Epicurus argued that the good life is the pleasurable life. He also argued that ‘death is nothing to us’. These claims appear in tension. For if pleasure is good, then it seems that death is bad when it deprives us of deeply enjoyable time alive. Here, I offer an Epicurean view of pleasure and the complete life which dissolves this tension. This view is, I contend, more appealing than critics of Epicureanism have allowed, in part because it assigns higher (...) value to pleasures that we produce by exercising our rational capacities and by establishing control over our lives. (shrink)

Michael Pakaluk presents the first systematic study in English of Books VIII and IX of Aristotle's masterpiece of moral philosophy, the Nicomachean Ethics; these books comprise one of the most famous of all discussions of friendship. Pakaluk accompanies his fresh and accurate translation with a philosophical commentary which unfolds lucidly the various arguments in the text, assuming no knowledge of Greek on the part of the reader.

Sentimentalist theories in ethics treat evaluative judgments as somehow dependent on human emotional capacities. While the precise nature of this dependence varies, the general idea is that evaluative concepts are to be understood by way of more basic emotional reactions. Part of the task of distinguishing between the concepts that sentimentalism proposes to explicate, then, is to identify a suitably wide range of associated emotions. In this paper, we attempt to deal with an important obstacle to such views, which (...) arises from the dominant tradition in the philosophy of emotion. We will be attempting to steer a middle course between the traditional view and some recent, empirically-minded criticism. (shrink)

I sometimes entertain my non-academic friends by telling them that, at the end of each course I teach, before I compute my students’ grades, I pause nervously while I wait to be graded by my students. This process can be described less paradoxically, but surely no more truthfully, as follows. In my department, and as far as I know all the departments at my university, each course ends with students anonymously filling out forms in which they evaluate the teacher and (...) the course. The form includes several questions in which the student is asked to rate the teacher in various respects (such as clarity and organization, availability outside the classroom, and so forth) along a numbered scale (in our case, from one to five); they are also asked one very general question in which they are told to rate the instructor’s overall effectiveness. They are also invited to write comments on these matters. Mean scores (in effect, grades) are calculated for each question and published by the university. In addition, these student evaluations of teaching (often called SETs for short) are used each year by the committee that decides merit pay increases for faculty. When the faculty member is being considered for advancement to tenure or promotion to the rank of Full Professor, these evaluation forms are supplemented by faculty evaluation of teaching, in which faculty members visit the candidate’s classes and report on her or his effectiveness as a teacher. Except for these two once-in-a-lifetime events, the student evaluation forms are the only way in which we judge the quality of teaching. In other words, teaching is for the most part evaluated by students and not by faculty. (shrink)

Michael Pakaluk presents the first systematic study in English of Books VIII and IX of Aristotle's masterpiece of moral philosophy, the Nicomachean Ethics; these books comprise one of the most famous of all discussions of friendship. Pakaluk accompanies his fresh and accurate translation with a philosophical commentary which unfolds lucidly the various arguments in the text, assuming no knowledge of Greek on the part of the reader.

Le point sur l'Inopos. Rassemblement des connaissances sur le principal cours d'eau délien : géographie, aménagement, place dans la littérature, iconographie et possibles homonymes, culte. Digression sur la topographie du Quartier de l'Inopos. 57. Le bain délien d'Arlémis. De la confrontation de Valérius Flaccus, V 103-104 et A'Anlh. palai. VI 273, il ressort que l'Inopos passait pour servir au bain d'Artémis. 58. La crypte du Sarapieion A. Présentation détaillée du dispositif cultuel, qui permettait de puiser l'eau de l'Inopos, censé être (...) une dérivation du Nil, dans la crypte du temple du Sarapieion A. L'eau arrivait par infiltration naturelle et non par un branchement artificiel. 59. Sur le plan du Sarapieion A. L'espace C n'appartient pas au Sarapieion A et s'ouvrait librement sur l'Inopos. 60. Le casse-tête du Colosse des Naxiens et le fragment 18 de Sémos de Délos. Examen raisonné des solutions qui ont été apportées au problème topographique issu de la confrontation de Plutarque, Nicias III 7, et des ruines. Établissement critique du texte du fragment 18 de Sémos de Délos, d'où il ressort qu'il ne concerne en rien la topographie du Colosse des Naxiens ni du Palmier de Nicias. 61. Sur l'extension du Téménos de Léto. Considérations sur l'extension du Létoon archaïque ; il est possible qu'en ait fait partie le pseudo «Temple d'Anios» (GD 68), dont une particularité architecturale trouve son symétrique au Temple de Léto. 62. Sur l'identification du Gymnase. L'identification, maintenant assurée par J. Tréheux, de GD 76 et du «Gymnase» des inscriptions, rend difficilement compréhensible la fin de la stèle de Pausanias. La salle A doit être Vepistasion des inscriptions. 63. Bromias, aulète du chœur sacré. Ce nom, porté par une aulète en fonction de 250 à 231 au moins, doit s'ajouter à la liste des sobriquets connus rappelant le bruit de l'instrument. 64. Encore les queux. Compléments à Déliaca, n° 46. 65. Religion et politique. Les rapports du politique et du religieux ont donné souvent lieu à des positions excessives parce qu'insuffisamment raisonnées : si l'on entend par «dévotion» la part non prescrite du culte, il est sûr qu'elle a été amplement exploitée par les puissances politiques. Mais celles-ci ne paraissent pas être intervenues pour ajouter, supprimer ni même modifier la théologie, la liturgie ni l'histoire sainte locales ; tout au plus ont-elles profité de la situation existante pour se mettre en avant ou défendre des prétentions. (shrink)

This chapter studies the later books of the Republic in order to see how the distinctions between the different kinds of justice, presented in previous chapter, work in the last part of the dialogue. To start with, it is demonstrated that deviant souls are “c-unjust,” while democratic souls are “p-unjust.” Then, the rational part of the soul is extensively analysed in order to explain why it is the more comprehensive. Finally, it is underlined that the just man is (...) the one in whom prevails the rational soul, which is the only one able to provide a good balance to the all human beings. (shrink)

The chapter about hybridism written by Darwin falls in the cluster of The Origin of Species which deals with the main difficulties of the theory of descent with modification through natural selection. Darwin’s goal in analyzing the phenomenon of hybridism was to debate the validity of the existence of a fundamental distinction between species and varieties; thus, this discussion addresses an integral part of the so-called species problem, which includes a set of questions about the definition of the concept (...) of species, that is, of what a species is. In this chapter, we analyze the historical background of this debate, from Linnaeus to Kölreuter and Gärtner, and discuss the structure and arguments present in Origin’s Chapter VIII, in which Darwin tackles the problem at hand. (shrink)

IN Physics VIII, 10, Aristotle seems to commit a serious mistake: just before concluding that the first mover required by all motion everywhere remains invariable and without parts or magnitude, Aristotle apparently locates this mover on the circumference of the cosmos.

The article is an analysis of a chapter dealing with the Aristotelian categories in the so-called eighth book of Stromata by Clement of Alexandria, a collection of notes from a philosophical source (or sources) concerned with the theory of demonstration and related issues. Though seldom mentioned in contemporary scholarship, this short chapter is a valuable testimony of the reception of the Categories in the philosophy of the Imperial period and before the time of Alexander of Aphrodisias. After a brief survey (...) of its contents, the article investigates parallels in philosophical literature and explores the function of the chapter within the larger context of Stromata VIII. In the final section the question of Clement's source is addressed. Drawing on earlier research concerning other parts of the eighth book, the article argues that in this case, too, Galen's lost writing on demonstration is a likely candidate. (shrink)

In the proper punctuation of this passage I have been in part anticipated by Francken, who saw that the apodosis to the conditional clause was to be sought in 235–7. But, as the second edition of the Teubner text still keeps it in its primitive incoherence, I make no apology for dealing with it here.

The atomistic theory, in the argument against astrology in Book VIII of the Recognitiones, corresponds very little to the thought of Epicurus, even though the writer of the novel claims to refute him. Scholars explain this discrepancy as a misunderstanding of Greek philosophy by the author of the Recognitiones. However, the theory refuted in Book VIII shares many similarities with the cosmology of the Syrian philosopher Bardaisan. The latter gives an important place to atoms and it is possible (...) that the rejection of the Epicurean system is directed against astral determinism, accepted in part by Bardaisan. The discourse of Nicetas would attempt to overthrow the Bardaisanian idea that inequalities among men are the result of the power of the stars. While the Recognitiones are in agreement with the Syrian philosopher who thinks that the stars have no effect on the free will of man - reproducing his thought in Book IX - they are opposed to the idea that the inequalities among men are the result of astral fatalism. The synthesis of Epicurus and Bardaisan would aim at refuting all determinism, be it Epicurean or Bardaisanian. (shrink)

This book presents a historical and scientific analysis as historical epistemology of the science of weights and mechanics in the sixteenth century, particularly as developed by Tartaglia in his Quesiti et inventioni diverse, Book VII and Book VIII (1546; 1554). In the early 16th century mechanics was concerned mainly with what is now called statics and was referred to as the Scientia de ponderibus, generally pursued by two very different approaches. The first was usually referred to as Aristotelian, where (...) the equilibrium of bodies was set as a balance of opposite tendencies to motion. The second, usually referred to as Archimedean, identified statics with centrobarica, the theory of centres of gravity based on symmetry considerations. In between the two traditions the Italian scholar Niccolò Fontana, better known as Tartaglia (1500?-1557), wrote the treatise Quesiti et inventioni diverse (1546). This volume consists of three main parts. In the first, a historical excursus regarding Tartaglia's lifetime, his scientific production and the Scientia de ponderibus in the Arabic-Islamic culture, and from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, is presented. Secondly, all the propositions of Books VII and VIII, by relating them with the Problemata mechanica by the Aristotelian school and Iordani opvsculvm de ponderositate by Jordanus de Nemore are examined within the history and historical epistemology of science. The last part is relative to the original texts and critical transcriptions into Italian and Latin and an English translation. This work gathers and re-evaluates the current thinking on this subject. It brings together contributions from two distinguished experts in the history and historical epistemology of science, within the fields of physics, mathematics and engineering. It also gives much-needed insight into the subject from historical and scientific points of view. The volume composition makes for absorbing reading for historians, epistemologists, philosophers and scientists. (shrink)