Immortality in Empedocles
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From Hades to the Stars: Empedocles on the Cosmic Habitats of Soul', Classical Antiquity, Vol
Edinburgh Research Explorer From Hades to the stars Citation for published version: Trepanier, S 2017, 'From Hades to the stars: Empedocles on the cosmic habitats of soul', Classical Antiquity, vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 130-182. https://doi.org/10.1525/ca.2017.36.1.130 Digital Object Identifier (DOI): 10.1525/ca.2017.36.1.130 Link: Link to publication record in Edinburgh Research Explorer Document Version: Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Published In: Classical Antiquity Publisher Rights Statement: Published as Trépanier, S. 2017. From Hades to the Stars: Empedocles on the Cosmic Habitats of Soul, Classical Antiquity, Vol. 36 No. 1, April 2017; (pp. 130-182) DOI: 10.1525/ca.2017.36.1.130. © 2017 by the Regents of the University of California. Authorization to copy this content beyond fair use (as specified in Sections 107 and 108 of the U. S. Copyright Law) for internal or personal use, or the internal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by the Regents of the University of California for libraries and other users, provided that they are registered with and pay the specified fee via Rightslink® or directly with the Copyright Clearance Center. General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Edinburgh Research Explorer is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy The University of Edinburgh has made every reasonable effort to ensure that Edinburgh Research Explorer content complies with UK legislation. -
The Minotaur in Phaedo's Labyrinth: Philosophy's Necessary Myth
Trinity College Trinity College Digital Repository Trinity Publications (Newspapers, Yearbooks, The Trinity Papers (2011 - present) Catalogs, etc.) 2016 The Minotaur in Phaedo’s Labyrinth: Philosophy’s Necessary Myth Gregory Convertito Trinity College, Hartford Connecticut Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/trinitypapers Part of the Classical Literature and Philology Commons Recommended Citation Convertito, Gregory, "The Minotaur in Phaedo’s Labyrinth: Philosophy’s Necessary Myth". The Trinity Papers (2011 - present) (2016). Trinity College Digital Repository, Hartford, CT. https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/trinitypapers/43 The Minotaur in Phaedo’s Labyrinth: Philosophy’s Necessary Myth Gregory Convertito Plato’s Phaedo is a confusing dialogue. It takes place after the Apology and the Crito, on Socrates’s last night before his execution; Socrates has been waiting in prison for a long time due to an Athenian law barring executions during the annual ritual to celebrate Theseus’s mythical victory over the Minotaur. This story of the death of Socrates is embedded in a narration by Phaedo himself, who is relating the story to Echecrates. Socrates, after discussing the soul, the self, immortality, and death with Simmias and Cebes, Pythagorean acquaintances who have come to visit him, drinks the φαρμακον and dies. The myth of the Minotaur—a monster which has the body of a man and the head of a bull—is explicitly invoked in the text, which structurally mirrors this myth. Each has a monster, fourteen characters, and a thread which leads out of a labyrinth. In the myth, Theseus and the others are taken into the labyrinth wherein the Minotaur resides as tribute, as dictated by the Delphic Oracle, and the princess Ariadne gives Theseus a ball of thread to attach to the entrance, so he may find his way out again. -
Teleology in the Phaedo's Biographical Account
4 Teleology in the Phaedo’s Biographical Account José Manuel Osorio The aim of this paper is to clarify the first section of Socrates's biographical account (the 1 so-called first sailing) in Phaedo (96a-99d). Specifically, the aim is to have a better understanding regarding the teleological argument about the intellect in Socrates's speech. This is a complex and difficult passage which has been subjected to a series of what, in my view, are contradictory interpretations. Broadly speaking, it is possible to distinguish two very different groups of interpretations of the teleological arguments in the first part of the biographical section. In the first interpretation, scholars looking for the roots of the teleological arguments of the Timaeus arrive at the conclusion that they lie in the Phaedo. For this group of scholars, Plato employs a teleological argument in Socrates’s biographical account in the Phaedo, although it is 2 considered to be in schematic form when compared to the one employed in the Timaeus. In the second interpretation, scholars focusing exclusively on the Phaedo’s biographical passage argue 3 that teleological arguments are not used by Plato in the Phaedo since Socrates said in the first part of the biographical passage that he was completely incapable of finding a teleological cause (99c-d).4 The upshot is this: studies of the Phaedo support the thesis that teleology is not present in the dialogue, while studies of the Timaeus support the opposite, namely, that in Socrates’s biographical account teleology is present. So there seems to be a contradiction in the literature about the place of teleology in the Phaedo. -
An Interpretation of Platoʼs Ideas and Criticism of Parmenides According to Peanoʼs Ideography
Athens Journal of Humanities & Arts - Volume 5, Issue 1 – Pages 13-28 An Interpretation of Platoʼs Ideas and Criticism of Parmenides according to Peanoʼs Ideography By Giuseppe Boscarino Anyone who studies the Platonic work finds great difficulty in interpreting the precise meaning of his ontological terms, which are most often enveloped in an obscure and mystical language. Aristotle already emphasized the allegorical and poetic meaning of the platonic terms "imitation" and "participation," related to the sensible things, "copies" of the "ideas." I have asked myself then the following question: Is there a rational and logical nucleus within the mystical and mythological shell of Platonism? Studying the mathematical ideography of Peano, a great logician, mathematician and contemporary linguist, elicited the following question: can we make an ideographic translation of Platoʼs ontological terms in the same way Peano did for aspects of Euclidʼs work? We demonstrate a possible valid, rational, and logical nucleus of certain Platonic nomenclature beyond the mists of certain metaphysical interpretation, while also showing Platoʼs criticism of Parmenides to be invalid in the light of Peanoʼs ideography. Difficulty in the Interpretation of Platonic Theory in Educational and Historiographical Processes Many students have experienced the darkness, ambiguity and vagueness of philosophical language in the study of the history of philosophy. This turns into difficulty whenever the teacher has to explain to young students the thoughts of a philosopher, using the most limpid and clear language possible. Thus, texts on the history of philosophy instead of helping young people to escape from imprecise, vague and primitive ways of reasoning, rather accentuate this aspect, exposing the thinking of philosophers in even more obscure and ambiguous ways than seen in the original source. -
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. -
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). -
Thales of Miletus Sources and Interpretations Miletli Thales Kaynaklar Ve Yorumlar
Thales of Miletus Sources and Interpretations Miletli Thales Kaynaklar ve Yorumlar David Pierce October , Matematics Department Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University Istanbul http://mat.msgsu.edu.tr/~dpierce/ Preface Here are notes of what I have been able to find or figure out about Thales of Miletus. They may be useful for anybody interested in Thales. They are not an essay, though they may lead to one. I focus mainly on the ancient sources that we have, and on the mathematics of Thales. I began this work in preparation to give one of several - minute talks at the Thales Meeting (Thales Buluşması) at the ruins of Miletus, now Milet, September , . The talks were in Turkish; the audience were from the general popu- lation. I chose for my title “Thales as the originator of the concept of proof” (Kanıt kavramının öncüsü olarak Thales). An English draft is in an appendix. The Thales Meeting was arranged by the Tourism Research Society (Turizm Araştırmaları Derneği, TURAD) and the office of the mayor of Didim. Part of Aydın province, the district of Didim encompasses the ancient cities of Priene and Miletus, along with the temple of Didyma. The temple was linked to Miletus, and Herodotus refers to it under the name of the family of priests, the Branchidae. I first visited Priene, Didyma, and Miletus in , when teaching at the Nesin Mathematics Village in Şirince, Selçuk, İzmir. The district of Selçuk contains also the ruins of Eph- esus, home town of Heraclitus. In , I drafted my Miletus talk in the Math Village. Since then, I have edited and added to these notes. -
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. -
The Attunement Theory of the Soul in the Phaedo Naoya Iwata
Naoya Iwata: The Attunement Theory of the Soul The Attunement Theory of the Soul in the Phaedo Naoya Iwata 0. Introduction At Phaedo 86b7–c2 Plato makes Simmias, one of Socrates’ main interlocutors in the dialogue, present the theory that the soul is the ‘blend’ (κρᾶσις) and ‘attunement’ (ἁρμονία) of the hot, cold, dry, wet and certain other such things that make taut and hold together the body.1 According to this theory, when those things are properly and proportionately held together, the soul exists as a sort of attunement; when, on the other hand, they are improperly and disproportionately loosened or tautened because of illness or for some other reasons, the soul perishes at once, just like other sorts of attunement. Simmias thus casts serious doubt upon Socrates’ previous arguments in the dialogue that the soul is immortal. Who originated this attunement theory of the soul is a historical conundrum: there is no reliable evidence for identifying its authorship. Among the older thinkers, however, there is one attribution that receives some support from ancient writers: the Pythagoreans, especially Philolaus. For example, Plotinus, Olympiodorus and Philoponus discuss the view that the soul is an attunement by reference to the Pythagoreans;2 Macrobius, more specifically, reports that Pythagoras and Philolaus said that the soul was an attunement. 3 However, Plotinus and Philoponus, presumably bearing in mind Plato’s arguments against the attunement theory in the Phaedo, takes pains to distinguish the Pythagorean attunement theory from the one Simmias introduces in our passage, that the soul is the attunement of bodily elements. -
Overturning the Paradigm of Identity with Gilles Deleuze's Differential
A Thesis entitled Difference Over Identity: Overturning the Paradigm of Identity With Gilles Deleuze’s Differential Ontology by Matthew G. Eckel Submitted to the Graduate Faculty as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts Degree in Philosophy Dr. Ammon Allred, Committee Chair Dr. Benjamin Grazzini, Committee Member Dr. Benjamin Pryor, Committee Member Dr. Patricia R. Komuniecki, Dean College of Graduate Studies The University of Toledo May 2014 An Abstract of Difference Over Identity: Overturning the Paradigm of Identity With Gilles Deleuze’s Differential Ontology by Matthew G. Eckel Submitted to the Graduate Faculty as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts Degree in Philosophy The University of Toledo May 2014 Taking Gilles Deleuze to be a philosopher who is most concerned with articulating a ‘philosophy of difference’, Deleuze’s thought represents a fundamental shift in the history of philosophy, a shift which asserts ontological difference as independent of any prior ontological identity, even going as far as suggesting that identity is only possible when grounded by difference. Deleuze reconstructs a ‘minor’ history of philosophy, mobilizing thinkers from Spinoza and Nietzsche to Duns Scotus and Bergson, in his attempt to assert that philosophy has always been, underneath its canonical manifestations, a project concerned with ontology, and that ontological difference deserves the kind of philosophical attention, and privilege, which ontological identity has been given since Aristotle. -
Master Essay Question List, Exam #1
PHIL 320: HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY STUDY QUESTIONS FOR MID-TERM EXAM Milesians 1. What ideas do Thales and Anaximander have in common? Where do they disagree? What, do you suppose, accounts for their disagreement? 2. Explain the role of the apeiron in Anaximander’s system. Discuss at least two possible interpretations of what Anaximander means by ‘apeiron’. 3. Discuss and amplify, if you can, the claim (made by Bertrand Russell) that “the Milesian school is important, not for what it achieved, but for what it attempted.” 4. What was Anaximander’s objection to making a common element (such as water, as Thales had proposed) the archê? How did Anaximenes, who proposed air as the archê, avoid this objection? 5. It is often claimed that Anaximenes attempted to account for qualitative differences in quantitative terms. What can be said in favor of this claim? What can be said against it? 6. Compare the role of the traditional Greek elements in the theories of Anaximander and Anaximenes. Discuss the importance of the notion of opposition in each of the theories. 7. Compare the role of the notion of opposition in the theories of Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Heraclitus. Heraclitus 1. The notion of logos plays an important role in Heraclitus’s thought. Explain, in as much detaill as you can, what the notion is and what role it plays. 2. According to Plato, Heraclitus said that it is impossible to step into the same river twice. Heraclitus’s own words, in fragment 12, read as follows: “Upon those that step into the same rivers different and different waters flow .