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2622A new translation and edition of Aristotle's Protrepticus (with critical comments on the fragments) Welcome The Protrepticus was an early work of Aristotle, written while he was still a member of Plato's Academy, but it soon became one of the most famous works in the whole history of philosophy. Unfortunately it was not directly copied in the middle ages and so did not survive in its own manuscript tradition. But substantial fragments of it have been preserved in several works by Iamblichus of C…Read more
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2522Spontaneity, Democritean Causality and FreedomElenchos 30 (1): 5-52. 2009.Critics have alleged that Democritus’ ethical prescriptions (“gnomai”) are incompatible with his physics, since his atomism seems committed to necessity or chance (or an awkward combination of both) as a universal cause of everything, leaving no room for personal responsibility. I argue that Democritus’ critics, both ancient and contemporary, have misunderstood a fundamental concept of his causality: a cause called “spontaneity”, which Democritus evidently considered a necessary (not chance) cau…Read more
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2436The Aristotelian Explanation of the HaloApeiron 42 (4): 325-357. 2009.For an Aristotelian observer, the halo is a puzzling phenomenon since it is apparently sublunary, and yet perfectly circular. This paper studies Aristotle's explanation of the halo in Meteorology III 2-3 as an optical illusion, as opposed to a substantial thing (like a cloud), as was thought by his predecessors and even many successors. Aristotle's explanation follows the method of explanation of the Posterior Analytics for "subordinate" or "mixed" mathematical-physical sciences. The accompanyin…Read more
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1823Aristotle on Kosmos and KosmoiIn Phillip Sidney Horky (ed.), Cosmos in the Ancient World, Cambridge University Press. pp. 74-107. 2019.The concept of kosmos did not play the leading role in Aristotle’s physics that it did in Pythagorean, Atomistic, Platonic, or Stoic physics. Although Aristotle greatly influenced the history of cosmology, he does not himself recognize a science of cosmology, a science taking the kosmos itself as the object of study with its own phenomena to be explained and its own principles that explain them. The term kosmos played an important role in two aspects of his predecessor’s accounts that Aristotle …Read more
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1765The Origins of Philosophy in Ancient Greece and Ancient India: A Historical Comparison by Richard Seaford (review)Philosophy East and West 71 (2): 1-10. 2021.In his adventurous monograph in comparative philosophy, The Origins of Philosophy in Ancient Greece and Ancient India, Richard Seaford offers to explain why philosophy, which on his account originated in the sixth century BCE separately in both Greece and India, took such a similar form in both cultures.
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1626Democritus (c. 460 - c. 370 BCE)Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism 136 257-259. 2011.Encyclopedia article on Democritus. Includes a brief overview of his philosophical views, major works, and critical reception.
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1570Early Pyrrhonism as a Sect of Buddhism? A Case Study in the Methodology of Comparative PhilosophyComparative Philosophy 9 (2): 1-40. 2018.We offer a sceptical examination of a thesis recently advanced in a monograph published by Princeton University Press, entitled Greek Buddha: Pyrrho’s Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia. In this dense and probing work, Christopher I. Beckwith, a professor of Central Eurasian studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, argues that Pyrrho of Elis adopted a form of early Buddhism during his years in Bactria and Gandhāra, and that early Pyrrhonism must be understood as a sect of early Bud…Read more
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1568Nature, spontaneity, and voluntary action in LucretiusIn Daryn Lehoux, A. D. Morrison & Alison Sharrock (eds.), Lucretius: Poetry, Philosophy, Science, Oxford University Press. 2013.In twenty important passages located throughout De rerum natura, Lucretius refers to natural things happening spontaneously (sponte sua; the Greek term is automaton). The most important of these uses include his discussion of the causes of: nature, matter, and the cosmos in general; the generation and adaptation of plants and animals; the formation of images and thoughts; and the behavior of human beings and the development of human culture. In this paper I examine the way spontaneity functions …Read more
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1410The Ethical Maxims of Democritus of AbderaIn David Wolfsdorf (ed.), Early Greek Ethics, Oxford University Press. pp. 211-242. 2020.Democritus of Abdera, best known as a cosmologist and the founder of atomism, wrote more on ethics than anyone before Plato. His work Peri euthumiês (On Contentment) was extremely influential on the later development of teleological and intellectualist ethics, eudaimonism, hedonism, therapeutic ethics, and positive psychology. The loss of his works, however, and the transmission of his fragments in collections of maxims (gnomai), has obscured the extent his contribution to the history of systema…Read more
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1136Luck in Aristotle's Physics and EthicsIn Devin Henry & Karen Margrethe Nielsen (eds.), Bridging the Gap Between Aristotle's Science and Ethics, Cambridge University Press. pp. 254-275. 2015.I discuss how Aristotle’s formulation of the problem of moral luck relates to his natural philosophy. I review well-known passages from Nicomachean Ethics I/X and Eudemian Ethics I/VII and Physics II, but in the main focus on EE VII 14 (= VIII 2). I argue that Aristotle’s position there (rejecting the elimination of luck, but reducing luck so far as possible to incidental natural and intelligent causes) is not only consistent with his treatment of luck in Physics II, but is to be expected, given…Read more
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997Lucretius and the history of scienceIn Stuart Gillespie & Philip R. Hardie (eds.), The Cambridge companion to Lucretius, Cambridge University Press. 2007.An overview of the influence of Lucretius poem On the Nature of Things (De Rerum Natura) on the renaissance and scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, and an examination of its continuing influence over physical atomism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
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994Protreptic and Apotreptic: Aristotle's dialogue ProtrepticusIn Olga Alieva, Annemaré Kotzé & Sophie van der Meeren (eds.), When Wisdom Calls: Philosophical Protreptic in Antiquity, Brepols Publishers. pp. 111-154. 2018.This paper has three major aims. The first is to defend the hypothesis that Aristotle’s lost work Protrepticus was a dialogue. The second is to explore the genres of ancient apotreptics, speeches that argue against doing philosophy and show the need for protreptic responses; our exploration is guided by Aristotle’s own analysis of apotreptics as well as protreptics in his Rhetorica. The third aim is to restore to the evidence base of Aristotle’s Protrepticus an apotreptic speech that argues agai…Read more
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906Aristotle on the Meaning of LifeIn Stephen D. Leach & James Tartaglia (eds.), The Meaning of Life and the Great Philosophers, Routledge. pp. 56-64. 2018.Aristotle is the first philosopher on record to subject the meaning of life to systematic philosophical examination: he approaches the issue from logical, psychological, biological, and anthropological perspectives in some of the central passages in the Corpus Aristotelicum and, it turns out, in some fragments from his (lost) early popular work the Protrepticus (Exhortation to Philosophy). From an Aristotelian perspective, in asking about life’s “meaning”, we may be asking either a theoretical q…Read more
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892MeteorologyIn Liba Taub (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek and Roman Science, Cambridge University Press. pp. 160-184. 2020.Greco-Roman meteorology will be described in four overlapping developments. In the archaic period, astro-meteorological calendars were written down, and one appears in Hesiod’s Works and Days; such calendars or almanacs originated thousands of years earlier in Mesopotamia. In the second development, also in the archaic period, the pioneers of prose writing began writing speculative naturalistic explanations of meteorological phenomena: Anaximander, followed by Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, and others.…Read more
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891The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy (review)Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2000 (03.12). 2000.
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880Authenticating Aristotle's ProtrepticusOxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 29 193-294. 2005.Authenticates approximately 500 lines of Aristotle's lost work the Protrepticus (Exhortation to Philosophy) contained in the circa third century AD work by Iamblichus of Chalcis entitled Protrepticus epi philosophian. Includes a complete English translation of the authenticated material.
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843Aristotelian Mechanistic ExplanationIn Julius Rocca (ed.), Teleology in the Ancient World: Philosophical and Medical Approaches, Cambridge University Press. pp. 125-150. 2017.In some influential histories of ancient philosophy, teleological explanation and mechanistic explanation are assumed to be directly opposed and mutually exclusive alternatives. I contend that this assumption is deeply flawed, and distorts our understanding both of teleological and mechanistic explanation, and of the history of mechanistic philosophy. To prove this point, I shall provide an overview of the first systematic treatise on mechanics, the short and neglected work Mechanical Problems, …Read more
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703Philosophy and Dietetics in the Hippocratic On Regimen: A Delicate Balance of Health. By Hynek Bartos (review)Ancient Philosophy 40 (1): 221-227. 2020.Hynek Bartos does the field of ancient philosophy a great service by detailing the influence of early Greek thinkers (such as Heraclitus, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Democritus, and Diogenes of Apollonia) on the Hippocratic work On Regimen, and by demonstrating that work’s innovative engagement with contemporary scientific and philosophical concepts as well as its direct influence on Plato and Aristotle. His study usefully counteracts the lamentable tendency among ancient philosophers to ignore or d…Read more
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683Aristotle's Revenge: the metaphysical foundations of physical and biological science, by Edward Feser (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2020 (01.02). 2020.
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672Sources for the Philosophy of Archytas (review)Ancient Philosophy 28 (1): 173-199. 2008.A review of Carl Huffman's new edition of the fragments of Archytas of Tarentum. Praises the extensive commentary on four fragments, but argues that at least two dubious works not included in the edition ("On Law and Justice" and "On Wisdom") deserve further consideration and contain important information for the interpretation of Archytas. Provides a complete translation for the fragments of those works
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614Aristotle's Architectonic SciencesIn David Ebrey (ed.), Theory and Practice in Aristotle's Natural Science, Cambridge University Press. pp. 163-186. 2015.Aristotle rejected the idea of a single, overarching super-science or “theory of everything”, and he presented a powerful and influential critique of scientific unity. In theory, each science observes the facts unique to its domain, and explains these by means of its own proper principles. But even as he elaborates his prohibition on kind-crossing explanations (Posterior Analytics 1.6-13), Aristotle points out that there are important exceptions—that some sciences are “under” others in that they…Read more
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590Biology and Theology in Aristotle's Theoretical and Practical SciencesIn Sophia M. Connell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle's Biology, Cambridge University Press. pp. 12-29. 2021.Biology and theology are interdependent theoretical sciences for Aristotle. In prominent discussions of the divine things (the stars and their unmoved movers) Aristotle appeals to the science of living things, and in prominent discussions of the nature of plants and animals Aristotle appeals to the nature of the divine. There is in fact a single continuous series of living things that includes gods, humans, animals, and plants, all of them in a way divine. Aristotle has this continuum of divine …Read more
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585Protreptic Aspects of Aristotle's Nicomachean EthicsIn Ronald M. Polansky (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Cambridge University Press. pp. 383-409. 2014.We hope to show that the overall protreptic plan of Aristotle's ethical writings is based on the plan he used in his published work Protrepticus (Exhortation to Philosophy), by highlighting those passages that primarily offer hortatory or protreptic motivation rather than dialectical argumentation and analysis, and by illustrating several ways that Aristotle adapts certain arguments and examples from his Protrepticus. In this essay we confine our attention to the books definitely attributable to…Read more
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554Aristotle’s Empiricism: experience and mechanics in the 4th century BC by Jean De Groot (review)Ancient Philosophy 35 (1): 220-230. 2015.According to a generally held impression, which has coalesced out of centuries of misinterpretation occasioned mostly by misguided charitable commentary, but often by outright hostility to his followers (and occasionally deliberate misrepresentation of his ideas), Aristotle is a teleological (as opposed to “mechanistic”) philosopher, responsible for a “qualitative” (as opposed to quantitative) approach to physics that is thereby inadequately mathematical, whose metaphysical speculations, as abso…Read more
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535On Law and Justice Attributed to Archytas of TarentumIn David Wolfsdorf (ed.), Early Greek Ethics, Oxford University Press. pp. 455-490. 2020.Archytas of Tarentum, a contemporary and associate of Plato, was a famous Pythagorean, mathematician, and statesman of Tarentum. Although his works are lost and most of the fragments attributed to him were composed in later eras, they nevertheless contain valuable information about his thought. In particular, the fragments of On Law and Justice are likely based on a work by the early Peripatetic biographer Aristoxenus of Tarentum. The fragments touch on key themes of early Greek ethics, includi…Read more
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526Why did Aristotle invent the material cause ? The early development of the concept of hê hylêIn Pierre Pellegrin & Françoise Graziani (eds.), L'HÉRITAGE D'ARISTOTE AUJOURD'HUI : NATURE ET SOCIÉTÉ, Alessandria: Editzioni Dell'orso. pp. 59-86. 2020.I present a developmental account of Aristotle’s concept of hê hylê (usually translated “the matter”), focused the earliest developments. I begin by analyzing fragments of some lost early works and a chapter of the Organon, texts which indicate that early in his career Aristotle had not yet begun to use he hylê in a technical sense. Next, I examine Physics II 3, a chapter in which Aristotle conceives of he hylê not as a kind of cause in its own right, but merely as an example of the so-called “o…Read more
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488Changing Our Minds: Democritus on What is Up to UsIn Pierre Destrée, R. Salles & Marco Antonio De Zingano (eds.), Up to Us: Studies on Causality and Responsibility in Ancient Philosophy, Academia Verlag. pp. 1-18. 2014.I develop a positive interpretation of Democritus' theory of agency and responsibility, building on previous studies that have already gone far in demonstrating his innovativeness and importance to the history and philosophy of these concepts. The interpretation will be defended by a synthesis of several familiar ethical fragments and maxims presented in the framework of an ancient problem that, unlike the problem of free will and determinism, Democritus almost certainly did confront: the proble…Read more
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444AtomismusIn Jaeger Friedrich (ed.), Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit: Band 1 Abendland–Beleuchtung, J.n.b. Metzler. pp. 783-789. 2005.Encyclopedia article briefly summarizing the history of atomism from antiquity to modernity.
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429Was Gassendi an Epicurean?History of Philosophy Quarterly 20 (4). 2003.Pierre Gassendi was a major factor in the revival of Epicureanism in early modern philosophy, not only through his contribution to the restoration and criticism of Epicurean texts, but also by his adaptation of Epicurean ideas in his own philosophy, which was itself influential on such important figures of early modern philosophy as Hobbes, Locke, Newton, and Boyle (to name just a few). Despite his vigorous defense of certain Epicurean ideas and ancient atomism, Gassendi goes to great lengths to…Read more
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