Peitho. Examina Antiqua, nr 1(4), 2013
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Item Una silloge di scritti su Parmenide(Wydawnictwo Naukowe Instytutu Filozofii UAM, 2013) Pulpito, Massimoreview: Jean Frère, Parménide ou le souci du vrai: ontologie, théologie, cosmologie , Paris 2012, pp. 164.Item New Approaches to the Book Alpha Meizon of Aristotle’s Metaphysics and to its Unique Neoplatonic Commentary by Asclepius of Tralles(Wydawnictwo Naukowe Instytutu Filozofii UAM, 2013) Wesoły, Marianreview: R. Loredana Cardullo (a cura di), Il libro Alpha della Metafisica di Aristotele tra storio - grafia e teoria , Catania 2009, pp. 294. R. Loredana Cardullo, A sclepio di Tralle. Commentario al libro Alpha Meizon ( A ) della Metafisica di Aristotele . Intoduzione, testo greco, traduzione e note di commento, Acireale-Roma 2012, pp. 512. Paris 2012, pp. 164.Item Pitagoreizm wypaczony(Wydawnictwo Naukowe Instytutu Filozofii UAM, 2013) Pacewicz, Arturreview: Anna Izdebska, Pitagoreizm. Jedno jako arche w metafizyce, antropologii i polityce , Warszawa 2012, ss. 215.Item Una nuova edizione heraclitea(Wydawnictwo Naukowe Instytutu Filozofii UAM, 2013) Calenda, Guidoreview: Francesco Fronterotta, Eraclito. Frammenti , Milano 2013.Item Due modi di vedere la realtà in precario equilibrio(Wydawnictwo Naukowe Instytutu Filozofii UAM, 2013) Robbiano, ChiaraReview: Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary, The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World , New Haven-London 2012 (prima stampa 2009).Item Stoic Caricature in Lucian’s De astrologia: Verisimilitude As Comedy(Wydawnictwo Naukowe Instytutu Filozofii UAM, 2013) McNamara, CharlesThe inclusion of De astrologia in the Lucianic corpus has been disputed for centuries since it appears to defend astrological practices that Lucian elsewhere undercuts. This paper argues for Lucian’s authorship by illustrating its masterful subversion of a captatio benevolentiae and subtle rejection of Stoic astrological practices. The narrator begins the text by blaming phony astrologers and their erroneous predictions for inciting others to “denounce the stars and hate astrology” (ἄστρων τε κατηγοροῦσιν καὶ αὐτὴν ἀστρολογίην μισέουσιν, 2). The narrator assures readers that he, the knowledgeable astrologer, will correct for the “stupidity and laziness” (ἀμαθίῃ καὶ ῥαθυμίῃ, ibid.) that bring about false predictions. The narrator’s credibility quickly decays when he attempts to recast Orpheus, Bellerophon, Icarus, Daedalus, and a host of other mythological figures as Greek astrologers. Lucian’s audience would expect such far-fetched interpretations of myth from the stereo- typical Stoic philosopher, a character lampooned elsewhere in the Lucianic corpus.Item Philosophy and Ataraxia in Sextus Empiricus(Wydawnictwo Naukowe Instytutu Filozofii UAM, 2013) Massie, PascalThis essay addresses two interconnected questions: (a) In what sense is Skepticism a philosophy? (b) How can ataraxia emerge out of epochē? Skepticism is a practice that articulates three moments: equipollence, epochē (suspension of judgment), and ataraxia (freedom from disturbance) and Sextus’ account of how one can move through these moments demonstrates the its philosophical nature. However, to clarify the transition from epochē to ataraxia Sextus offers only one clue: the story of Apelles. If this story is paradigmatic, it is also ambiguous since the transition from epochē to ataraxia can neither be causal nor inferential. Apelles achieves his goal purely by chance. Contrary to a common interpretation, this doesn’t mean that the Skeptic abandons the inquiry (just as Apelles doesn’t abandon painting). Lastly, the essay argues that Skepticism is not only the practice of a certain dialectical method but also a practice upon oneself. The Skeptic must learn to dissociate herself from the thoughts she entertains. Sustained inquiry can coexist with ataraxia because the Skeptic has discovered that her consciousness is distinct from its intentional content now bracketed by epochē. To free ourselves from our attachment to dogmatic beliefs is to opens up a space of self-detachment.Item Medici del corpo contro terapeuti della parola: una riflessione su medicina e sofistica(Wydawnictwo Naukowe Instytutu Filozofii UAM, 2013) Ioli, RobertaThe aim of the present paper is to investigate the connection between ancient medicine and sophistry at the end of 5th century B.C. Beginning with analyses of some passages from the De vetere medicina (VM), De natura hominis (NH) and De arte, the article identifies many similarities between these treatises, on the one hand, and the sophistic doctrines, on the other: these concern primarily perceptual/intellectual knowledge and the interaction between reality, knowledge and language. Among the Sophists, Gorgias was particularly followed and imitated, as he was admired not only for his tremendous rhetorical skills, but also for his philosophically significant work On not being, which probably influenced various discussions in the Hippocratic treatises. However, if Gorgias argues in favor of language as dynastēs megas, the authors of VM, NH and De arte consider knowledge to be far more relevant and reliable than logos. These Hippocratic treatises criticize the philosophical thesis and the resulting kind of reductionism. Above all they defend the supremacy of medicine over any other art. By using the same argumentative and rhetorical strategies that were employed by Gorgias, these treatises reverse the thought of those Sophists who exalted only the technē tōn logōn.Item La « Dimostrazione Propria » di Gorgia(Wydawnictwo Naukowe Instytutu Filozofii UAM, 2013) Wesoły, MarianThe label idios apodeixis/logos «particular (personal, original) demonstration or argument» of Gorgias is known to us only from the third section of the little work attributed to Aristotle under the title De Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia. Its authenticity seems to be unjustly questioned. We try to show that from the Aristotelian perspective we can properly understand the context of Gorgias’ own argument from his lost treatise On Not-Being or On Nature. Parmenides – using implicitly the polysemy of the verb ἔστιν/εἶναι – presented a certain ontological argument «being is, because being is being». Gorgias, however, makes a parody of this by offering a meontological argument: «not-being is because not-being is not-being». Consequently Gorgias then attempts to demonstrate, by means of refutation, that «it is not either to be or not be», i.e. «nothing is». We propose, thus, a reconstruction of Gorgias’ account of meonological and nihilistic argumentation. In this context we find in Plato’s Sophist and in Aristotle’s writings certain allusions to Gorgias’ idios apodeixis, which have not been sufficiently recognized and properly interpreted.Item Are Zeno’s Arguments Unsound Paradoxes?(Wydawnictwo Naukowe Instytutu Filozofii UAM, 2013) Calenda, GuidoZeno’s arguments are generally regarded as ingenious but downright unsound paradoxes, worth of attention mainly to disclose why they go wrong or, alternatively, to recognise them as clever, even if crude, anticipations of modern views on the space, the infinite or the quantum view of matter. In either case, the arguments lose any connection with the scientific and philosophical problems of Zeno’s own time and environment. In the present paper, I argue that it is possible to make sense of Zeno’s arguments if we recognise that Zeno was indeed a close follower of Parmenides, who wanted to show that, if the plurality of beings existed, then various absurd consequences would follow. When doing so, he intended to highlight the compact and inarticulate nature of the being, and the human character of the system of world partitions producing the entities and the objects on which our knowledge is based.Item Platone allievo di Protagora? Ancora sul grande discorso del Protagora(Wydawnictwo Naukowe Instytutu Filozofii UAM, 2013) Corradi, MicheleThe great speech of the Protagoras (320c–328d) still leaves many questions open. Particularly striking is the presence of doctrines that later on will be taken up and further developed by Plato in such dialogues as the Politicus, the Timaeus and the Laws. For this reason, many scholars tend to think that the words of Protagoras are just a product of Plato’s invention that bear no relation to Protagoras’ actual doctrines. Nevertheless, it is possible to propose a different interpretation. At the beginning of the Protagoras (313a–314b), Socrates develops the image of the sophist as the merchant of various μαθήματα: to sell his products, the sophist praises them all indiscriminately without knowing which of them are useful and which are harmful. But he who has the ability to make this distinction can still purchase the μαθήματα from Protagoras or anyone else. Through the dialectic, Plato is able to examine them without any danger in the Protagoras and then take them up and further develop in new ways in his later dialogues.Item Opposizione e verità: l’enigmatica via di Parmenide(Wydawnictwo Naukowe Instytutu Filozofii UAM, 2013) Tarca, Luigi VeroIn Parmenides’ B 8 37–41, we find a question that raises a difficult problem: how can Parmenides handle the opposition between “being and not” (i.e. being and not being) in the same way as the oppositions which characterize the mortals’ opinions? This question is especially relevant for answering the following theoretical question: how do we to treat the fundamental philosophical question of oppositions at large? To answer these question we need to reinterpret some major points of Parmenides’ thought: the second part of his poem, but also the identification of πέλειν and εἶναι in B 6 8, as well as other passages of the poem. But, above all, the question makes us introduce some distinctions within the concept of negation and, consequently, between the difference and negation. This allows us to distinguish the affirmation of the truth of being from the negation of the negation of being (i.e. the negation of non-being). This distinction has a major philosophical relevance, as can be seen by referring it to such thinkers as Plato, Hegel and Heidegger.Item Sull’allegoresi simbolica del primo pitagorismo(Wydawnictwo Naukowe Instytutu Filozofii UAM, 2013) Domaradzki, MikołajThe present paper argues that the early Pythagoreans contributed significantly to the development of ancient hermeneutics. The article builds on the assumption that even if the thinkers did not deal with allegoresis directly, the very manner of articulating their thought was, nevertheless, quite conducive to the growth of allegorical interpretation. Thus, at least indirectly, Pythagoreanism must have played an important role in the development of allegoresis. The paper identifies two crucial aspects of Pythagorean influence on the allegorical tradition. Firstly, the Pythagoreans made a very specific use of the poetry of Homer and Hesiod as well as of the traditional mythology in general. Secondly, the teachings of Pythagoras were expressed in terms of various ambiguous symbols that required special exegesis. Both these factors must have contributed significantly to the development of allegoresis: the idiosyncratic use of conventional mythology, on the one hand, and the enigmatic nature of the Pythagorean symbols, on the other, must have provoked extensive search for the latent (i.e., “allegorical”) meaning of the “messages” in question.Item Anaximander’s ‘Boundless Nature’(Wydawnictwo Naukowe Instytutu Filozofii UAM, 2013) Couprie, Dirk L.; Kočandrle, RadimThe usual interpretation has it that Anaximander made ‘the Boundless’ (τὸ ἄπειρον) the source and principle of everything. However, in the works of Aristotle, the nearest witness, no direct connection can be found between Anaximander and ‘the Boundless’. On the contrary, Aristotle says that all the physicists made something else the subject of which ἄπειρος is a predicate (Phys. 203 a 4). When we take this remark seriously, it must include Anaximander as well. This means that Anaximander did not make τὸ ἄπειρον the source or principle of everything, but rather called something else ἄπειρος. The question is, then, what was the subject that he adorned with this predicate. The hypothesis defended in this article is that it must have been ϕύσις, not in its Aristotelian technical sense, but in the pregnant sense of natura creatrix: the power that brings everything into existence and makes it grow and move. This ‘nature’ is boundless. It rules everything and in this sense it can be called ‘divine’. Being boundless, the mechanisms of nature, in which the opposites play an important role, are multifarious. The things created by boundless nature are not boundless, but finite, as they are destined to the destruction they impose onto each other, as Anaximander’s fragment says.Item Come rendere più forte il discorso più debole(Wydawnictwo Naukowe Instytutu Filozofii UAM, 2013) Cianci, Dorellareview: S. Giombini, Gorgia epidittico, Perugia 2012.Item Il trattato di Anassimandro sulla terra(Wydawnictwo Naukowe Instytutu Filozofii UAM, 2013) Rossetti, LivioThe present paper argues that the teachings of Anaximander are much better knowable than they actually appear, since a number of his teachings have the privilege of being almost transparent in their predicative content as well as in their logic. As a matter of fact, one can quite easily come to understand the train of thought which lies behind Anaximander’s most momentous conjectures. Thus, a largely unexpected Anaximander comes to light despite the availability of the majority of the relevant sources since 1903. Two main areas appear to be particularly prominent: on the one hand, the complex body of various conjectures and doctrines that helps to understand the system of spatial relationships from Miletus to the stars and, on the other hand, the equally complex body of conjectures and doctrines whose primarily concern is the macro-story of the Earth from its most remote past to its predictable future. The merits of Anaximander as an earth-researcher are much greater than one could actually imagine. It is suggested here that what philosophy owes to him in particular lies in his quest for knowledge, his method, his cognitive hybris, and his intellectual discipline, rather than individual doctrines. A comparison with Thales follows in the last paragraph.Item L’Oceano più arcaico: al di là del Bosforo e del Canale di Sicilia(Wydawnictwo Naukowe Instytutu Filozofii UAM, 2013) Cerri, GiovanniFrom immemorial time, many Tyrrhenian places of ancient Sicily and Italy were identified (also by the local people) with the main stages of the return of Ulysses (Cyclopes, Aeolus, Circe, etc.). Some Hellenistic critics (for example Aristarchus and Polybius) assumed that it was from the various ancient and pre-Homeric myths that Homer drew inspiration, in the same way that he did with the myth of the Trojan War, which certainly occurred before him. Thus, the voyage of Ulysses, after his losing the course because of the storm at Cape Malea, had to be located in those sites. But how can one explain the fact that Homer places the voyage from Circe to the Hades over the Ocean? Is it only a pseudo-geographic poetic touch, aimed to magnify the exploit? Crates of Mallus did not think so: in his opinion, only some of the numerous adventures had taken place in the Tyrrhenian Sea, whereas Homer had purposefully placed some other exactly on the Atlantic Ocean, beyond the Pillars of Hercules (the ancient name given to the Straits of Gibraltar). Whichever of the two models one chooses, the route of Ulysses seems to be completely unlikely, both from the point of view of objective reality and from the point of view of poetic imagination (if one desires to retain at least some plausibility). It appears to be a senseless coming and going that takes the shape of some sort of a labyrinth. Furthermore, the navigation times suggested by the text do not accord at all (even approximately) with the distances among the real sites. For this reason, Eratosthenes held that, from Cape Malea onwards, Ulysses switched from the real world to that of fantasy, or better still to the world of some narrative fable that does not heed geography at all. The modern critics are inclined to agree with him and this thesis is nowadays the most popular one. Yet, a very serious objection can be raised here: the myth and the epos (since the most archaic era), are strictly linked to the geography and the topography as well – they are radically refractory to a narrative fable that totally contradicts the then realities of time and space. Why should Ulysses plunge from Cape Malea onwards straight into the Neverland kingdom? If we combine Odyssey’s data with those we can reconstruct for the earliest form of the Argonautic saga (taking also into account the chronology of the Greek western colonization), then we get the solution that neither the ancient nor the modern critics have guessed correctly: up to around the middle of the 8th century B.C., the Greeks thought the Ocean to flow just after the Sicily Channel, essentially coinciding with the so-called Tyrrhenian Sea, still completely unknown at that time. This new perspective can well justify the objective disorder of Ulysses’ route. Above all, it also bears a deeper poetic sense: the Hero had the chance to know and to experience not only some far and exotic countries in general terms (as it can happen to any off-course sailor), but he also met the very boundaries of the surfacing lands and the rushing waters which encircle the terrestrial disc, bordering the external cosmic abyss. Ulysses came back home alive. He was able to tell the stories about the lands where no human being could ever sail. This borderline that geographically is clearly located marks at the same time the insurmountable chasm between the physical and the meta-physical world.