The true chronology of the Pentekontaetia is difficult, perhaps impossible, to establish conclusively. The events between 477 and 432 were of the greatest possible importance: these years saw the creation of the Athenian empire and a precipitous decline in Spartiate manpower, drastic political realignments involving nearly every state in Hellas, and military activity often rising to a crescendo scarcely matched at the peak of the Peloponnesian War. Indeed, one might strongly argue that the fifty-odd years prior to 432 had a (...) substantially greater historical significance than the three decades of war which followed, as well as a greater degree of political and military drama. But the Pentekontaetia lacks the unifying historical narrative of a Herodotus, let alone a Thucydides, and this one deficiency has caused events of the utmost significance to fade into near obscurity. There is scarcely a single political or military occurrence during the Fifty Years which can be dated to closer than a year or two, and in some cases, proposed dates have ranged over the better part of a decade. With no firm chronological framework, historical analysis degenerates into guesswork and speculation, especially if even the relative order of events is in dispute. In cognizance of this need, this paper seeks to present portions of a new chronology of the Pentekontaetia, one differing in several very significant features from those previously suggested. The severely limited nature of the available evidence precludes any hope of firmly establishing the validity of any one dating scheme over its rivals; the best we can hope for is plausibility. (shrink)

As traditionally conceived, the creation of a new rule of customary international law requires that states believe the law to already require the conduct specified in the rule. Distinguishing the process whereby a customary rule comes to exist from the process whereby that customary rule becomes law dissolves this chronological paradox. Creation of a customary rule requires only that states come to believe that there exists a normative standard to which they ought to adhere, not that this standard is (...) law. What makes the customary rule law is adherence by officials in the international legal system to a rule of recognition that treats custom as a source of valid law. Confusion over this distinction arises because in the international legal system the same agents whose beliefs give rise to a customary rule are the legal officials whose adherence to the rule of recognition leads them to deem that rule legally valid. The proposed solution to the chronological paradox employs H.L.A. Hart’s analysis of the concepts of law and a legal system, and in particular, the idea of a rule of recognition. Yet Hart famously denies the existence of a rule of recognition for international law. Hart’s denial rests on a failure to distinguish between the ontological and authoritative resolution functions of a rule of recognition, however. Once such a distinction is drawn, it can be argued that customary international law rests on a rule of recognition that serves the ontological function of making customary norms legal, though not the authoritative resolution function of settling disputes over the alleged legality of particular norms. (shrink)

The Disputation or Cathechesis of Tortosa with its sixty-nine sessions (February 7, 1413-November 12, 1413) was the longest of the Jewish Christian encounters in the Middle Age. Stirred by the Avignonesian Pope Benedict XIII, Geronimo de Sancta Fide, olim Yehoshua ha-Lorki, summoned a group of Catalan and Aragonese rabbis to inform them that the Messiah was already came. Not only the Papal notaries recorded the excruciating debates, but also two Hebrew sources: the anonymous and fragmentary letter published by Halberstam in (...) 1868 and the chapter 40 of the Shebet Yehuda. They encompass the first nine sessions carried out orally, before the Pope requested for written texts to be debated lately. Since these sources disagree on many details, this paper aims at examining them anew. That examination has shown that the anonymous account is more accurate than the fictional report of the Shebet Yehuda as far as the internal chronology of the sessions, the speeches of the Jewish delegates and their identities are concerned. The internal evidence leads us to subscribe with Riera i Sans in ascribing its authorship to Bonastruc Desmestre from Girona, who was at Tortosa on request of the Pope. He probably knew other Jewish chronicle and added some new materials from the Vikkuach Ramban, Salomon Ibn Verga, the author of Shebet Yehuda, built upon this chronicle and created a fictional account around Vidal Benveniste or the ‘ideal’ portrait of the Pope and added some materials from the Latin Protocols or from unknown Jewish sources. (shrink)

Volume 8 of this landmark edition follows Peirce from May 1890 through July 1892—a period of turmoil as his career unraveled at the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. The loss of his principal source of income meant the beginning of permanent penury and a lifelong struggle to find gainful employment. His key achievement during these years is his celebrated Monist metaphysical project, which consists of five classic articles on evolutionary cosmology. Also included are reviews and essays from The Nation in (...) which Peirce critiques Paul Carus, William James, Auguste Comte, Cesare Lombroso, and Karl Pearson, and takes part in a famous dispute between Francis E. Abbot and Josiah Royce. Peirce's short philosophical essays, studies in non-Euclidean geometry and number theory, and his only known experiment in prose fiction complete his production during these years. Peirce's 1883-1909 contributions to the Century Dictionary form the content of volume 7 which is forthcoming. (shrink)

Predictive genetic testing is now routinely offered to asymptomatic adults at risk for genetic disease. However, testing of minors at risk for adult-onset conditions, where no treatment or preventive intervention exists, has evoked greater controversy and inspired a debate spanning two decades. This review aims to provide a detailed longitudinal analysis and concludes by examining the debate's current status and prospects for the future. Fifty-three relevant theoretical papers published between 1990 and December 2010 were identified, and interpretative content analysis was (...) employed to catalogue discrete arguments within these papers. Novel conclusions were drawn from this review. While the debate's first voices were raised in opposition of testing and their arguments have retained currency over many years, arguments in favour of testing, which appeared sporadically at first, have gained momentum more recently. Most arguments on both sides are testable empirical claims, so far untested, rather than abstract ethical or philosophical positions. The dispute, therein, lies not so much in whether minors should be permitted to access predictive genetic testing but whether these empirical claims on the relative benefits or harms of testing should be assessed. (shrink)

Volume 8 of this landmark edition follows Peirce from May 1890 through July 1892—a period of turmoil as his career unraveled at the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. The loss of his principal source of income meant the beginning of permanent penury and a lifelong struggle to find gainful employment. His key achievement during these years is his celebrated Monist metaphysical project, which consists of five classic articles on evolutionary cosmology. Also included are reviews and essays from The Nation in (...) which Peirce critiques Paul Carus, William James, Auguste Comte, Cesare Lombroso, and Karl Pearson, and takes part in a famous dispute between Francis E. Abbot and Josiah Royce. Peirce's short philosophical essays, studies in non-Euclidean geometry and number theory, and his only known experiment in prose fiction complete his production during these years. Peirce's 1883-1909 contributions to the Century Dictionary form the content of volume 7 which is forthcoming. (shrink)

O artigo explora duas polêmicas eruditas que contribuíram para fixação do cânon historiográfico brasílico setecentista. Aparentemente arcaizantes, os temas do Dilúvio Universal e o debate em torno da passagem do Apóstolo São Tomé pela América portuguesa constituíram importantes referências na construção da memória histórica brasílica. As elites letradas luso-americanas procuraram construir uma interpretação alternativa frente às teorias de inferiorização da América e dos Americanos.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Plato's Method in TimaeusAryeh FinkelbergIIn the long dispute between advocates of the metaphorical and the literal interpretations of the Timaeus creation story the exegetic potential of the dialogue has been exhaustively presented, yet with no decisive outcome,1 for, as has been repeatedly recognized, the issue can hardly be settled by a direct appeal to the text.2 This being the case, assistance has been sought in the evidence of Plato's (...) immediate disciples, but here again the discussion reaches a deadlock: partisans of the literal construal appeal to the authority of Aristotle, who censures Plato for admitting that the universe is created,3 while champions of the metaphorical interpretation address themselves to the Academy, who insist that Plato maintained the ungeneratedness of the world.4 Yet in seeking support from the authority of Plato's pupils, scholars seem to overlook the fact that the modern controversy takes a different shape from the one between the early Academy and Aristotle, and that on the point now disputed Plato's disciples did not disagree at all.In their insistence that Timaeus exhibits inconsistencies suggesting a systematic approach behind the chronological account, adherents of the metaphorical interpretation take these inconsistencies as a discrepancy [End Page 391] between the content and the form of the dialogue.5 Accordingly, they regard the cosmogonical narrative as a kind of circumlocution for a non–cosmogonical doctrine, a fact supposedly revealed by Plato in many hints, dispersed throughout the dialogue, aimed at falsifying the chronological order of the account and thus intended to induce the reader to strip off the cosmogonical disguise.6 This approach turns the dialogue into a pointless and unnecessarily misleading equivocation.7 Besides, this construal is historically unwarranted, for, as Robert Hackforth put it disagreeing with F. M. Cornford, it deviates "from the line taken by Xenocrates himself" in "arguing, not that Plato spoke of the coming into being of the universe, but that he never really spoke of it at all."8Shaped as a rejoinder to the metaphorical interpretation, the approach [End Page 392] of upholders of the literal interpretation also comes short of meeting the problem adequately. In rejecting the view of the Timaeus narrative as metaphorical and advocating its plain sense these scholars infer, or rather take for granted, that the chronological account must represent Plato's genuine position. The inference is fallacious: Timaeus may be a truly cosmogonical account, but it does not necessarily follow that Plato's position must have been cosmogonical.The view of the Timaeus cosmogonical narrative as no more than a translucent metaphor of a non–cosmogonical doctrine may thus be abandoned and the discrepancies presumably exhibited by the account not construed as between the atemporal content and chronological form of the dialogue, but rather as between Plato's general systematic approach and his chronological account in Timaeus. According to this interpretation, the chronological exposition would be a strategy adopted by Plato for certain methodological reasons. Since this construal, which I conventionally term "methodological," would share with the literal one the view that the immediate purport of the Timaeus account is cosmogonical, the dispute would focus on the question of how this purport is related to Plato's general position; the literal interpretation thus would be the claim that the cosmogony is not merely the immediate purport of the Timaeus narrative but its ultimate purpose.9Properly stated, the problem of the interpretation of the Timaeus narrative addresses the question of whether the cosmogonical account is a self–sufficient teaching attesting Plato's ultimate position, or rather a methodological device. This is indeed a proper formulation of the exegetical alternative, for precisely such was the controversy between Aristotle and the Platonists. Both sides were unanimous in regarding the Timaeus account as cosmogonical, but they differed in that Aristotle considered the Timaeus cosmogony as Plato's doctrine, while the Platonists defended the master, insisting that this was but "for the sake of " an account fashioned after the method of geometers, and [End Page 393] that his true approach was systematic.10 Whether in their construal of Timaeus the Platonists were guided by the master's advice or by some other motive... (shrink)

The American presidential election of 2000 was perhaps the most remarkable, and in many ways the most unsettling, that the country has yet experienced. The millennial election raised fundamental questions not only about American democracy, but also about the nation's constitution and about the legitimate role of American courts, state and federal, and in particular about the United States Supreme Court. _The Longest Night _presents a lively and informed reaction to the legal aftermath of the election by the most prominent (...) experts on the subject. With a balance of opposing views—including those of some of the most distinguished foreign commentators writing on the subject today—the contributors present an unusual breadth of perspectives in addressing the judicial, institutional, and political questions involved in the disputed election. Their commentaries bring the confusion and frenzy of the event into clear focus and lay the groundwork for an essential public debate that is sure to continue well into the future._ _The Longest Night _contains a thorough chronology of the events in Florida, a detailed account of the institutional structure of American presidential elections, a series of analyses both criticizing and defending the decisions in _Bush v. Gore, _American perspectives on the Florida struggle and America's electoral system, and a debate on maintaining or reforming the electoral college. The authors include participants in the legal and political battles surrounding the Florida election, foreigners charged with monitoring and supervising elections, and scholars from many disciplines specializing in constitutionalism, democracy, and American election law. _Contributors__. (shrink)

Like all sensible men I feel that to be read carefully by Denis Donoghue is a privilege rather than an ordeal; but although I am clearly to blame insofar as I allowed him to misunderstand me, I can't at all admit that he has damaged the argument I was trying to develop. I cheerfully concede most of his points, but they don't work against me in the way he thinks. Of course there is a sense in which it can be (...) said that "there is only one story," the facts of which can be had "for the trouble of finding them." That is not in dispute; the question concerns that "trouble" and its products. For we surely mean by right reading something more than the reconstruction of events in causal and chronological order - that is what we do when we read complicated detective stories, though even then, as I have argued elsewhere, our "trouble" involves considerations of a nonnarrative order; and this is true whether or not it is the intention of the author that it should. In the December issue of Critical Inquiry Denis Donoghue raised objections to Frank Kermode's "Novels: Recognition and Deception" . In his brief comments, Professor Kermode clarifies the issues in dispute. Kermode's other contributions to Critical Inquiry are "A Reply to Joseph Frank", and "Secrets and Narrative Sequence". (shrink)

The difficulties inherent to any analysis of the concept of “modernity” have been frequently emphasised: irregular and approximative semantics, pushed to the limit of totally meaningless, and harmless convention; constant tautology and instability; a whole succession of oppositions, followed by inevitable shifts of meaning and terminological errors; in a word, an endemic and periodically verified crisis. For all these reasons, “modernity” defines (this, however, is only a manner of speaking) one of the most paradoxical of literary ideas: the more widespread (...) it becomes, the more it lacks clarity, the more it grows blurred. And yet—for the paradox to be complete—the phenomenon is clearly inevitable: in one form or another modernity emerges with every important mutation or revolution of literary thinking. Either partially or totally, and also within the framework of new theoretical syntheses, it accompanies or redefines all the decisive stages of European aesthetics. As a real framework concept, “modernity” tends to associate, crystalise or reformulate—with regard to “what is new”—all the essential transformations of literary consciousness. It embraces the complete cycle of the ideal moments of creation and, implicitly, of literature: from the negation of old-style creation, codified and dogma-ridden, to the affirmation of new-style creation, made liberal, and freed from all aesthetic constraint. Modernity breaks a tradition, it disputes the conservative order of art and literature, with a view to instituting and installing its own tradition—this is a cyclical situation, which has perhaps been inadequately discussed. In a similar light, modernity is devoid of all precise chronological determination and becomes a constant which, in the various historical phases and on different semantic levels, expresses the inner movement of literature. This immanent dialectic of the history of literary thought goes through certain essential moments: one day, perhaps, there will come a time when the task of putting these moments in a pattern will be assured of scoring a success. (shrink)

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are arguably the most important period in philosophy’s history, given that they set a new and broad foundation for subsequent philosophical thought. Over the last decade, however, discontent among instructors has grown with coursebooks’ unwavering focus on the era’s seven most well-known philosophers—all of them white and male—and on their exclusively metaphysical and epistemological concerns. While few dispute the centrality of these figures and the questions they raised, the modern era also included essential contributions from (...) women—like Margaret Cavendish, Elisabeth of Bohemia, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Émilie Du Châtelet—as well as important non-white thinkers, such as Anton Wilhelm Amo, Julien Raimond, and Ottobah Cugoano. At the same time, there has been increasing recognition that moral and political philosophy, philosophy of the natural world, and philosophy of race—also vibrant areas of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—need to be better integrated with the standard coverage of metaphysics and epistemology. -/- A New Modern Philosophy: The Inclusive Anthology of Primary Sources addresses—in one volume—these valid criticisms. Weaving together multiple voices and all of the era’s vibrant areas of debate, this volume sets a new agenda for studying modern philosophy. It includes a wide range of readings from 34 thinkers, integrating essential works from all of the canonical writers along with the previously neglected philosophers. Arranged chronologically, editors Eugene Marshall and Susanne Sreedhar provide an introduction for each author that sets the thinker in his or her time period as well as in the longer debates to which the thinker contributed. Study questions and suggestions for further reading conclude each chapter. At the end of the volume, in addition to a comprehensive subject index, the book includes 13 Syllabus Modules, which will help instructors use the book to easily set up different topically structured courses, such as "The Citizen and the State," "Mind and Matter," "Education," "Theories of Perception," or "Metaphysics of Causation." -/- And an eresource offers a wide range of supplemental online resources, including essay assignments, exams, quizzes, student handouts, reading questions, and scholarly articles on teaching the history of philosophy. (shrink)

This issue’s “Legal Briefing” column covers the recent decision by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to expand Medicare coverage of advance care planning, beginning 1 January 2016. Since 2009, most “Legal Briefings” in this journal have covered a wide gamut of judicial, legislative, and regulatory developments concerning a particular topic in clinical ethics. In contrast, this “Legal Briefing” is more narrowly focused on one single legal development. This concentration on Medicare coverage of advance care planning seems warranted. (...) Advance care planning is a frequent subject of articles in JCE. After all, it has long been seen as an important, albeit only partial, solution to a significant range of big problems in clinical ethics. These problems range from medical futility disputes to decision making for incapacitated patients who have no available legally authorized surrogate. Consequently, expanded Medicare coverage of advance care planning is a potentially seismic development. It may materially reduce both the frequency and severity of key problems in clinical ethics. Since the sociological, medical, and ethical literature on advance care planning is voluminous, I will not even summarize it here. Instead, I focus on Medicare coverage. I proceed, chronologically, in six stages: 1. Prior Medicare Coverage of Advance Care Planning 2. Proposed Expanded Medicare Coverage in 2015 3. Proposed Expanded Medicare Coverage in 2016 The Final Rule Expanding Medicare Coverage in 2016 4. Remaining Issues for CMS to Address in 2017 5. Pending Federal Legislation. (shrink)

The close proximity and topical confluence of two early fourteenth-century quodlibetal disputations, those of John Duns Scotus and Jacques de Thérines, has drawn the attention of several scholars. Antonie Vos argues that Thérines’s quodlibet exhibits the influence of Scotus’s, yet no solid evidence has yet been provided for the chronology of their delivery or publication. Most scholars agree that they likely delivered their quodlibets in the same year: 1306. The following article gives a full exposition of corresponding topics in the (...) two texts, closely analyzing them for clues as to which influenced the other. (shrink)

Excerpt from Cultures and Institutions of Natural History: Essays in the History and Philosophy of Science This volume consists mainly of papers delivered at two meetings cosponsored by the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale in Milan and the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. The first, on the Culture of Natural History, was held in Milan, November l4-l 6, I996. The second, on Institutions of Natural History, was held in San Francisco, October 5 - 7, 1998. They followed two (...) earlier conferences on Biology as History (pinna and Ghiselin I996; Ghiselin and Pinna I996) likewise held in Milan and San Francisco. We intend to continue the series of meetings and have publications based on them in commemoration of the Academy's sesquicentennial in 2003. The emphasis here is mainly upon natural history museums and the kind of science that goes on in them. Although the essays were originally written to stand by themselves, when arranged in chronological order they suggest a common theme. To paraphrase Darwin, the culture and institutions of natural history have been, and are being, evolved. They have adapted to local circumstances, diversified, and sometimes even progressed. We may hope that the future holds more than just retrogression and extinction in store. Read as case studies the essays provide valuable insights into not just how, but why, the institutions have come into being and subsequently been transformed. Previous generations had quite different ideas than we do about how a collection of naturalia is supposed to function and how it should be organized. And there were con icting goals and serious disputes about policy, much as there are today. Often, though not always, the institutions turn out to be very different from what had been envisioned by their founders. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.". (shrink)

The formation of the chaplaincy movement in the context of the formation of independent Ukraine (after 1991) required the solution of a number of issues, primarily of a conceptual nature. The initiators of the restoration of chaplaincy faced the underestimation of the chaplaincy factor, the risks of transferring interfaith disputes to the military environment. In fact, it was a question of finding their own model of chaplaincy service, which would provide an optimal model for organizing the work of chaplains. (...) The authors propose to divide the development of the chaplaincy movement in independent Ukraine into three stages, which differ not only chronologically but also in their characteristics. The first stage (1991-2005) was characterized by a rethinking of the role and place of religion in the activities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The idea of a chaplaincy service was revived primarily on the basis of the volunteer movement. Volunteers also encouraged churches to form appropriate structures that would be responsible for chaplaincy work. At this stage, the driving force behind the formation of the chaplaincy movement was the unstable informal ties between church and security forces in Ukraine. With the advent of the first legal acts that regulated the search for optimal models for creating the chaplaincy institute, the second stage of development of the chaplaincy movement in Ukraine began. It lasted from 2006 to 2013. During this time, regulations were developed and implemented that institutionalized the relationship between the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and the country's largest churches and religious organizations. The third stage began with the beginning of the Russian Federation's attack on Ukraine in 2014 and continues to this day. The annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of hostilities in eastern Ukraine created the need to sharply increase the number of chaplains and to legalize them in military institutions. Already in 2015-2016, the formation of the state regulatory framework of the chaplaincy institute began and staff positions of chaplains in military units were introduced. On the other hand, there has also been a qualitative growth in the theoretical and practical training of chaplains and their material support. These processes show that the establishment of the institute of military chaplaincy in Ukraine has actually taken place. In each period, the authors highlight the problematic issues that government agencies and religious organizations addressed in organizing the chaplaincy movement. Particular attention was paid to the attempts of activists to form their own model of chaplaincy ministry and the problematic issues of improving the quality of chaplains' training. In particular, it was pointed out that the best way for Ukraine is to organize separate chaplaincy faculties in the country's higher educational institutions to train specialists at the level of world standards. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Interstate Arbitration in the Greek World, 337–90 B.C.Everett L. WheelerSheila L. Ager. Interstate Arbitration in the Greek World, 337–90 B.C.Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1996. xvii + 579 pp. Cloth, $70, £55 (foreign). (Hellenistic Culture and Society, 18)Sheila L. Ager's massive—and impressive—volume on Hellenistic interstate arbitration rides the new wave of scholarly interest in the politically fragmented but cosmopolitan Hellenistic period. Cosmopolitanism in many (...) periods (including the present post–Cold War era) has fostered political internationalism—schemes of world government, federal unions, and mechanisms for peaceful resolution of interstate conflicts. Although the Hellenistic age enjoyed little respite from war, some scholars have hailed Greek arbitration as a model for modern imitation.A brief survey of previous scholarship on arbitration will place Ager's work in perspective. Concepts of law and internationalism dominated earlier work. Some believed that arbitration as judicial practice could be studied without distinguishing public from private or internal from interstate cases: e.g., E. Sonne, De arbitris externis, quos Graeci adhibuerunt ad lites et intestinas et [End Page 642] peregrinas componendas, quaestiones epigraphicae (1888); E. de Ruggiero, L'arbitrato pubblico in relazione col privato presso i Romani (1893); A. Steinwenter, Die Streitbeendigung durch Urteil, Schiedsspruch und Vergleich nach griechischem Recht (1925). For internationalists establishment of a permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague in 1899 elicited a flood of scholarly interest: Greek arbitration now had contemporary relevance: e.g., W.Westermann, CJ 2 (1906–7) 197–211; L. Matthaei, CQ 2 (1908) 241–64; A. Raeder, L'arbitraire internationale chez les Hellenes (1912), published by the Nobel Institute; M. Tod, International Arbitration amongst the Greeks (1913); cf. his Sidelights on Greek History (1932) 39–68. Victor Bérard (always "Berard" in Ager) remained a voice of cynicism crying in the wilderness (De Arbitro inter Liberas Graecorum Civitates, 1894): Greeks resorted to arbitration after exhaustion in war or accepted a settlement only until a later opportunity for reopening the case arose. Study of interstate arbitration, dormant after Tod, revived with Luigi Piccirilli's corpus of Greek cases ca. 740–338 B.C.: Gli arbitrati interstatali greci (Pisa [not Florence, as Ager 578], 1973). Seven years later, A. J. Marshall reassessed Roman arbitrations in the East and accommodation of Greek practice (ANRW II.13 [1980] 626–61), on which E. S. Gruen expanded: The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome (1984) 96–131.Certainly more cases of arbitration/mediation are now known. Ager's study includes 171 instances for 337–90 B.C., with an appendix of 40 cases from texts too fragmentary to judge their contents accurately or instances failing to meet her criteria for inclusion as arbitration/mediation. In comparison, Ruggiero assembled a Roman corpus of 65 cases (both public and private, 191 B.C.– A.D. 282/4); Raeder, 81 Greek cases (ca. 740–ca. 100 B.C.; Tod, 82 Greek cases (ca. 740–early first cent. B.C.); and Piccirilli, 61 Greek cases (ca. 740–338 B.C.), besides 19 cases from mythological sources. But numbers easily deceive (cf. Ager 19–20): new epigraphical discoveries alone would assure greater numbers. Moreover, whereas Ruggiero, Raeder, and Tod confined their catalogues to epigraphical texts, Piccirilli and Ager include literary testimonia and a broader definition of "arbitration":, a formal judicial procedure involving selection of third–party judges to evaluate publicly presented oral and written testimony; mediation (σύλλυσις), a third party's reconciliation of disputants; and, for Ager (xiv), even "voluntary compromise."Ager's volume, a revised dissertation (University of British Columbia), continues Piccirilli's corpus: thus its initial terminus is 337 B.C.; the concluding terminus, 90 B.C., is conceded to be arbitrary. The texts follow chronological order (as opposed to Tod's regional arrangement). Only interstate cases involving Greeks as either disputant or arbiter are included, and inconsistency for inclusion is confessed: not all cases are in her view historical (i.e., no. 93, Heraclea's attempted mediation between Rome and Antiochus III), and her generous definition of "arbitration" can involve subjectivity (e.g., no. 23 [Delphi]: dikastai in a very fragmentary text qualifies it as an arbitration document; cf... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In light of the careful work of Joshua Benson who argues that the De reductione is the second part to Bonaventure's inception sermon, this article will date the De reductione by determining when he incepted. This is not an easy task because the date of his inception has been a point of confusion within Bonaventurian scholarship. Scholars date it as early as 1248 and as late as 1257. Within (...) those nine years they assign various scenarios regarding his status as regent master. For example, the most common scenario has Bonaventure incepting in 1253 or 1254 and assuming the Franciscan Chair in theology, but only teaching in the Franciscan convent, unrecognized by the university until either 1256 or 1257.My thesis is that Bonaventure incepted in April 1254 to replace William of Middleton who relinquished the Franciscan chair in the wake of the Lenten riot of 1253. To argue this thesis, the paper divides into three parts. The first will briefly present the various dating for Bonaventure's inception. The second will examine all the thirteenth and fourteenth century sources that are used for determining Bonaventure's chronology so as to establish the evidence for calculating his inception. And third, building upon the evidence gleaned from those witnesses, I will present a narrative chronology that details events surrounding Bonaventure's inception in April 1254.I. Various Dating of Bonaventure's inception as MasterScholars assign various dates to his inception, which has caused much confusion. The Quaracchi editors of the Opera omnia, Robinson, Gilson, Moorman, and Crowley claim Bonaventure incepted in 1248; Robson alone gives a 1252 date; Callebaut, Longpré, the Spanish editors of the Obras de San Buenaventura, Abate, Bonafede, the earlier Brady, the later Hayes, and Hammond give a date of 1253; Pelster, Glorieux, the Quaracchi editors of the Opera theologica selecta, Veuthey, the earlier Bougerol, Cousins, Schlosser and Delio opt for 1253 or 1254; the later Bougerol, Quinn, the earlier Hayes, Noone, Hauser, and Cullen hold for a 1254 date; the later Brady posits a 1255 date; Bettoni and Dufeil push the inception back to 1257.Table 1 highlights the disparity between the last two studies that focus specifically on Bonaventure's chronology during his time at Paris. Click for larger viewTable 1. Disputed dates in Bonaventure's ChronologyAt least the two studies have one date in common, and with that one fixed date of 1257, we turn to examine the thirteenth and fourteenth century witnesses so as to dispel the disparity.II. Examining the SourcesEven though the dating for Bonaventure's inception spans nine years, there are only seven sources that scholars can use to calculate those dates. More specifically, the majority of scholars support a 1253 or 1254 dating, with the year discrepancy likely deriving from how they calculate the dates in the sources according to medieval/modern calendars. Thus, to sort through the tangle of dating, all the evidence will first be presented in full. Then, in light of all the evidence, a scenario for dating Bonaventure's inception can be advanced.The thirteenth and fourteenth century sources fall into four groups: the Chronica fratris Salimbene de Adam ; the two independent, short lists of General Ministers: Series Magistrorum Generalium Ordinis Fratrum Minorum , and Chronicon Abbreviatum de Successione Generalium Ministrorum ; the three interdependent texts of the Catalogus Generalium Ministrorum,Catalogus XV Generalium , and the Chronica XXIV Generalium , which contain significant variances from one another; and the Chronica Franciscis Fabrianensis . As will become clear, scholars who advance a 1248 date read Salimbene in light of Fabriano, while those who favor 1253 or 1254 read Salimbene in light of the Catalogus Generalium Ministrorum and related texts. Those who favor a 1257 dating, seem to.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Cassirer and Heidegger in Davos: The Philosophical Arguments by Simon TruwantTobias EndresSimon Truwant. Cassirer and Heidegger in Davos: The Philosophical Arguments. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. Pp. viii + 266. Hardback, $99.99.Simon Truwant has written a very well-researched study of Cassirer’s and Heidegger’s 1929 encounter in Davos. Because of its historical setting at the origin of the analytic-continental divide, this book is of interest to everyone working in (...) contemporary philosophy. As there is already a considerable mass of secondary literature on this topic, Truwant acknowledges he needs to show that his book sheds new light on it. He does so by stressing his choice to focus exclusively on the philosophical arguments that were at stake in the Cassirer-Heidegger encounter rather than considering its reception and so adding to other scholars’ “non-philosophical assessments” (6). Truwant argues that the “Cassirer-Heidegger dispute” is an exchange that goes well beyond the Davos encounter (15), supposedly extending from 1923 until 1946 (8, 10–11). Its core topics are (a) the Kantian legacy, (b) the conditio humana, and (c) the role of philosophy. Accordingly, the book, which comprises ten chapters, an introduction, and a conclusion, is structured into three parts. In the introduction, Truwant presents his guiding hypothesis and its positioning in the scholarly literature. Against the standard view that Cassirer and Heidegger did not have a genuine debate, Truwant claims that a careful reconstruction of the philosophical content of the Davos encounter shows that “a true philosophical debate” (14) took place between the two thinkers. This reading is accompanied by a critical assessment of most other works on the topic, which, according to Truwant, strive either to give “an exhaustive overview” (8) of the encounter by focusing on a merely chronological reconstruction of the events or to single out just one topic of the debate to the exclusion of all the others.In the first chapter, Truwant presents evidence of a dispute transcending the Davos encounter by pointing the reader to all the occasions where Cassirer and Heidegger were in dialogue, either through their works or in person (15–18). Then, Truwant proceeds, first, to establish the philosophical core of the 1929 debate along lines (a)–(c) listed above (18–36); and, second, to map that brief and, at first sight, failed debate onto the longer dispute between the two thinkers running from 1923 through 1946 (36–44). The first [End Page 515] chapter thus serves to introduce the general structure of what follows by arguing that the Davos debate must be considered against this wider context.The first part of the book, which deals with the Kantian heritage in both Heidegger and Cassirer, includes chapters 2–4. The second part includes chapters 5–7, devoted to the philosophical anthropology of the two thinkers, which Truwant sees as centered on the questions of subjectivity and of selfhood in both Cassirer and Heidegger (73, 112, 126, 151, 167–75). The third and final part of the book includes chapters 8–10. This third part presents first a reconstruction of Cassirer’s normative stance on philosophy as an “ethical task” aimed at “deconstructing ideologies” (195), on the basis of his early writings on the history of ideas (181–86) and the philosophy of culture (186–92). Then, Truwant proceeds to situate Heidegger’s “recovery of the Seinsfrage, the analysis of Dasein, and the reinterpretation of Kant’s thought” (197) within a “hermeneutical conception of philosophy” (219). Finally, he sets Cassirer’s enlightenment view of philosophy (220–32) against Heidegger’s (non-Wittgensteinian) therapeutic conception of philosophy (232–44). In the conclusion, Truwant both sums up the evidence in support of his hypothesis about the philosophical nature of the Davos exchange and argues that Heidegger and Cassirer agree that a correlation between a terminus a quo and a terminus ad quem is essential to any philosophical project, although they differ in their determinations of those terms (247).Truwant’s attempt to give a systematic reconstruction of the Cassirer-Heidegger debate is commendable and, for the most part, a thorough success, which adds a significantly new viewpoint to the existing scholarly literature. Nevertheless, one might wonder whether... (shrink)

Comprehending the messages of Qurʾān in terms of the relationship between occasions (sīra) and revelation has a profound influence on determining the contextual purpose and shades of meanings. Establishing such relationship necessitates dating sūras and verses. Although there are some oral transmissions (riwāya) that verses 12, 45, 47 and 77 were revealed in Madīnah, and some weak transmissions date this sūra as Medinan, this sūra is unanimously regarded as Meccan. Like many Meccan verses, not only the order of revelation and (...) causality of verses but also the content of the script do not provide concrete evidence about whether the whole sūra was sent down at once or revealed piece by piece or the date of the revelation. In this regard, in studies carried out on the dating of Sūrat Yāsīn, the dating of this sūra is established on the basis of the dates of the sūras coming before or after Yāsīn since they apparently have more definite datings. In recent studies done on the nuzūl order, Sūrat Yāsīn is dated on the basis of a time frame before the emigration to Abyssinia (615-616) in terms of Sūrat Maryam and Ṭāhā, or Muhammed’s return from Ṭāif and his Ascension (Isrāʾ) (620) in terms of Sūrat al-Jinn. The dating of the sūra covers a time span of 4 to 5 years and points out two discrete occasions of revelation. With this reason, there is a need for further studies to be carried out on dating Qurʾānic sūras, especially within the specific context of Sūrat Yāsīn. Traditional Islamic studies dispute the chronological order of the sūra, offering various chronological orderings for the sūra: 31, 36, 37, 39, 40 and 41. In the first part of this study, such variations and their causes are tentatively established and determining the precise chronology and listing of the sūra was attempted. Based on the analysis of the variations in the disputed ordering of the sūra, it has been found to be caused by five different reasons. When such discrepancies are accounted for and conflicts are resolved, the conclusion was reached that in almost all riwāyas, sūrat Yāsīn can be dated as the 41st chapter (sūra). In the second part of the study, on the basis of the discourse analysis of the sūra, new arguments to date the chronology of the sūra were put forward. These are; a- Because of their obstinacy, unbelievers will not heed the warnings directed at them (36/11), b- The speeches of unbelievers should not grieve Prophet Muhammad (36/76), c- The use of the word Rahmān the Most Gracious (36/11, 15, 23, 52), d- In return for conveying the message of Allah, prophets do not ask people for any wage (36/21), e- Regarding Qurʾān as book of poetry and calling Muhammad a poet (36/69), f- The possibility of recreation and reviving bones (36/78). Such arguments presented in a – f usually refer to events happening in Mecca and in particular the second part or the end of Meccan period, yet there is no exact date. g- Based on the phrase “al-Fulq al-Mashhūn”, the fact that sūrat Yāsīn should be dated after the emigration to Abyssinia (615-616) presents strong evidence that it was revealed after sūrat Maryam, though this is still not enough to give an exact date. h- In sūrat Yāsīn, in phenomenon of (a man coming from the farthest part of the City) (36/20), two names (Hazrat Abū Bakr and el-Hāris b. Abī Hāla) and two dates (month of Dhu al-Qiʿdah/April 5 – May 4, 615 and three days after Shawwal 15/February 27, 617) are mentioned in Sīra for the purpose of consolation and encouragement. In the third part of the study, in the chronological ordering of sūrat Yāsīn, information regarding the dating of sūras coming before and after Yāsīn are evaluated based on their similarity with Yāsīn in terms of discourse and diction. In nuzūl orderings, when riwāyas regarding dating sūrat al-Qamar, Ṣād and al-Jinn coming before Maryam and Ṭāhā are analysed, events happening during 7th or 10th year after emigration were observed. In addition, there were close connections between the discourse and diction of Yāsīn with those of Ḥavāmīm sūras. This brings to the mind the possibility that some sūras might be listed in the wrong place because of the vagueness of the piecemeal character of the Qurʾānic revelation and its effects on riwāyas. Based upon the findings and inferences in the first three sections of this study, sūrat Yāsīn was determined to be the 41st chapter (sūra) of Qurʾān. The dating of sūrat Yāsīn presented some difficulties especially while trying to date it according to the interrupted revelation order approach, and considering it together with Sūrat Maryam and Ṭāhā. However, listing sūrat Yāsīn on the basis of uninterrupted revelation order along with Sūrat al-Jinn, the previous sūra and Ḥāmīm sūras is found to be a more coherent strategy since it gives priority to the succession of two sūras. (shrink)

International Law in Context is a pedagogy-forward textbook. It reflects the recent paradigm shift in legal education, which focuses more on what students actually learn rather than the material to which they are exposed. The text aims to prepare the next generation of U.S. lawyers to engage with our interconnected world and to critically evaluate the U.S.'s role within the international legal order. The work is divided into three parts that accomplish these goals. Part One lays a foundation. It covers (...) the various actors within the system, the theories that help explain their behavior, and the principles and sources of law they create. Part Two turns to the fora that define and support the international order, the historical and political contexts that impacted their design, and their efficacy. Part Three is a capstone section that asks students to weave together everything they have learned in Parts One and Two. Students will engage in normative development regarding climate change, including the existing international treaty regime and U.S. implementation options, and the law of war in the modern age. The cornerstone of this book is its organization. The text groups material into conceptual frameworks that promote understanding and retention. For example, rather than consider the various dispute resolution fora in isolation, Part Two asks students to consider them in the context of what types of disputes arise and what legal rules can be employed to resolve them in various international and domestic fora. The institutions also are presented in chronology. In this way, students are encouraged to chart the developmental progression and to make connections and comparisons between various institutions. The use of conceptual frameworks continues within each part. For example, Chapter Six covers the sovereign State as a conflict resolution forum. Under this umbrella, the author discusses (a) State Jurisdiction; (b) The Reception of International Law into the Domestic Sphere; (c) The Qualification as a State Forum or State Litigant (i.e., Recognition of States & Governments); and (d) Protections Afforded Within the Forum: Sovereign, Diplomatic, and Consular Immunity. A typical coursebook might locate this material in four different chapters. The conceptual framework approach, however, allows students to see the big picture and the relationship between concepts. In addition to the frameworks, there are several other innovative pedagogical devices that support student learning. There are Foundation Questions that initially direct readers through the material and cumulatively help students confirm whether they have grasped key takeaways from each section. There also are Assessment Sets in each section, which provide students with immediate opportunities to apply material and gauge their understanding, and "Why Is This Important (a/k/a WITI Moment)" prompts designed to delve deeper into the underpinnings and consequences of various rules. Finally, there are directed reading notes before some more complex readings and margin annotations to keep readers oriented. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:BonaventureJay M. HammondChristopher M. Cullen, Bonaventure, Great Medieval Thinkers Series. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN: 0-19-514925-4 (paperback); 0-19-514926-2 (hardback). Pages: xviii + 251.This volume makes a valuable contribution to the "great medieval thinkers" series from OUP by providing an accessible introduction to the philosophy and theology of the great Franciscan St. Bonaventure († 1274). The Preface presents the book's organizing principle: "to analyze Bonaventure's thought by following (...) his own division of the branches of philosophy and theology" (xi) as found in the Bonaventure's classic text On the Reduction of the Arts to Theology (text explained on 29-32; oddly the book never addresses the discrepancy in the dating of the text, c. 1254 or c. 1270). This text considers how the new core subjects of the arts, heavily influenced by Aristotle and expanding beyond the trivium and quadrivium, are illuminations that should lead back to theology, that is to Scripture, which "lies hidden in all knowledge and in all nature."Part I, contains two chapters: the Introduction and another on the definition of Christian Wisdom, the ultimate goal of the Reduction of the Arts. Part II, "The Light of Philosophical Knowledge," contains three chapters on Bonaventure's physics, metaphysics, and moral philosophy. Part III, "The Light of Theological Knowledge," includes seven chapters organized according to Bonaventure's Breviloquium: the Trinity, Creation, Sin, the Incarnation, Grace, the Sacraments, and the Last Things.The preface sets out three claims that color the rest of the book. First, as mentioned, the book attempts an "introduction to the philosophy and theology" of Bonaventure, which the book calls "Christian Philosophy" (a term introduced by Étienne Gilson, Leon Veuthey and later adopted by John Quinn). Yet, I agree with the preface that "it is not easy to say precisely what this means in practice" (xi). Although Bonaventure did employ the phrase "Christian Wisdom" throughout his writings, he never used the phrase "Christian [End Page 541] Philosophy." More explanation of this key term would have been helpful because it seems to relate more to the neo-scholastic disputes of the early to mid twentieth century than to Bonaventure's thirteenth century thought. Second, the book claims that "his Commentary on the Sentences should have a priority of place in any accurate reading" of his thought. On this point the book delivers by citing more from the Sentence Commentary than any other of Bonaventure's works (139 times overall, 63 from Book II alone), but with the much shorter Breviloquium coming in a close second (128 times). Four works come in a distant third (Hexaemeron 38, Itinerarium 32, De mysterio Trinitatis 21, and De scientia Christi 21). Unfortunately little attention is given to Bonaventure's sermons, scripture commentaries, hagiographies and spiritual tracts. Third, whatever shortcomings the book has regarding the coverage of Bonaventure's many works, the book still fulfills its claim to provide "an overview of [Bonaventure's] synthesis," which is "an elaborate and sophisticated synthesis, created in a specific historical context" (xiv).The book begins with an introductory sketch of Bonaventure's life framed by three key historic movements of the thirteenth century: the rediscovery of Aristotle, the emergence of the "universities," and the rise of the mendicant orders. These overlapping contexts are indispensable to understanding Bonaventure's writings, which the introduction surveys in general chronological order and according to genre. After reviewing his life and works, the Introduction concludes with a consideration of Bonaventure's influence. The Introduction is helpful in orienting the modern reader to Bonaventure's thought, particularly his unique synthesis of Augustine and Aristotle. However, some of the dating is imprecise. For example, in October 1255 (not 1256) Bonaventure responded to William of Saint-Amour's attacks against the mendicants with Q.1 De humilitate of his De perfectione evangelica. Thus, Bonaventure entered the secular-mendicant controversy before Thomas Aquinas and Thomas of York (12, 17). Likewise, Bonaventure most likely incepted into the Parisian consortium of masters in April 1254 not October 1257 (11).While all of Part II provides good information on the intricacies of Bonaventure's philosophy, the sections explaining [End Page 542] his hylomorphic metaphysics (42... (shrink)

The significance of Friedrich Nietzsche for twentieth century culture is now no longer a matter of dispute. He was quite simply one of the most influential of modern thinkers. The opening essay of this 1996 Companion provides a chronologically organised introduction to and summary of Nietzsche's published works, while also providing an overview of their basic themes and concerns. It is followed by three essays on the appropriation and misappropriation of his writings, and a group of essays exploring the nature (...) of Nietzsche's philosophy and its relation to the modern and post-modern world. The final contributions consider Nietzsche's influence on the twentieth century in Europe, the USA, and Asia. New readers and non-specialists will find this the most convenient, accessible guide to Nietzsche currently available. Advanced students and specialists will find a conspectus of recent developments in the interpretation of Nietzsche. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:ALISTER McGRATH ON CROSS AND JUSTIFICATION MICHAEL RooT Imtitute for liloumenical Research Strasbourg, France Ay REGULAR reader of theological book advertisements has encountered the name of Alister McGrath. Since 1984, he has published a two volume history of the doctrine of justification, a study of Luther's theofogy of the cross, a general introduction to the thought of the Reformation, a study of the late medieval background of the Reformation, (...) a history of German Protestant Christology from the Enlightenment through the present, and popular books on the cross, the Trinity, and Christology. All the while he has lectured in Christian doctrine and ethics at Oxford. What is McGrath saying in this amazing flow of publications? Here I wiH look at three representative works. Iustitia Dei, which traces the understanding of the doctrine of justification from the Bible to Gerhard Ebeling, must be considered the centerpiece of his work to date.1 Luther's Theology of the Cross can be taken as typical of his more monographic work.2 Fina;lly, The Mys.tery of the Cross can exemplify his popular writings.3 I. lustitia Dei has an obvious claim on our attention. As McGrath notes in the first sentence of the Preface, this has 1[ustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doct1·ine of Justification, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). 2 Luther's Theology of the Gross: Martin Luther's Theological Breakthrough (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985). a The Mystery of the Gross (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988). 705 706 MICHAEL ROOT been a history waiting to be written (except perhaps for the first volume of Ritschl's The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation). The Reformers stated that the docrtrine of justification was the root of their movement. McGrath has chosen an ecumenically decisive topic to survey. Although the length of McGrath's history (378 pages of text) may not justify its separation into two volumes, the division of the volumes follows a clear structural division of the work, a division McGrath finds in the history of the doctrine. After a definition of the subject and a six page discussion.of the pre~Augustinian tradition, the first volume rapidly comes to Augustine, the " fountainhead '' of the Western discussion of justification. The tradition from Augustine to the Reformation is sufficiently unitary that it can be discussed topically under such headings as " the righteousness of God," " the concept of merit,'' and " the relation between predestination and justification." In fact, the topics are so arranged that something of a chronological progression is produced, with the problems that dominated the late medieval period coming last. While the first volume deals with continuity, the second is structured by the major discontinuities of the Reformation and the Enlightenment. A major contention of McGrath is that the Reformation constitutes a break with a relatively continuous tradition. Another, even more radical break comes with the Enlightenment. Thus, the second volume is arranged chronologically and discusses developments from the Reformation through recent hermeneutically oriented interpretations of the doctrine. This outline of the structme of McGrath's hisrtory should make clear its most important characteristic. lt is a history of the discussion of justification in the West on the terms set by Augustine. After a six page leap from the New Testament to the late fourth century, the East is quickly dismissed, never to appear again. Even within the West, the history is selective. The six eenturies between Augustine and Anselm are passed over with only brief mention of the Semi-Pdagian disputes ON ALISTER MC GRATH 707 following Augustine's death and the controversies surrounding Gottschalk rGodescalc] of Orbais. Well over half the book deals with the period between 1050 and 1600 in the West. Following the Reformation, attention is given only to selected figures from the German and English Enlightenment, to Kant and Schleiermacher as critics of the Enlightenment (though Schleiermacher's own doctrine of justification, which in important ways recaptures that of the Reformation, is ignored), to Newman, and to the most prominent German Protestant theologians of recent times (Ritschl, Barth, Bultmann, Tillich, Ebeling). Except for Newman, who is treated in the context of Anglicanism, no Roman Catholic is mentioned after the condemnation of Jansenism... (shrink)

The editor of this book has put together here a very manageable selection from the published articles of C. S. Peirce and has prefaced it with his own very fine 42-page introduction. Being published articles, these have the advantages of being those which Peirce himself thought to be complete. Moreover, they are also thus able to be arranged chronologically and topically. This Moore does by including articles which fall into four major groups: 1) On epistemology, from The Journal of Speculative (...) Philosophy, 1868; 2) On Peirce’s early pragmatism and on the nature of scientific inquiry, from Popular Science Monthly, 1873-1878; 3) On Peirce’s basic metaphysics, from The Monist, 1891-1893; and 4) On his later pragmatism, from The Monist, 1905-1906. In his introduction, the editor summarizes and interrelates some of the key questions in Peirce’s philosophy and in these writings—questions on the nature of potentiality, the validity of the process of scientific inquiry, and the problem of the definition of concepts. Much of this treatment revolves around Peirce’s grappling with the key problem of the nature of universals. In the medieval dispute between the extreme realists and the nominalists, Peirce takes a middle moderate realist position, "that the referent of a concept is to be found in the experience of a specific object". On either of the other views, scientific knowledge would be impossible. (shrink)

The authors present a critical edition of the Quaestio de formalitatibus of John Duns Scotus. In the introduction to their edition, they examine the evidence of the manuscripts and the external and internal evidence to determine the authorship, place and date of the question. They conclude that the Quaestio was disputed by John Duns Scotus at Paris in the Franciscan studium sometime between 1305 and 1307. Chronologically, Scotus’ Quaestio, disputed at Paris, would seem to be his final, magisterial word on (...) the subject of the formal distinction. Finally, the authors examine the transmission of the text in each of the manuscripts in order to establish a stemma codicum and the principles that govern their edition. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Pragmatism's Evolution: Organism and Environment in American Philosophy by Trevor PearceAlexander KleinTrevor Pearce. Pragmatism's Evolution: Organism and Environment in American Philosophy. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2020. Pp. 384. Paperback, $35.00.Pragmatist pioneers were young lions in the days of Darwin. Evolutionary-biological thinking infused this philosophical movement from the start. And yet the last time a major monograph appeared on classic pragmatism and evolutionary biology—Philip Wiener's Evolution and (...) the Founders of Pragmatism (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1949)—the author could personally thank Ralph Barton Perry, William James's junior colleague and eventual biographer. John Dewey himself wrote the foreword.Almost seventy-five years later, we have Trevor Pearce's painstakingly researched Pragmatism's Evolution. The author has graduate training in both biology and philosophy and is a former student of William Wimsatt and Robert Richards's (343). The book offers an intricate portrait of how debates about evolutionary biology informed the thinking of a loose-knit group of pragmatists between the years 1860 and 1910. While a remarkable variety of figures are discussed, ten pragmatists command the most attention: Chauncey Wright, C. S. Peirce, Francis Ellingwood Abbot, John Fiske, William James, Josiah Royce, John Dewey, Jane Addams, G. H. Mead, and W. E. B. Du Bois (18). Call them "the American Ten."Without downplaying Darwin, an overarching theme is the special significance of Herbert Spencer. Despite many specific disagreements with him (see e.g. 74, 207–8, 253–54, 281), the American Ten all accepted something more fundamental from Spencer: an intellectual framework that explains mind and morality in terms of functional relationships between organism and environment.After an introduction outlining what Pearce identifies as four chronological "cohorts" of pragmatists (more on this concept below), he examines the 1860s and 1870s reception of Darwin (chapter 1) and Spencer (chapter 2), showing how senior pragmatists like Wright, Peirce, and James defended evolution during this period. In chapter 2, we meet the Metaphysical Club's arch Spencerian, John Fiske, and we get a reading of James's critique of Spencer's psychology and sociology. Chapter 3 gives a highly detailed, reference-work-like portrait of the second cohort's training in evolutionary biology during the 1880s—chiefly Royce, Dewey, Addams, Mead, and Du Bois. In chapter 4, we learn that in the 1880s and 1890s, idealists like Edward Caird, Samuel Alexander, David George Ritchie, and Josiah Royce all co-opted ideas from evolutionary biology, which they apparently thought compatible with Hegelian dialectics. Chapter 5 shows that central planks of Peirce's metaphysics and Dewey's ethics are responsive to an 1890s dispute over the causes of the biological variation upon which selection acts (the so-called "factors" debate). The final two chapters show how pragmatist ethics (chapter 6) and epistemology (chapter 7) were infused with substantive ideas about evolution and about scientific experiment more generally.The depth and use of historical scholarship on offer here are both remarkable. On depth, Pearce draws from nineteen special collections and archives housed at institutions from California to Manchester, UK. The reference list (published on Pearce's website) runs [End Page 160] to 118 pages and was apparently too long for inclusion in the book. Archival research and lengthy bibliographies are to be expected in today's history of philosophy. But the sheer range of sources Pearce draws from is, by any measure, impressive.The use to which he puts those sources is provocative. Close reading, and in particular argument reconstruction, is usually the stock in trade for historians of philosophy. Pearce takes a different approach (7), seeking interpretive insight through a kind of philosophical network analysis. The nodes are mainly philosophers, scientists, and social critics. Unlike digital network analyses, Pearce connects his nodes by hand, via a great multiplicity of social, educational, and intellectual relations. We learn who studied evolution where, with whom, and when; what specific texts were assigned in classes taken, in classes taught; who attacked whom, who sided with whom; and so on.The resulting networks are rich, though they can be difficult to track due to their complexity. At its best, the book uses networks to produce genuine insights that... (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas wrote a text later known as Quaestio de attributis and ordered it inserted in a precise location of his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard more than a decade after composing this work. Aquinas assigned exceptional importance to this text, in which he confronts the debate on the issue of the divine attributes that swept the most important centres of learning in 13th Century Europe and examines the answers given to the problem by the representatives of the (...) four mainstream schools of his time: the Greek mystic Dionysius Areopagita, the Latin Saint Anselm of Canterbury, the Jewish rabbi Moses Maimonides and the Muslim philosopher Ibn Sina. This in-depth study of Thomas Aquinas’ Quaestio de attributis (In I Sent., d. 2, q. 1, a. 3) binds together the findings of previous research on the unique history of this text by reconstructing the historical circumstances surrounding its composition, shows that the Quaestio contains Aquinas’ final answer to the dispute on the divine attributes, and thoroughly examines his interpretation of Maimonides’ position on the issue of the knowledge of God by analysing this and other texts related to it chronologically and doctrinally. The examination of the Quaestio reveals the background of Thomas Aquinas’ renewed interest in Maimonides’ position on the issue and brings to light elements of Aquinas’ interpretation that are absent from his earlier references to Maimonides. Moreover, the chronological and doctrinal connection of the Quaestio de attributis to other Thomistic works with explicit references to Maimonides enables a reconstruction of his comprehensive approach to Maimonides’ teaching on the possibility and extent of the knowledge of God in the Guide of the Perplexed and highlights the place of Maimonides’ philosophical teachings in Thomas’ own thought in issues like "Being" as the proper name of God, the multiplicity of the divine names, the beatific vision in the afterlife, the causes that prevent the instruction of the multitude in divine matters and the role of faith and prophecy in the acquisition of the true knowledge of God in this life. The last chapter examines the reasons behind Aquinas’ silencing of Maimonides’ name when introducing his Five Ways for the knowledge of the existence of God, in spite of the evident relation between these and Maimonides’ Four Speculations. The study is completed with an extensive appendix that includes the text of the Quaestio de attributis with an English translation and the critical edition of several chapters of the 13th Century Latin translation of the Guide of the Perplexed known as Dux neutrorum. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A Greek Countryside: The Southern Argolid from Prehistory to the Present Day, with a Register of Sites by Curtis N. Runnels and Mark H. MunnDonald C. HaggisMichael H. Jameson, Curtis N. Runnels and Tjeed H. Van Andel. A Greek Countryside: The Southern Argolid from Prehistory to the Present Day, with a Register of Sites by Curtis N. Runnels and Mark H. Munn. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994. xx (...) + 658 pp. 224 figs. 36 tables. 8 back-pocket maps. Cloth, $125.The methodological divide between Greek history and archaeology is bridged in areas of epigraphy, topography, and political geography, or in instances where the data (sites, inscriptions, or destruction levels) manifestly complement or corroborate the text. This "handmaiden" role of archaeology has been challenged in the past two decades, and links between history and archaeology have been strengthened by changes in both disciplines, especially in the range of data utilized if not in method and approach. The archaeologist's reconstruction of long-term history is only enriched by textual documentation; and the historian has found in new approaches to ancient landscapes a wider scope of data, a realm of problems, and a multi-dimensional context for writing history.A new vision of documenting the Greek past is as yet nowhere more effectively illustrated than in A Greek Countrysidey. This book, which is the final publication of the Argolid Exploration Project (and Stanford University Archaeological and Environmental Survey), was conceived in an era of vastly changing approaches to the past and inspired by the first regional and diachronic survey in Greece, the Minnesota Messenia Expedition. The exploration of the southern Argolid also emerged in the context of two vastly different yet complementary excavations at the Paleolithic-Neolithic Franchthi Cave and Classical Halieis. The chronological, methodological, and environmental scope and problem orientation of these projects were important in setting the stage for the examination of human history in the broader region, emphasizing human-environment interaction as important to understanding culture change through time.A Greek Countryside presents the results of the survey (conducted in 1972 and 1979-1983) in the southern Argolid (225 km2) that recovered some 328 sites from an intensive sample of 44 km2. The first three chapters, "Topography," "History," and "Land and Sea in the Southern Argolid," provide an introduction to the study area. They present the synchronous dimensions of observable terrain, environment, and communication routes, and the diachronic perspectives of history (1000 B.C.-modern times), geomorphology, and environmental studies. Chapter 4, "The Archaeological Survey," describes the process and methods of fieldwork, the basis for the identification and functional designations of sites, and the classificatory nomenclature of the observable settlement patterns. Chapter [End Page 333] 5, "Using the Resources of the Land and Sea," is a discussion of agricultural, pastoral, and maritime activities derived from archaeological evidence from Franchthi Cave, Halieis, and wider afield, and from ethnography, studies of ancient and modern agriculture, and Medieval and Venetian records and travelers' accounts. This chapter injects the human element into the natural environment, setting the stage for the patterns of interaction between cultural and natural landscapes. The authors' synthesis and conclusions are presented in the final chapter 6, unambiguously titled, "Fifty Thousand Years of Coevolution of Landscape and Human Settlement."This concluding chapter is wonderfully detailed, referring back to the data presented in previous chapters and forward to the numerous appendices. The appendices are focused treatments of the sites recovered (A); population estimates (B); pseudo-Scylax's periplus (C); Pausanias' account of the south Argolid (D); the town of Hermion (E); the border dispute between Hermion and Epidauros in the first half of the second century B.C. (F); and an account of the Turkish traveler, Evliya Chelebi, in 1669 (G). Chapter 6 is somewhat of an achievement in itself, providing a lucid and fascinating chronological and historical narrative, un-encumbered by tendentious footnotes or cross-references, while making the reader constantly aware of both the data and the interpretive basis for conclusions. Although the diachronic survey maps, showing settlement patterns, are presented earlier in chapter 4, more detailed maps illustrate chapter 6 and are essential and effective complements to the text.The effects of... (shrink)

This is a new critical edition of Berkeley’s 1734 _Three Dialogues_, a text that is deservedly one of the most challenging and beloved classics of modern philosophy. The heart of the work is the dispute between materialism and idealism, two fundamentally opposed positions that are embodied by Hylas and Philonous, the characters in this philosophical drama. The book is packed with brilliant arguments and counter-arguments of an extraordinarily sophisticated nature. Amid all this philosophical swordplay one would think that there could (...) be scant room for the characters to develop any sort of personality. Yet in Berkeley’s hands, and with his literary gifts, the interlocutors are both vivid and funny. The dialogue deals with some of the most important perennial problems of philosophy, including: the materialism-idealism dispute, skepticism in rationalist and empiricist epistemology, the conflict over apriorism and aposteriorism, rationalism versus empiricism, the existence and nature of God, the philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, abstract general ideas, the role of perception in human knowledge, and the metaphysics of causation. This edition combines a usefully annotated version of Berkeley’s complete original text with a substantial critical introduction, a chronology of events in Berkeley’s life and career, and supplementary annotated appendices of original sources from thinkers relevant to Berkeley’s work. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:IntroductionWhen I first came across Dieter Hattrup's analysis of the De reductione I noted that the professor from Paderborn was trying, step by step, to trace the authorship back to friars influenced by Roger Bacon – a reductio ad Baconem, if you will. Hattrup's argument that Roger Bacon was indirectly involved in the composition of the De reductione evoked the fleeting memory of a pop culture game created by (...) American college students in the 1990s called the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon," whereby the characters in any given film must be linked to a film with the Hollywood actor, Kevin Bacon, by comparing no more than six films. To mention the esteemed theologian in such a fleeting cultural context is not meant to trivialize his argument in any way; rather, the intent is to underscore, admittedly tongue in cheek, the intricacies of his argument against Bonaventurian authorship of the De reductione as outlined in the monograph Ekstatik der Geschichte: Die Entwicklung der christologischen Erkenntnistheorie Bonaventuras and the journal article, "Bonaventura zwischen Mystik und Mystifikation: Wer ist der Autor von De reductione?" While Hattrup hesitates to claim Bacon as the author of De reductione, he does develop a systematic study that eventually leads, step by step, association by association, back to Roger Bacon. This essay examines and disputes Hattrup's claim by analyzing the historical context of his argument, the chronology and sources in question, the theme of the fourfold light and scripture, and the relationship between the sciences and theology. The numerous questions raised will underscore the fragility of his argument. Subsequent essays will treat the contemporary theological implications as well as the literary-theological genre and academic occasion of Bonaventure's De reductione.Historical ContextBefore we examine Hattrup's argument against Bonaventure as the author of the De reductione, let us first evoke the historical situation he suggests as the possible origin of the text. In 1267, Bonaventure warns his Minorite confreres of the dangers inherent in the sciences in the Collations on the Ten Commandments, and then, once again in 1268 in the Collations on Gifts of the Holy Spirit. The brothers in Bacon's circle are concerned because they contend that the sciences must be cultivated and consequently compose the De reductione. Their intent is to demonstrate how the sciences are integral to theology, such that even natural philosophy contains the wisdom of God. Hattrup sees this text stemming from Bacon's circle as a conscious attempt to subvert Bonaventure's understanding of the relationship between faith and reason in favor of the sciences by utilizing some of the General Minister's own language as mirrored in the Journey of the Soul into God and Francis of Assisi's experience of God in the natural world. The resulting text of the De reductione, according to Hattrup, is an intentional mystification of Bonaventure's own mystical or ecstatic methodology.Hattrup suggests that the De reductione came to Bonaventure's attention in 1270, but he is preoccupied with affairs in the early 1270s and only returns later to address the dangers he recognizes in the De reductione in another collation series in May of 1273, the Collations on the Six Days, or Hexaëmeron. The General Minister warns of those who entered religious life as friends of the sciences, the "hospites scientiae." They must place limits on their efforts in these fields of inquiry and not promote them as essential to theological reflection, as posited by the De reductione, if they wish to remain faithful to the ascetical-mystical vision of the Minorite Order. Unable to finish the Hexaëmeron due to ecclesial obligations, Bonaventure died unexpectedly in July of 1274 at the Council of Lyon. The text of the De reductione, found among Bonaventure's other writings, was dutifully copied and included among the Seraphic Doctor's literary corpus since at first glance this kurze Denkschrift appears to be from the deceased General Minister.Hattrup readily admits that.. (shrink)

In spite of the evident centrality of philosophical 'realism' in Collingwood's autobiographical account of his own intellectual development, his critique of 'realism' has hardly been investigated as a central theme in his philosophy. Collingwood's arguments against contemporary 'realism' and his stated move beyond 'idealism' have mostly been treated as a minor question subordinate to other questions. By contrast, I have tried in this thesis to reconstruct Collingwood's philosophy as a critical development of the realism/idealism dispute of his day, focusing on (...) his less known early published and unpublished philosophical writings. This has enabled me to clarify his unique definition of 'realism' in terms of a dualistic framework, and understand his philosophy as an attempt to overcome such dualisms in the realms of philosophy. This approach ultimately highlighted the aim of Collingwood's reform of philosophy as the better understanding of the human mind and action. By employing the 'historical' and 'internal' method of analysis, I firstly illustrated how the idea of 'dualism' became an issue in the realism/idealism dispute as it emerged in early twentieth-century British philosophy. This was followed by a biographical sketch in which I demonstrated that Collingwood's educational background was perfectly equipped to refute the 'realist' philosophy in the dispute. Historically contextualising thus, I chronologically restored the formation of his critique of 'realism' as his attempts to synthesise dualisms in logic, ontology, epistemology, and ethics during the period between Religion and Philosophy and An Essay on Philosophical Method. Finally, I argued that Collingwood's critique of 'realism' crystallised in his notion of duty, which embodied his characterisation of philosophy as both 'normative' and 'descriptive'. Throughout, I presented a systematic and sustained picture of Collingwood's early philosophy, identifying and unfolding the fertile implications of his critique of 'realism' for his principal concern with the human mind and action. (shrink)

Regarding the relation of Plato’s early and middle period dialogues, scholars have been divided to two opposing groups: unitarists and developmentalists. While developmentalists try to prove that there are some noticeable and even fundamental differences between Plato’s early and middle period dialogues, the unitarists assert that there is no essential difference in there. The main goal of this article is to suggest that some of Plato’s ontological as well as epistemological principles change, both radically and fundamentally, between the early and (...) middle period dialogues. Though this is a kind of strengthening the developmentalistic approach corresponding the relation of the early and middle period dialogues, based on the fact that what is to be proved here is a essential development in Plato’ ontology and his epistemology, by expanding the grounds of development to the ontological and epistemological principles, it hints to a more profound development. The fact that the bipolar and split knowledge and being of the early period dialogues give way to the tripartite and bound knowledge and benig of the middle period dialogues indicates the development of the notions of being and knowledge in Plato’s philosophy before the dialogues of the middle period. -/- Keywords Plato; early dialogues; middle dialogues; being; knowledge; development -/- Introduction The differences between two groups of the early and middle period dialogues have always been a matter of dispute. Whereas the developmentalists like Vlastos, Silverman (2002), Teloh (1981), Dancy (2004) and Rickless (2007) think that from the early to the middle dialogues Plato’s philosophy changes, at least in some essential points, the unitarists like Kahn, Cherniss and Shorey believe that there happens no development and the differences must be taken as natural, ignorable and even pedagogic. In his well-known article, Socrates contra Socrates in PLATO, Vlastos lists ten theses of difference between two groups of dialogues. The first group which includes Plato’s early dialogues he divides to 'elenctic' (Apology, Charmides, Crito, Euthyphro, Gorgias, Hippias Minor, Ion, Laches, Protagoras and Republic I) and 'transitional' (Euthydemus, Hippias Major, Lysis, Menexenus and Meno) dialogues. These transitional come after all the elenctic dialogues and before all the dialogues of the second group which compose Plato’s middle period dialogues, including (with Vlastos' chronological order) Cratylus, Phaedo, Symposium, Republic II-X, Phaedrus, Parmenides and Theaetetus (1991, 46-49). Vlastos asserts strictly that his list of differences are 'so diverse in content and method that they contrast as sharply with one another as with any third philosophy you care to mention, beginning with Aristotole’s' (ibid, 46). Vlastos’ list of differences between two Socrateses is considered a view breaking sharply between the early and the middle dialogues. Besides all ten differences between the two Socrateses in Vlastos’ list that can be supportive for our doctrine here, we intend to focus on some ontological as well as epistemological distinctions that have not completely been discussed hitherto. Contrary to the developmentalist theory of Vlastos, unitarian theory of Charles Kahn wishes to eliminate any substantial difference between the early and the middle dialogues. He distinguishes seven 'pre-middle' or 'threshold' dialogues including Laches, Charmides, Euthyphro, Protagoras, Meno, Lysis and Euthydemus from the other Socratic dialogues which he calls 'earliest group' (1996, 41). The threshold dialogues, Kahn thinks, 'embarke upon a sustained project' that is to reach to its climax in the middle period dialogues, namely Phaedo, Symposium and Republic. Believing in that there is no 'fundamental shift'between the early and middle dialogues (ibid, 40), Kahn thinks the Socratic dialogues are just the 'first stage' with a 'deliberate silence' towards the theories of later periods (ibid, 339). One of the reasons of the surprising fact that Plato gives no hint of the metaphysics and epistemology of the Forms in the early dialogues, he thinks, is the pedagogical advantages of aporia. He thinks that Plato 'obscurely', and mostly because of education, hinted to some doctrines and conceptions in his early dialogues and with the aim of clarifying them only in the later ones (ibid, 66). The seven threshold dialogues, Kahn asserts, 'had been designed from the first' to prepare the pupils and readers for the views expounded in the middle period dialogues (ibid, 59-60). To show that the differences of the two Socrateses of the early and middle period dialogue are in their onto-epistemological grounds and thence cannot be explained by a unitaristic view, we try to draw the ontological and epistemological principles of the early dialogues in the first part below in order to show, in the second part, that those principles have been developed in the middle period dialogues. -/- A. The Onto-Epistemologic Principles of the Early Dialogues Socratic dialogues are paradoxical about knowledge because while being knowledge-oriented always searching for knowledge, they deny it and even never discuss it directly. Three elements of Socrates’ way of searching Knowledge throughout the early dialogues, i.e. Socratic 'what is X?' question, his disavowal of knowledge and his elenctic method combined together produce something like a circle which works, more or less, in the same way in these dialogues. Though this circle is an embaressing inquiry always resulting in ignorance instead of knowledge, its motivation is surprisingly Socrates’ passionate enthusiasm for knowledge, an intensive love of wisdom. The starting point of this circle is Socrates’ confession of having no knowledge which might be explicitly asserted or presupposed, maybe because it was one of the famous characteristics of Socrates; a confession always paradoxically accompanied with his intense longing for knowledge (e.g., Gorgias 505e4-5). Every time Socrates encounters with someone who thinks he knows something (οἴεταί τι εἰδέναι) (Apology 21d5) and tries to examine him. This examination seems to be the simplest one asking just what it is that he knows. Socrates’ elenchus, therefore, is always connected with 'what is X?' (τίς ποτέ ἐστιν) question, a question that most of the early dialogues of Plato are concerned with; 'what is courage?' in the Laches, 'what is piety?' in Euthydemus, 'what is temperance?' in Charmides and 'what is beauty?' in Hippias Major. This question we call here 'Socratic question' and probably is the very question the historical Socrates used to employ, is tightly interrelated with both his disavowal and his elenchus. He disclaims knowledge because he cannot find the answer to the question himself and he rejects others’ since they cannot offer the correct answer too. Every interlocutor can claim he knows X, if and only if he can answer the Socratic question. Otherwise, he is more of an ignorant than of a knower of τί ποτέ ἐστι X. Knowing the answer to this question is, thus, knowledge’s criterion for Socrates. Having found out that he cannot answer what it is which he would claim to know, the interlocutor comes to the point Socrates was there at the beginning. The least advantage of this circle is that he becomes as wise as Socrates does about the subject, becoming aware that he does not know it. At the end of the circle they are both still at the beginning, not knowing what X is. So let us first take a glance at these three elements. Socratic disavowal of knowledge is strictly asserted in some passages. At Apology 21b4-5, Socrates says: -/- I do not know of myself being wise at all (οὔτε μέγα οὔτε σμικρὸν σύνοιδα ἐμαυτῷ σοφὸς ὤν) -/- Moreover, at 21d4-6: -/- None of us knows anything worthwhile (καλὸν κἀγαθὸν εἰδέναι) …. I do not know (οἶδα) neither do I think I know. -/- In Charmides Socrates speaks about a fear about his probable mistake of thinking that he knows (εἰδέναι) something when he does not (166d1-2). The somehow generalization of this disavowal can be seen in Gorgias. After calling his disavowal 'an account that is always the same' (509a4-5), Socrates continues (a5-7): -/- I say that I do not know (οἶδα) how these things are, but no one I have ever met, like now, who can say anything else without being absurd. -/- At the end of Hippias Major (304d7-8), Socrates affirms his disavowal of knowledge of 'what is X?' this time about the fine: -/- I do not know (οἶδα) what that is itself (αὐτὸ τοῦτο ὅτι ποτέ ἐστιν). Some other passages, however, made a number of scholars dubious about Socrates’ disavowal. Vlastos mentions Apology 29b6-7 as an evidence : 'that to do wrong and to disobey one’s master, both god and men, I know (οἶδα) to be evil and shameful'. He thinks that if we give this single text 'its full weight' it can suffice to show that Socrates does claim knowledge of a moral truth (1985, 7). Vlastos’ claim is not admittable since it would be too strange, I think, for a man like Socrates to violate his disavowal claim just after emphasizing it. We can see his claim just before the already mentioned passage: -/- And surely it is the most blameworthy ignorance to believe that one knows what one does not know. It is perhaps on this point and in this respect, gentlemen, that I differ from the majority of men and if I were to claim that I am wiser than anyone in anything it world be in this, that, as I have no adequate knowledge (οὐκ εἰδὼς ἱκανῶς) of things in the underworld, so I do not think I have (οὐκ εἰδέναι) (Apology 29b1-6) Vlastos tries to solve what he calls the 'paradox' of Socrates’ disavowal of knowledge distinguishing the 'certain' knowledge from 'elenctic' knowledge (1985, 11) and thinking that when Socrates avows knowledge, we must perceive it as an elenctic knowledge, a knowledge its content 'must be propositions he thinks elenctically justifiable' (ibid, 18). Irwin’s solution is the distinction of knowledge and belief. He approves that Socrates does not 'explicitly' make such a distinction, but still thinks that Socrates’ 'test for knowledge would make it reasonable for him to recognize true belief without knowledge, and his own claims are easily understood if they are claims to true belief alone' (1977, 40). While I agree with Vlastos up to a point, I strongly disagree with Irwin about the early dialogues. As I will try to show below, we are not permitted to consider any kind of distinction within knowledge in Socratic dialogues because only one category of knowledge is alluded to there and the distinction of knowledge and belief thoroughly belongs to the second Sorcates. Although no kind of distinction can be admittable here, I think Vlastos’ distinction can be accepted only if we regard it as a distinction between knowledge, which is unique and without any, even incomparable, rival, and a semi-idiomatic and ordinary one that is a necessary requirement for any argument, and thus, unavoidable even for someone who does not claim any kind of knowledge. An apparent evidence of this is Gorgias 505e6-506a4: -/- I go through the discussion as I think it is (ὡς ἄν μοι δοκῇ ἔχειν), if any of you do not agree with admissions I am making to myself, you must object and refute me. For I do not say what I say as I know (οὐδὲ γάρ τοι ἔγωγε εἰδὼς λέγω ἃ λέγω) but as searching jointly with you (ζητῶ κοινῇ μεθ᾽ ὑμῶν). -/- The minimal degree of knowledge everyone must have to take part in an argument, conduct it and use the phrase "I know" when it is necessary is what Socrates cannot deny. We can call it elenctic knowledge only if we agree that it is not the kind of knowledge that Socrates has always been searching, the one that can be accepted as the answer of Socratic 'what is X?' question. His disavowal of knowledge is applied only to the knowledge which can truly be the answer of Socratic question and pass the elenctic exam; a knowledge that, I believe, is never claimed by first Socrates. Socrates conducts his method of examining his interlocutors’ knowledge, our second element here, by almost the same method repeated in Socratic dialogues. That whether we are allowed to regard all the examinations of Socrates in the early dialogues as based on the same or not has been a matter of dispute. Vlastos himself (1994, 31) distinguished Euthydemas, Lysis, Menexenns and Hippias Major from the other Socratic dialogues because he thinks Socrates has lost his faith to elenchus in there. Irwin (1977, 38) distinguishes Apology and Crito where Socrates’ own convictions is present. Contrary to some scholars like Benson (2002, 107) who take elenchus in all the Socratic dialogues as a unique method, Michelle Carpenter and Ronald M. Polansky (2002, 89-100) argue pro the variety of methods of elenchus. Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith (2002, 145-160) even reject such a thing as Socratic elenchus which can gather all of the Socrates’ various arguments under such a heading. There can be no solution for the problem of elenchus, they think, is due to 'the simple reason that there is no such thing as 'the Socratic elenchos"'(p.147). Though we consider elenchus a somehow determined process and a part of Socratic circle in the early dialogues, all we assume is that whatever differences it might have in different dialogues, it has the same onto-epistemological principles and, thus, we are not going to take it necessarily as a unique method. This method sets out to prove that the interlocutors are as ignorant as Socrates himself is. That whether elenchus is constructive, capable of establishing doctrines as Vlastos (1994) or Brickhouse and Smith (1994, 20-21) believe or not is another issue to which this paper is not to claim anything. What is crucial for our discussion here is that elenchus does not reach to the very knowledge Socrates is looking for. This is strictly against Irwin who thinks that not only elenchus leads to positive results, 'it should even yield knowledge to match Socrates’ conditions'(1977, 68, cf. 48). He does not explain where and how they really yield to that kind of knowledge. He explains his elenctic method in his apology in the court (Apology 21-22), that how he used to examine wise men, politicians, poets and all those who had the highest reputation for their knowledge and every time found that they have no knowledge. If we accept, as I strongly do, that Socrates’ disavowal of his knowledge is not irony, it might seem more reasonable to agree that the process that has that disavowal as its first step cannot be irony as well. The key of the circle which can explain why Socrates disclaims knowledge and how he can reject others’ claim of having any kind of knowledge lies in the third element, Socratic question. In Hippias Major (287c1-2), Socrates asks: 'Is it not by Justice that just people are Just? (ἆρ᾽ οὐ δικαιοσύνῃ δίκαιοί εἰσιν οἱ δίκαιοι). He insists at 294b1 that they were searching for that by which (ᾧ) all beautiful things are beautiful (cf. b4-5, 8). At Euthyphro 6d10-11 it is said that the Socratic question is waiting for 'the form itself (αὐτὸ τὸ εἶδος) by which (ᾧ) all the pious actions are pious; and at 6d11-e1: -/- Through one form (που μιᾷ ἰδέᾳ) impious actions are impious and pious actions pious. -/- Since the X itself is that by which X is X, knowing 'X itself' is the only way of knowing X. It is probably because of this that Socrates makes the distinction between the ousia as a right answer to the question and effect as a wrong one: -/- I am afraid, Euthyphro, that when you were asked what piety is (τὸ ὅσιον ὅτι ποτ᾽ ἐστίν) you did not wish to make clear its nature itself (οὐσίαν … αὐτοῦ) to me, but you said some effect (πάθος) about it. (Euthp. 11a6-9) -/- 1. Knowledge of what X is Now it is time to look for the onto-epistemological principles of Socratic circle and its three elements. It cannot reasonably be expected from the first Socrates to present us explicitly and clearly formulated principles of his onto-epistemology when such explications cannot be found even in the second Socrates who has some obviously positive theoris. Since there must be some principles underlying this first systematic inqury of knowledge, we must seek to them and be satisfied with elicitation of the first Socratas’ principle. What will be drawn out as his principles cannot and must not, thus, be taken as very fix and dogmatic principles. Some very slightest principles and grounds suffice for our purposes here. The first principle that is the prima facie significance of the Socratic question and his implementation of all those elenctic arguments I call the principle of 'Knowledge of What X is' (KWX): -/- KWX To know X, it is required to know what X is. -/- Aristotle (Metaphysics 1078b23-25, 27-29, 987b4-8) takes Plato’s τί ἐστι question as seeking the definition of a thing that is the same as historical Socrates’ search but applying to a different field. That Plato’s 'what is X?' question was a search for definition became the prevailed understanding of this question up to now. I am going neither to discuss the answer of Socratic question nor to challenge taking it as definition. What I am to insist is that knowledge is attached firmly to the answer of the question: Knowledge of X is not anything but the knowledge of what X is. It entails, certainly, the priority of this knowledge to any other kind of knowledge about X but it also has something more fundamental about the relation of knowledge and Socratic question. Socrates’ exclusive focus on the answer of his question can authorize the consideration of such an essential role for KWX in his epistemolgoy. The total rejection of his interlocutors’ knowledge when they are unable to answer the question can be regarded as a strong evidence for it. Socrates’ elenctic method and his rejection of others’ knowledge in the early dialogues, which all end aporetically with no one accepted as knower and nothing as knowledge, prevent us from finding any positive evidence for this. We have to be content, therefore, of negative evidences which, I think, can be found wherever Socrates rejects his interlocutors’ knowledge when they are not able to give an acceptable answer to his 'what is X?' question. 2. Bipolar Epistemology Socrates’ rejection of his interlocutors’ knowledge has another epistemological principle as its basis. Let me call this principle Bipolar Epistemology' (BE): BE There is no third way besides knowledge and Ignorance. -/- BE says that about every object of knowledge there are only two subjective statuses: knowledge and Ignorance. Socrates’ disavowal, however, says nothing but that he is ignorant of knowledge of X because he does not know what X is. This means that BE is presupposed here. Socrates’ elenchus and his rejection of interlocutors’ having any kind of knowledge are the necessary results of the fact that he does not let any third way besides knowledge and ignorance. The first Socrates never let anyone partly know X or have a true opinion about it, as he would not let anyone know anything about X when he did not know what X is. -/- 3. Bipolar Ontology The principle of BE in first Socrates’ epistemology is parallel to another principle in his ontology. Plato’s bipolar distinction between being and not being is as strict and perfect as his distinction between knowledge and ignorance. This principle I shall call the principle of 'Bipolar Ontology' (BO): BO Being is and not being is not. BO is apparently the same with the well-known Parmenidean Principle of being and not being (cf. Diels-Kranz (DK) Fr. 2.2-5). Euthydemus’ statement against the possibility of false knowledge can be good evidence for this principle: -/- The things which are not surely do not exist (τὰ δὲ μὴ ὄντα … ἄλλο τι ἢ οὐκ ἔστιν). (Euthydemus 284b3-4) -/- He continues (b4-5): -/- There is nowhere for not being to be there (οὖν οὐδαμοῦ τά γε μὴ ὄντα ὄντα ἐστίν). -/- That BE does not let true opinion as a third option besides knowledge and ignorance seems to be related to BO’s rejecting a third option besides being and not being, which is itself the basis of the impossibility of false belief. Socrates’ elaborate discussion of the problem of false belief in Theatetus that leads to a more decisive discussion and finally to some solutions in Sophist can make our consideration of BO for the first group of dialogues authentive. -/- 4. &5. Split Knowledge and Split Being The fourth principle I shall call the principle of 'Split Knowledge' (SK): -/- SK Knowledge of X is separated from any other knowledge (of anything else) as if the whole knowledge is split to various parts. -/- This Principle is hinted and criticized as Socrates’ way of treating with knowledge in Hippias Major: -/- But Socrates, you do not contemplate the entireties of things, nor do people you have used to talk with (τὰ μὲν ὅλα τῶν πραγμάτων οὐ σκοπεῖς, οὐδ᾽ ἐκεῖνοι οἷς σὺ εἴωθας διαλέγεσθαι). (301b2-4) -/- Contrary to Rankin who regards the passage as 'antilogical, almost eristic in tone rather than presenting a serious philosophy of being' (1983, 54), I think it can be taken as serious. Hippias criticizes Sorcates that he does not contemplate (σκοπεῖς) the entireties of things (ὅλα τῶν πραγμάτων), a critique which Socrates is not its only subject but all those whom Socrates accustomed to talk with (ἐκεῖνοι οἷς σὺ εἴωθας διαλέγεσθαι). This last phrase, I think, extends this critic beyond this dialogue to other Socratic dialogues. Hippias’ use of the perfect tense of the verb ἔθω (to be accustomed) is a good evidence of this extension. We can get, thus, these ἐκεῖνοι as Socrates’ interlocutors in his other dialogues that hints that this criticism has the epistemological groundings of the previous dialogues as its subject. What ἐκεῖνοι οἷς σὺ εἴωθας διαλέγεσθαι points to is that Hippias does not have in mind Socrates’ way of treating things only in this dialogue, but he is also criticizing Socrates’ way throughout his dialogues. At 301b4-5, Socrates and his interlocutors’ way of beholding things is described as such: -/- You people knock (κρούετε) at the fine and each of the beings (ἕκαστον τῶν ὄντων) by taking each being cut up in pieces (κατατέμνοντες) in words (ἐν τοῖς λόγοις). This leads us to our next principle that is parallel to, and the ontological side of, SK, the principle of 'Split Being'(SB): -/- SB Everything (being) is separated from any other thing as if the whole being is split to many beings. -/- Socrates and his interlocutors and thus, as we saw, the Socratic dialogues are accused to regard everything as it is separated from all other things. This separation is en tois logois that, I think, can reasonably be taken as saying that Socratic dialogues (it refers of course to the dialogues before Hippias Major) cut up all things which have the same name/definition from all other things and try to understand them separately, without considering other things that are not in their logos. They, for example in Hippias Major, are cutting up to kalon and try to understand what it and all others inside this logos are by separating it from all other things. This is directed straightly against Socratic question and the way Socratic dialogues follow to find its answer, every time separating one logos. As Meyer (1995, 85) points out, every question 'presupposes that the X in question in a logos is something' and 'every answer to every question aims at unity' (84). The critique of Hippias Major is, therefore, at the same time a critique of SK and SB. It is also a critique of KWX because it is only based on KWX that Socratic dialogues could search for the answer of 'what is X' question supposing that knowing what X is is enough for the knowledge of X. SK and KWX are absolutely interdependent. What Socrates and all his previous interlocutors have neglected in Socratic dialogues, Hippias says, was 'continuous bodies of being' (διανεκῆ σώματα τῆς οὐσίας) (301b6). Either this theory actually belongs to the historical Hippias as it is being said or not, it is strictly criticizing SB. We have the same phrase with changing sūma to logos some lines later at 301e3-4: διανεκεῖ λόγῳ τῆς οὐσίας. Although this theory that can be observed as both an ontological and an epistemological theory is rejected by Socrates (301cff.), it is still against first Socrates’ onto-epistemological principles and might let us look at what is rejected as Socratic prineple. -/- 6. Knowledge is of Being The sixth principle that I think is presupposed by the first Socrates, is the 'Knowledge of Being' Principle (KB): -/- KB Knowledge is of Being. -/- This principle is obviously the source of the problem of false knowledge, a very important problem throughout Plato’s philosophy. We face this problem maybe for the first time in Euthydemus. In less than 20 Stephanus’ pages, 276-295, we are encountered with different interwoven problems about knowledge , all grounded in the problem of false opinion. Having challenged the obvious possibility of telling lies at 283e, at 284 Euthydemus discusses it saying that the man who speaks is speaking about 'one of those things that are (ἓν μὴν κἀκεῖνό γ᾽ ἐστὶν τῶν ὄντων)' (284a3) and thus speaks what is (λέγων τὸ ὄν) (a5). He must necessarily be saying truth when he is speaking what is because he who speaks what is (τὸ ὄν) and the things that are (τὰ ὄντα) speaks truth (τἀληθῆ λέγει) (a5-6). This is based on Parmenidean principle of the impossibility of being of not being which Euthydemus restates (284b3-4) and we mentioned discussing BO principle above. The things that are not are nowhere (οὐδαμοῦ) and there is no possibility for anyone to do (πράξειεν) anything with them because they must be made as being before anything else can be done, which is impossible (b5-7). The words, then, are of things that exist (εἰσὶν ἑκάστῳ τῶν ὄντων λόγοι) (285e9) and as they are (ὡς ἔστιν) (e10). The result is that no one can speak of things as they are not. It is this impossibility of false speach that is extended to thinking (δοξάζειν) at 286d1 and leads to the impossibility of false opinion (ψευδής … δόξα) (286d4). The general conclusion is asserted at 287a extending this impossibility to actions and making any kind of mistake. Not only knowledge is of being but speech, thought and action are of being simply because of the fact that nothing can be of not being. -/- B. First Socrates’ Principles in the Middle Period Dialogues Out of what were presupposed or criticized mostly in five dialogues, Euthyphro, Euthydemus, Hippias Major, Laches and Charmides, we tried to draw the first Socrates’ principles. Our inquiry here is directed to find out the fate of these principles in the three dialogues of the middle period, Meno, Phaedo and Republic. To do this, first we ought to check the situation of Socratic circle in these dialogues. The Socratic circle that was predominant in the early dialogues, does not look like a circle here anymore though they certainly have some features in common. Meno, Phaedo and Republic II-X are not committed to the principles of the circle and the whole circle in disrupted in them. The difference of the two Socrateses towards acquiring knowledge is obvious. The Socrates of Meno, Phaedo and Republic is evidently more self-confident that he can get to some truths during his arguments as he does. They are in their first appearance, as almost all other dialogues, committed to Socrates’ disavowal. All of them try to keep the shape of the Socratikoi Logoi genre, which is committed to the historical Socrates’ way of discussion; a dramatic personage who is to challenge his interlocutors, ask them and refuse the answers. Nevertheless, the fact is that what we have in common between two groups of dialogues is mostly a dramatic structure. Whereas the first group’s arguments are based on Socrates’ disavowal and lead to no positive results, the second group is decisively going to achieve some positive results. The aim of the first Socrates was to show others that they are ignorant of what they thought they knew. The new Socrates of Meno, on the opposite, makes so much efforts to show that the slave boy has within himself true opinions (ἀληθεῖς δόξαι) about the things that he does not know (οἶδε) (85c6-7). Despite his lack of knowledge, he has true opinions nevertheless. The way from these true opinions to knowledge, as Socrates states, is not so long. These true opinions are now like a dream but 'can become knowledge of the same things not less accurate than anyone’s' (οὐδενὸς ἧττον ἀκριβῶς ἐπιστήσεται περὶ τούτων) (c11-d1), if they be repeated by asking the same questions. The most outstanding text regarding Socrates’ disavowal is Meno 98b where he explicitly claims knowledge: -/- And indeed I also speak as (ὡς) one who does not know (εἰδὼς) but is guessing (εἰκάζων). However, [about the fact] that true opinion and knowledge are different, I do not altogether expect (δοκῶ) myself to be guessing (εἰκάζειν), but if I say about anything that I know (εἰδέναι) -which about few things I say- this is one of the things that I know (οἶδα). (98b1-5) This passage is very significant about Plato’s disavowal of knowledge. There can hardly be found, I think, anywhere else in Plato’s corpus where Socrates speaks about his knowledge of something as such. He says first that he speaks as someone who does not know. This ὡς οὐκ εἰδὼς λέγω comparing with what he used to say in the first group, οὐκ οἶδα, has this added ὡς. Socrates does not claim strongly anymore that he does not know anything but speaks only as someone who does not know. He needs this ὡς not only because he is going to accept that he does know some, though few, things immediately after this sentence, but also because he needs his previous disavowal to be loosened from Meno on. He does not merely say here that he knows something. It is then different from the examples mentioned before which could be taken as idiomatic or at least not emphatic. Socrates’ remarkable emphasis on distinguishing εἰδέναι from εἰκάζειν departs it from all other passages where he says only he knows something. Moreover, he claims definitely that he has knowledge about few (ὀλίγα) things. From the early to the middle dialogues, Socrates’ attitude to knowledge has totally renewed its face. He brings forth a new concept, true opinion, and he does not speak of knowledge as he used to before; the rough, perfect and unachievable knowledge of the first group has turned to something more smooth, realistic and achievable. Comparing with the early dialogues that did not set out from the first to reach positive results, the middle ones are extraordinarily and surprisingly positive and hence destroy the basis of the Socratic circle. The questions and answers are purposely directed to some specific new theories; most of them are not directly related to the topics or the main questions of the dialogues. They are suggested when Socrates draws the attention of the interlocutor away from the main question because of the necessity of another discussion. Even if the main question remains unanswered, we have still many positive theories, prominently of metaphysical type. These theories are so abundant and dominant in these dialogues, especially Phaedo and Republic, that one might think that they may appear to be arbitrarily sandwiched in there. This helps dialogues to keep their original Socratic structure while they are suggesting new theories. Hence, the Socratic question of 'what is X?', though is still used to launch the discussion, is loosened and is forgotten for most part of the dialogues. Meno that has first a differently formulated question, 'can virtue be taught?', leads finally to the Socratic question of 'What is virtue?'. Phaedo is dedicated to the demonstration of the immortality of soul and the life after death without having a central Socratic question. The case of Republic is more complicated. The first book, on the one hand, has all the criteria of a Socratic circle: its 'what is justice?' question, Socrates’ strong disavowal (e.g. 337d-e), his rejection of all answers and coming back to the first point without finding out any answer. This Book, considered alone, is a perfect Socratic dialogue, as many scholars regard it as early and separated from other books. The books II-X are, on the other hand, far from implementing a Socratic circle. They have still the 'what is justice?' question as their incentive leading question, but they are, in most of the positive doctrines and methods that encompass the main parts, ignoring the question. Even these books that, I believe, are the farthest discussions from the Socratic circle are so cautious not to break the Socratic structure of the dialogue as long as it is possible. What is changed is not the structure of the dialogue but the ontological and epistemological grounds based on which new theories are suggested. -/- 1. Knowledge of the Good We can clearly see in the second group of dialogues that the KWX principle loses the place it had before in our first group. It is not, of course, rejected, but still we cannot say that it has the same situation. KWX that was based on Socratic question, as we discussed before, was the leading principle of the first Socrates’ epistemology and of the highest position. Other epistemological principles, SK directly and BE indirectly, were relying on Socratic question and therefore on KWX. Such a position does not belong to KWX from Meno on. What makes it different in the second Socrates is another principle that is needed it not only as its complementary principle but also as what is more fundamental. Plato, then, does not reject KWX in this period, but, it seems, he transcends to another more basic principle; a principle we shall call the principle of 'Knowledge of the Good' (KG): -/- KG Knowledge of X requires knowledge of the Good. -/- Whereas all the dialogues of our first group are free from any discuscon about KG, it bears a very important role in the second group so as becomes the superior principle of knowledge in Republic. Trying to solve the problem of teachability of virtue, Socrates says that it can be teachable only if it is a kind of knowledge because nothing can be taught to human beings but knowledge (ἐπιστήμην) (Meno 87c2). The dilemma will be, then, whether virtue is knowledge or not (c11-12) and since virtue is good, we can change the question to: whether is there anything good separate from knowledge (εἰ μέν τί ἐστιν ἀγαθὸν καὶ ἄλλο χωριζόμενον ἐπιστήμης) (d4-5). Therefore, the conclusion will be that if there is nothing good which knowledge does not encompass, virtue can be nothing but knowledge (d6-8). What let us discuss KG as an epistemological principle for the second Secrates is the relation he tries to establish between knowledge and the Good which, though is alongside with the mentioned thesis and the idea of virtue as knowledge, goes much deeper inside epistemology asking to regard the Good as the basis of knowledge. The effort of Phaedo cannot succeed in establishing the Good as the criterion of explanation and knowledge since, I think, it needs a far more complicated ontology of Republic where Socrates can finally announce KG. What is said in Republic is totally compatible with Phaedo 99d–e and the metaphor of watching an eclipse of the sun. In spite of the fact that we do not have adequate knowledge of the Idea of the Good, it is necessary for every kind of knowledge: 'If we do not know it, even if we know all other things, it is of no benefit to us without it' (505a6-7). The problem of our not having sufficient knowledge of the Idea of Good is tried to be solved by the same method of Phaedo 99d-e, that is to say, by looking at what is like instead of looking at thing itself (506d8-e4). It is this solution that leads to the comparison of the Good with sun in the allegory of Sun (508b12-13). What the Good is in the intelligible realm corresponds to what the sun is in the visible realm; as sun is not sight, but is its cause and is seen by it (b9-10), the Good is so regarding knowledge. It has, then, the same role for knowledge that the sun has for sight. Socrates draws our attention to the function of sun in our seeing. The eyes can see everything only in the light of the day being unable to see the same things in the gloom of night (508c4-6). Without the sun, our eyes are dimmed and blind as if they do not have clear vision any longer (c6-7). That the Good must have the same role about knowledge based on the analogy means that it must be considered as a required condition of any kind of knowledge: -/- The soul, then, thinks (νόει) in the same way: whenever it focuses on what is shined upon by truth and being, understands (ἐνόησέν), knows (ἔγνω) and apparently possesses understanding (νοῦν ἔχειν). (508d4-6) -/- Socrates does not use agathon in this paragraph and substitutes it with both aletheia and to on. He links them with the Idea of the Good when he is to assert the conclusion of the analogy: -/- That which gives truth to the objects of knowledge and the power of knowing to the knower, you must say, is the Idea of the Good: being the cause of knowledge and truth (αἰτίαν δ᾽ ἐπιστήμης οὖσαν καὶ ἀληθείας) so far as it is known (ὡς γιγνωσκομένης μὲν διανοοῦ). (508e1-4) Knowledge and truth are called goodlike (ἀγαθοειδῆ) since they are not the same as the Good but more honoured (508e6-509a5). KG, which had been implicitly contemplated and searched in Phaedo, is now explicitly being asserted in Republic. As what was quoted clearly proves, this principle is the very one which we can observe as the most fundamental principle of the second Socrates in Republic, corresponding to the role KWX had in the first Socrates. The Form of the Good in Republic, of which Santas speaks as 'the centerpiece of the canonical Platonism of the middle dialogues, the centerpiece of Plato’s metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and …' (1983, 256) much more can be said. Plato’s Cave allegory in Book VIII dedicates a similar role to the Idea of the Good. The Idea of the Good is there as the last thing to be seen in the knowable realm, something so important that its seeing equals to understanding the fact that it is the cause of all that is correct and beautiful (517b). Producing both light and its source in visible realm, it controls and provides truth and understanding in the intelligible realm (517c). -/- 2. Tripartite Epistemology BE is thoroughy rejected in the second Socrates and substituted by its opposite, the principle of 'Tripartite Epistemolgy' (TE): -/- TE Opinion is an epistemological status between knowledge and ignorance. BE of the first Socrates was denying any third way besides knowledge and ignorance which was the foundation of Socratic circle without which Socrates could not reject his interlocutors’ possessing any kind of knowledge. We cannot say, however, that the first Socrates had a third epistemological status in mind but rejected it. Such a status was unacceptable for him so that one can say that he would reject any kind of such status if suggested. There were only two possibilities about knowledge: either one knows something or he does not know it. TE, thus, was not the first Socrates’ discovery and, I think it is not the second Socrates’discovery. All we can see in our second group of dialouges is that he uses this principle as an already demonstrated one. Having examined the slave boy in Meno for the prupose of showing the working of recollection, it truns out that he has some opinions in him while he still does not know. Without trying to prove it, Socrates takes this as the distinction between knowledge and opinion: -/- So, he who does not know (οὐκ εἰδότι) about what he does not know (περὶ ὧν ἂν μὴ εἰδῇ) has within himself true opinions (ἀληθεῖς δόξαι) about the same things he did not know (περὶ τούτων ὧν οὐκ οἶδε) (85c6-7). -/- The same distinction is set between ὀρθὴν δόξαν and ἐπιστήμην at 97b5-6 ff. (also cf. 97b1-2: ὀρθῶς μὲν δοξάζων … ἐπιστάμενος). He connects then their difference to the myth of Daedalus, the statue that would run away and escape. So are true opinions, not willing to remain long in mind and thus not worthy until one ties them down by αἰτίας λογισμῷ (98a3-4). Socrates says that this tying down is anamnesis. We face, in Phaedo, the same relation is settled between knowledge as the process of being tied down and getting the capability to give an account, on the one hand, and anamnesis, on the other hand. When a man knows, he must be able to give an account of what he knows (Phaedo 76b5-6) and since not all people are able to give such an account, those who recollect, recollect what once they learned (76c4). Although the distinction between knowledge and opinion is not explicitly used in Phaedo, referring to the parallel link between knowledge plus account and anamnesis in Phaedo and Meno, one can say that those who cannot recollect are not able to give account and, thus, are in a state of opinion. What is said at Phaedo 84a, though not yet a definite distinction between knowledge and opinion, makes a distinction between their objects so as we can agree that it is presupposed. The soul of the philosopher, Socrates says, follows reason, stays with it forever and contemplates the divine, which is not the object of opinoin (ἀδόξαστον) (84a8, cf. Meno 98b2-5). The distinction of knowledge and belief in Republic has a significant difference with what we discussed in Meno and Phaedo since the distinction of Meno was based on anamnesis and thus more an epistemological distinction. Even in Phaedo that we do not have any elaborate discussion about the distinction, the only hint to the matter at 76 is bound to the theory of anamnesis. In addition to the relation of the distinction with this theory, there is another evidence that does not permit us to consider the distinction as an ontological distinction. Let’s see Meno 85c6-7: -/- So, he who does not know about what he does not know has within himself true opinions about the same things he did not know (τῷ οὐκ εἰδότι ἄρα περὶ ὧν ἂν μὴ εἰδῇ ἔνεισιν ἀληθεῖς δόξαι περὶ τούτων ὧν οὐκ οἶδε). (85c6-7) -/- This last sentence persists that the objects of knowledge and true opinion are the same. What Socrates is to say here is that whereas he does not know X he has true opinion about the same X. I think Socrates’ sentence that the slave boy οὐκ εἰδότι ἄρα περὶ ὧν ἂν μὴ εἰδῇ and his restatement of it by saying περὶ τούτων ὧν οὐκ οἶδε is because he wants to emphasize that the slave boy who does not know, has true opinion about the same thing. Socrates could say this just with using τούτων and there would be no necessity to bring περὶ ὧν ἂν μὴ εἰδῇ for οὐκ εἰδότι if he did not want to emphasize. -/- 3. Tripartite Ontology The distinction between knowledge and true opinion in Republic, on other side, has nothing to do with recollection, but is based on an ontological principle, 'Tripartite Ontology' (TO): -/- TO There are things that both are and are not. -/- This principle I confine, among our three dialogues of the second group, to Republic not extended to Meno and Phaedo, is obviously the opposite of BO. Speaking about the lovers of sights and sounds in the fifth book, Socrates distinguishes them from philosophers because their thought is unable to understand the nature of beautiful itself besides beautiful things (476a6-8) and hence they can only have opinions. The philosopher who, on the contrary, believes in beautiful itself and can distinguish it from beautiful things (476c9-d3), has knowledge because he knows, contrasting others who have opinion because they only opine (d5-6). Since those whose knowledge were degraded as opinion will complain about Socrates’ such calling their thought, he provides them the following argument (476e7-477b1): -/- - Does the person who knows, knows (γιγνώσκει) something (τὶ) or nothing (οὐδέν)? - He knows something (τί). - Something that is (ὂν) or is not (οὐκ ὄν)? - Something that is (ὂν) for how could something that is not be known (πῶς γὰρ ἂν μὴ ὄν γέ τι γνωσθείη)? - Then we have an adequate grasp of this: No matter how many ways we examine it, what completely is (παντελῶς ὂν) is completely knowable (παντελῶς γνωστόν) and what is in no way (μὴ ὂν δὲ μηδαμῇ) is in every way unknowable (πάντῃ ἄγνωστον). - A most adequate one. - Good. Now, if anything is such as to be and also not to be (ὡς εἶναί τε καὶ μὴ εἶναι), won’t it be intermediate (μεταξὺ) between what purely is (εἰλικρινῶς ὄντος) and what in no way is (μηδαμῇ ὄντος)? - Yes, it’s intermediate. - Then as knowledge (γνῶσις) is set over what is (τῷ ὄντι), while ignorance (ἀγνωσία) is of necessity set over what is not (μὴ ὄντι) mustn’t we find an intermediate between ignorance (ἀγνοίας) and knowledge (ἐπιστήμης) to be set over the intermediate, if there is such a thing? -/- From the third status of being we must reach to the third status of knowledge. The simple reading of this text can be an existential reading, taking the "is" of the mentioned sentences as existence. The problem is that when it is said that there is something that both is and is not reading "is" existentially, it sounds too bizarre to be acceptable. It cannot easily be understandable to have something as both existent and non-existent at the same time. This problem arose so many debates and led many scholars to reject the existential reading of "is" and suggest some other readings like predicative or veridical readings. I think though Plato’s complicated ontology of Republic cannot be correctly understood by a simple existential reading, this "is" cannot be free from existential sense of being and, thus, cannot be reduced to just a predicative or veridical sense of being. -/- 4. Bound Knowledges In addition to KG, the Good is also the basis of another principle in the second Socrates, namely the principle of 'Bound Knowledge' (BK): -/- BK Knowledge of everything is bound to the knowledge of the Good. -/- We distinguished BK from KG because we want to insist, in BK, on what had not been insisted upon in KG, that is, the binding role that the Good plays in the second Socrates, contrasting the absence of such a role in the first Socrates. Socrates remembers, in Phaedo, his wonderful keen on natural philosophers' wisdom when he was young. The origin of this enthusiasm was Socrates’ hope to know the cause of everything as they used to claim. When he was searching the matters of his interest on their basis, Socrates says, he became convinced he can get no acceptable answer from them and found himself blind even to the things he thought he knew before. One day he hears Anaxagoras’ theory that 'it is Mind that arranges and is the cause of everything (ὡς ἄρα νοῦς ἐστιν ὁ διακοσμῶν τε καὶ πάντων αἴτιος)' (Phd. 97c1-2 cf. DK, Fr.15.8-9, 11-12, 12-14) and thinks that he can finally find what he has always expected, i.e. something which can explain all things. What I intend to show here is that what makes Socrates hopeful is that Anaxagoras’ theory tries 1) to explain all things by one thing and 2) this explanation is understood by Socrates as if it is based on the concept of the Good. That Socrates was searching for one explanation for all things can be proved even from what he has been expecting from natural philosophers. The case is, nonetheless, more clearly asserted when he speaks about Anaxagoras’ theory. In addition to διακοσμῶν τε καὶ πάντων αἴτιος of 97c2 mentioned above, we have τὸ τὸν νοῦν εἶναι πάντων αἴτιον (c3-4) and τόν γε νοῦν κοσμοῦντα πάντα κοσμεῖν (c4-5) all emphasizing on the cause of all things (πάντα) which can clearly prove that one of the reasons which caused Socrates to embrace it delightfully was its claim to provide the cause of all things by one thing. Another reason was that Anaxagoras’ Mind, at least in Socrates’ view, was attempting to explain everything by the concept of the Good. This connection between Mind and Good belongs more to the essential relation they have in Socrates’ thinking than Anaxagoras’ theory because there are almost nothing about such a relation in Anaxagoras. The reason for Socrates’ reading can be that Mind is substantially compatible with Socrates’ idea of the relation between good and knowledge. Both the thesis 'no one does wrong willingly' and the theory of virtue as knowledge we pointed to above are evidences of this essential relation. Nobody who knows that something is bad can choose or do it as bad. The reason, when it is reason, that means when it is as it should be, when it is wise or when it knows, works only based on good-choosing. In this context, when Socrates hears that Mind is considered as the cause of everything, it sounds to him like this: good should be regarded as the basis of the explanation of all things. We see him, thus, passing from the former to the latter without any proof. This is done in the second sentence after introducing Mind: -/- I thought that if this were so, the arranging Mind would arrange all things and put each thing in the way that was Best (ὅπῃ ἂν βέλτιστα ἔχῃ). If one then wished to find the cause of each thing by which it either perishes or exists, one needs to find what is the best way (βέλτιστον αὐτῷ ἐστιν) for it to be, or to be acted upon, or to act. On these premises then it befitted a man to investigate only, about this and other things, what is the most excellent (ἄριστον) and best (βέλτιστον). The same man must inevitably also know what is worse (χεῖρον), for that is part of the same knowledge. (97c4-d5) This passage is a good evidence of Socrates’ leap from Anaxagoras’ Mind to his own concept of the Good that can explain why Socrates found Anaxagoras theory after his own heart (97d7). Mind is welcomed because of its capability for explanation on the basis of good to 'explain why it is so of necessity, saying which is better (ἄμεινον), and that it was better (ἄμεινον) to be so' (97e1-3). What Socrates thought he had found in Anaxagoras can indicate what he had been expecting from natural scientists before. Socrates could not be satisfied with their explanations because they were unable to explain how it is the best for everything to be as it is. It can probably be said, then, that it was the lack of the unifying Good in their explanation that had disappointed him. We must insist that we are discussing what Socrates thought that Anaxagoras’ theory of Mind should have been, not about Anaxagoras’ actual way of using Mind. Phaedo 97c-98b, is not about what Socrates found in Anaxagoras but what he thought he could find in it. On the contrary, it should also be noted that it was not this that was dashed at 98b, but Anaxagoras’ actual way of using Mind. It was Anaxagoras’ fault not to find out how to use such an excellent thesis (98b8-c2, cf. 98e-99b). Socrates gives an example to show how not believing in 'good' as the basis of explanation makes people be wanderers between different unreal explanations of a thing. His words δέον συνδεῖν (binding that binds together) as a description for the Good we chose as the name of BK principle: They do not believe that the truly good and binding binds and holds them together (ὡς ἀληθῶς τὸ ἀγαθὸν καὶ δέον συνδεῖν καὶ συνέχειν οὐδὲν οἴονται). (99c5-6) -/- Having in mind Plato’s well-known analogy of the sun and the Good at Republic 508-509, we can dare to say that his warning of the danger of seeing the truth directly like one watching an eclipse of the sun in Phaedo (99d-e) is more about the difficulty of so-called good-based explanation than its insufficiency, a difficulty which is precisely confirmed in Republic (504e-505a, 506d-e). Moreover, BK is asserted in a more explicit way in the Republic, where the Good is considered not only as a condition for the knowledge of X, as was noted above discussing KG, but also as what binds all the objects of knowledge and also the soul in its knowing them. At Republic VI, 508e1-3, when Socrates says that the Form of the Good 'gives truth to the things known and the power to know to the knower (τοῦτο τοίνυν τὸ τὴν ἀλήθειαν παρέχον τοῖς γιγνωσκομένοις καὶ τῷ γιγνώσκοντι τὴν δύναμιν ἀποδιδὸν)', he wants to set the Good at the highest point of his epistemological structure by which all the elements of this structure are bound. This binding aspect of the Good is by no means a simple binding of all knowledges or all the objects of knowledge, but the most complicated kind of binding as it is expected from the author of the Republic. The kind of unity the Good gives to the different knowledges of different things is comparable with the unity which each Form gives to its participants in Republic: as all the participants of a Form are united by referring to the ideas, all different kinds of knowledge are united by referring to the Good. If we observe Aristotle's assertion that for Plato and the believers of Forms, the causative relation of the One with the Forms is the same as that of the Forms with particulars (e.g. Metaphysics 988a10-11, 988b4), that is to say the One is the essence (e.g., ibid, 988a10-11: τοῦ τί ἐστὶν, 988b4-6: τὸ τί ἢν εἶναί) of the Forms besides his statement that for them One is the Good (e.g., ibid, 988b11-13) the relation between the Good and unity may become more understandable. Since the quiddity of the Good (τί ποτ᾽ ἐστὶ τἀγαθὸν) is more than discussion (506d8-e2), we cannot await Socrates to tell us how this binding role is played. All we can expect is to hear from him an analogy by which this unifying role is envisaged, the sun. The kind of unity that the Good gives to the knowledge and its objects in the intelligible realm is comparable to the unity that the sun gives to the sight and its objects in the visible realm (508b-c). The allegory of Line (Republic VI, 509d-511), like that of the Sun, tries to bind all various kinds of knowledges. The hierarchical model of the Line which encompasses all kinds of knowledge from imagination to understanding can clearly be considered as Plato’s effort to bind all kinds of knowledges by a certain unhypothetical principle. The method of hypothesis starts, in the first subsection of the intelligible realm, with a hypothesis that is not directed firstly to a principle but a conclusion (510b4-6). It proceeds, in the other subsection, to a 'principle which is not a hypothesis' (b7) and is called the 'unhypothetical principle of all things' (ἀνυποθέτου ἐπὶ τὴν τοῦ παντὸς ἀρχὴν) (511b6-7). This παντὸς must refer not only to the objects of the intelligible realm but to the sensible objects as well. Plato does posit, therefore, an epistemological principle for all things, a principle that all things are, epistemologically, bound and, thus, unified by. -/- 5. Bound Beings The ontological aspect of BK we shall call the principle of 'Bound Beings' (BB): -/- BB Being of all things are bound by the Good. -/- We saw in our principle of Split Being (SB) how the first Socrates was criticized because of his approach to split being and separate each thing from other things. The principle of Bound Beings intends to make the things more related, a duty which is done again by the Good. In the allegory of Sun, there are two paragraphs that evidently and deliberately extend the binding role of the Good to the ontological scene: -/- You will say that the sun not only makes the visible things have the ability of being seen but also coming to be, growth and nourishment. (509b2-4) -/- This clearly intends to remind the ontological role the sun plays in bringing to being all the sensible things in order to display how its counterpart has the same role in the intelligible realm (b6-10): -/- Not only the objects of knowledge (γιγνωσκομένοις) owe their being known (γιγνώσκεσθαι) to the Good, but also their existence (τὸ εἶναί) and their being (οὐσίαν) are due to it, though the Good is not being but superior to it in rank and power. That the Good is here represented as responsible for being of things in addition to their being known means, in my opinion, that Plato wants to posit BB in addition to BK. The allegory of Cave at the very beginning of the seventh Book (514aff.) can be taken as another evidence. The role of the Good, one might say, is confined to the intelligible realm because it is asserted that the role the Good plays in this realm is corresponding to that of the sun in the visible realm. The fact that Plato wants to observe the Good also as the ontological cause of the sensible things is obvious from his saying, in the allegory of Cave, that the Form of the Good 'produces light and its source (τὸν τούτου κύριον) [i.e. the sun] in the visible realm' (517c3). We can conclude, then, that the ontological function of the Good is not confined to the intelligible realm in which it is the lord and provides truth and understanding (c3-4) because it is also responsible to produce τὸν κύριον of light. 6. Proportionality of Being and Knowledge Insofaras BE and BO principles of the first Socrates gave way to TE and TO principles of the second Socrates, we cannot expect him to preserve KB in the same way as it was in the first Socrates. The new tripartite ontology and epistemology necessitates some modifications in KB which results in the principle of 'Proportionality of Being and Knowledge' (PBK): -/- PBK To every class of being there is a proportionate category of knowledge. -/- This principle, of course, does not entail the refutation of KB and thus is not kind of rejecting PBK but only a more complicated version of it. Based on PBK, we can still agree that knowledge is of being (KB) but the issue is that since none of the concepts of knowledge and being in the second Socrates are as simple as they were for the first Socrates, we need a more complicated principle for their relation here. Although from Meno 97a where the distinction of knowledge and true opinion is drawn out in the second group of the dialogues, we can expect a new relation, it is articulated in its most complete way in Republic and specifically in the allegory of Line. All the beings are divided there hierarchically to four classes, to each of them belongs a class of knowledge: imagination to images, belief to the sensible things (more correctly: the things of which they[in previous class] were images (ᾧ τοῦτο ἔοικεν)), thought to mathematical objects (?) and understanding to the Forms and the first principle. The degree of clarity that each of the classes of knowledge shares in (σαφηνείας ἡγησάμενος μετέχειν) is proportionate to the degree that its object shares in truth (ἀληθείας μετέχει). (511e2-4) -/- Conclusion From the six onto-epistemilogical principles of the first Socrates, four principles turn to their opposite in the middle period dialogues. While bipolar epistemology and ontology of the early dialogues give place to tripartite epistemology in the middle period dialogues and tripartite ontology in Republic, the split knowledge and being of the first Socrates are inclined to be substituted by bound knowledges and bound beings in the second Socrates and specifically in Republic. Not all our system of principles in this article is necessarily determinative. Either they are rightly formulated or not, our result would not be vulnerable if we accept that 1) making the distinction of knowledge and belief, 2) accepting the being of not being and 3) trying to bind both being and knowledge by the concept of the Good happens only in middle period dialogues, having been absent in the early ones. These are the favourite results all those somehow arbitrary and even oversimplified principles were to illustrate; that there is kind of a development in the epistemological as well as the ontological grounds of Plato’s philosophy. -/- Notes . (shrink)

From the time of the thinkers of ancient Greece, the question of what can be said about the existence and nature of God has been debated by many philosophers and theologians. In Theism and Atheism: The Eternal Debate, F.F. Centore presents a broad analysis of the major positions that address the question and the thinkers who have contributed to the debate. This is an admirably lucid and thorough examination of the history of natural theology. Covering the material in a thematic (...) rather than in a strictly chronological way, Centore draws out the key positions on topics such as the relationship of science and religion, the problem of evil, Naturalistic and Supernaturalistic theism and the dispute between essence and existence. The proponents of the various positions are considered alongside their most explicit critics. Important thinkers dealt with in this work include Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Pascal, Kant, Hume, Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud and Darwin. The diversity of exploration also goes beyond the Judeo-Christian tradition to look at Hinduism, Buddhism, Stoicism, Zoroastrianism, Confucianism and Classical Paganism. This work, however, is much more than a survey of the major historical arguments and rebuttals concerning God's existence and nature. Overall, it is a work by a well-established Catholic philosopher who concludes that God's existence and nature are indeed compatible with modern science, human freedom and the existence of evil in the world. (shrink)

The question of whether Gongsun Longzi is an authentic text remains a subject of scholarly debate, with opposing views arguing that the entire text is spurious, only certain sections are inauthentic, or that it is entirely genuine. This study defines spurious texts as those that cannot be considered contemporaneous with the era of Gongsun Long and seeks to identify which portions of Gongsun Longzi fail to meet this criterion. First, this study examines the disputed chapter “Jifu” and the latter half (...) of Gongsun Longzi, identifying a shared feature: both “Jifu” and the blue-white dialogue (qingbai wenda) in “Tongbian lun” contain political arguments rooted in the intellectual tradition of the Zhixia School. Second, it analyzes the Five Elements theory as presented in the blue-white dialogue in “Tongbian lun”, taking into account the historical evolution of Five Elements theory and the recorded relationship between Zou Yan and Gongsun Long. Based on this analysis, the study concludes that the blue-white dialogue in “Tongbian lun” is better understood as a composition created after Gongsun Longzi’s time. Through this investigation, the study argues that the blue-white dialogue in “Tongbian lun” cannot be considered a work contemporaneous with Gongsun Longzi. If substantiated, this argument may provide insights into the previously noted differences between the first and the second halves of the Gongsun Longzi. Furthermore, by distinguishing between the School of Names’ original focus on the relationship between names and actualities and political arguments incorporating Five Elements theory, it becomes possible to reevaluate the pure philosophical thought of the School of Names during Gongsun Longzi’s era. From a textual perspective, this analysis may also contribute to clarifying the relationships and chronological order among “Jifu”, the Lüshi Chunqiu, and the Kongcongzi. (shrink)

It is understandable that Ewen Whitaker developed an interest in the history of mapping and naming the moon. As a participant in the Apollo missions and a member of the Task Group of Lunar Nomenclature of the International Astronomical Union, he was himself directly involved in conflicts between representatives of different countries over naming newly discovered lunar features. In an effort to understand the passions surrounding current controversies more completely, his book examines their origin and development from the seventeenth century (...) to the present.Whitaker's account, written without footnotes for the general reader, proceeds in a strictly chronological fashion. As he makes clear, the key event in the history of lunar mapping and nomenclature was the discovery and application of the telescope to increasing knowledge of the moon's features. Mapping and naming thus became important issues in the wake of Galileo's observations. Accordingly, the first part of Whitaker's study, which deals with the period from prehistory to 1651, is the longest and most important of its four sections. By 1651, with the publication of Francesco Grimaldi's map and the application of Giovanni Riccioli's nomenclature, a fairly detailed and accurate picture of the moon's surface features had become available.The second part of Whitaker's account carries the story to the beginning of the Victorian period and features the creation of a new lunar map based on the work of Johann Mädler and Wilhelm Beer. In Parts 3 and 4, which together are shorter than either of the first two sections, Whitaker focuses on such key developments as the emergence of photography and the creation of international organizations to settle disputes over nomenclature. By 1935, a committee of the International Astronomical Union had reached agreement on a map and the naming of surface features. However, the further explorations of the space age dramatically increased the work of mappers by providing the first photographs of the far side of the moon and revealing new features on the near side.The most compelling facet of Whitaker's study are the 112 reproductions of drawings and photographs of the moon from the seventeenth century to the present, which, taken together, constitute a rich visual history of efforts to portray lunar features for the public and for scientists. In addition, detailed appendixes, arranged in chronological order, provide lists of new names of lunar features as assigned by the most influential mappers of the lunar surface from Michiel Van Langren to the NASA Catalogue of Lunar Nomenclature.While Whitaker limits himself strictly to matters of mapping and nomenclature, his study has already been useful to other historians of lunar exploration, including Scott Montgomery and William Sheehan and Thomas Dobbins . Montgomery seeks to explain how political and aesthetic factors shaped the portrayal of lunar features and thus the drawing of maps and the naming of surface features up to 1651, while Sheehan and Dobbins move beyond mapping and nomenclature to consider controversies over the possible existence of life on the moon and the conflict surrounding the origin of lunar craters by volcanic activity or meteor impact. Whitaker's study, however, provides a unique record of the development of our image of the moon's surface over a period of more than three centuries. (shrink)

This slim volume is another addition to the ever growing family of anthologies—in this case Oxford Readings in Philosophy—recognizable as such not only because of its eye-catching external appearance but also, and mainly, on account of its close similarity in technical features to the previously born siblings. The composite body of the various contributions bears the unmistakable mark of ‘analysis’ as an identifying label. This observation, needless to say, is not intended to be condemnatory—for there is a great deal to (...) be said in favour of dissecting propensities—it is merely an indication of what one should expect to find in this compilation. The nonet playing ‘Action’ consists of the following performers: J L Austin, A C Danto, H A Prichard, A I Melden, D Davidson, J Feinberg, P J Fitzgerald, G E M Anscombe, J O Urmson. As can be seen, the group represents a pretty homogeneous bunch—with the possible exception of the veteran ethical intuitionist Prichard, whose participation ceases to be a mystery only after Melden’s essay has been digested. I must confess that I find the arrangement of the articles rather puzzling. There seems to be no clear criterion involved. It cannot be in order of importance ; neither can it be taken to signify logical affinity ; it certainly is not chronological; and—in the presence of an eminent editor—one hesitates to see it as an ad hoc, haphazard motley. It might be maintained that A White’s excellent introduction—a rare combination of lucidity, economy and relevant information—with its appropriate headings throws some light on the collocation of players in the ensemble. If it was intended to do this then I fail to see the logic behind the plan. This, however, is a minor matter when compared with the meritorious execution of a difficult task which the introduction represents. It gives us a comprehensive bird’s-eye view of the territory disputed and pin-points neatly the various claimants to the, often more than obscure, land-titles. Considering the nature of the landscape and the diversity of figures swarming over and about it Professor White has done a splendid job and deserves unqualified praise. (shrink)

The philosophical interest of verbal disputes is twofold. First, they play a key role in philosophical method. Many philosophical disagreements are at least partly verbal, and almost every philosophical dispute has been diagnosed as verbal at some point. Here we can see the diagnosis of verbal disputes as a tool for philosophical progress. Second, they are interesting as a subject matter for first-order philosophy. Reflection on the existence and nature of verbal disputes can reveal something about the (...) nature of concepts, language, and meaning. In this article I first characterize verbal disputes, spell out a method for isolating and resolving them, and draw out conclusions for philosophical methodology. I then use the framework to draw out consequences in first-order philosophy. In particular, I argue that the analysis of verbal disputes can be used to support the existence of a distinctive sort of primitive concept and that it can be used to reconstruct a version of an analytic/synthetic distinction, where both are characterized in dialectical terms alone. (shrink)

The chapter describes a detailed chronology of Michel Foucault's life and work. This substantial and detailed intellectual biography avoids the worst excesses of some of Foucault's earlier biographers, providing an austere yet personal insight into the intertwining of Foucault's personal, political, and scholarly trajectory.

This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy: chronological snobbery (CS). First described by the Christian academic Owen Barfield in the 1920s and later popularized by his friend and colleague C.S. Lewis, the fallacy of CS presupposes that cultural, philosophical, or scientific ideas from later time periods are necessarily superior to those from earlier ages. Grounded on the Enlightenment's concept of “progress”, this informal fallacy stems from the assumption that the ever‐increasing amount of knowledge in (...) society naturally and perpetually replaces all outdated, disproven ideas with updated, better‐justified beliefs, therefore making old ideas incorrect or irrelevant simply because they are old. Essentially the opposite of the appeal to ancient authority, CS relates to guilt by association, hasty generalization, and poisoning the well fallacies whenever it references unrelated false beliefs held by individuals from the originating time period. (shrink)

Two firm points in the chronology of Antiphon's speeches are VI περ το χορευτο in 419/81 and the Defence in 411/02. Speech V περ τσ 'Hρδου is now generally dated between these two; only the vaguest attempts have been made to date I κατ τσ μητρυασ; there is no general agreement on either the date or the authorship of the Tetralogies. The main purpose of this paper is to adduce linguistic as well as external evidence for the dating of V (...) in the neighbourhood of 414 and to show grounds for dating I between VI and V. Its secondary purpose is to apply some of the results gained in this inquiry to the fragments and the Tetralogies. (shrink)

Changing concepts comes with a risk of creating merely verbal disputes. Accounts of topic continuity (such as Herman Cappelen’s) are supposed to solve this problem. As this paper shows, however, no existing solution avoids the danger of mere verbalness. On the contrary, accounts of topic continuity in fact increase the danger of overlooking merely verbal disputes between pre- and post-ameliorators. Ultimately, this paper suggests accepting the danger of mere verbalness resulting from a change in topic as a downside (...) of conceptual engineering. Changing the topic under discussion may be worth the risk, however, in many cases. In fact, this paper proposes that the main goal of conceptual engineering should be seen as changing topics for the better. (shrink)

Public participation and survivor research in mental health are widely recognized as vital to the field. At the same time, contributions of patient collaborators can present unique challenges to determining authorship. Using an unresolved dispute around research contributions to the American Psychiatric Association’s Psychiatric Services journal, authorship and contribution are addressed. Recommendations are suggested to prevent dilemmas and achieve responsible research credit inclusion, especially among researchers with different backgrounds and asymmetric power relations. Researchers and publishers can prepare proactively for conflict (...) through consensus on authorship criteria, prior agreements around author inclusion, arrangement for third party dispute resolution, transparency in communication and contracts, notification to prospective publications of pending disputes, a contributor-guarantor model of contribution, journal editor “expressions of concern” when authorship disputes go unresolved, and expectation of conflict as generative. (shrink)

The last decade has witnessed a widespread resurgence of interest in Galen of Pergamum that is without parallel since the early seventeenth century. New studies of Galen's concepts of psychology and medicine have examined afresh his position in the development of scientific thought, and historians have begun to realize the wealth of material for the social history of the Antonine Age that he provides. But, despite the earlier labours of Ilberg and Bardong to restore a chronological order to the (...) many tracts that flowed readily from his pen, many of the events of his life still lack the precise dates that would enable even more valuable information to be extracted, especially upon the careers of his friends. (shrink)

Recent research has shown that the use of astronomy as a chronological problem-solving tool has deep roots in the scholarly practices of the Latin Middle Ages, as is manifest from the writings of Marianus Scotus, Gerland, and other “critical computists” of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. This essay enlarges the existing picture by introducing a hitherto unknown epistolary treatise of the mid-twelfth century. Written in Lotharingia in 1144, this poorly preserved work documents an attempt to reconstruct the timeline of (...) world history via techniques that had emerged within the Latin computus tradition prior to the advent of Greco-Arabic astronomy. Drawing on the so-called computus naturalis, the author performed lunar computations on the basis of observed eclipses and used them to propose new dates for the Creation and the Last Supper. He also relied on a revised estimate of the time and date of the vernal equinox, placing it on 16 March, and gave a detailed account of how this result can be derived from solar observations with a meridian line. By virtue of these methodological features, the Chronology of 1144 represents an important transitional stage between the “critical computists” and the use of eclipse-based dating methods by later scholars such as Giles of Lessines (fl. 1260). (shrink)

Angela of Foligno was certainly born in the middle of the 13th century, in a rich family. Most scholars accept, at least to a certain extent, a more exact chronology of her life, proposed by Martin-Jean Ferré.1 According to him, Angela, born in 1248, experienced a conversion in 1285 and lost her entire family – husband, children, and mother – in a few subsequent years. In this time she also sold all of her possessions. At the beginning of 1291 she (...) entered the Third Order of St. Francis and went on a pilgrimage to Assisi, during which she experienced powerful mystical graces, hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit and conversing with him almost the whole way. During her stay in Assisi, she caused a scandal, screaming... (shrink)

Disputes and conflicts affect interpersonal relationships. The key factors in resolution are what attitudes people take and what kinds of reconciliation people choose. The paper examines the language of judges from the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics, specifically Appraisal System. It presents a case study that is a civil one brought to court in Tahe County in China. The case concerns the conflict and dispute between a chicken raiser and his neighbor. The judge resolved the conflicts and disputes, (...) and the two parties were reconciled. The appraisal analysis of the language used by the two parties explains how conflicts and disputes occurred. The appraisal analysis of the judge's language explains how the mediation succeeded in reconciling the conflicts and disputes. (shrink)

Financial services have a very significant impact on and meaning to the daily life and welfare of consumers. The spectrum of these types of services is very broad, and their regulation is also changing both at EU and national (Member State) level. In order to implement the main or the most relevant EU level goals, such as high level consumer rights protection, consumer trust in business sector, proper and effective functioning of the EU internal market it is essential to ensure (...) clear and sufficient legal regulation, establish responsibility of the services providers, consumer rights and duties as well as promote, seek for the more effective, faster and cheaper ways of solving consumer and business sector disputes. The authors of this article support the idea that the abovementioned goals can be achieved by close and more fruitful cooperation between the EU and national competent authorities, participation in various ad hoc expert working groups, committees or EUwide networks, such as FIN-NET. This article reflects general ideas about the problems arising in the financial consumer services sector, the activity of the EU and national institutions, seeking to ensure fair and transparent provision of such services to consumers, analysis of alternative dispute resolution (hereinafter – the ADR) methods and the good practice of their application in the EU Member States. This article highly supports the application of alternative, nonjudicial procedures and broader application of the means of selfregulation, such as codes of conduct. (shrink)