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77The ethics of celestial physics in late antique PlatonismIn Thomas Buchheim, David Meissner & Nora Wachsmann (eds.), Sōma: Körperkonzepte und körperliche Existenz in der antiken Philosophie und Literatur, Felix Meiner Verlag. pp. 183-97. 2016.Plato's Tim. 90b1-c6 describes a pathway to the soul's salvation via the study of the heavens. This paper poses three questions about this theme in Platonism: 1. The epistemological question: How is the paradigmatic function of the visible heavenly bodies to be reconciled with various Platonic misgivings about the faculty of perception? 2. The metaphysical question: How can »assimilation« to the motions of bodies in the realm of Becoming provide for the salvation of souls when souls are »higher«…Read more
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74Ancient Commentators on Plato and Aristotle - Tuominen The Ancient Commentators on Plato and Aristotle. Pp. xii + 324. Stocksfield: Acumen, 2009. Paper £14.99 . ISBN: 978-1-84465-163-4 (review)The Classical Review 60 (2): 417-419. 2010.See also Tarrant's review on Notre Dame Philosophical Review.
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72The Virtues and 'Becoming like God': Alcinous to ProclusOxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 26 297-321. 2004.Later versions of Platonic ethics fit the frame of eudaimonism and specify a telos based on Theaetetus 176B and Timaeus 90A-D: 'likeness to god in so far as possible'. This paper examines the development of this idea from the middle Platonist Alcinous to the Neoplatonist Proclus. It examines the way in which Proclus makes this specification of human happiness a bit less "other worldy".
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71The demiurge. C.s. O'Brien the demiurge in ancient thought. Secondary gods and divine mediators. Pp. XVI + 333. Cambridge: Cambridge university press, 2015. Cased, £65, us$99. Isbn: 978-1-107-07536-8 (review)The Classical Review 66 (2): 375-377. 2016.
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70The Human LifeIn Pieter D'Hoine & Marije Martijn (eds.), All From One: A Guide to Proclus, Oxford University Press Uk. 2016.In previous chapters, it has become clear that Proclus’ metaphysics is often relevant to human life. In this chapter, that relation is elaborated on in detail, starting from the notion of a ‘textual community’. In the first section, the author presents the Neoplatonic goal of human life, assimilation to the divine. In the second section, he elaborates the scale of virtues through which, according to Proclus, one may reach that assimilation. The third section is devoted to establishing the intere…Read more
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69Emotion and peace of mind: From stoic agitation to Christian temptation (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 80 (2). 2002.Book Information Emotion and Peace of Mind: from Stoic agitation to Christian temptation. By Richard Sorabji. Oxford University Press. Oxford. 2000. Pp. xi + 499. Hardback, £30
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69Hermias on the Unity of the PhaedrusIn John F. Finamore, Christina-Panagiota Manolea & Sarah Klitenic Wear (eds.), Studies in Hermias’ Commentary on Plato’s _Phaedrus_, Brill. pp. 68-83. 2019.In the Phaedrus, Socrates insists that every proper logos must have the unity of an organic living thing. And yet it is hard to say what imposes any such unity on the various speeches and topics that are dealt with in this very dialogue. This chapter situates the view of Hermias of Alexandria in relation to modern debates about what, if anything, unifies the Phaedrus. For the ancient Neoplatonists, the question of unity was bound up with the question of each dialogue's "skopos". We argue that He…Read more
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69"To an Unhypothetical First Principle" in Plato's "Republic"History of Philosophy Quarterly 13 (2). 1996.
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64Hermias: On Plato's PhaedrusIn Harold Tarrant, Danielle A. Layne, Dirk Baltzly & François Renaud (eds.), Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Plato in Antiquity, Brill. 2017.This article tackles the sole surviving ancient commentary on what was perhaps the second most important Platonic work, with special interest for the manner in which the ancients tackled the setting of Plato's dialogues, Socratic ignorance, Socratic eros, the central myth-like Palinode, and the question of oral as against written teaching.
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64What goes up: Proclus against Aristotle on the fifth elementAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 80 (3). 2002.Proclus defends the Platonic view that the heavens consist in (the highest gradations) of all four elements. He attacks Aristotle's view that the heavens consist in a distinct, fifth element.
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58Plato, Aristotle, and the λόγος ἐκ τῶν πρός τιOxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 15 177-206. 1997.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…Read more
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53Who are the mysterious dogmatists of Adversus Mathematicus ix 352?Ancient Philosophy 18 (1): 145-170. 1998.
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50The Stoic Life (review)Review of Metaphysics 60 (4): 855-856. 2007.This is a brief book note on Tad Brennan's fine book on Stoic ethics
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47Divine Immutability for HenotheistsSophia 55 (2): 129-143. 2016.Discussions of divine immutability normally take place against the backdrop of a presupposition of monotheism. This background makes some problems seem especially salient—for instance, does the notion that God is immutable have any implications for God’s relation to time? In what follows, I’ll consider the problem of divine immutability in the context of henotheistic conceptions of god. I take henotheism to be the view that, although there are a plurality of gods, all of them are in some sense d…Read more
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37Ammonius on Aristotle on Interpretation with Boethius on Aristotle on Interpretation, Blank and Kretzman (trans) (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 77 (4): 521-3. 1999.We have two neoplatonic commentaries on the crucial chapter in Aristotle's De Interpretatione on fatalism.
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35The Blackwell Guide to Ancient Philosophy (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 81 (3): 456-456. 2003.Book Information The Blackwell Guide to Ancient Philosophy. Edited by Christopher Shields. Blackwell. Oxford. 2003. Pp. xi + 333. Hardback, Aus$69.30.
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31Plato's Authority and the Formation of Textual CommunitiesClassical Quarterly 64 (2): 793-807. 2014.It is widely agreed that, in the re-emergence of Platonism as a dogmatic school of philosophy following the demise of the sceptical academy, Plato's works came to have an authoritative status. This paper argues for a particular understanding of what that authority consists in and how it was acquired.
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30A role for virtue in unifying the ‘knowledge’ and ‘caring’ discourses in nursing theoryNursing Inquiry 24 (4). 2017.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 bo…Read more
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29Philosophy and the Philosophical Life: A Study in Plato's PhaedoReview of Metaphysics 46 (2): 399-401. 1992.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". Di…Read more
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29Two Aristotelian Puzzles about Planets and their Neoplatonic ReceptionApeiron 48 (4): 1-19. 2015.Journal Name: Apeiron Issue: Ahead of print
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28Second Sailing: Alternative Perspectives on Plato, edited by Nails, Debra, and Harold Tarrant: Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 2015, pp. xii + 366, €30 (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 95 (3): 625-625. 2017.
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26The Skopos Assumption: Its Justification and Function in the Neoplatonic Commentaries on PlatoInternational Journal of the Platonic Tradition 11 (2): 173-195. 2017._ 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 Pla…Read more
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25Women in Philosophy, Engineering & Theology: Gendered disciplines and projects of critical re-imaginationWomen's Studies International Forum 86. 2021.Philosophy, theology and engineering are each characterised by striking, yet similar, low participation rates by female academics. While these disciplines seem very different, and so the diagnosis of the causes of this under-representation might likewise be expected to differ, we show a commonality of analysis in the diagnoses of, and responses to, women's under-representation. In each, we find a shared argument that concepts and methodologies central to that discipline are gendered male. We als…Read more
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20Jamming with the Gods—Reflections on Writing the History of Late Antique PlatonismSophia 60 (1): 225-231. 2021.Lengthy review of Nicola Spanu's 2020 book, Proclus and the Chaldean Oracles A Study on Proclean Exegesis, with a Translation and Commentary of Proclus’ Treatise On Chaldean Philosophy. The review indulges in some reflections on methodology and the interpretation of Neoplatonic texts.
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19The Optimal Times for Incarnation: Let Me Count the WaysIn Sara Ahbel-Rappe, Danielle A. Layne & Crystal Addey (eds.), Soul Matters: Plato and Platonists on the Nature of the Soul, Society For Biblical Literature. pp. 345-84. 2023.In this paper we examine some of the astrological content in Proclus' exegesis of the 'nuptial number' in Republic 545d, ff. The downfall of the best city-state is said by Socrates to be due to the fact that the Guardians, for all their wisdom, make a mistake about the timing of the breeding of future rulers and this mistake is somehow due to perception. We argue that Proclus' Republic Commentary is best understood as supposing that the Guardians are highly capable astrologers who can -- up unti…Read more
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12Proclus: Commentary on Plato's Timaeus: Volume 4, Book 3, Part 2, Proclus on the World Soul (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2008.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' Commen…Read more
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Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
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