Dirk Baltzly

_ Source: _Volume 11, Issue 2, pp 173 - 195 This paper examines the role of the theme in Neoplatonic interpretive practice, particularly with respect to Platonic dialogues. The belief that every dialogue has a single _skopos_ and that every aspect of the dialogue can be seen as subserving that _skopos_ is one of the most distinctive of the Neoplatonists’ intepretive principles. 1 It is also the one that is most directly responsible for the forced and artificial character of their readings of Plato. The arguments offered in support of this principle are manifestly inadequate to justify the role that it plays. This is so even if we evaluate those arguments by the Neoplatonists’ own lights. If we want to understand how this practice seemed rational to them, we need to consider more than their texts and Plato’s. We need to consider the role that the shared act of reading a Platonic dialogue with the teacher had in transforming the souls of the students and in the self-understanding of Neoplatonic teachers. I. Hadot, among others, has argued that the continuous commentary was a kind of spiritual exercise. 2 I largely agree with her conclusion, though I believe her analysis of the sense in which these were spiritual exercises needs to be deepened. I argue that the justification for the assumption that each dialogue has a single _skopos_ is best understood by reference to the manner in which the practice of commentary functioned within the internal economy of their schools considered as textual communities. 3.

A critical examination of contemporary nursing theory suggests that two distinct discourses coexist within this field. On the one hand, proponents of the ‘knowledge discourse’ argue that nurses should drop the ‘virtue script’ and focus on the scientific and technical aspects of their work. On the other hand, proponents of the ‘caring discourse’ promote a view of nursing that embodies humanistic qualities such as compassion, empathy and mutuality. In view of this, we suggest a way to reconcile both discourses despite the fact that they appear to be at odds theoretically and practically. To that end, we argue that nursing theory must give a prominent role to the Aristotelian conception of virtue, and we offer an account that includes both character and intellectual virtues. This account allows for a focus on moral competence but also accommodates the demands for discipline‐specific knowledge. Our account incorporates the caring discourse by suggesting a way for individuals to cultivate the conditions within themselves that make ‘caring in nursing’ possible, while the knowledge discourse is accommodated via the acquisition of the intellectual virtues. The process for achieving both these ends is the same: an intention to consistently develop, hone and exercise certain character traits over time.

In his commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics, Alexander of Aphrodisias quotes from Aristotle's now-lost work On the Ideas -- his account of the arguments offered by Plato for the theory of Forms and his criticisms of those arguments. This paper considers one of these arguments, the Argument from Relatives (ta pros ti). It considers how Plato argued for Forms or Ideas such as the Large Itself, the Just Itself and so on and whether Plato supposed that there were Forms corresponding to sortal terms like Man.

Commentators in antiquity took Plato to have a system of categories which they compared with Aristotle's. This work begins by exploring the genera of absolute and relative in Plato's dialogues. In addition, Aristotle alleged that Plato had a special argument for the existence of Forms corresponding to relative terms. Yet the argument which Alexander purports to reproduce from Aristotle's lost Peri Ideon does not obviously summarize any argument found in the Platonic dialogues. The last four chapters of the dissertation attempt to isolate genuinely Platonic reasons for supposing that there are Forms for pros ti terms and to show that these reasons to do generalize to Forms for kath hauto terms. ;In order to resolve these questions I first turn to the very early dialogues. I offer a view about what sort of thing Socrates is looking for when he asks a question like, "What is piety?" and isolate some constraints on the adequacy of any answer. These constraints raise special problems for answers to "what is X?" questions when X is a relative term. These problems, together with certain other background assumptions, give Plato a reason to think that the sort of being which corresponds to the answer to a "What is X?" question is very unlike sensible things. Because 'beauty,' for instance, is a pros ti term, it will both hold and not hold for sensibles depending on how the predicate is completed. In the Phaedo he is led to the hypothesis that the accounts of relative terms are about separated Forms. Thus, Plato does have special reasons for thinking that there are Forms for relative terms--reasons that are not immediately applicable to kath hauta terms.

In Plato’s dialogues we often find Socrates talking at length about poetry. Sometimes he proposes censorship of certain works because what they say is false or harmful. Other times we find him interpreting the poets or rejecting potential interpretations of them. This raises the question of whether there is any consistent account to be given of Socrates’ practice as a literary critic. One might think that Plato himself in the Ion answers the question that I have raised. Rhapsody, at least in the Ion, is portrayed as the activity of interpreting and evaluating the works of the poets. At first glance at least, Plato seems to conclude that this activity cannot meet the standards of a τέχνη. Rhapsodes are divine madmen. Thus, there cannot be a systematic Platonic account of literary criticism because this activity is inherently irrational and, subsequently, not something that one could engage in in a systematic way, guided by a theory of any sort. In the first part of the paper I argue that the Ion does not simply consign the Interpretation of poetry to the irrational and, as a result, does not pose an obstacle to the possibility of a Platonic literary criticism. In the second part of the paper I turn to the task of finding an account of the purpose of reading poetry and strategies for fulfilling this purpose that make systematic sense of Socrates’ multifarious remarks about poetry.

The longevity of Aristotelian natural science consists not so much in the fact that Aristotle’s solutions to puzzles were accepted by generations of philosophers, but by the fact that the presuppositions that made these puzzles look puzzling were. In what follows I consider some Neoplatonic responses to two puzzles that Aristotle poses in De Caelo Book 2, Chapter 12. Both Proclus and Simplicius rejected Aristotle’s solutions to the puzzles he posed. In one case, but not in the other, they also reassessed the relative importance of the presuppositions that created the puzzle.

Proclus' Commentary on Plato's dialogue Timaeus is arguably the most important commentary on a text of Plato, offering unparalleled insights into eight centuries of Platonic interpretation. This edition offers the first new English translation of the work for nearly two centuries, building on significant recent advances in scholarship on Neoplatonic commentators. It provides an invaluable record of early interpretations of Plato's dialogue, while also presenting Proclus' own views on the meaning and significance of Platonic philosophy. The present volume, the first in the edition, deals with what may be seen as the prefatory material of the Timaeus. In it Socrates gives a summary of the political arrangements favoured in the Republic, and Critias tells the story of how news of the defeat of Atlantis by ancient Athens had been brought back to Greece from Egypt by the poet and politician Solon.

This essay argues the Stoics are rightly regarded as pantheists. Their view differs from many forms of pantheism by accepting the notion of a personal god who exercises divine providence. Moreover, Stoic pantheism is utterly inimical to a deep ecology ethic. I argue that these features are nonetheless consistent with the claim that they are pantheists. The essay also considers the arguments offered by the Stoics. They thought that their pantheistic conclusion was an extension of the best science of their day. Some of their most interesting arguments are thusa posteriori

In the present volume Proclus describes the 'creation' of the soul that animates the entire universe. This is not a literal creation, for Proclus argues that Plato means only to convey the eternal dependence of the World Soul upon higher causes. In his exegesis of Plato's text, Proclus addresses a range of issues in Pythagorean harmonic theory, as well as questions about the way in which the World Soul knows both forms and the visible reality that comprises its body. This part of Proclus' Commentary is particularly responsive to the interpretive tradition that precedes it. As a result, this volume is especially significant for the study of the Platonic tradition from the earliest commentators onwards.

In the present volume Proclus describes the 'creation' of the soul that animates the entire universe. This is not a literal creation, for Proclus argues that Plato means only to convey the eternal dependence of the World Soul upon higher causes. In his exegesis of Plato's text, Proclus addresses a range of issues in Pythagorean harmonic theory, as well as questions about the way in which the World Soul knows both forms and the visible reality that comprises its body. This part of Proclus' Commentary is particularly responsive to the interpretive tradition that precedes it. As a result, this volume is especially significant for the study of the Platonic tradition from the earliest commentators onwards.

It is sometimes claimed that the Kantian Ought Implies Can principle (OIC) rules out the possibility of moral dilemmas. A certain understanding of OIC does rule out the possibility of moral dilemmas in the sense defined. However I doubt that this particular formulation of the OIC principle is one that fits well with the eudaimonist framework common to ancient Greek moral philosophy. In what follows, I explore the reasons why Aristotle would not accept the OIC principle in the form in which it rules out the possibility of moral dilemmas.

Stoicism was one of the new philosophical movements of the Hellenistic period. The name derives from the porch (stoa poikilê) in the Agora at Athens decorated with mural paintings, where the members of the school congregated, and their lectures were held. Unlike ‘epicurean,’ the sense of the English adjective ‘stoical’ is not utterly misleading with regard to its philosophical origins. The Stoics did, in fact, hold that emotions like fear or envy (or impassioned sexual attachments, or passionate love of anything whatsoever) either were, or arose from, false judgements and that the sage—a person who had attained moral and intellectual perfection—would not undergo them. The later Stoics of Roman Imperial times, Seneca and Epictetus, emphasise the doctrines (already central to the early Stoics' teachings) that the sage is utterly immune to misfortune and that virtue is sufficient for happiness. Our phrase ‘stoic calm’ perhaps encapsulates the general drift of these claims. It does not, however, hint at the even more radical ethical views which the Stoics defended, e.g. that only the sage is free while all others are slaves, or that all those who are morally vicious are equally so. Though it seems clear that some Stoics took a kind of perverse joy in advocating views which seem so at odds with common sense, they did not do so simply to shock. Stoic ethics achieves a certain plausibility within the context of their physical theory and psychology, and within the framework of Greek ethical theory as that was handed down to them from Plato and Aristotle. It seems that they were well aware of the mutually interdependent nature of their philosophical views, likening philosophy itself to a living animal in which logic is bones and sinews; ethics and physics, the flesh and the soul respectively (another version reverses this assignment, making ethics the..

The Phaedo is usually taken to be among Plato's metaphysically richest dialogues. Dilman argues that, at best, the views of Plato's Socrates are here free of the taint of metaphysics, or that worthwhile, nonmetaphysical theses are propounded alongside metaphysical ones. In these cases, Dilman attempts to separate out "Socrates' spiritual and moral perceptions" from the metaphysical claims. The latter are "a mystification of the grammar of the language in which such perceptions are expressed". Dilman's objection to such metaphysical theses is Wittgensteinian. When philosophy goes beyond the attempt to articulate the role that a certain discourse plays in our form of life and, instead, attempts to provide some philosophical justification or explanation for our form of life, it degenerates into incoherence. Such language ceases to "do work" and is then "idling."

Proclus' interpretation of the Timaeus confronts the question of whether the living being that is the Platonic cosmos perceives itself. Since sense perception is a mixed blessing in the Platonic tradition, Proclus solves this problem by differentiating different gradations of perception. The cosmos has only the highest kind. This paper contrasts Proclus' account of the world's perception of itself with James Lovelock's notion that the planet Earth, or Gaia, is aware of things going on within itself. This contrast illuminates several key differences between contemporary theories of perception and the neoplatonic world view. In particular, it argues that the neoplatonists had a radically different view of these matters because they assigned the property of truth not only to representations, but to objects as well.

Proclus' commentary on Plato's dialogue Timaeus is arguably the most important commentary on a text of Plato, offering unparalleled insights into eight centuries of Platonic interpretation. It has had an enormous influence on subsequent Plato scholarship. This edition offers the first new English translation of the work for nearly two centuries, building on significant recent advances in scholarship on Neoplatonic commentators. It provides an invaluable record of early interpretations of Plato's dialogue, while also presenting Proclus' own views on the meaning and significance of Platonic philosophy. The present volume, the fifth in the edition, presents Proclus' commentary on the Timaeus, dealing with Proclus' account of static and flowing time; we see Proclus situating Plato's account of the motions of the stars and planets in relation to the astronomical theories of his day. The volume includes a substantial introduction, as well as notes that will shed new light on the text.

It is an axiom of late neoplatonic metaphysics that all things are in all, but in each in an appropriate manner (ὀικείως, ET 103). These manners or modes of being are indicated by adverbial forms such as παραδειματικῶς or εἰκονικῶς. Thus, for example, the Forms are in the World Soul in the mode of images, while the objects in the sensible realm below Soul are in it in the manner of paradigms (in Tim. II 150.27). Among the many modes of being distinguished by Proclus we find existence ὁλικῶς and μερικῶς – in the manner of a whole and in the manner of a part. This paper investigates the nature and significance of these mereological modes of being.