SAGP SSIPS Abstracts 2013
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Binghamton University The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB) The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter 10-2013 SAGP SSIPS Abstracts 2013 Anthony Preus 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 Preus, Anthony, "SAGP SSIPS Abstracts 2013" (2013). The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter. 427. https://orb.binghamton.edu/sagp/427 This Announcement 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]. Draft, September 15 The 31st annual joint meeting of The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy (SAGP) with The Society for the Study of Islamic Philosophy and Science (SSIPS) Abstracts Vishwa Adluri, [email protected] “Gita, Greek philosophy, and Arendt” This paper examines the interface between Greek and Indian notions of action. My starting point however will be Arendt’s notion of thinking as the paradigmatic activity. Through showing how the life of thought is not opposed to the life of action in Arendt I will introduce an important nuance into the Bhagavadgītā’s notion of action (karma). As in Arendt, the Indian text makes a distinction between mere work or labor and action in the true sense. A recovery of this notion of action is essential not only for understanding the Bhagavadgītā, but also for addressing our contemporary political context. I will also discuss allied issues such as the distinction between private and public spheres and the concept of immortality versus eternity in both the Gītā and Arendt. Han Thomas Adriaenssen, University of Groningen [email protected] “Peter Olivi and Peter Aureol on Conceptual Thought False Friends?” As human beings, we can cognitively engage both with particular objects such as John and with general concepts such as ‘man in general’. But crucial as this latter capacity may be, it is also highly elusive. For when I cognize John, it is clear what the object of my cognition is: John. But what is the object of my conceptual thought of man in general? One option that was often discussed by scholastic authors was that conceptual thoughts were directed at inner representational devices. This is what I call a ‘representationalist’ account of conceptual thought. In this paper, I ask how the Franciscan thinkers Peter Olivi (1248-1289) and Peter Aureol (1280- 1322) relate to such an account. Olivi and Aureol were among the most daring and original Franciscans of their times. Importantly, they are often mentioned in one breath as foes of representationalist accounts of cognition (for instance Prezioso 81-4; Kraml, 1548; Marenbon, 295). And indeed, both are highly critical of representationalist theories of perceptual cognition. In this paper, however, I argue that the two thinkers diverge when it comes to analysing conceptual thought. To this extent, then, they are false friends. While Aureol firmly sticks to his anti- representationalism, Olivi makes significant concessions to the representationalist by assigning a crucial role in his analysis of conceptual thought to image-like representations. First, Olivi thinks that when my intellect conceives of man in general, my imagination must at the same time present an individual man to me. It does so by presenting me with a so-called ‘memory- species’. A memory-species for Olivi is an image-like representation that is the object of cognition when we remember of imagine something (Toivanen, 293-326). By assigning a crucial role to such species in conceptual thought, Olivi makes a concession to representationalism. This puts him at odds with Aureol. While Aureol agrees that intellect and imagination must work together in conceptual thought, he resists representationalist accounts of the imagination: ‘the father who is imagined by me is the man himself in intentional being, not, indeed, a species’ (Aureol, 697-8). Imagining my father, my cognitive powers immediately reach out to the man himself, not to an inner representation. Second, Olivi thinks that in mnemonic conceptual thought, our intellectual acts are primarily directed at memory-species. Commentators who propose anti-representationalist readings of Olivi on conceptual thought (Perler 138; Pasnau, 273) have underestimated the extent to which this is a concession to representationalism. Indeed, for Olivi to say that an intellectual act is primarily directed at a memory-species is to say that an intellectual act is primarily directed at some kind of inner image. This once more puts Olivi at odds with Aureol, who extensively argues that such an account interposes a veil between the human mind and external reality. To conclude, then, Olivi and Aureol are not simply the like-minded foes of representationalism they are sometimes made out to be. When it comes to their analyses of conceptual thought, they are false friends. Aureol, Scriptum super Primum Sententiarum (ed. Buytaert), Louvain, 1956 Kraml, ‘Why did Ockham reject Species?’ In Pacheco, Intellect and Imagination in Medieval Philosophy, Turnhout 2006 Marenbon, Medieval Philosophy’, London 2007 Pasnau, Theories of Cognition in the later Middle Ages, Cambridge 1997 Perler, Theorien der Intentionalität im Mittelalter, Frankfurt 2004 Prezioso, La species medievale e i prodromi del fenomenismo moderno, Milano 1963 Toivanen, Perception and the Internal Senses, Leiden 2013 Doug Al-Maini, St. Francis Xavier University [email protected] “Two Types of Love in the Phaedrus” Plato's Phaedrus presents a debate between a lover and a non-lover for the favours of a youth. However, the terms of that debate are left ambiguous by the participants: what 'love' actually consists in, what the youth receives in return for the granting of favours, and indeed whether anyone competing in this debate can be coherently described as a 'non-lover' are questions that receive different answers depending on who is speaking. All of this would seem to lead to a very confused youth who is expected ultimately to choose which speaker to embrace. Using the concepts of philos and eros as they are outlined in the debate I shall try to disentangle the various positions taken regarding these questions and provide some assistance to the beloved in making his choice. Audrey Anton, Western Kentucky University [email protected] “Ignorance and Moral Vice According to Aristotle Or Why stupid jerks are the worst” Having taught Aristotle’s four main human character types for several years now, I now anticipate that students will strongly object to Aristotle’s ranking of the worst types of character. According to Aristotle, it is worse to be vicious than it is to be incontinent, even though both character types are to be avoided. What’s more is that the vicious person, according to Aristotle, is ignorant of the good. These two facts generate the common objection that Aristotle must have been mistaken in this assessment, for we all know that it is worse to knowingly do wrong than to do wrong in ignorance. In this paper, I aim to defend both Aristotle’s characterization of the incontinent and vicious persons as well as his ranking of these characters. In order to first motivate a reason for a defense, I must carefully construct a phenomenological account of what acting immorally seems like from the point of view of the vicious person. I do this with the help of Aristotle—arguing that the vicious person views bad ends as good ones, receives pleasures that are “alien” pleasures (achieved in ways that are not proper to such feelings), and does not recognize her behavior as morally wrong. Then, I shall provide an analysis of Aristotle’s criteria for voluntary behavior that is subject to praise or blame. This analysis will show how Aristotle held that there were at least two different ways a person could be ignorant, and only one way constitutes an excuse for bad behavior (EN III.2). The second type of ignorance is, in fact, the kind of ignorance attributed to the vicious person. Still, like my students, I am skeptical that making such a distinction is sufficient for solving the problem. We must consider why such ignorance is inexcusable. Unfortunately, Aristotle does not provide a clear explanation beyond this distinction. Finally, I argue that such ignorance is inexcusable because, given what Aristotle seems to hold about communities and character acquisition, it is likely that such ignorance was willfully acquired. That is to say, while the vicious person may be mean and stupid without even knowing it, her ignorance is more a result of self- deception than simply being mistaken. Carolina Araujo, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro [email protected] “Adeimantus' challenge” A large amount of contemporary literature on Plato’s Republic deals with Glaucon’s speech as the major challenge Socrates is to face in his defense of justice, seeing in Adeimantus’ speech nothing but a restating of the question. However, Plato is very clear in stating both that Glaucon’s argument was not enough and that he did not make the most relevant point to the matter (362d3-5). The aim of this paper is to present Adeimantus’ contribution to the problem in two general theses: first the objection to piety as a virtue, submitting it to justice; second the argument about the power of collective concealment as a device for breaking the cause/effect pattern that sustains the logic of retribution. The conclusion is that, while Glaucon presents an account that would grant justice to members of a community that obey its laws, Adeimantus considers this only an appearance of justice that would still produce collective unjust actions.