Wherein may be discerned the true essence of moral depravity, or that which really does, like a cesspool, corrupt whatever comes under its influence, as containing within itself all evil and ugliness.

Wherein may be discerned the true essence of moral depravity, or that which really does, like a cesspool, corrupt whatever comes under its influence, as containing within itself all evil and ugliness.

The master argument posits a metaphysical thesis: Diodorus does away with Aristotle’s dunamis understood as a power simultaneously oriented toward being and non-being and proclaims that possibilities that fail to actualize are simply nothing. My contention is that this claim is not a mere application of Diodorus’ contribution to modal logic. Rather, Diodorus creates an ontologico-temporal concept of possibility and impossibility. Diodorus envisions the future as the past that the future will become. Since what will have (...) been can never be the accomplishment of a possibility that did not obtain, and since the future is destined to become past, any futural possibility that doesn’t actualize is neither futural nor even possible. (shrink)

Abstractabstract:Diodorus Cronus reportedly denied that there are truths about present kinēsis (change or movement) but affirmed that there are truths about past kinēsis. Although scholars have argued that Diodorus's atomism about bodies, place, and time supports his rejection of present spatial movement of simple bodies, I argue that Diodorus rejected a broader range of present changes, including qualitative and existential change. I also argue that Diodorus rejected these three sorts of change not only for simples but (...) also for complexes. Furthermore, philosophers since antiquity have claimed that denying truths about present change is incompatible with accepting truths about past change, since each past truth about change corresponds to some present truth about change. I argue that this objection can be overcome. I conclude that Diodorus's arguments against present change are both broader and more successful than is usually maintained. (shrink)

Diodorus cronus was a megaric logician who was reputed to have derived from uncontroversial premises the surprising conclusion that the possible is that which either is or will be the case. Versions of his lost argument have been reconstructed recently by prior, Hintikka, And rescher. I analyze and compare these versions and argue that none of them forms a sound argument.

The article discusses the biographical and doxographical evidence for Diodorus Cronus, a prominent and influential figure at the start of Hellenistic philosophy. Special emphasis is given to Diodorus’ logic, as well to his controversy with Philo the Dialectician over the truth-criteria for the conditional as to his Master argument, concerning modal notions.

The definition here ascribed to Philo is entirely in line with what we know of Philo from else where: Alex. Aphr. in APr. 184.6–10; Simp, in Cat. 195.33–196.5; Boethius, in de Int. 234.10–15. The same is not true of the definition here ascribed to Diodorus. For Diodorus, we are told elsewhere, defined the possible as that which either is or will be so: Cic. Fat. 13, 17; Plu. de Stoic rep. 1055d-e; Alex. Aphr. in APr. 183.42–184.5; Boethius, in (...) de Int. 234.22–4,412.16–7. Something has therefore got garbled. (shrink)

The definition here ascribed to Philo is entirely in line with what we know of Philo from else where: Alex. Aphr. in APr. 184.6–10; Simp, in Cat. 195.33–196.5; Boethius, in de Int. 234.10–15. The same is not true of the definition here ascribed to Diodorus. For Diodorus, we are told elsewhere, defined the possible as that which either is or will be so: Cic. Fat. 13, 17; Plu. de Stoic rep. 1055d-e; Alex. Aphr. in APr. 183.42–184.5; Boethius, in (...) de Int. 234.22–4,412.16–7. Something has therefore got garbled. (shrink)

Diodorus Siculus has not enjoyed a positive reputation among historians of antiquity. Since the nineteenth century hisBibliothēkēhas been dismissed as a derivative work produced by an incompetent compiler, useful often only in so far as one can mine his text for lost and, evidently, far superior works of history. Diodorus’ own input into theBibliothēkēhas been dismissed as the clumsy intervention of ‘a small man with pretensions’. In one of the sharpest expressions of the traditional view, Diodorus is (...) not a historian but ‘a mere epitomizer and an incompetent one at that’. In recent years voices of dissent have spoken up, determined to investigate Diodorus’ own contribution to ancient historiography. Their contributions have been notable for their desire to study and understand Diodorus on his own terms or to problematize his derivative use of his sources. Sacks, in particular, has argued that Diodorus’ voice can be heard in nearly every proem, a feature that occurs regularly in the text, and that Diodorus’ own views structure his analysis of historical events copied from other authors. (shrink)

It has been customary to believe that apart from selection and abridgement Diodorus Siculus made little contribution to his Scholars have admitted the contribution of Diodorus himself when he refers to his native town Agyrium with some pride and to Sicily in general and when he occasionally records details of his own life. Beyond statements of this character, however, the tendency has been to assume that the origin of any particular statement is to be sought in the single (...) source which Diodorus was currently using, or, as others would argue, in the major source supplemented by a subsidiary source, or, as Tarn would postulate for 17, the medley of sources used by the Sicilian historian. An examination of the attribution of one item in 17 may throw some light on Diodorus as an historian. (shrink)

On prior's reconstruction, The master argument of diodorus contains an equivocation and so is invalid for one class of diodorean "propositions." but diodorus knew of such "propositions" and an argument in his treatment of motion can be used to bring them under the master argument's sway. Also, Despite the consensus of antiquity, The master argument does not commit diodorus to determinism, Although it commits him to non-Deterministic theses which can be easily misinterpreted as deterministic.

Det sägs att den gamla grekiska tänkaren Diodorus Cronus argumenterade för uppfattningen att någonting är möjligt endast om det är eller kommer att vara sant. Hans argument går under benämningen ”Mästerargumentet”. I den här uppsatsen tittar jag närmare på detta. Jag tar upp två möjliga tolkningar och går igenom några argument för utgångspunkterna. Jag visar hur det är möjligt att acceptera alla premisser i argumentet, givet att de tolkas på ett visst sätt, samtidigt som man förkastar slutsatsen. Det här (...) innebär positiva nyheter för alla som tycker att det ligger någonting i Diodorus Cronus resonemang men samtidigt tror att det finns möjligheter som aldrig realiseras. (shrink)

Chapters 114 and 115 of Diodorus Siculus Book 17 give rise to impressive difficulties, considering their relative brevity. At the beginning of Chapter 113 Diodorus has announced the opening of the year 324/3 —the last year of Alexander the Great's life. Alexander by then has already, at the end of the previous year, taken the fateful step of entering Babylon: wounded in his soul by Chaldaean prophecy, Diodorus says, but healed by Anaxarchus and the philosophical corps of (...) the Macedonian army. The new year, 324/3, begins with Alexander dealing with diplomatic missions from three continents; and then, at the beginning of Chapter 114, Diodorus brings in the funeral of Hephaestion. (shrink)

Diodorus' Master Argument was intended to show that whatever is possible either is or will be true. The intended conclusion does not follow from the extant premisses of the Master Argument. The Near Miss argues however, from those premisses alone, that nothing can be more than momentarily an exception to the Master Argument's intended conclusion. Strong arguments support even the most contentious of those premisses . We therefore cannot easily ignore the Near Miss. Moreover, there are various supplementary premisses (...) that would turn the Near Miss into an argument with the full force of the Master Argument itself. Each of Diodorus' ancient rivals, since they accepted such doctrines as eternal recurrence, temporal atomism, and the "extended" present, would grant him at least one of these supplementary premisses. So too would any modern who holds that time is not circular, has no beginning, and does not branch. (shrink)

This paper discusses the 'master argument' of diodorus cronos from a semantic perspective. An argument is developed which suggests that proposition (1), 'every proposition true about the past is necessary', May have provided the principal motivation for diodorus denial of proposition (3), I.E., His equation of possibility with present-Or-Future truth. It is noted that (1) and (3) are jointly inconsistent only given the assumption of a linear ordering of time. It is further noted that diodorus' fatalism "could" (...) be employed to justify this additional assumption. However, To then use the conclusion of the 'master' to argue for fatalism would obviously be circular. I suspect, Rather, That diodorus' assumption of temporal linearity was implicit and uncritical. (shrink)

The physician Herophilus of Chalcedon, who lived and worked in Alexandria in the early third centuryb.c., is best known and justly celebrated for his numerous and ground-breaking anatomical discoveries and advances in such areas as pulse theory. His systematic investigations into the human body led to some of the highest achievements of Hellenistic science, among which the best known is probably his discovery and detailed description of the nervous system and its functions. Yet certain aspects of his thought have seemed (...) difficult to harmonize with the aims and methods of his medical research. One such is his attitude to causality. According to Galen, Herophilus had accepted the existence of causes merely on a hypothetical basis, and indeed had made the striking claim that ‘by nature it is not discoverable whether causes do or do not exist’. Galen associates these views directly with a number of arguments designed to prove that there are no such things as causes, but we are otherwise left with little in the way of context, and different interpretations have unsurprisingly suggested themselves. (shrink)

The author tends to emphasize that there are at least three reasons to analyze Callimachus\' epigram about Diodorus : First of all, the date of this epigram shows us that it represents the earliest information about Diodorus doctrine. Second, another support of its authenticity could be found in fact that this epigram expressing part of the atmosphere following, and also remaining after, discussing the Diodorian topics. Third, its philosophical relevance, usually minimized in classical literature, could be found in (...) those facts that it could show the way out in many today dilemmas about his philosophical claims and support some of our contemporary assumptions about its logical conception, as well as that of space, time, and meaning of statements. The author defends a position that it is necessary to develop well-grounded and methodologically relevant base covering the historical reconstruction and the interpretation of ancient logical theories. (shrink)

For long stretches of Greek history in the classical period, Diodorus Siculus provides the only surviving continuous narrative of events. For this narrative he summarized, however incompetently, the work of earlier and greater historians whose original texts are lost to us. This makes Diodorus an invaluable quarry of the historian and the historiographer alike, but one that can only be used with discretion. We need to get as clear an idea as we can of the way his mind (...) worked, where his account is most likely to be useful, and what sort of distortions to expect when he goes astray. Research into his methods and procedures is thus an urgent necessity. The present study, the fullest ever undertaken for any part of Diodorus, aims to meet the needs of both history and historiography. In the introduction, necessarily substantial, the aims, sources, and methods of Diodorus are examined in detail. The findings of this investigation are then applied in commenting on Book 15, a particularly important book which deals with the crucial years between the King's Peace, concluded in 387/6 BC, and the aftermath of the battle of Mantinea fought in 362 BC. (shrink)

We develop a modified system of standard logic, Augmented Standard Logic (ASL), and we employ ASL in an effort to show that, contrary to prevailing opinion, both Aristotle and Diodorus presented impressive arguments, having valid structures and highly plausible premisses, in their famous fatalism debate. We argue that ASL, which contains standard logic and a full system of modal and temporal logic emanating from a modicum of primitives, should not only enable one to appreciate the sophisticated philosophizing which characterized (...) this ancient debate, but should prove to be quite useful in application to contemporary issues. (shrink)

It has been customary to believe that apart from selection and abridgement Diodorus Siculus made little contribution to his Scholars have admitted the contribution of Diodorus himself when he refers to his native town Agyrium with some pride and to Sicily in general and when he occasionally records details of his own life. Beyond statements of this character, however, the tendency has been to assume that the origin of any particular statement is to be sought in the single (...) source which Diodorus was currently using, or, as others would argue, in the major source supplemented by a subsidiary source, or, as Tarn would postulate for 17, the medley of sources used by the Sicilian historian. An examination of the attribution of one item in 17 may throw some light on Diodorus as an historian. (shrink)

Diodorus Siculus was notoriously inconsistent in his statements about the terminal date of his survey of history, the Bibliotheca Historica. In the ‘table of contents’ which he included in the general preface to the whole work, written apparently when he was preparing his manuscript for publication , he specifically names the year 60/59 as the last year of his narrative. Elsewhere, however, he not only gives a figure for the period of history encompassed by his work which would bring (...) it down to 46/5, but he also on several occasions expresses the intention of including within his narrative some account of Julius Caesar's activities in Gaul, which implies a terminal date later than c. 52 B.C. How can this discrepancy be explained? The most economical hypothesis would be that Diodorus set out at first to compose a work that should go down to 46/5, but at some later stage in the composition changed his mind, and set back his terminus to 60/59. His originally intended terminus was most likely the triple triumph of Julius Caesar, whom Diodorus clearly admired beyond all other contemporary leaders. The decision in favour of an earlier terminus will have been due either to simple fatigue or to disillusionment with the course followed by Caesar's heir after 44 b.c. and anxiety about the dangers of dealing with events of a too recent and controversial past. (shrink)

Chrysippus claims that some propositions perish. including some true conditionals whose consequent is impossible and antecedent is possible, to which he appeals against Diodorus?s Master Argument. On the standard interpretation. perished propositions lack truth values. and these conditionals are true at the same time as their antecedents arc possible and consequents impossible. But perished propositions are false, and Chrysippus?s conditionals are true when their antecedent and consequent arc possible, and false when their antecedent is possible and consequent impossible. The (...) claim of the Master Argument that Chrysippus rejects, then, is stronger ihan usually supposed. (shrink)

This paper deals with two fragments from Diodorus’ Bibliothêkê that are unanimously considered to belong to the narrative of the First Slave Revolt in Sicily. It is the main concern of this paper to demonstrate that they most likely did not, but instead originate from an unknown preface to Book 34. The article begins with a brief introduction into Diodorus’ prefaces and discusses the Byzantine transmission of both fragments. Against this backdrop, three main steps are consecutively applied to (...) prove the hypothesis. First, the narrative order of both fragments within the Byzantine collections is re-examined. Furthermore, the paper establishes a thematic and argumentative relationship between the two fragments. In the last step, the structure and the style of both fragments are analysed. (shrink)

My dissertation deals with the Master Argument of Diodorus Cronus, a contemporary of Aristotle's. The argument was one of the most famous pieces of temporal and modal reasoning in ancient philosophy. It purports to prove that a proposition is possible if and only if it is true or will be true. The argument runs as follows: Everything that is past and true is necessary; The impossible does not follow the possible; Therefore, nothing is possible which neither is nor will (...) be true. Unfortunately, all accounts of the Master that have survived are so sketchy that we cannot determine whether the argument is valid or not. ;Several reconstructions of Diodorus' argument have been proposed. The purpose of the reconstructions is to show, using the resources of modal and tense logics, that the argument is valid. I analyze and critique most of these proposals, arguing in the final chapter for a new reconstruction which I believe to be more defensible than existing ones. ;The Master Argument is important for several reasons. It elicited much discussion among ancient philosophers and logicians both because of its reduction of modal logic to tense logic and its bearing on the free will/determinism debate. But, its influence also extends to contemporary philosophy and logic. In the 1950s and 60s, the Master inspired formal work on Diodorean systems. Much of the work on the calculus of tenses, e.g., by Prior, was undertaken in view of investigating Diodorus' argument. Finally, the literature that the argument has spawned has enriched and deepened our understanding of the connections between matters modal and temporal. (shrink)