Philosophy is often taken to be something that is always possible, so that everyone is fully entitled sketching a ‘philosophy’ of his/her own. Nevertheless, it is widely assumed that philosophy began in Miletus with Thales. But it is equally well known that the Presocratics remained unaware of being philosophers, and therefore could not even have wanted to be identified that way. These three points are not mutually compatible. So, what lies behind them? What is escaping our attention when we state (...) them? Probably an event in Plato’s life that has too often gone unnoticed: the key role he played in giving form and substance to philosophy, and in getting it to take root once and for all. Failure to acknowledge how, when, and on whose initiative philosophy came to occupy a very important place in Western culture and education for two and a half millennia; not including a note on this process in biographies of Plato; and overlooking another key event that probably occurred about 350-45 BC - these are just some of the unwelcome effects linked to the usual silence about the period in which philosophy took form. (shrink)

Il Parmenide _phusikos_ e il meccanismo di Antikitera: Risposta alle osservazioni di N.-L. Cordero.

La structure qui sous-tend la composition du poème de Parménide est très élaborée, il est aisé de s’en rendre compte. La déesse y parle des ensei­gnements qu’elle s’apprête à délivrer et, dans les fragments 10 et 11, elle offre un panorama détaillé de tout un ensemble de questions qu’elle va traiter aussitôt après. Un certain nombre d’éléments métatextuels se trouvent de cette façon insérés dans le texte écrit au premier degré et en interrompent le cours. D’autres passages de texte à (...) métatexte (et vice versa) se rencontrent d’ailleurs dans les fragments, mettant ainsi en évidence de frappantes discontinuités et des change­ments significatifs dans le type de saturation provoqué dans l’auditoire. Tout cela fait comprendre que les enseignements délivrés dans le poème sont immer­gés dans une infrastructure beaucoup plus « construite » et « étudiée », beaucoup plus consciente que celle qui apparaît dans tant d’autres textes de la même épo­que ou antérieurs. D’où l’importance d’une recherche spécifiquement consacrée à la composition du poème dans son ensemble. La formule rassurante de B10.1, « tu apprendras » (εἴσῃ), prend dans cette recherche une importance particulière, parce qu’elle démontre que Parménide lui-même a donné une valeur explicitement positive à ce qui, jusque peu aupara­vant, faisait l’objet de jugements fortement négatifs. Cette incohérence n’est donc pas une conjecture de notre part, mais quelque chose dont Parménide ne peut pas ne pas s’être rendu compte, ce qui signifie vraisemblablement que la seconde partie du poème expose des connaissances auxquelles il était parvenu dans une « phase précritique » de sa recherche. Sinon, à quelle autre explication pourrait-on penser? (shrink)

The present paper makes the following points. The summary given in Sextus Emp. Math. VII is of much greater value than usually acknowledged, since it preserves several key elements of Gorgias’ communicational strategy. A sketchy trilemma is available in the opening sentence of Philolaos as well as in a passage of Plato’s Parmenides. This is evidence in favor of the hypothesis that the very first known trilemma was devised by Gorgias and not by Sextus himself or Aenesidemus. Not unlike Zeno, (...) Gorgias enjoyed to be neither serious nor joking, but remained somewhat halfway. This point is seldom acknowledged, though it is crucial in order to understand that he pretends to claim, but his claims do not amount to any points of doctrine. That he remains halfway should not prevent us from appreciating some of his ideas, but, at the same time, we should not expect full intellectual adhesion to what he tells us. Besides, something similar occurs in most of Plato’s dialogues.. Gorgias owes a lot to Melissus. (shrink)

Philosophy is often taken to be something that is always possible, so that everyone is fully entitled sketching a ‘philosophy’ of his/her own. Nevertheless, it is widely assumed that philosophy began in Miletus with Thales. But it is equally well known that the Presocratics remained unaware of being philosophers, and therefore could not even have wanted to be identified that way. These three points are not mutually compatible. So, what lies behind them? What is escaping our attention when we state (...) them? Probably an event in Plato’s life that has too often gone unnoticed: the key role he played in giving form and substance to philosophy, and in getting it to take root once and for all. Failure to acknowledge how, when, and on whose initiative philosophy came to occupy a very important place in Western culture and education for two and a half millennia; not including a note on this process in biographies of Plato; and overlooking another key event that probably occurred about 350-45 BC - these are just some of the unwelcome effects linked to the usual silence about the period in which philosophy took form. (shrink)

Our «universal» perception of Parmenides’ poem is biased by traditional readings to a considerable degree, at least if the poem actually included two different doctrinal bodies, one on being and another peri physeōs properly, the latter encompassing a number of short treatises on the physical world and living organisms.What I plan to offer in support of this claim is, to begin with, an inventory of the topics dealt with in the section devoted to physical world and living creatures. Something on (...) Parmenides’ way of studying and understanding different aspects of the physical world and living organisms follows.Once acknowledged the above, the poem comes to look quite differently and some principles of interpretation are likely to collapse : first of all, the customary assumption that frgs. 1‑9 include definite ideas on the doctrines to be found in the second main body, and tell us that they are not of great value. Indeed, the very high quality of several among these doctrines seems to imply that no devaluation of the second main doctrinal body is tenable.Several corollaries are likely to follow. Among them : once concluded the section on being, no further group of verses, meant to establish a convenient relation between the first and the second main doctrinal body, surfaces ; Parmenides was a polymath, and he may have been aware of that, or at least some evidence in support of the awareness thesis is available. (shrink)

Why should the work of the ancient and the medievals, so far as it relates to nature, still be of interest and an inspiration to us now? The contributions to this enlightening volume explore and uncover contemporary scholarship's debt to the classical and medieval past. Thinking About the Environment synthesizes religious thought and environmental theory to trace a trajectory from Mesopotamian mythology and classical and Hellenistic Greek, through classical Latin writers, to medieval Christian views of the natural world and our (...) relationship with it. The work also offers medieval Arabic and Jewish views on humanity's inseparability from nature. The volume concludes with a study of the breakdown between science and value in contemporary ecological thought. Thinking About the Environment will be a invaluable source book for those seeking to address environmental ethics from a historical perspective. (shrink)

Walter Kohan has recently observed that Socrates does not seem partic­ularly interested in the opinions of his interlocutors. Consequently, the philosopher is not really involved in a peer to peer relation with them, but rather embarks upon the task of annihilating their ideas. With the situation being as it is, the image of Socrates as a champion of dialogue begins to wobble. While the present paper aims to discuss these claims, a number of issues needs to be accounted for. First (...) of all, the Socratic dialogue does begin in a characteristically symmetrical way, but it becomes more and more asymmetric as the elenchos begins to appear. This is due to the fact the elenchos makes the interlocutors defensive, whereas Socrates can attack freely. Given that, Kohan’s claims seem justified and enlightening, but they should not be regarded as conclusive, since one must neither forget nor undervalue how innovative it was to replace monologue speeches with one-to-one dialogues which offered the opportunity of being involved in unforeseeable conversations. (shrink)

The present paper argues that the teachings of Anaximander are much better knowable than they actually appear, since a number of his teachings have the privilege of being almost transparent in their predicative content as well as in their logic. As a matter of fact, one can quite easily come to understand the train of thought which lies behind Anaximander’s most momentous conjectures. Thus, a largely unexpected Anaximander comes to light despite the availability of the majority of the relevant sources (...) since 1903. Two main areas appear to be particularly prominent: on the one hand, the complex body of various conjectures and doctrines that helps to understand the system of spatial relationships from Miletus to the stars and, on the other hand, the equally complex body of conjectures and doctrines whose primarily concern is the macro-story of the Earth from its most remote past to its predictable future. The merits of Anaximander as an earth-researcher are much greater than one could actually imagine. It is suggested here that what philosophy owes to him in particular lies in his quest for knowledge, his method, his cognitive hybris, and his intellectual discipline, rather than individual doctrines. A comparison with Thales follows in the last paragraph. (shrink)

A Grécia arcaica e clássica desenvolveu diferentes atitudes diante do tema das pulsões. O mais antigo consiste em tratá-las como um evento externo e substancialmente ingovernável, que se pode apenas sofrer, pelo qual a “vítima” das paixões merece compaixão em lugar de crítica ou desprezo. Segundo essa escola de pensamento, as paixões são uma enfermidade pela qual não se é propriamente responsável. Antifonte de Atenas estabeleceu uma estratégia retórica de intervenção sobre algumas formas graves de perturbação, que lhe permitia contrastar (...) de modo eficaz a idéia de intolerabilidade da própria condição. A estratégia de Sócrates parece apoiar-se na pré-comprensão das paixões.Classic and Archaic Greece developed different attitudes towards the ideaof drive or impulse. The oldest one consists in treating it as an external event which is essentially uncontrollable and something one just undergoes, and so the “victim” of passion deserves compassion instead of criticism and contempt. According to that view, passions are a kind of sickness for which one is not properly responsible. Antiphon developed a strategy of intervention for some forms of serious mental illness that was based on rhetoric, and this allowed him to emphasize in an effective way the idea of the intolerability of one’s own condition. Socrates’ strategy seems to be based on a pre-comprehension of the passions. (shrink)

Socrate, on le sait, est une épine dans le pied de l’exégète, qui court toujours le risque de le banaliser ou – pire encore – de le remodeler à sa guise, jusqu’à en faire un Socrate « de complaisance ». Il est devenu difficile de produire un dis­cours sérieux sur le compte d’un personnage aussi insaisissable. En effet, bien que les recherches se poursuivent à son sujet, nous nous trouvons depuis des décennies dans une situation persistante (et par là même (...) fastidieuse) de stase vis-à-vis de no... (shrink)

Presume-se que pensadores tenham começado a ser considerados como filósofos nos últimos decênios do séc. V a.C. Se for assim, nenhum dos intelectuais das épocas posteriores, de Tales a Empédocles, que fomos educados a honrar como filósofos, o foram considerados em vida. Teriam recebido o nome de “filósofos” como honra a posteriori, a partir de 330 e 345 a.C. No presente artigo, o autor analisa o modo como Tales era honrado como um dos sophoi em Atenas.

In Plato’s Laws several passages have been clearly conceived of as preambles. The most extended, and prominent, is the one we find at the beginnings of Book five. It amounts to a complicate tour de force, not easy to be accounted for.What surfaced during the present investigation is a meandrical line of thought which ends with the unexpected adoption of a proto-utilitarianist point of view. This turn is not only interesting per se, since it implies that the author fully acknowledges (...) the role of subjective evaluations that may well ignore the ontological hierarchy between gods-souls-bodies as well as the force of persuasion a wise legislator avails of. (shrink)

Da qualche anno il piccolo mondo dei Presocratici è in movimento, se non in subbuglio, e a smuovere le acque interviene ora un cospicuo volume scritto in catalano, Saviesa grega arcaica, che è curato da un autorevole grecista di Barcellona, Pórtulas, e da un suo valido allievo, Grau. Il volume si distingue anzitutto per il fatto di circoscrivere il suo campo di osservazione al periodo delle guerre persiane (così da spingersi fino ad Eraclito e Parmenide, ma non oltre) e di (...) riservare molta att... (shrink)

To teach catholic religion to Italian pupils from 6 to 18 years may not be a very gratifying experience. However, a new option is worth being considered, I submit, namely to devote half of the time to a very simple way of doing philosophy, i.e. to offer pupils attention to their ideas, hopes and problems by means of whole hours devoted to free exchanges with them and among them. Why the teachers of Religion instead of their colleagues, no matter which? (...) It should be clear that this is a mere accident: too often, other teachers are (wrongly, but firmly) convinced that they lack the time needed in order to consider such an opportunity. (shrink)

Este artigo oferecerá um panorama, e algumas conjecturas, quanto à provável força coletiva das transformações da cena filosófica que tiveram lugar em Atenas logo em seguida ao julgamento e morte de Sócrates. Argumentar-se-á que a nova maneira de fazer filosofia, inventada pelos Socráticos, era de fato antípoda da oferta tradicional de doutrinas e teorias abertamente endossadas pelos autores, e que deve portanto ser cuidadosamente distinguida pelos diálogos onde os corpos doutrinários são abertamente professados. Por causa da invenção do diálogo socrático (...) “aberto”, a comunidade filosófica de Atenas muito plausivelmente experimentou uma “revolução de veludo”, especialmente durante os anos cruciais em que se formava a identidade de Platão como escritor e pensador.This paper will offer an overview of, and some conjectures upon, the probable collective force of the transformations of the philosophical scene that took place in Athens soon after Socrates' trial and death. It will be argued that the new way of doing philosophy, devised by the Socratics, was in fact antipodal to the traditional offerings of doctrines and theories openly endorsed by existing authors, and is therefore to be carefully distinguished from the dialogues where new bodies of doctrine happen to be openly professed. Because of the invention of the "open" Socratic dialogue, the philosophical community of Athens very likely underwent a first-order "velvet revolution", especially during the crucial years when Plato's identity as a writer and thinker was being set in place. (shrink)

Was Parmenides a distinguished ‘astronomer’ and ‘biologist’ other than the great ‘philosopher’ he has been unanimously considered from the times of Plato onwards? Many admirers of the ‘philosopher’ are not just refractory to consider this possibility: they simply ignore what Parmenides was able to discover in the additional domains I have just mentioned. But he was great as an ‘astronomer’ and a ‘biologist’ too, probably not less great than as a ‘philosopher’.The aim of this paper is to supply the basic (...) information about Parmenides' achievements in these domains, that were of the highest order, I presume.Presocratic Philosophy and ‟Natural Theology”. (shrink)