This book examines the origins of ancient Greek science using the vehicles of blood, blood vessels, and the heart. Careful attention to biomedical writers in the ancient world, as well as to the philosophical and literary work of writers prior to the Hippocratic authors, produce an interesting story of how science progressed and the critical context in which important methodological questions were addressed. The end result is an account that arises from debates that are engaged (...) in and "solved" by different writers. These stopping points form the foundation for Harvey and for modern philosophy of biology. Author Michael Boylan sets out the history of science as well as a critical evaluation based upon principles in the contemporary canon of the philosophy of science--particularly those dealing with the philosophy of biology. (shrink)

The paper reviews the way in which Steiner schools have attached importance to the categorisation of pupil character and behaviour, drawing on a tradition going back to ancient Greek science.

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring Ancient Greece is often considered to be the birthplace of science and medicine, and the explanation of natural phenomena without recourse to supernatural causes. These early natural philosophers - lovers of wisdom concerning nature - sought to explain the order and composition of the world, and how we come to know it. They were particularly interested in what exists and how it is ordered: ontology and cosmology. They were also concerned with how (...) we come to know (epistemology) and how best to live (ethics). At the same time, the scientific thinkers of early Greece and Rome were also influenced by ideas from other parts of the world, and incorporated aspects of Egyptian, Babylonian, and Indian science and mathematics in their studies. In this Very Short Introduction Liba Taub gives an overview of the major developments in early science between the 8th century BC and 6th century AD. Focussing on Greece and Rome, Taub challenges a number of modern misconceptions about science in the classical world, which has often been viewed with a modern lens and by modern scientists, such as the misconception that little empirical work was conducted, or that the Romans did not 'do' science, unlike the Greeks. Beginning with the scientific notions of Thales, Pythagoras, Parmenides and other Presocratics, she moves on to Plato and Aristotle, before considering Hellenistic science, the influence of the Stoics and Epicurean ideas, and the works of Pliny the Elder, Eratosthenes, and Ptolemy. In her sweeping discussion, Taub explores the richness and creativity of ideas concerning the natural world and its function in the ancient world, and the influence these ideas have had on later centuries. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable. (shrink)

The prevailing narrative in the history of science maintains that the ancient Greeks did not have a concept of a ‘law of nature’. This paper overturns that narrative and shows that some ancient Greek philosophers did have an idea of laws of nature and, moreover, they referred to them as ‘laws of nature’. This paper analyzes specific examples of laws of nature in texts by Plato, Aristotle, Philo of Alexandria, Nicomachus of Gerasa, and Galen. These examples (...) emerged out of the closely intertwined Platonic and Pythagorean traditions, and these philosophers’ texts make reference to laws of nature when describing arithmetical methods, arithmological doctrines, or medical theories. Nicomachus’ laws of nature are especially noteworthy, because they have features that historians look for in the search for the origin of the modern concept of laws of nature. Nicomachus’ laws of nature are mathematical, universal, and necessary. This paper raises the possibility that the ancient Platonic and Pythagorean traditions influenced the subsequent development of the idea of laws of nature in medieval and early modern Europe, including the conception of laws of nature deployed by Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton. (shrink)

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the key themes in Greek and Roman science, medicine, mathematics and technology. A distinguished team of specialists engage with topics including the role of observation and experiment, Presocratic natural philosophy, ancient creationism, and the special style of ancient Greek mathematical texts, while several chapters confront key questions in the philosophy of science such as the relationship between evidence and explanation. The volume will spark renewed discussion about the (...) character of 'ancient' versus 'modern' science, and will broaden readers' understanding of the rich traditions of ancient Greco-Roman natural philosophy, science, medicine and mathematics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 125.1 (2004) 140-144 [Access article in PDF] C. J. Tuplin and T. E. Rihll, eds. Science and Mathematics in Ancient Greek Culture. Foreword by Lewis Wolpert. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. xvi + 379 pp. 21 black-and white ills. 3 tables. Cloth, $80. It has become something of a truism to say that, whatever their ambitions for abstraction, scientists remain profoundly caught (...) up in the life of their culture. Yet, that is a truism only at a certain level. No one is surprised to hear that Euclid had to eat and drink just like everyone else and relied on royal patronage for the leisure to pursue his studies, but it may occasion surprise to learn that the shape of his number theory should owe something to the particular way in which his eye fell upon a multiplication table. That Galen was influenced by his teachers is not news; but that his commitment to a particular school of philosophy could cause him to see and not see certain things when he was conducting dissections—here is something of interest. The papers in this volume, which were first delivered at a conference in Liverpool in 1996, have it as their common task to show how ancient forms of life influenced the pursuit and acquisition of knowledge on the part of scientists like Euclid and Galen.Heading the collection is a study by Andrew Barker of some idiosyncratic features of Greek harmonic theory. Archytas, Aristotle, and Ptolemy each attempted to characterize the physical basis of the two opposite sound qualities, oxusand barus. As Aristotle himself observed, the terms are metaphors drawn from the tactile realm, and trouble arose because in that realm they are heterogeneous opposites, i.e., the proper opposites of "sharp" and "heavy" are "dull" and "light." Barker uncovers a corresponding uncertainty in the texts about whether these sound qualities should be analyzed as something more like weight or something more like sharpness. Thus, an excessive trust in the descriptive adequacy of ordinary language terms led these thinkers to frustration.Harry Hine's paper on earthquakes and vulcanology deals with ancient knowledge of two phenomena that elicited the attention of scientist and non-scientist alike. Like Barker, Hine draws our attention to a terminological deficiency: although there was a fairly elaborate vocabulary for seismoi, neither Greek nor Latin possessed a generic noun that could properly be translated as [End Page 140] "volcano." This deficiency seems to be correlated with the fact that earthquakes form a regular part of the meteorological curriculum, while volcanoes usually received independent treatment in works such as the Aetna. Particularly intriguing is Hine's suggestion that the opinion of locals, especially sailors, may have been the source of certain scientific theses about volcanoes, e.g., that Aetna's behavior was closely correlated with the weather.The difference between ancient astronomy as practiced and as it was popularly believed to operate is the subject of Alan Bowen's paper. His central question is, when did astronomers first set out to make predictions of eclipses? The surprising answer is that, despite popular beliefs to the contrary, such prediction was never practiced by astronomers in a serious way before Ptolemy. Along with scrutiny of the misunderstanding in Herodotus, Diodorus, and Pliny, the paper offers thorough analysis of the most well-documented "prediction," that of a lunar eclipse that took place the night before the battle of Pydna in 167 B.C.E., which was supposedly foreseen by the Roman (!) general C. Sulpicius Gallus. Bowen casts doubts upon the entire tradition, showing how adherence to an ideology of the well-rounded commander led the sources to inflate his achievement: while some reports have Gallus simply assuaging his troops' fears at the event, others have him explaining its causes or even foretelling it. Bowen's skepticism is well founded, and one must regard these supposed feats of eclipse-prediction as a kind of science fiction, prescient yet false all the same.R. Hanna's subject is the format and function of the parapegma calendar first devised by... (shrink)

Ancient Greek Psychology and the Modern Mind-Body Debate offers an overview of Platonic-Aristotelian thought on man with a view to considering what its alternative conceptual framework may contribute to the modern debate which is dominated by the scepticism confronting modern reductionism. -/- The mind-body problem is central to the modern philosophical and cultural debate because we cannot understand what man is until we understand what consciousness is and how it interacts with the body. Although many suggestions have been (...) offered, no convincing account has as yet appeared. Perhaps it was all mistaken ideology from the start? A crucial (and fatal?) distinction was made by modern natural science in the 17th century between the subjective/qualitative and the objective/quantitative. -/- The ancient Greeks, notably Plato and Aristotle, focused not on consciousness and experience, but on goal-directed reason/form, and the contrast was not mechanical matter, but the particular. The latter owed its intelligibility and being to reason and form and did not, therefore, constitute a realm of its own. Hence the ancient picture of man did not fall apart either: the soul is conceived of as a dynamic-telic aspect of the human organism. -/- Considering the problems and consequent scepticism that confronts modern reductionism and the recent appearance of holistic ideology in many areas it is suggested that we take a fresh look at the alternative conceptual framework of our ancient Greek ancestors. (shrink)

Among the many instruments devised by students of mathematical sciences in ancient Greece, the monochord provides one of the best opportunities to examine the methodologies of those who employed it in their investigations. Consisting of a single string which could be divided at measured points by means of movable bridges, it was used to demonstrate theorems about the arithmetical relationships between pitched sounds in music. This book traces the history of the monochord and its multiple uses down to Ptolemy, (...) bringing together all the relevant evidence in one comprehensive study. By comparing the monochord with a number of other ancient scientific instruments and their uses, David Creese shows how the investigation of music in ancient Greece not only shares in the patterns of demonstrative and argumentative instrument use common to other sciences, but also goes beyond them in offering the possibility of a rigorous empiricism unparalleled in Greek science. (shrink)

List of Participants Ernst Badian is Professor of Ancient History at Harvard University. Johnny Christensen is Professor of Classical Philology at the ...

The book provides an introduction to the topic for all students and non-specialists who appreciate the continued relevance of ancient Greece to political theory ...

Renowned scholar of Ancient Greek Martin Ostwald explains, for a modern audience, the terms by which the ancient Greeks saw and lived their lives—and ...

Did science and philosophy develop differently in ancient Greece and ancient China? If so, can we say why? This book consists of a series of detailed studies of cosmology, natural philosophy, mathematics and medicine that suggest the answer to the first question is yes. To answer the second, the author relates the science produced in each ancient civilization first to the values of the society in question and then to the institutions within which the scientists (...) and philosophers worked. (shrink)

It has long been thought that the ancient Greeks did not take mechanics seriously as part of the workings of nature, and that therefore their natural philosophy was both primitive and marginal. In this book Sylvia Berryman challenges that assumption, arguing that the idea that the world works 'like a machine' can be found in ancient Greek thought, predating the early modern philosophy with which it is most closely associated. Her discussion ranges over topics including balancing and (...) equilibrium, lifting water, sphere-making and models of the heavens, and ancient Greek pneumatic theory, with detailed analysis of thinkers such as Aristotle, Archimedes, and Hero of Alexandria. Her book shows scholars of ancient Greek philosophy why it is necessary to pay attention to mechanics, and shows historians of science why the differences between ancient and modern reactions to mechanics are not as great as was generally thought. (shrink)

Greek Science, first published in 1999, is written for scientists, classicists, historians of science, and anyone with an interest in the beginnings of science. It surveys the range and scope of ancient work on topics now called science, at a lively pace and with colourful examples. It encompasses ancient empirical studies as well as theoretical works, the life sciences and the exact sciences, and is written by one of the foremost authorities on (...) class='Hi'>ancient science and technology. No knowledge of Greek, Latin, or ancient history is assumed. (shrink)

The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek Political Thought provides a guide to understanding the central texts and problems in ancient Greek political thought, from Homer through the Stoics and Epicureans. Composed of essays specially commissioned for this volume and written by leading scholars of classics, political science, and philosophy, the Companion brings these texts to life by analysing what they have to tell us about the problems of political life. Focusing on texts by Homer, Herodotus, (...) Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle, among others, they examine perennial issues, including rights and virtues, democracy and the rule of law, community formation and maintenance, and the ways in which theorizing of several genres can and cannot assist political practice. (shrink)

Scientific observation has led to the discovery of recurring patterns in nature. Symmetry is the property of an object showing regularity in parts on a plane or around an axis. There are several types of symmetries observed in the natural world and the most common are mirror symmetry, radial symmetry, and translational symmetry. Symmetries can be continuous or discrete. A discrete symmetry is a symmetry that describes non-continuous changes in an object. A continuous symmetry is a repetition of an object (...) an infinite number of times. A consequence of continuous symmetry is the existence of conservation laws. A natural system with discrete and continuous symmetries displays several physical properties, such as the existence of long-range order. Geometric shapes exhibit symmetry as mirror reflections of each other. Symmetry in nature has been a model of beauty since the beginning of civilization. Since the earliest times, nature itself has manifestly been a model, evincing regularity in sundry forms and occurrences–from minerals and plants to the anatomy of living beings, to the regularly recurring stellar constellations. For Ancient Greek philosophers, proportion, symmetry, and harmony, were the basics to determine whether something is beautiful or not. Ancient Greek philosophers were known for bringing logic and rational thinking to phenomena that were previously explained by mythology and Gods. They observed the natural world around them and used their knowledge to answer questions about the proportion in observable objects and the origin of Earth. The Greek words _summetria_ and _summetros_ appear frequently in the Timaeus, defined as parts with each other and with the whole. Plato has a very rough concept of symmetry, and when he uses “beauty” to characterize the so-called Platonic Solids in the Timaeus, he seems to be emphasizing their regularity and indirectly their symmetry. Plato believes the four elements (earth, air, fire, water) have been constructed by the Demiurge, or a divine craftsman who appoints order in an otherwise chaotic universe. Minerals are representative examples of beauty, order, and symmetry in inorganic materials. Well-formed minerals (crystals) are a collection of equivalent faces related by symmetry. The goal of this paper is to relate the perspective of symmetry in ancient Greek philosophy with the modern scientific evidence of the geometric description of crystal structures. The five Platonic solids are ideal models of geometrical patterns that occur throughout the world of minerals. In this paper, minerals serve as a model of connecting the symmetry theory in Plato’s philosophy and modern advances in mineralogy. (shrink)

The essays in this volume treat a wide variety of fundamental topics and problems in ancient Greek philosophy. The scope of the section on pre-Socratic thought ranges over the views which these thinkers have on such areas of concern as religion, natural philosophy and science, cosmic periods, the nature of elements, theory of names, the concept of plurality, and the philosophy of mind. The essays dealing with the Platonic dialogues examine with unusual care a great number of (...) central themes and discuss them in considerable depth: problems in language and logic, myth, reason, hypothesis, eros, friendship, reason, morality, society, art, the nature of soul, and immortality. In addition, they offer fresh discussions on a number of basic morphological, methodological, and philological issues related to philosophical arguments and introduce new aspects for a critical reexamination of controversies surrounding the doctrines and the authenticity of certain Platonic works. The essays on the philosophy of Aristotle are closely reasoned analyses of such basic themes as the universality of the sensible, the nature of kinesis, the problem of future contingencies, the meaning of qualitative change, the doctrine of phantasia, the essence of intelligence, and the metaphysical foundations for the ethical life. The essays on post-Aristotelian developments in ancient philosophy offer challenging and well-documented discussions on topics in the history of ancient logic, categorical thought, the ethical doctrines of ancient Scepticism, epistemological issues in the physical theory of the Epicureans, and basic concepts in the metaphysics of the neo-platonists. (shrink)

This comprehensive volume details the variety of constitutions and types of governing bodies in the ancient Greek world. A collection of original scholarship on ancient Greek governing structures and institutions Explores the multiple manifestations of state action throughout the Greek world Discusses the evolution of government from the Archaic Age to the Hellenistic period, ancient typologies of government, its various branches, principles and procedures and realms of governance Creates a unique synthesis on the spatial (...) and memorial connotations of government by combining the latest institutional research with more recent trends in cultural scholarship. (shrink)

This book was first published in 1991. The study of ancient science and its relations with Greek philosophy has made a significant and growing contribution to our understanding of ancient thought and civilisation. This collection of articles on Greek science contains fifteen of the most important papers published by G. E. R. Lloyd in this area since 1961, together with three newer articles. The topics range over all areas and periods of Greek (...) class='Hi'>science, from the earliest Presocratic philosophers to Ptolemy and Galen. In each case the article is preceded by an introduction that assesses scholarly debate on the topic since the original publication. Professor Lloyd also suggests modifications and developments to his own position in the light of those debates and his own further research. (shrink)

This essay examines the quantitative aspects of Greco-Roman science, represented by a group of established disci¬plines, which since the fourth century BC were called mathēmata or mathē¬ma¬tikai epistē¬mai. In the group of mathēmata that in Antiquity normally comprised mathematics, mathematical astronomy, harmonics, mechanics and optics, we have also included geography. Using a dataset based on The Encyclopaedia of Ancient Natural Scientists, our essay considers a community of mathēmatikoi (as they called themselves), or ancient scientists (as they are (...) defined for the purposes of the present paper) from a sociological point of view, focusing on the size of the scientific population known to us and its disciplinary, temporal and geographical distribution. A diachronic comparison of neighboring and partly overlapping communities, ancient scientists and philosophers, allows the pattern of their interrelationship to be traced. An examination of centers of science throughout ancient history reveals that there were five major centers – Athens, Alexandria, Rhodes, Rome and Byzantium/Constantinople – that appear and replace one another in succession as leaders. These conclusions serve to reopen the issue of the place of mathēmata and mathēmatikoi in ancient society. (shrink)

At once a contribution to the history of science, the history of philosophy, the history of classical Greece, and transhistorical, good, clean, reading enjoyment, this book is obviously designed for the library that hitherto had everything. From coin-operated holy water, vending-machines, Athenian electioneering gadgets for "automating honesty," and wine-splashing games of kottabos to the steam-powered toys and automated theatres of the second century A. D. Alexandrian gadgeteer, Heron, Brumbaugh has provided a fascinating catalogue of and commentary on the neglected (...) artifactual and technological genius of the ancient world. The book includes reproductions of many of Heron's "blueprints" as well as plates showing some of the items that have been excavated on the site of the ancient Agora. The illustrations and plates should have been numbered for easier reference but this is a minor defect in a wholly delightful book. The extensive, annotated bibliography is a pleasant bonus.—E. A. R. (shrink)

This historical survey of Greek literature from 700 BC to 550 AD concentrates on the principal authors and quotes many passages from their work in translation, to allow the reader to form his own impression of its quality, including Homer, Plato, Aristophanes, and Euripides. Attention is drawn both to the elements in Greek literature and attitudes to life which are unfamiliar to us, and to the elements which appeal most powerfully to succeeding generations. Although it is recognized that (...) this appeal lies above all in the most creative and inventive period, an account is given of the eight hundred years which followed, which saw the impact of earlier inspirations. Poetry, tragedy, comedy, history, science, philosophy, and oratory are all examined through the available literature. This new edition has been revised to take account of recent scholarship, such as the influence of oriental traditions of Greek literature, and includes several new translations and a thoroughly updated bibliography. (shrink)

I present a systematic interpretation of the foundational purpose of constructions in ancient Greek geometry. I argue that Greek geometers were committed to an operationalist foundational program, according to which all of mathematics—including its entire ontology and epistemology—is based entirely on concrete physical constructions. On this reading, key foundational aspects of Greek geometry are analogous to core tenets of 20th-century operationalist/positivist/constructivist/intuitionist philosophy of science and mathematics. Operationalism provides coherent answers to a range of traditional philosophical (...) problems regarding classical mathematics, such as the epistemic warrant and generality of diagrammatic reasoning, superposition, and the relation between constructivism and proof by contradiction. Alleged logical flaws in Euclid can be interpreted as sound operationalist reasoning. Operationalism also provides a compelling philosophical motivation for the otherwise inexplicable Greek obsession with cube duplication, angle trisection, and circle quadrature. Operationalism makes coherent sense of numerous specific choices made in this tradition, and suggests new interpretations of several solutions to these problems. In particular, I argue that: Archytas’s cube duplication was originally a single-motion machine; Diocles’s cissoid was originally traced by a linkage device; Greek conic section theory was thoroughly constructive, based on the conic compass; in a few cases, string-based constructions of conic sections were used instead; pointwise constructions of curves were rejected in foundational contexts by Greek mathematicians, with good reason. Operationalism enables us to view the classical geometrical tradition as a more unified and philosophically aware enterprise than has hitherto been recognised. (shrink)

Ashrams in Europe twenty-five hundred years ago? Greek philosophers studying in India? Meditation classes in ancient Rome? It sounds unbelievable, but it’s historically true. Alexander the Great had an Indian guru. Pythagoras, Empedocles, and Plotinus all encouraged their students to meditate. Apollonius, the most famous Western sage of the first century c.e., visited both India and Egypt—and claimed that Egyptian wisdom was rooted in India. In Lost Masters, award-winning author Linda Johnsen, digging deep into classical sources, uncovers evidence (...) of astonishing similarities between some of the ancient Western world’s greatest thinkers and India’s yogis, including a belief in karma and reincarnation. Today ancient Greek philosophers are remembered as the founders of Western science and civilization. We’ve forgotten that for over a thousand years they were revered as sages, masters of spiritual wisdom. Lost Masters is an exploration of our long-lost Western spiritual heritage and the surprising insights it can offer us today. (shrink)

The Greeks have long been regarded as innovators across a wide range of fields in literature, culture, philosophy, politics and science. However, little attention has been paid to how they thought and felt about novelty and innovation itself, and to relating this to the forces of traditionalism and conservatism which were also present across all the various societies within ancient Greece. What inspired the Greeks to embark on their unique and enduring innovations? How did they think and feel (...) about the new? This book represents the first serious attempt to address these issues, and deals with the phenomenon across all periods and areas of classical Greek history and thought. Each chapter concentrates on a different area of culture or thought, while the book as a whole argues that much of the impulse towards innovation came from the life of the polis which provided its setting. (shrink)

The paper discusses the sharp semantic shifts of the Greek expressions psychê and sôma between the Archaic and Classical era. Concerning the documentary evidence of the medical, rhetorical and philosophical literature at the end of the 5th century BC, I argue that speculations on human health and disease attested in some of the Hippocratic treatises involved a specificnotionofthebody-souldistinctionandalsothatthisnotionprovides an important contrast to the definitionofphilosophyasatherapyofsoul.

Good governance, first appeared in the nineties within the United Nations, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund refers to describe how public organizations best conduct public affairs and deliver public goods and services. Today, about three decades later good governance seems to be still popular since there are still many challenges ahead for many governments especially in less-developed and developing countries. Hence the notion of good governance was emerged as a normative commencement of the principles, values and ethics to (...) realise the acts of governance. Some thoughts on good governance and related topics advocated by three great ancient philosophers, who appear to be relevant at the present time are considered herein. One of the said philosophers is Kautilya (also known as Chanakya and Vishnugupta), who lived in India around 150AD. The others are the two great Greek philosophers Plato (427- 347BC) and Aristotle (384-322 BC), who stand with Socrates as the shapers of the whole intellectual tradition of the West. The thoughts are extracted from that detailed manual of state-craft and the science of living known as the Arthashastra written by one of classical India’s greatest minds Kautilya, Plato’s great work known as ‘The Republic’ and Aristotle’s treatise titled ‘The Politics”. The objective of this paper is to study the thoughts of ancient Greek philosophers who lived many centuries ago and their ideas are still relevant today. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to discuss how the increasing social control of violence and aggression, which characterized the period from the Archaic to the Classical Age in ancient Greece, can be explained as an Eliasian civilizing process. Particularly crucial for this development is the question of how the city-state’s distinctive urban-political structures were the locus of this civilizing process. Accordingly, it is argued that not only are Elias’s key concepts analytically relevant to the ancient Greek (...) civilizing process, but also that they are to be reassessed in the light of the ancient Greek city-state culture. Thus, by the advancing of the argument that the civilizing process is not a uniquely western phenomenon, which occurred in western Europe from the Middle Ages to the end of the 19th century, the analytical relevance of Elias is re-evaluated and augmented. (shrink)

In this study, first of all, it was important to analyze this technique of returning to the ancient tradition of two outstanding thinkers of the 20th century. M. Heidegger and Sri Aurobindo Ghosh in order to understand to what extent the language of the ancient sages and rishis is still accessible to our understanding; Has it not already happened that the voice of the ancient sages will turn out to be completely foreign to us, like the language (...) of the unconscious, which we do not hear and do not understand? The conducted analysis showed that a certain intellectual conflict arose between Heidegger and the ancient Greeks. This conflict connected with the fact that the German thinker, repeatedly turning to different periods of Greek philosophy and different Greek thinkers and trying to apply to them the phenomenological method of his teacher Husserl, being atheistically minded, never managed to capture the original spiritual intuition of the pre-Socratics in the understanding of being. And at the same time, he himself could not find a suitable name for understanding being in modern culture. Where Heidegger still very carefully writes about the “open clearing” as a manifestation of the truth in the original ancient Greek thinkers, the essence of which, from the point of view of the German thinker, was still given to Heraclitus and Parmenides only intuitively (they did not yet understand the reason for this phenomenon of our consciousness), Sri Aurobindo directly indicates the existence of a connection between the ancient rishis and the existence (revelation) of the gods. Moreover, the processes described by the Indian thinker are very similar to those described by Heidegger. Everything indicates that the thinking of the ancient Greeks and ancient Hindus was very similar. The ancient Greeks (pre-Socratics) tried to understand why our consciousness is given to existence at all, and discovered the existence of inner peace in man – human openness to understanding the existence. Vedic sages, listening to the “voice” of the subconscious, discovered the waves of the subconscious and realized that man is like gods. It is important to note the difference between the pre-Socratics and the ancient Indian rishis in their interpretation of knowledge of existence. For the Greeks, true knowledge of being awakens human existence for knowledge (the logos, the world of naming, the world of concepts). According to the ideas of the ancient Indian rishis, when the gods awakened by man descend into their own world of existence, the consciousness of man in his actual existence also awakens. That is why the truth for the Greeks, according to Heidegger, is the opening and concealment of the truth of being (things), and the truth for the Rishi, according to Sri Aurobindo, is the ascent to true existence together with the gods that awaken in us. (shrink)

This book offers inter alia a systematic investigation of the actual argumentative strategy of Socratic conversation and explorations of Socratic and Platonic morality including an examination ofeudaimonia and the mental conception of health in the Republic as self-control, with a view to the relation of individual health/happiness to social order. The essays cover a period from 1968 to 2012. Some of them are now published for the first time. Self-motion in the later dialogues involves tripartition and tripartition in turn involves (...) embodiment. The Philebus psychology too anticipates Aristotle. The Forms of the Timaeus are patterns, but the two-world picture is abandoned: there is one world constituted by Forms and Place. The Epinomis is arguably genuine. More generally, denying that Plato develops, e.g. exegetically and psychologically, is absurd. There are too many contradictions in the Corpus. The dialogues are artistic wholes and the author's message must be interpreted accordingly: hence in a sense every character is Plato's mouthpiece. Aristotle's idea of the human good or quality of life as optimal mental activity according to the special human capabilities is the root of the modern selfactualization projects. Panaetius (free reason) and Posidonius (science) mark the end of the older Stoa's hard-core materialism and the beginning of a new more 'modern' era. -/- . (shrink)

The article explores Nietzsche’s view that the Greek agonistic impulse in sport led to an ancient culture that prized the dialectics of philosophy and its humane offspring. The Greeks did not invent physical contests, but the Olympics are unique in the ancient world for bringing together once and future enemies under formal terms of contest. What did this signify? And what were its consequences? In Nietzsche’s view, the ancient Greek obsession with agon (contest) led to (...) the greatest civilization of the western world. How so? The paper shows how the Greeks learned to “spiritualize” violence and redirect its otherwise destructive power. This aggressive but rule-bound ethos became the competitive force in Greek culture to which we owe the disciplines of philosophy, drama, history, and science,—because each was conceived as a new arena of intellectual or artistic competition on the model of competitive sport. (shrink)

Challenges the picture according to which Islamic culture during the European middle ages served as a passive conduit of ancient Greek sources to the Latin West, along with the conjoined conception that the Islamic achievement in science was a mere reflection, and perhaps a dim one, of earlier Greek achievements. Against this view, this article argues for the "naturalization" of science in the classical Islamic context in a way that allowed for distinctive achievements in their (...) own right. (shrink)