Anaximander's Saying
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Anaximander's Ἄπειρον
1 Pulished in: Ancient Philosophy Volume 39, Issue 1, Spring 2019 Anaximander’s ἄπειρον: from the Life-world to the Cosmic Event Horizon Norman Sieroka Pages 1-22 https://doi.org/10.5840/ancientphil2019391 1 Current affiliation of author (July 2020): Theoretische Philosophie, Universität Bremen www.uni-bremen.de/theophil/sieroka Abstract Scholars have claimed repeatedly that Anaximander’s notion of the ἄπειρον marks the first metaphysical concept, or even the first theoretical entity, in Western thought. The present paper scrutinizes this claim. Characterizing natural phenomena as ἄπειρος— that is, as being inexhaustible or untraversable by standard human means—was common in daily practice, especially when referring to landmasses and seas but also when referring to vast numbers of countable objects. I will deny the assumption that Anaximander’s notion started off as being a theoretical answer to a specific philosophical question. That said, the aforementioned everyday notion of ἄπειρος could still lead to the development of theoretical concepts. Based on the observations Anaximander did with seasonal sundials, the inexhaustible landmasses and seas just mentioned became depicted on his world map by means of concentric circles. These circles then marked the bounds of experience and, by being fixed and finite, suggested the possibility of traversing beyond what is directly experienced. Evaluating claims from recent Anaximander scholarship, the paper ends with a brief comparison with concepts from modern physics which play an analogous role of demarcating the bounds of experience. Anaximander’s ἄπειρον: from the Life-world to the Cosmic Event Horizon Norman Sieroka Interest in Anaximander (c. 610-c. 547 BC) has increased in recent years. -
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). -
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. -
1 Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Philosophy
1 Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Philosophy The Problem and the Three Tiers of Explanation ow shall we account for the origins of Greek philoso- phy? To answer the question requires, first of all, that we determine precisely what we are trying to explain. HThis, of course, proves to be a daunting task for it is in large measure a perennial problem for philosophers: What exactly is philosophy, and what did it mean to the ancient Greeks? We can profitably distinguish two kinds of questions in our inquiries: (A) What are the defining characteristics of Greek philosophy in terms of which we can distinguish it from earlier pre- philosophical thought? (B) What explains the rise of this particular type of thinking in Greece? 15 16 Anaximander Naturally, the answer we give to (A) will affect the way we and the approach (B). Reflecting upon the diverse scholarly literature Architects over the course of the last century, the disparate views and approaches suggest, not surprisingly, that there is considerable disagreement about precisely what “Greek philosophy” denotes and connotes.When the variety of opinions have been assem- bled, however, they may be roughly but usefully classified into two groups. On the one hand, we have what might be called first-tier accounts. These accounts answer (A) by identifying epistemological and ontological concerns in the systematic pro- grams of Plato and Aristotle as characteristic of philosophical thought. First-tier approaches offer historical narratives that tend to look backward in time, before the classical period, to determine who should and who should not be included in the story that leads up to them. -
Lecture 4. Pythagoras' Theorem and the Pythagoreans
Lecture 4. Pythagoras' Theorem and the Pythagoreans Figure 4.1 Pythagoras was born on the Island of Samos Pythagoras Pythagoras (born between 580 and 572 B.C., died about 497 B.C.) was born on the island of Samos, just off the coast of Asia Minor1. He was the earliest important philosopher who made important contributions in mathematics, astronomy, and the theory of music. Pythagoras is credited with introduction the words \philosophy," meaning love of wis- dom, and \mathematics" - the learned disciplines.2 Pythagoras is famous for establishing the theorem under his name: Pythagoras' theorem, which is well known to every educated per- son. Pythagoras' theorem was known to the Babylonians 1000 years earlier but Pythagoras may have been the first to prove it. Pythagoras did spend some time with Thales in Miletus. Probably by the suggestion of Thales, Pythagoras traveled to other places, including Egypt and Babylon, where he may have learned some mathematics. He eventually settled in Groton, a Greek settlement in southern Italy. In fact, he spent most of his life in the Greek colonies in Sicily and 1Asia Minor is a region of Western Asia, comprising most of the modern Republic of Turkey. 2Is God a mathematician ? Mario Livio, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, New York-London-Toronto- Sydney, 2010, p. 15. 23 southern Italy. In Groton, he founded a religious, scientific, and philosophical organization. It was a formal school, in some sense a brotherhood, and in some sense a monastery. In that organization, membership was limited and very secretive; members learned from leaders and received education in religion. -
Aesthetic Value in Classical Antiquity
Aesthetic Value in Classical Antiquity Edited by Ineke Sluiter Ralph M. Rosen LEIDEN • BOSTON 2012 © 2012 Koninklijke Brill NV ISBN 978 90 04 23167 2 CONTENTS List of Contributors . vii 1. General Introduction . 1 Ineke Sluiter and Ralph M. Rosen 2. Amousia: Living without the Muses . 15 Stephen Halliwell 3. Is the Sublime an Aesthetic Value? . 47 James I. Porter 4. More Than Meets the Eye: The Aesthetics of (Non)sense in the Ancient Greek Symposium . 71 Alexandra Pappas 5. The Aesthetic Value of Music in Platonic Thought . 113 Eleonora Rocconi 6. Senex Mensura: An Objective Aesthetics of Seniors in Plato’s Laws .. 133 Myrthe L. Bartels 7. Allocating Musical Pleasure: Performance, Pleasure, and Value in Aristotle’s Politics ................................................... 159 Elizabeth M. Jones 8. Audience, Poetic Justice, and Aesthetic Value in Aristotle’s Poetics .. 183 Elsa Bouchard 9. Authenticity as an Aesthetic Value: Ancient and Modern Reections . 215 Irene Peirano 10. Heraclides Criticus and the Problem of Taste . 243 Jeremy McInerney 11. ‘Popular’ Aesthetics and Personal Art Appreciation in the Hellenistic Age . 265 Craig Hardiman © 2012 Koninklijke Brill NV ISBN 978 90 04 23167 2 vi contents 12. Art, Aesthetics, and the Hero in Vergil’s Aeneid ..................... 285 Joseph Farrell 13. Tantae Molis Erat: On Valuing Roman Imperial Architecture . 315 Bettina Reitz 14. Poetry, Politics, and Pleasure in Quintilian . 345 Curtis Dozier 15. Talis Oratio Qualis Vita: Literary Judgments As Personal Critiques in Roman Satire . 365 Jennifer L. Ferriss-Hill 16. Captive Audience? The Aesthetics of Nefas in Senecan Drama. 393 Carrie Mowbray 17. Creating Chloe: Education in Eros through Aesthetics in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe ................................................. -
Early Greek Philosophy
P1: GNK/ABS P2: CSS/SCM P3: CSS/SCM QC: ANG/ADS T1: ADS CB162/Long CB162-FM1 January 29, 1999 13:56 The Cambridge Companion to EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY Edited by A. A. Long University of California, Berkeley iii P1: GNK/ABS P2: CSS/SCM P3: CSS/SCM QC: ANG/ADS T1: ADS CB162/Long CB162-FM1 January 29, 1999 13:56 published by the press syndicate of the university of cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom cambridge university press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 2ru, uk http: //www.cup.cam.ac.uk 40 West 20th Street, New York, ny 10011-4211, usa http: //www.cup.org 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia c Cambridge University Press 1999 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 1999 Printed in the United States of America Typeset in Trump Medieval 10/13 pt. in LATEX[tb] A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Cambridge companion to early Greek philosophy/edited by A. A. Long. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and indexes. isbn 0-521-44122-6 (hbk.) isbn 0-521-44667-8 (pbk.) 1. Philosophy, Ancient. 1. Long, A. A. B188.C35 1999 182 –dc21 98-38077 CIP isbn 0 521 44122 6 hardback isbn 0 521 44667 8 paperback iv P1: GNK/ABS P2: CSS/SCM P3: CSS/SCM QC: ANG/ADS T1: ADS CB162/Long CB162-FM1 January 29, 1999 13:56 contents Contributors page vii Preface xi Source abbreviations xv Lives and writings of the early Greek philosophers xvii Chronology xxix Map xxxi 1 The scope of early Greek philosophy a. -
The Fragments of Zeno and Cleanthes, but Having an Important
,1(70 THE FRAGMENTS OF ZENO AND CLEANTHES. ftonton: C. J. CLAY AND SONS, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, AVE MARIA LANE. ambriDse: DEIGHTON, BELL, AND CO. ltip>ifl: F. A. BROCKHAUS. #tto Hork: MACMILLAX AND CO. THE FRAGMENTS OF ZENO AND CLEANTHES WITH INTRODUCTION AND EXPLANATORY NOTES. AX ESSAY WHICH OBTAINED THE HARE PRIZE IX THE YEAR 1889. BY A. C. PEARSON, M.A. LATE SCHOLAR OF CHRIST S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. LONDON: C. J. CLAY AND SONS, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE. 1891 [All Rights reserved.] Cambridge : PBIXTKIi BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. AND SONS, AT THK UNIVERSITY PRKSS. PREFACE. S dissertation is published in accordance with thr conditions attached to the Hare Prize, and appears nearly in its original form. For many reasons, however, I should have desired to subject the work to a more under the searching revision than has been practicable circumstances. Indeed, error is especially difficult t<> avoid in dealing with a large body of scattered authorities, a the majority of which can only be consulted in public- library. to be for The obligations, which require acknowledged of Zeno and the present collection of the fragments former are Cleanthes, are both special and general. The Philo- soon disposed of. In the Neue Jahrbticher fur Wellmann an lofjie for 1878, p. 435 foil., published article on Zeno of Citium, which was the first serious of Zeno from that attempt to discriminate the teaching of Wellmann were of the Stoa in general. The omissions of the supplied and the first complete collection fragments of Cleanthes was made by Wachsmuth in two Gottingen I programs published in 187-i LS75 (Commentationes s et II de Zenone Citiensi et Cleaitt/ie Assio). -
The Fragments of the Poem of Parmenides
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by D-Scholarship@Pitt RESTORING PARMENIDES’ POEM: ESSAYS TOWARD A NEW ARRANGEMENT OF THE FRAGMENTS BASED ON A REASSESSMENT OF THE ORIGINAL SOURCES by Christopher John Kurfess B.A., St. John’s College, 1995 M.A., St. John’s College, 1996 M.A., University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, 2000 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2012 UNVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH The Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences This dissertation was presented by Christopher J. Kurfess It was defended on November 8, 2012 and approved by Dr. Andrew M. Miller, Professor, Department of Classics Dr. John Poulakos, Associate Professor, Department of Communication Dr. Mae J. Smethurst, Professor, Department of Classics Dissertation Supervisor: Dr. Edwin D. Floyd, Professor, Department of Classics ii Copyright © by Christopher J. Kurfess 2012 iii RESTORING PARMENIDES’ POEM Christopher J. Kurfess, Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh, 2012 The history of philosophy proper, claimed Hegel, began with the poem of the Presocratic Greek philosopher Parmenides. Today, that poem is extant only in fragmentary form, the various fragments surviving as quotations, translations or paraphrases in the works of better-preserved authors of antiquity. These range from Plato, writing within a century after Parmenides’ death, to the sixth-century C.E. commentator Simplicius of Cilicia, the latest figure known to have had access to the complete poem. Since the Renaissance, students of Parmenides have relied on collections of fragments compiled by classical scholars, and since the turn of the twentieth century, Hermann Diels’ Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, through a number of editions, has remained the standard collection for Presocratic material generally and for the arrangement of Parmenides’ fragments in particular.