This book deals with some Peripatetic philosophers of the Hellenistic age who were direct and indirect pupils of Aristotle. The main focus of the book is Aristotle's school in the Hellenistic period, a subject not particularly explored by the scholars. Three main issues are addressed in the chapters of the book: the problem of knowledge, the question of time, and the doctrine of the soul. More specifically the topics addressed are: the problem of sense-perception and the method of multiple explanations (...) in the field of meteorology in Aristotle, Theophrastus and Epicurus, the epistemology of Strato, the notion of time in Eudemus and Strato, the conception of sleep in Clearchus, the doctrine of divination in Cratippus. Finally, the Appendix examines the probable influence of the physics of Strato on the medicine of Asclepiades of Bithynia. These themes are investigated by comparing the positions of the Peripatetics with Aristotle's philosophy, but above all by contextualising the doctrines of the Peripatetics within the broader framework of Hellenistic philosophies. (shrink)

The focus of this paper is the analysis of the epistemological and practical role played bypathe/affections in Epicurus’ philosophy. Epicurus firstly considered the affections not as emotional/passional conditions, but as firm criteria of truth and more specifically as the third criterion of the canonic (i.e. the epistemological part of his philosophical system). In this article the critical reactions (in particular by the Peripatetic side: Aristocles of Messene) against the Epicurean position about the function of the affections will be investigated too. (...) Finally, two parts of this paper are devoted to the Cyrenaic tripartition ofpathe(in all likelihood, a subject criticized by Epicurus) and to the probable doctrinal relationship between Epicurus’patheand Aristotle’sNicomachean EthicsBook 2. (shrink)

"Questo volume esamina la dottrina epicurea dei minimi che rappresenta un nodo cruciale della filosofia di Epicuro e un autentico punto di svolta rispetto all'atomismo di Leucippo e Democrito. Il libro è organizzato in tre capitoli dedicati rispettivamente: all'analisi filologica e teorica delle fonti primarie, alla ricostruzione del contesto storico-filosofico a cui la dottrina dei minimi verosimilmente fa riferimento, e, infine, all'approfondimento dello sviluppo della teoria dei minimi in ambito prevalentemente geometrico all'interno della scuola di Epicuro. L'esame critico delle fonti (...) antiche, anche attraverso l'attenta analisi della letteratura secondaria, conferma il ruolo decisivo giocato dai minimi nella scienza della natura epicurea. Si tratta della prima monografia interamente consacrata allo studio di questa significativa dottrina in tutta la sua ampiezza storica e teorica."--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

BackgroundThe aim of this study was to explore the construct validity and diagnostic properties of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test in non-demented patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.MaterialsA total of 61 consecutive patients and 50 healthy controls were administered the 36-item RMET. Additionally, patients underwent a comprehensive assessment of social cognition via the Story-Based Empathy Task, which encompasses three subtests targeting Causal Inference, Emotion Attribution, and Intention Attribution, as well as global cognitive [the Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioral ALS (...) Screen ] and behavioral screening [the Frontal Behavioral Inventory ; the Dimensional Apathy Scale ; the Beck Depression Inventory ; and the State and Trait Anxiety Inventory-Y]. The construct validity of the RMET was tested by regressing it within a stepwise model that encompassed as predictors the abovementioned cognitive and behavioral measures, covarying for demographic and motor confounders. Receiver-operating characteristics analyses allowed exploring intrinsic and post-test properties of the RMET both in discriminating patients from HCs and in identifying patients with a defective SET-EA performance.ResultsThe RMET was solely predicted by the SET-EA and SET-IA. RMET scores showed high accuracy both in discriminating patients from HCs and in identifying patients with a defective SET-EA score, with adequate-to-optimal both intrinsic and post-test properties.DiscussionThe RMET is a convergently and divergently valid measure of affective social cognition in non-demented ALS patients, also featuring optimal intrinsic and post-test diagnostic properties in both case-control and case-finding scenarios. (shrink)

Cet article se concentre principalement sur Boéthos, philosophe épicurien qui a été souvent négligé : aucune source ancienne, excepté Plutarque, ne le mentionne. L’étude tente d’examiner la perspective philosophique de Boéthos et, plus particulièrement, son attitude envers la géométrie.

Questo volume investiga il rapporto che intercorse tra due dei più rilevanti movimenti filosofici dell’Antichità, l’Epicureismo e lo Scetticismo. I contributi qui raccolti esplorano le diverse modalità teoriche attraverso le quali queste due filosofie sono venute in contatto, spesso scontrandosi o, comunque, proponendo prospettive in ambito epistemologico, fisico ed etico profondamente divergenti. Il volume si presenta come un contributo particolarmente significativo e innovativo nell’ambito degli studi, finalizzato a chiarire e ad approfondire, dal punto di vista storiografico e teorico, i termini (...) di una vicenda filosofica certamente rilevante per la storia del pensiero antico. (shrink)

BackgroundThe present study aimed at assessing the diagnostic properties of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment in non-demented ALS patients and at exploring the MoCA administrability according to motor-functional status.MaterialsN = 348 patients were administered the MoCA and Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioural ALS Screen. Administrability rates and prevalence of defective MoCA scores were compared across King’s and Milano-Torino clinical stages. Regression models were run to test whether the non-administrability of the MoCA and a defective score on it were predicted, net of the (...) ECAS-Total, by disease duration, ALS Functional Rating Scale-Revised and progression rate, computed as /disease duration. Intrinsic and post-test diagnostics were tested against a below-cut-off ECAS-total score.ResultsThe 79.9% of patients successfully underwent the MoCA, whose administrability rates decreased with advanced clinical stages, at variance with its defective score prevalence. The probability of the FAB not being administrable was predicted only by lower ALSFRS-R-bulbar and-upper-limb scores; no motor features, but the ECAS-Total, predicted a defective MoCA performance. The MoCA showed high accuracy and good intrinsic and post-test properties—being slightly more specific than sensitive.DiscussionIn non-demented ALS patients, the MoCA is featured by optimal diagnostics as a screener for cognitive impairment, especially for ruling-out its occurrence, as long as patients are in the early stages of the disease and have sufficiently spared bulbar and upper-limb functions. (shrink)

Epicureanism is not only a defence of pleasure: it is also a philosophy of science and knowledge. This edited collection explores new pathways for the study of Epicurean scientific thought, a hitherto still understudied domain, and engages systematically and critically with existing theories. It shows that the philosophy of Epicurus and his heirs, from antiquity to the classical age, founded a rigorous and coherent conception of knowledge. This first part of a two-volume set examines more specifically the contribution of Epicureanism (...) in the fields of language, medicine, and meteorology (i.e., celestial, geological and atmospheric phenomena). Offering a renewed image of Epicureanism, [volume 1] includes studies on the nature of human language and on the linguistic aspects of scientific discourse; on the relationship between Epicureanism and ancient medicine, from Hippocrates to Galen; on meteorological phenomena and the method of explaining them; and on the reception of Epicurus's legacy in Gassendi. (shrink)

Epicureanism is not only a defence of pleasure: it is also a philosophy of science and knowledge. This edited collection explores new pathways for the study of Epicurean scientific thought, a hitherto still understudied domain, and engages systematically and critically with existing theories. It shows that the philosophy of Epicurus and his heirs, from antiquity to the classical age, founded a rigorous and coherent conception of knowledge. This first part of a two-volume set examines more specifically the contribution of Epicureanism (...) in the fields of language, medicine, and meteorology (i.e., celestial, geological and atmospheric phenomena). Offering a renewed image of Epicureanism, the book includes studies on the nature of human language and on the linguistic aspects of scientific discourse; on the relationship between Epicureanism and ancient medicine, from Hippocrates to Galen; on meteorological phenomena and the method of explaining them; and on the reception of Epicurus's legacy in Gassendi. (shrink)

The present contribution focuses on two testimonia regarding Timasagoras, who is generally regarded as an Epicurean dissident: Cicero, acad. ii 25, 80 and Aet. iv 13, 6, p. 403, 22 Diels. The two passages are remarkably different and the evidence from Cicero is far more complex. The context of the passage suggests that Cicero considers Timasagoras as an ``orthodox'' Epicurean. In order to shed light on Timasagoras' philosophical stance, it is necessary to examine briefly the notion of "Epicurean dissidence''. Timasagoras' (...) position within the Epicurean tradition emerges as intrinsically ambiguous and problematic. (shrink)

According to a testimony of Sextus Empiricus's Against the Physicists, Epicurus began to study philosophy because his grammar teacher, dealing with the birth of Chaos in Hesiod's Theogony, was not able to explain what the cause and origin of Chaos were. If this evidence is reliable, the question of disorder was extremely significant for Epicurean philosophy. Usually, ancient pagan and Christian critics of materialistic philosophies accused Democritus and Epicurus of denying the power of providence. To Dante, Democritus is the philosopher (...) who 'l mondo a caso pone in the sense that, according to the Atomist, the world derives from chance.Eva Marie Noller's book—specifically devoted... (shrink)

This short paper is a critical note of the recent volume on the pseudo-Platonic dialogue Axiochus edited by A. Beghini ([Platone], Assioco. Saggio introduttivo, edizione critica, traduzione e commento, Baden-Baden: Academia Verlag, 2020). This scholar assumes the possibility of attributing the dialogue to Philo of Larissa or his circle. This hypothesis, although well argued in the book, faces some exegetical difficulties concerning the content of the dialogue and the hardly reconstructible philosophy of Philo himself. In this note I will critically (...) discuss the conclusions reached by Beghini in his prestigious book starting from the (alleged) sceptical vein which would be present in the pseudo-Platonic work, whose dating likely presupposes (also) the Epicurean conception of death. (shrink)

This short note deals with an epigram preserved by the Anthologia Palatina Book IX (360) attributed to a Metrodorus whom, especially for chronological reasons, one tends to identify with the Epicurean Metrodorus of Lampsacus, at least from the Phoinix von Kolophon by Gustav Adolph Gerhard (1909). This epigram looks like a “symmetrical” polemical reply to the immediately preceding one (AP IX 359), which can be attributed (but not without difficulty) to the Hellenistic poet Posidippus. The careful historical-philosophical examination of the (...) contents of this alleged Epicurean epigram (360) leads to believe that it is basically impossible that the author is an Epicurean philosopher such as Metrodorus. (shrink)

In this short note I would like to reflect again upon paragraphs 39–40 of Epicurus’ Letter to Herodotus and, more specifically, on the text printed in the last critical edition by Tiziano Dorandi, which I quote below together with the critical apparatus :495 ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ τὸ πᾶν ἐστι · σώματα μὲν γὰρ ὡς ἔστιν, αὐτὴ ἡ αἴσθησις ἐπὶπάντων μαρτυρεῖ, καθ’ ἣν ἀναγκαῖον τὸ ἄδηλον τῷλογισμῷ τεκμαίρεσθαι, ὥσπερ προεῖπον. [40] τόπος δὲ εἰ500 μὴ ἦν ὃ κενὸν καὶ χώραν καὶ ἀναφῆ (...) φύσιν ὀνομάζομεν, οὐκἂν εἶχε τὰ σώματα ὅπου ἦν οὐδὲ δι’ οὗ ἐκινεῖτο, καθάπερφαίνεται κινούμενα.495–496 de scholiis glossematibusque in tribus Epicuri epistulis et in RS i, vid. Dorandi, Epicuro 277–8 496–497 σώματα καὶ κενόν duce Gass. suppl. V. d. Muehll: σώματα καὶ τόπος Us. Traditam lectionem defendere conatur Arndt 26. Vid. K. Algra, Elenchos 15 100 et D. Obbink, Philodemus On Piety. Part 1 338–9 497 σώματα ΦFP4: σώμα· τὰ BP1498 πάντων om. Φ 499 τόπος δὲ Us.: τὸ πρόσθε B1: τὸ πρόσθεν B2PΦ: πρόσθεν F Cf. Lucr. 1.426–7 et vid. Sedley, Phronesis 183–4 εἰ δὲ Φ 500 ὃ Φ: ὃ* B2: ὃν B1, ut vid.: ὂν PF ὃ post κενὸν traiecit Φ προεῖπον τὸ πρόσθεν· εἰ δὲ μὴ ἦν ὃ κενὸν Brieger, Seele 5 Vid. Dorandi, Epicuro 282–4 501 ἦν B: εἴη ΦFP4: ἔνι P1 502 οὐδ’ Us.: οὔτε B2PF: ὅτε B1503 περιληπτικῶς rec. (shrink)

Journal Name: Apeiron Issue: Ahead of print.

The present short note focuses on Cicero’s De finibus IV 18, 51, a passage which preserves a testimony on Xenocrates (quoted here as magister of Polemon), neglected by the editors of the fragments of Academy’s second scholarch.