ceres and Proserpina produced by Ovid at Fasti 4.417‒618 and Metamorphoses 5.341–661 have played an exceptionally important role for the knowledge and transmission of this episode in Western culture, from an anthropological and religious point of view but above all from an artistic and literary one. Nonetheless, the complexity of the two texts still confronts modern readers with questions and points to investigate. The present article, devoted specifically to the episode of the divine (...) hospitality of Celeus at Fast. 4.503–62, examines Ovid’s use of the narrative pattern of θεοξενία with particular reference to its models, lexicon, literary paradigms, intertextuality and the author’s self-referentiality. The starting-point and premise of the study is a re-examination of Ovid’s sources, which is followed by an analysis of the modes of rewriting the myth; finally, some singular details will be highlighted that are present in the text of the Fasti, which could be assigned an intent that is defamiliarising and ironic, if not downright parodistic. (shrink)