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Zeno of Elea: Where Space, Time, Physics, and Philosophy Converge
Western Kentucky University TopSCHOLAR® Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Honors College at WKU Projects Fall 2007 Zeno of Elea: Where Space, Time, Physics, and Philosophy Converge An Everyman’s Introduction to an Unsung Hero of Philosophy William Turner Western Kentucky University Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/stu_hon_theses Part of the Other Philosophy Commons, Other Physics Commons, and the Philosophy of Science Commons Recommended Citation Turner, William, "Zeno of Elea: Where Space, Time, Physics, and Philosophy Converge An Everyman’s Introduction to an Unsung Hero of Philosophy" (2007). Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects. Paper 111. http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/stu_hon_theses/111 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by TopSCHOLAR®. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors College Capstone Experience/ Thesis Projects by an authorized administrator of TopSCHOLAR®. For more information, please contact [email protected]. P │ S─Z─T │ P Zeno of Elea: Where Space, Time, Physics, and Philosophy Converge An Everyman’s Introduction to an Unsung Hero of Philosophy Will Turner Western Kentucky University Abstract Zeno of Elea, despite being among the most important of the Pre-Socratic philosophers, is frequently overlooked by philosophers and scientists alike in modern times. Zeno of Elea’s arguments on have not only been an impetus for the most important scientific and mathematical theories in human history, his arguments still serve as a basis for modern problems and theoretical speculations. This is a study of his arguments on motion, the purpose they have served in the history of science, and modern applications of Zeno of Elea’s arguments on motion. -
Diogenes Laertius, Vitae Philosophorum, Book Five
Binghamton University The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB) The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter 12-1986 The Lives of the Peripatetics: Diogenes Laertius, Vitae Philosophorum, Book Five Michael Sollenberger Mount St. Mary's University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://orb.binghamton.edu/sagp Part of the Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons, Ancient Philosophy Commons, and the History of Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Sollenberger, Michael, "The Lives of the Peripatetics: Diogenes Laertius, Vitae Philosophorum, Book Five" (1986). The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter. 129. https://orb.binghamton.edu/sagp/129 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). It has been accepted for inclusion in The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter by an authorized administrator of The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). For more information, please contact [email protected]. f\îc|*zx,e| lîâ& The Lives of the Peripatetics: Diogenes Laertius, Vitae Philosoohorum Book Five The biographies of six early Peripatetic philosophers are con tained in the fifth book of Diogenes Laertius* Vitae philosoohorum: the lives of the first four heads of the sect - Aristotle, Theophras tus, Strato, and Lyco - and those of two outstanding members of the school - Demetrius of Phalerum and Heraclides of Pontus, For the history of two rival schools, the Academy and the Stoa, we are for tunate in having not only Diogenes' versions in 3ooks Four and Seven, but also the Index Academicorum and the Index Stoicorum preserved among the papyri from Herculaneum, But for the Peripatos there-is no such second source. -
Skepticism and Pluralism Ways of Living a Life Of
SKEPTICISM AND PLURALISM WAYS OF LIVING A LIFE OF AWARENESS AS RECOMMENDED BY THE ZHUANGZI #±r A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN PHILOSOPHY AUGUST 2004 By John Trowbridge Dissertation Committee: Roger T. Ames, Chairperson Tamara Albertini Chung-ying Cheng James E. Tiles David R. McCraw © Copyright 2004 by John Trowbridge iii Dedicated to my wife, Jill iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In completing this research, I would like to express my appreciation first and foremost to my wife, Jill, and our three children, James, Holly, and Henry for their support during this process. I would also like to express my gratitude to my entire dissertation committee for their insight and understanding ofthe topics at hand. Studying under Roger Ames has been a transformative experience. In particular, his commitment to taking the Chinese tradition on its own terms and avoiding the tendency among Western interpreters to overwrite traditional Chinese thought with the preoccupations ofWestern philosophy has enabled me to broaden my conception ofphilosophy itself. Roger's seminars on Confucianism and Daoism, and especially a seminar on writing a philosophical translation ofthe Zhongyong r:pJm (Achieving Equilibrium in the Everyday), have greatly influenced my own initial attempts to translate and interpret the seminal philosophical texts ofancient China. Tamara Albertini's expertise in ancient Greek philosophy was indispensable to this project, and a seminar I audited with her, comparing early Greek and ancient Chinese philosophy, was part ofthe inspiration for my choice ofresearch topic. I particularly valued the opportunity to study Daoism and the Yijing ~*~ with Chung-ying Cheng g\Gr:p~ and benefited greatly from his theory ofonto-cosmology as a means of understanding classical Chinese philosophy. -
THE PHILOSOPHY BOOK George Santayana (1863-1952)
Georg Hegel (1770-1831) ................................ 30 Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) ................. 32 Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach (1804-1872) ...... 32 John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) .......................... 33 Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) ..................... 33 Karl Marx (1818-1883).................................... 34 Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) ................ 35 Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914).............. 35 William James (1842-1910) ............................ 36 The Modern World 1900-1950 ............................. 36 Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) .................... 37 Ahad Ha'am (1856-1927) ............................... 38 Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) ............. 38 Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) ....................... 39 Henri Bergson (1859-1941) ............................ 39 Contents John Dewey (1859–1952) ............................... 39 Introduction....................................................... 1 THE PHILOSOPHY BOOK George Santayana (1863-1952) ..................... 40 The Ancient World 700 BCE-250 CE..................... 3 Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) ................... 40 Introduction Thales of Miletus (c.624-546 BCE)................... 3 William Du Bois (1868-1963) .......................... 41 Laozi (c.6th century BCE) ................................. 4 Philosophy is not just the preserve of brilliant Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) ........................ 41 Pythagoras (c.570-495 BCE) ............................ 4 but eccentric thinkers that it is popularly Max Scheler -
Seminar in Greek Philosophy Pyrrhonian Scepticism 1
PHILOSOPHY 210: SEMINAR IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY 1 PYRRHONIAN SCEPTICISM Monte Johnson [email protected] UCSD Fall 2014 Course Description Pyrrhonian scepticism, as represented in the works of Sextus Empiricus, presents both a culmination and critique of the whole achievement of Greek philosophy, and was a major influence on the renaissance and the scientific revolutions of the seventeenth century, and continues to influence contemporary epistemology. In this seminar, we will get a general overview of Pyrrhonian scepticism beginning with the doxographies in Book IX of Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Famous Philosophers (including Heraclitus, Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, Leucippus, Democritus, Protagoras, Diogenes of Apollonia, Anaxarchus, Pyrrho, and Timon). The core part of the course will consist of a close reading and discussion of the three books of the Outlines of Pyrhhonian Scepticism by Sextus Empiricus, along with a more detailed examination of the treatment of logic, physics, and ethics in his Against the Dogmatists VII-XI. The last three weeks of the seminar will be devoted to student presentations relating Pyrrhonian scepticism to their own interests in philosophy (whether topical or historical). Goals • Learn techniques of interpreting and criticizing works of ancient philosophy in translation, including fragmentary works. • Obtain an overview of ancient scepticism, especially Pyrrhonian scepticism, its textual basis, predecessors, and influence upon later philosophy and science. • Conduct original research relating ancient skepticism to your own philosophical interests; compile an annotated bibliography and craft a substantial research paper. • Develop skills in discussing and presenting philosophical ideas and research, including producing handouts, leading discussions, and fielding questions. Evaluation 10% Participation and discussion. -
Anaximander and the Problem of the Earth's Immobility
Binghamton University The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB) The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter 12-28-1953 Anaximander and the Problem of the Earth's Immobility John Robinson Windham College Follow this and additional works at: https://orb.binghamton.edu/sagp Recommended Citation Robinson, John, "Anaximander and the Problem of the Earth's Immobility" (1953). The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter. 263. https://orb.binghamton.edu/sagp/263 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). It has been accepted for inclusion in The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter by an authorized administrator of The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). For more information, please contact [email protected]. JOHN ROBINSON Windham College Anaximander and the Problem of the Earth’s Immobility* N the course of his review of the reasons given by his predecessors for the earth’s immobility, Aristotle states that “some” attribute it I neither to the action of the whirl nor to the air beneath’s hindering its falling : These are the causes with which most thinkers busy themselves. But there are some who say, like Anaximander among the ancients, that it stays where it is because of its “indifference” (όμοιότητα). For what is stationed at the center, and is equably related to the extremes, has no reason to go one way rather than another—either up or down or sideways. And since it is impossible for it to move simultaneously in opposite directions, it necessarily stays where it is.1 The ascription of this curious view to Anaximander appears to have occasioned little uneasiness among modern commentators. -
Parmenides B6.1–2 Without a Modal Fallacy
Aporia vol. 21 no. 1—2011 Parmenides B6.1–2 without a Modal Fallacy MICHAEL J. HANSEN n all accounts, Parmenides makes a marvelous argument in the Way of Truth. However, there is no clear consensus among inter- Opreters about how to read it. The only noncontroversial point in interpreting the work seems to be that in it, Parmenides did something pro- found to philosophy. Despite this collective obligation to acknowledge Par- menides’ unique innovation (whatever it may be), it has become popular to read Parmenides as relying on a modal fallacy to make his argument. This would be an embarrassing mistake for such an influential work, especially given the argument’s deductive appearance. In this paper, I will outline the modal fallacy that Parmenides is accused of and argue for an interpretation that is free of the fallacy. I. The Alleged Modal Fallacy The critical fragment we must examine to decide the question is B6.1–2, in which the fallacy is supposed to occur: crhV toV levgein te noei`n t' ejoVn e!mmenai e!sti gaVr ei^nai, mhdeVn d' oujk e!otin . (Graham 214) Michael J. Hansen is a senior majoring in philosophy at Brigham Young University. He is interested in ancient philosophy, the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and metaphysics. In the fall, he will be pursuing a PhD in philosophy at the University of California–Los Angeles. This essay placed first in the 2011 David H. Yarn Philosophical Essay Contest. 2 MICHAEL J. HANSEN As usual, Parmenides’ language admits of many permissible translations for interpreters to quibble over, but this fragment is exceptionally difficult to render. -
Lucan's Natural Questions: Landscape and Geography in the Bellum Civile Laura Zientek a Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulf
Lucan’s Natural Questions: Landscape and Geography in the Bellum Civile Laura Zientek A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2014 Reading Committee: Catherine Connors, Chair Alain Gowing Stephen Hinds Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Classics © Copyright 2014 Laura Zientek University of Washington Abstract Lucan’s Natural Questions: Landscape and Geography in the Bellum Civile Laura Zientek Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Catherine Connors Department of Classics This dissertation is an analysis of the role of landscape and the natural world in Lucan’s Bellum Civile. I investigate digressions and excurses on mountains, rivers, and certain myths associated aetiologically with the land, and demonstrate how Stoic physics and cosmology – in particular the concepts of cosmic (dis)order, collapse, and conflagration – play a role in the way Lucan writes about the landscape in the context of a civil war poem. Building on previous analyses of the Bellum Civile that provide background on its literary context (Ahl, 1976), on Lucan’s poetic technique (Masters, 1992), and on landscape in Roman literature (Spencer, 2010), I approach Lucan’s depiction of the natural world by focusing on the mutual effect of humanity and landscape on each other. Thus, hardships posed by the land against characters like Caesar and Cato, gloomy and threatening atmospheres, and dangerous or unusual weather phenomena all have places in my study. I also explore how Lucan’s landscapes engage with the tropes of the locus amoenus or horridus (Schiesaro, 2006) and elements of the sublime (Day, 2013). -
Lecture 5. Zeno's Four Paradoxes of Motion
Lecture 5. Zeno's Four Paradoxes of Motion Science of infinity In Lecture 4, we mentioned that a conflict arose from the discovery of irrationals. The Greeks' rejection of irrational numbers was essentially part of a general rejection of the infinite process. In fact, until the late 19th century most mathematicians were reluctant to accept infinity. In his last observations on mathematics1, Hermann Weyl wrote: \Mathematics has been called the science of the infinite. Indeed, the mathematician invents finite constructions by which questions are decided that by their very nature refer to the infinite. That is his glory." Besides the conflict of irrational numbers, there were other conflicts about the infinite process, namely, Zeno's famous paradoxes of motion from around 450 B.C. Figure 5.1 Zeno of Citium Zeno's Paradoxes of motion Zeno (490 B.C. - 430 B.C.) was a Greek philosopher of southern Italy and a member of the Eleatic School founded by Parmenides2. We know little 1Axiomatic versus constructive procedures in mathematics, The Mathematical Intelligencer 7 (4) (1985), 10-17. 2Parmenides of Elea, early 5th century B.C., was an ancient Greek philosopher born in Elea, a Greek city on the southern coast of Italy. He was the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy. For his picture, see Figure 2.3. 32 about Zeno other than Plato's assertion that he went to Athens to meet with Socrates when he was nearly 40 years old. Zeno was a Pythegorean. By a legend, he was killed by a tyrant of Elea whom he had plotted to depose. -
The Natural Philosophers
The Natural Philosophers For us, the most interesting part is actually not what solutions these earliest philosophers arrived at, but The earliest Greek philosophers are sometimes which questions they asked and what type of answer called natural philosophers because they were mainly they were looking for. We are more interested in how concerned with the natural world and its processes. they thought than in exactly what they thought. We have already asked ourselves where everything We know that they posed questions relating to the comes from. Nowadays a lot of people imagine that at transformations they could observe in the physical some time something must have come from nothing. This world. They were looking for the underlying laws of idea was not so widespread among the Greeks. For one nature. They wanted to understand what was happening reason or another, they assumed that “something” had around them without having to turn to the ancient always existed. myths. And most important, they wanted to understand How everything could come from nothing was the actual processes by studying nature itself. This was therefore not the all-important question. On the other quite different from explaining thunder and lightning or hand the Greeks marveled at how live fish could come winter and spring by telling stories about the gods. from water, and huge trees and brilliantly colored So philosophy gradually liberated itself from flowers could come from the dead earth. Not to mention religion. We could say that the natural philosophers took how a baby could come from its mother’s womb! the first step in the direction of scientific reasoning, The philosophers observed with their own eyes thereby becoming the precursors of what was to become that nature was in a constant state of transformation. -
Meet the Philosophers of Ancient Greece
Meet the Philosophers of Ancient Greece Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Ancient Greek Philosophy but didn’t Know Who to Ask Edited by Patricia F. O’Grady MEET THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ANCIENT GREECE Dedicated to the memory of Panagiotis, a humble man, who found pleasure when reading about the philosophers of Ancient Greece Meet the Philosophers of Ancient Greece Everything you always wanted to know about Ancient Greek philosophy but didn’t know who to ask Edited by PATRICIA F. O’GRADY Flinders University of South Australia © Patricia F. O’Grady 2005 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Patricia F. O’Grady has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identi.ed as the editor of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company Wey Court East Suite 420 Union Road 101 Cherry Street Farnham Burlington Surrey, GU9 7PT VT 05401-4405 England USA Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Meet the philosophers of ancient Greece: everything you always wanted to know about ancient Greek philosophy but didn’t know who to ask 1. Philosophy, Ancient 2. Philosophers – Greece 3. Greece – Intellectual life – To 146 B.C. I. O’Grady, Patricia F. 180 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Meet the philosophers of ancient Greece: everything you always wanted to know about ancient Greek philosophy but didn’t know who to ask / Patricia F. -
74 Diodorus Cronus and Hellenistic Philosophy §1
74 DIODORUS CRONUS AND HELLENISTIC PHILOSOPHY §1. Introduction.1 During the last four decades historians of ancient logic have become increasingly aware of the importance of Diodorus Cronus and his pupil Philo as pioneers of the propositional logic which came to flourish in the Stoa.^ Their direct influence has so far been recognised in two main areas of Hellenistic controversy — the validity-criteria for conditional propo- sitions, and the definition of the modal terms 'possible' and 'necessary'. But some broader questions have not been satisfactorily answered. What were Diodorus' own philosophical allegiances and antecedents? What is his place in the history of Greek philosophy? How far-reaching was his influence on the post-Aristotelian philosophers? There was little chance of tackling these questions confidently until 1972, when Klaus Doring published for the first time the collected fragments of Diodorus, in his important volume Die Megariker. Meagre though they are, these fragments confirm my suspicion that Diodorus' philosophical background has not been fully explored, and also that his influence on the three emerging Hellenistic schools — the Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics — was far wider than has hitherto been recognised. There has been much discussion as to which earlier philoso- phers played the most decisive part in shaping Hellenistic philosophy, and the respective claims of the Platonists and of Aristotle have never lacked expert advocacy. In all this, the claims of so obscure a figure as Diodorus have been underrated. §2. Diodorus'school. Although Diodorus was not active before the last part of the fourth century, any discussion of his philosophical allegiances must begin with Euclides of Megara at the beginning of the century.