Peitho. Examina Antiqua
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Dal senso alla ragione, dalla ragione al senso
Full text linkAniello Montano, “Methodos”. Aspetti dei metodi e dei processi cognitivi nella Grecia Antica, Napoli 2014
Parmenide: suoni, immagini, esperienza. A proposito di una nuova lettura.
Full text linkThis essay aims to analyse the Parmenides’ interpretation that Laura Gemelli Marciano offered in the Eleatica lectures. The scholar represents the Parmenidean Poem as a mystical experience where sounds, words and images communicate and produce a real approach to the divine reality at the same time. This intriguing reading, which closely follows that offered by Kingsley, understimates the problems and cognitive structures of rational thought in the poem. Thus Parmenides appears to be a shaman rather a philosopher.Laura Gemelli Marciano, Parmenide: suoni, immagini, esperienza, a cura di L. Rossetti e M. Pulpito, Academia Verlag, Sankt Augustin, 2013, pp. 304
Syrianus on the Platonic Tradition of the Separate Existence of Numbers
Full text linkThis paper analyzes and explains certain parts of Syrianus’s Commentary on book M of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, which details Syrianus’s response to Aristotle’s attack against the Platonic position of the separate existence of numbers. Syrianus defends the separate existence not only of eidetic but also of mathematical numbers, following a line of argumentation which involves a hylomorphic approach to the latter. He proceeds with an analysis of the mathematical number into matter and form, but his interpretation entails that form is the constituent of number, which has the status and role of a Platonic Form. This solution allows him not only to explain and justify the unity of number, but also to apply the Platonic thesis of the separate existence of numbers, to the mathematical or monadic numbers themselves. It also betrays its tendency to combine theses of the Platonic Ontology with fundamental Aristotelian doctrines.
Il crocevia ontologico e i due volti della Doxa. Un’apologia della terza via in Parmenide
Full text linkP. Thanassas, Parmenides, Cosmos, and Being. A Philosophical Interpretation, Milwaukee 2007, pp. 109
Plato’s Unwritten Doctrine
No full textWith the late Author’s (†24.04.2015) kind permission, the present text is published here in a somewhat abbreviated and modified translation that has been given appropriate subheadings and supplemented with an extensive bibliography. Its German original from 1996 has been translated into French (1998) and English (2012). The purpose of the present translation is to make the Polish reader acquainted with the important and innovative account of Plato’s philosophy that has been put forward by the Tübingen School whose one of the most prominent co-founders was Hans Joachim Krämer. While this text is devoted to Plato’s critique of writing, it also presents Plato’s agrapha dogmata as an important supplement to the written dialogues. A fuller overview of the major assumptions of this new interpretation is to be found in the recently published Gesammelte Ansätze zu Platon (2014). With the late Author’s (†24.04.2015) kind permission, the present text is published here in a somewhat abbreviated and modified translation that has been given appropriate subheadings and supplemented with an extensive bibliography. Its German original from 1996 has been translated into French (1998) and English (2012). The purpose of the present translation is to make the Polish reader acquainted with the important and innovative account of Plato’s philosophy that has been put forward by the Tübingen School whose one of the most prominent co-founders was Hans Joachim Krämer. While this text is devoted to Plato’s critique of writing, it also presents Plato’s agrapha dogmata as an important supplement to the written dialogues. A fuller overview of the major assumptions of this new interpretation is to be found in the recently published Gesammelte Ansätze zu Platon (2014)
Agathology of Multiplicity. Considerations Concerning the Indetermined Duality
No full textThis article intends to characterize the constructive function that the Indeterminate Duality may have played in Plato’s oral teaching. Far from being in itself – as some testimonia seem to suggest – the primary origin of evil, as origin of multiplicity the Indeterminate Duality can be perceived as intrinsically presupposed by Plato’s identification of the source of being with the supreme Good. The notion of good implicates for Plato namely an unconditioned impulse to relationality, which indicates that the supreme Good is to be considered as supreme origin not only of unity, but also of multiplicity (scil. non-unity) and alterity. In the absence of multiplicity and alterity, no real relation, and, therefore, no real manifestation of the Good could in fact take place. As a consequence (and in accord with the suggestions given by Simplicius), the Indeterminate Duality may be considered as source of that original differentiation as well as of that generativity without which the supreme Good would be discordant with its goodness.This article intends to characterize the constructive function that the Indeterminate Duality may have played in Plato’s oral teaching. Far from being in itself – as some testimonia seem to suggest – the primary origin of evil, as origin of multiplicity the Indeterminate Duality can be perceived as intrinsically presupposed by Plato’s identification of the source of being with the supreme Good. The notion of good implicates for Plato namely an unconditioned impulse to relationality, which indicates that the supreme Good is to be considered as supreme origin not only of unity, but also of multiplicity (scil. non-unity) and alterity. In the absence of multiplicity and alterity, no real relation, and, therefore, no real manifestation of the Good could in fact take place. As a consequence (and in accord with the suggestions given by Simplicius), the Indeterminate Duality may be considered as source of that original differentiation as well as of that generativity without which the supreme Good would be discordant with its goodness
The Dokounta of the Platonic Dialectician. On Plato’s distinction between the insufficient "present discussion" and a satisfactory future one
No full textIt is a recurring pattern in Plato´s dialogues that the dialectician leads the discussion to a certain point where he identifies further, more fundamental problems, on which he claims to have his own view (to emoi dokoun, vel sim.), which he does not communicate. Such passages are briefly analyzed from five dialogues (Timaeus, Sophist, Politicus, Parmenides, Republic). It is shown that this seemingly strange behaviour of the dialectician corresponds exactly to the way a philosopher should behave according to the Phaedrus. The recurring cases of reticence of the leading figure in dialogue have to be understood as Plato´s written reference to his own unwritten philosophy
Plato and ‘the Birdhunters’: The Controversial Legacy of an Elusive Swan
No full textThe aim of this paper is to discuss some features of the doctrines of the agrapha dogmata in Neoplatonism, starting from the reading of an anecdote, presented in the Anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy, in which Plato dreams that close to death he becomes a swan which hunters are unable to catch. In fact, the dream is an explanation of the development of the Platonic tradition, and, more precisely, it presents a story of several exegetical disagreements that have survived till the present day. Compared to modern interpretation of the Aristotelic testimony on the “so-called unwritten doctrines”, we can state that the late antique interpretations of them focus and depend on what Plato has left us in his written dialogues, which are the best living images of his oral dialogues. This conclusion is, then, a consequence of a study carried out on Ancient and Neoplatonic texts that leads to the acknowledgement of a Platonic philosophical system as well as to an overview of modern secondary bibliography produced by the esoteric interpretation of Plato and various views of scholars who are against this account.The aim of this paper is to discuss some features of the doctrines of the agrapha dogmata in Neoplatonism, starting from the reading of an anecdote, presented in the Anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy, in which Plato dreams that close to death he becomes a swan which hunters are unable to catch. In fact, the dream is an explanation of the development of the Platonic tradition, and, more precisely, it presents a story of several exegetical disagreements that have survived till the present day. Compared to modern interpretation of the Aristotelic testimony on the “so-called unwritten doctrines”, we can state that the late antique interpretations of them focus and depend on what Plato has left us in his written dialogues, which are the best living images of his oral dialogues. This conclusion is, then, a consequence of a study carried out on Ancient and Neoplatonic texts that leads to the acknowledgement of a Platonic philosophical system as well as to an overview of modern secondary bibliography produced by the esoteric interpretation of Plato and various views of scholars who are against this account
Contradiction and Aphairesis in Plato’s Republic
No full textThe purpose of this paper is to show that Plato uses contradictions in the Republic as an impulse to think and to advance in the ascent to the Idea of the good. The procedure to dissolve the main contradictions in the text is that of aphairesis, complementary to that of prosthēsis. Also if they are explicitly named just at the beginning and at the end of the ascent (Books II and VII), I will show that aphairesis and prosthēsis are consistently applied throughout the ascendant argument of Republic I-VII. Starting with the separation of the opposites at the sensible level, the process will continue separating the rational and the irrational in the soul and culminate when explicitly naming the aphairesis of the One/ Good at the intelligible level. As will be seen, the opposites in question are unity and indeterminate/indefinite multiplicity. But also if named, the culminating aphairēsis of the Idea of the Good will not be consistently developed in the Republic. Some important allusions to it will also be found in the Parmenides allowing us to solve the main unresolved contradictions in the Republic in consonance with the theory of principles of the agrapha dogmata.The purpose of this paper is to show that Plato uses contradictions in the Republic as an impulse to think and to advance in the ascent to the Idea of the good. The procedure to dissolve the main contradictions in the text is that of aphairesis, complementary to that of prosthēsis. Also if they are explicitly named just at the beginning and at the end of the ascent (Books II and VII), I will show that aphairesis and prosthēsis are consistently applied throughout the ascendant argument of Republic I-VII. Starting with the separation of the opposites at the sensible level, the process will continue separating the rational and the irrational in the soul and culminate when explicitly naming the aphairesis of the One/Good at the intelligible level. As will be seen, the opposites in question are unity and indeterminate/indefinite multiplicity. But also if named, the culminating aphairēsis of the Idea of the Good will not be consistently developed in the Republic. Some important allusions to it will also be found in the Parmenides allowing us to solve the main unresolved contradictions in the Republic in consonance with the theory of principles of the agrapha dogmata
Persuasion, Justice and Democracy in Plato’s Crito
Full text linkSpeeches and persuasion dominate Plato’s Crito. This paper, paying particular attention to the final passage in the dialogue, shows that the focus on speeches, persuasion and allusions to many other elements of rhetoric is an integral part of Plato’s severe criticism of democracy, one of the main points of the Crito. Speeches allow members of a democracy – represented in our dialogue by Crito – firstly to break the law for self-interested reasons while considering themselves still to be law-abiding citizens, and secondly to feel that they are in a tolerant society preferring logos/persuasive speech above bia/compulsion. Socrates counters Crito’s speeches with speeches of his own, not only to defeat him at his own game, but also to make him aware how dangerous the game is. Real knowledge is preferable to speeches, but a democracy without speeches and rhetoric is doomed