In this article I interpret the conversation that takes place between Socrates and Polemarchus in Book One of the Republic according to its dramatic logic by examining the rhetorical artfulness that informs Socrates’ argumentative tactics. After first examining Polemarchus’s character as obedient spiritedness, I then turn to the argument, showing that Socrates does not undermine Polemarchus’s original opinion but, rather, by making legitimate use of the analogy between justice and technē, moves him to attend to the useful knowledge implicit in (...) his understanding of friendship, a knowledge by virtue of which he will be a more responsive guardian of what he values. Finally, I contend that Socrates enacts the definition of justice in question and indirectly argues for his own just art of rhetoric, which he employs in conversation with Polemarchus in his aim to be responsible to political life and to do it some good. (shrink)

In this article I interpret the conversation that takes place between Socrates and Polemarchus in Book One of the Republic according to its dramatic logic by examining the rhetorical artfulness that informs Socrates’ argumentative tactics. After first examining Polemarchus’s character as obedient spiritedness, I then turn to the argument, showing that Socrates does not undermine Polemarchus’s original opinion but, rather, by making legitimate use of the analogy between justice and technē, moves him to attend to the useful knowledge implicit in (...) his understanding of friendship, a knowledge by virtue of which he will be a more responsive guardian of what he values. Finally, I contend that Socrates enacts the definition of justice in question and indirectly argues for his own just art of rhetoric, which he employs in conversation with Polemarchus in his aim to be responsible to political life and to do it some good. (shrink)

In An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, John Henry Newman articulates his fundamental philosophical orientation by giving priority to real apprehension over notional apprehension. He distinguishes between the two by saying that notional apprehension hasto do with things internal to the mind and admits of exactness and clarity whereas real apprehension has to do with things external to the mind and does not admit of the same degree of clarity and exactness. I argue that the connection between (...) “inside the mind” and “clarity and exactness” lies in the constructive activity underlying notional thinking. Real apprehension, on the other hand, involves a given apprehension of unity, mainly, the concrete unity of intelligent life, which includes but cannot be reduced to the constructive activity of notional thinking. Thus, I argue, Newman’s realism undercuts any form of modern transcendentalism and evinces a form of classical human realism. (shrink)

This study is an examination of the manner in which intelligence mediates desire. Its central claims are that all desire is necessarily determined as such by the capacity of intelligence and that the specific quality of desire as animal or human is therefore conditioned by the specific power of intelligence possessed by the desiring creature. In looking at human desire, it is further argued that the presence of rational intelligence introduces instability in the natural soul that in turn conditions its (...) desire as potentially unreasonable and reasonable. Developing this argument first in light of Aristotle's moral psychology, attention is then turned to Hegel's philosophical psychology, as found in his Philosophy of Mind, and to his account of desire, as it is found in his Phenomenology of Spirit. By examining sections of these works, it is shown that Hegel revives significant aspects of this classical account of moral psychology and desire, which have for the most part been neglected in modern philosophical psychology. It is also suggested, however, the Hegel introduces significant variations to this classical view in his appropriation of it that have rendered him vulnerable to much of the post-modern criticism that he has received. (shrink)