Charles E. Snyder considers the New Academy's attacks on Stoic epistemology through a critical re-assessment of the 3rd century philosopher, Arcesilaus of Pitane. Arguing that the standard epistemological framework used to study the ancient Academy ignores the metaphysical dimensions at stake in Arcesilaus's critique, Snyder explores new territory for the historiography of Stoic-Academic debates in the early Hellenistic period. Focusing on the dispute between the Old and New Academy, reveals the metaphysical dimensions of Arcesilaus' arguments as essential to (...) grasping what is innovative about the so-called New Academy. Resisting the partiality for epistemology in the historical reconstructions of ancient philosophy, this book defends a new philosophical framework that re-positions Arcesilaus' attack on the early Stoa as key to his deviation from the metaphysical foundations of both Stoic and Academic virtue ethics. Drawing on a wide range of scholarship on Hellenistic philosophy in French, Italian, and German, Beyond Hellenistic Epistemology builds bridges between analytical and continental approaches to the historiography of ancient philosophy, and makes an important and disruptive contribution to the literature. (shrink)

The focus of this paper is the dispute between the Academic Arcesilaus of Pitane (ca. 316–240 BC) and the philosophy of Zeno of Citium. Scholars typically claim that Arcesilaus set out to attack Zeno’s epistemology or theory of knowledge. The framework of epistemology prevails in the modern reconstruction of Arcesilaus’s arguments. Proponents of this framework usually contend that the epistemic possibility of Stoic “cognition” or “apprehension” (κατάληψις) is the principal aim of Arcesilaus’s attack. The aim of this article is to (...) contest the limited scope of the framework of epistemology in the interpretation of Arcesilaus’s attack, and reposition his critical arguments, in view of the fragmentary evidence, within the framework of an ontology of knowledge. (shrink)

This article is an examination of Hannah Arendt's 1929 dissertation.

Less than a century after Plato’s death, the Academy’s scholarch Arcesilaus of Pitane inaugurates a peculiar oral phase of Academic philosophy, deciding not to write philosophical works or openly teach his own doctrines. Scholars often attribute a radical change of direction to the school under his headship, taking early Stoic epistemology to be the primary target of the New Academy’s attack on Stoic philosophy. This paper defends a rival view of Arcesilaus’ Academic revolution. Shifting the focus of that attack from (...) epistemology to ethics, the paper illuminates the continuity in development from Polemo to Arcesilaus and the evidence corroborating this continuity. (shrink)

Scholars of Greek and Roman antiquity advance a variety of reasons to explain why the study of Hellenistic philosophy remains dependent on fragments and testimonies. Mansfeld observes such dependence in his use of the premise that philosophers of late antiquity based philosophical instruction and school curricula on a core set of writings from the classical period. On this basis, Mansfeld infers that schools of late antiquity continually transcribed and preserved writings of instructional significance. The schools routinely excluded other classical and (...) Hellenistic writings from the curricula, thus ensuring that a sizable body of literature deemed less pedagogically significant would perish, along with the original material on which the inscriptions had been made. The main problem with this standard survey of reasons is that it fails to explain why we remain extraordinarily dependent on peripheral sources and later testimonies in studying the Hellenistic Academy. (shrink)

This study develops a theory about the interaction between music cognition and affective response. The theory demonstrates how musical thinking, knowledge, and decision-making result in qualitative musical behaviour. It reports new findings about the cognitive representation of musical structures, imagery as an auditory-phenomenological descriptor of music, aesthetic response as an outcome of specific cognitive decisions, and the value of music in cross-cultural human development. Each of the seven essays identifies a problem in music psychology that is relevant to an explanation (...) of the musical process, reviews the literature relevant to that problem, and, through systematic philosophical analysis, offers a solution. This book should be of interest to music philosophers, and psychologists working in the areas of cognition, aesthetics, music theory, music education, and music therapy. (shrink)

The author considers Pope John Paul II's 1998 encyclical, Fides et ratio, as bringing into view new horizons for Catholic philosophical theology by virtue of its endorsement of a constrained philosophical pluralism. Through a retrospective examination of the history of magisterial interventions as depicted in the encyclical, the author notes how a progressive openness to philosophical pluralism relates to the changed status of Thomism within magisterial teaching on the practice of Catholic philosophical theology. Fides et ratio describes an evolution in (...) magisterial emphasis from proscription to prescription, which corresponds to change in the status of Thomism from an absolute to an exemplary norm. Attention to this decisive shift in the normative status of Thomism, as implied within the encyclical itself, provides both new illumination on the Pope's general intentions and new clarity with regard to some contested interpretive issues. Finally, the author highlights several new challenges that are implied by this development in magisterial teaching. (shrink)