Aristotle

This paper re-examines Plato’s theory of perception through the comparative lens of contemporary cognitive constructivism (CC). Its focus is not the metaphysics of Forms as such, but the assumptions governing how perceptual worlds are disclosed, organized, and corrected. I distinguish epistemic passivity from organizational dependence and argue that Plato occupies a threshold position: he rejects any simple account of perception as epistemically sufficient raw reception, yet he does not grant perceptual activity an autonomous, self-corrective role in the acquisition of knowledge. (...) This tension clarifies the significance of later ancient developments. Aristotle embeds perception within the purposive life of the organism; the Stoics distinguish impressions from the active assent of the rational subject; and Plotinus rejects a merely imprint-based account in favor of a more active role for psyche in perceptual awareness. Contemporary constructivism, enactivism, and predictive processing are used heuristically rather than genealogically: the aim is not to make ancient philosophers into premature cognitive scientists, but to compare recurrent structural problems concerning perceptual input, internal organization, error, and epistemic agency. The resulting trajectory runs from perception as reception toward perception as regulated interaction, while preserving the substantial differences among Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic, and Neoplatonic frameworks. (shrink)

Some interpreters hold that, for Aristotle, the pleasant is the primary de dicto goal of every vicious person. I argue that this is false and develop an alternative account of vicious motivation by self-interest (to sumpheron). In EN 2.3, Aristotle claims that the vicious person errs with respect to the objects of choice: the pleasant, the sumpheron, and the fine. I argue that the vicious person can commit conceptual errors, ordering errors, and errors of omission in her pursuit of these (...) objects. I develop this reading by providing an interpretation of Aristotle’s account of the sumpheron on which it is both a means and an end. (shrink)

Tomemos un texto de Aristóteles y planteemos dos comentarios. Uno, más estándar, para un nivel de bachillerato o inicios universitarios. Otro que intenta comprender más en profundidad las ideas, para un nivel universitario. En ambos casos sin apoyo de materiales adicionales, sino a partir de lo que conozco de Aristóteles, por lo que no se introducen referencias.

Can we learn from imagination? This article surveys a thread from an ongoing debate in philosophy of mind and brings it into dialogue with Proclus's notion of mathematical imagination. Imagination for Proclus mediates between intellect and perception and reveals a unique level of reality borne by “intelligible matter.” By contrast, the contemporary debate, focused on concepts such as instructive versus transcendent imagining and propositional versus doxastic justification, is primarily epistemic in nature and seems not to require the fifth-century Platonist's commitment (...) to a distinctive level of imaginal reality. Even so, I argue that Proclus could converse fruitfully with the contemporary debate on questions about whether there is evidence accessible only to imagination and irreducible to other sources and about whether imagination is situationally responsive and able to inform belief. (shrink)

Whimsy is sometimes described as an asset of persons, connected to playfulness and humor. Other times, it is described as a vice akin to being fickle or noncommittal, involving a lack of foresight or premeditated thought. Defined as a trait, whimsy would be unusual. Generally, traits predictably dispose us to act in a given situation, yet the whimsical person’s extemporaneous choices defy prediction. Also, whimsy resists habituation in certain ways, to preserve choice over well-trodden patterns of acting. This article offers (...) a preliminary account of whimsy. It explores whimsy’s metaphysical status—as a trait, cluster concept, or something else. It investigates possibilities for whimsy in the virtuous or morally mature person, and it assesses ways in which whimsy might contribute to, or detract from, a flourishing life. (shrink)

Contemporary discourse on human development, while rich in empirical findings from psychology and profound in ontological inquiries from philosophy, often suffers from a disciplinary bifurcation. Psychological models can be fragmented and descriptive, lacking a unifying telos, while philosophical accounts can be overly abstract, divorced from the developmental process. This paper proposes an integrative, three-stage dialectical framework of human growth to bridge this gap. The model posits growth as a progression from Naïve Sensibility (a state of perceptual dependency and instinctual pleasure), (...) through Resilient Growth (a state of rational awakening, metacognition, and self-directed becoming), towards Autonomous Agency (a state of systemic self-creation and the integration of material and spiritual existence). Drawing on Western philosophy (Hegel, Aristotle, Existentialism), Eastern thought (Confucianism, Daoism), and developmental psychology (Piaget, Erikson, Self-Determination Theory), this framework theorizes the mechanisms of transition between stages, characterized by crises of meaning and integration. The paper concludes by exploring the model's implications for education, psychotherapy, and personal life in the modern world, arguing that it provides a coherent, normative, and practical roadmap for understanding the journey from a dependent to a self-authored life. (shrink)

This chapter looks at Aristotle’s writing on Egypt in order to articulate new ways of engagement with the (pre)history of race and racism in the history of philosophy. For readers familiar with the history of Greek writing about foreign cultures, it will come as no surprise that Egypt stands for the strange and wondrous par excellence—the country possessing the “most wonders of any other land,” to quote Herodotus’ well-known epithet (Hist. ii. 35). Against this cultural background and in a wide (...) range of context from across his corpus—from biology to astronomy to politics—we shall see that Aristotle’s remarks about Egypt are marked fundamentally by ambivalence. On the one hand, he refers repeatedly to the country’s enormous antiquity, its abundance, and its intellectual accomplishments. Yet not only does he share other authors’ unease at the weirdness of this strange land—wondrousness and monstrosity are never far apart—but even these apparently ‘positive’ remarks about Egypt turn out to be more complex than they may initially appear. Ancientness begets stasis, fertility destabilizes gender roles, and even Egypt’s priority in the history of science turns out to be rather less significant than modern readers might assume. A close reading of the Aristotelian construction of Egypt should thus prompt us to consider not just the familiar question of whether a given historical figure was or was not racist but, even more important, how they were racist and how their modes of crafting race both align with and diverge from contemporary ones. (shrink)

Grounding and causation are remarkably similar phenomena. They have the same logical properties and bring about explanatory order by relating what does the explaining to what is explained. This thesis provides an answer to the question of whether they are unified. I argue that the answer is 'yes'. -/- The case has already been made in the literature. Schaffer (2016) deems it significant that grounding and causation can be represented in structural equation models, where 'the ultimate test of unity is (...) whether the concept can be successfully enfolded in a formalism in a unified way' (Schaffer 2016, p. 93). Bennett (2017) thinks that they are unified by resemblance. Kivatinos (2017) says that they impose similar ordering on ontological structure. Wilson (2018) believes that they are both types of causation. Zhang (2023) claims that they are the very same relation. In what follows I argue that the best way to understand their similarities is through analogy. Specifically, I put forward a novel account in which grounding and causation are analogates of the bringing-about relation. -/- This work contributes to the field in three significant ways. First, it serves as a useful resource for those who take an active interest in grounding, causation, or both. I have carefully brought together contemporary accounts of each relation, focusing on those that are conducive to a unity hypothesis. Second, I demonstrate continuity between historical and contemporary thought. Notably, I find a historical precedent for the unity of grounding and causation in the work of Schopenhauer and I situate the question of unity within the Aristotelian tradition. Third, I make original research contributions. I am the first to argue that the relation between grounding and causation—this relation of relations—is one of analogy. I also provide the first metaphysically robust account of their unity through the genus–species relation. -/- The upshot of this investigation is that my theory of analogy, when compared with the other theories, provides the most compelling account of the unity of grounding and causation. This theory (i) explains the systematic sharing of features by grounding and causation through a substantive metaphysical framework, (ii) can account for differences between them, and (iii) structures them such that there is a highly natural relation through which their natures are understood. While other accounts of grounding and causation's unity have their merits, my theory does better with respect to (i), (ii), and (iii). (shrink)

*The Secret Codes of the Mind: Ancient Greek Philosophy*, Volume II, presents a systematic study of ancient Greek philosophy from the Presocratics to the major schools of the Hellenistic period. The volume traces the emergence of philosophical inquiry in early Greece and the attempts of the Presocratic thinkers to explain nature, being, change, permanence, causality, and the underlying principles of reality. It then turns to Socrates and the transformation of philosophy into a sustained inquiry into knowledge, virtue, human conduct, and (...) the conditions of the examined life. -/- The subsequent discussions focus on Plato and Aristotle as two decisive architects of classical Greek philosophy. Plato’s treatment of knowledge, reality, the soul, ethics, and political order is considered alongside Aristotle’s investigations of logic, metaphysics, causality, nature, ethics, and political life. The concluding part follows Greek philosophy into the Hellenistic age, exploring the Cynic, Epicurean, Stoic, and skeptical traditions and their competing accounts of happiness, virtue, freedom, knowledge, nature, and philosophy as a way of life. Each lecture includes questions and assignments designed to support active philosophical analysis, together with recommended literature for further study. (shrink)

Aristotle is not known as a theorist of erotic love, his apparent disinterest contrasting both with Plato’s extensive treatment as well as the intensity of his own interest in friendship. Yet there is an original account to be uncovered in his scattered remarks on the subject. Aristotelian eros is rooted in the sexual norms operative in Aristotle’s time—a ‘paiderastic paradigm’—yet is not merely the restatement of classical Greek commonplaces. This article reconstructs a finely tuned account of Aristotelian eros using the (...) Rhetoric’s framework for understanding emotions. This descriptive, phenomenological approach stands apart from Plato’s prescriptions to turn our erotic attentions away from the sexual domain, as well as from contemporary philosophers who treat love as an unproblematic and self-evidently desirable phenomenon. (shrink)

I discuss the innovative small practices that ancient Stoic and Buddhist thinkers developed to promote mindfulness and other aspects of well-being.

Ferrer AI Created Syllabus Classics of Western Philosophy Course 2026. Copyright©2026 Daniel Fidel Ferrer. All rights reserved. Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND. Imprint 1.0. 2026. WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) digital. All Rights are Reserved. Intended copies of this work can be used for research and teaching. No change in the content, and must include my full name, Daniel Fidel Ferrer. Enjoy reading and disagreeing. Publisher: Kuhn von Verden Verlag. Yugārambha (युगारम्भ). Warning. Warning: this is an AI Working Zone. Warning. Perhaps an (...) impending danger of unexpected, unknown texts. Pages 1-135. Who am I, the author of these investigations? That is an important question. I, Daniel Fidel Ferrer, am the human copyright owner (©Daniel Fidel Ferrer, 2026) of this work. Technically, I am the one guiding the process as the “prompt engineer.” Daniel Fidel Ferrer as the “Prompt Artist.” AI conducted by ©Daniel Fidel Ferrer, 2026. Maestro. I can consider myself the Maestro suggeritore. -/- AI investigations by Daniel Fidel Ferrer. How would AI create a syllabus for a philosophy course covering some of the Western philosophical classics? -/- This is one option. -/- Table of Contents. Summary and outlines. Classics of Western Philosophy Undergraduate Course (14 Weeks). Course outline. Learning outcomes. Weekly schedule. Required Texts. Weekly Discussion Questions. Reading Guides for the Major Philosophers. Comparative Reading Guide. Key Quotes Guide for Major Philosophers. Grading Rubrics. Appendix: Sample High-Scoring Essays. Sample Essay 1 (with Counterargument). Sample Essay 2 (with Counterargument). Essay Plato and Aristotle on the Good Life (5000 words). Glossary 200 key terms in Greek, German, and English definitions. Ten book titles citations in MLA format for these philosophers: Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Marx, and Heidegger. (shrink)

[Spa] Durante décadas, la recepción de Hans-Georg Gadamer estuvo dominada por la extraordinaria influencia de Verdad y método, relegando a un segundo plano los escritos en los que se gestó su pensamiento filosófico. Este libro vuelve sobre esa etapa decisiva para reconstruir el itinerario intelectual del joven Gadamer y mostrar cómo, mucho antes de su obra más célebre, ya se perfilaban las preguntas fundamentales que orientarían su concepción de la hermenéutica, el diálogo y la experiencia ética. A partir de un (...) minucioso trabajo con textos poco estudiados, materiales de archivo, correspondencia y documentos inéditos, Facundo Bey ofrece una nueva interpretación de los años de formación de Gadamer (1918-1942), siguiendo sus diálogos críticos con Platón, Aristóteles, Heidegger y la tradición filosófica alemana. En ese recorrido emerge una filosofía en la que la comprensión, la palabra compartida y el saber práctico adquieren una profunda dimensión política. Lejos de leer estos escritos tempranos como un simple antecedente de Verdad y método, el autor revela su autonomía, su originalidad y su vigencia. El resultado es una contribución decisiva tanto para los estudios gadamerianos como para quienes buscan repensar las relaciones entre hermenéutica, filosofía antigua, ética y política desde una perspectiva renovada. -/- --- -/- [Eng] For decades, the reception of Hans-Georg Gadamer has been shaped above all by the extraordinary influence of Truth and Method, leaving the writings in which his philosophical thought first took shape largely overlooked. This book revisits that crucial period to reconstruct the young Gadamer’s intellectual development and show that, long before his best-known work, the fundamental questions that would inform his conception of hermeneutics, dialogue and ethical experience were already emerging. -/- Drawing on a meticulous examination of neglected texts, archival sources, correspondence and unpublished documents, Facundo Bey offers a fresh interpretation of Gadamer’s formative years (1918–1942), tracing his critical engagement with Plato, Aristotle, Heidegger and the German philosophical tradition. What emerges is a philosophy in which understanding, the give-and-take of dialogue and practical knowledge take on profound political significance. -/- Rather than reading these early writings simply as a prelude to Truth and Method, Bey brings out their originality, their intellectual independence and their continuing relevance. The result is a major contribution both to scholarship on Gadamer and to broader attempts to rethink the relationships between hermeneutics, ancient philosophy, ethics and politics from a fresh perspective. (shrink)

Cet article propose une lecture historique du concept de virtuel visant à ouvrir une voie alternative au débat contemporain entre virtual realism et virtual fictionalism. Plutôt que de réduire le virtuel à des catégories rigides (réel ou fictif), nous verrons que l’histoire le présente comme un principe de médiation entre le réel et le possible. À travers l’étude de trois moments clés – Aristote (dúnamis), Thomas d’Aquin (virtus) et Leibniz (virtuel) –, nous montrerons que le virtuel est un concept qui (...) sert à structurer la relation entre les oppositions conceptuelles traditionnelles (réel/fictif, possible/nécessaire, corps/esprit, perception/action). Nous défendrons en conclusion que cette approche historique appelle une ontologie relationnelle et processuelle du virtuel, nécessaire pour redéfinir les objets numériques contemporains non comme des entités fixes, mais plutôt comme des produits temporels et symboliques issus d’interactions humain-machine. (shrink)

Philosophical work can be analyzed from two points of view, the historical and the systematic one. Papers gathered in this book examine the work of Francesco Coniglione from these two poles of philosophical analysis. From the historical point of view, the contributors ask what Coniglione meant when he made certain statements. From the systematic point of view, a given statement is ascribed a particular meaning because it provides the answer to the interpreter’s questions, which are culturally significant for the interpreter (...) himself and the society he is living in. This volume gathers work that highlights the interpretive dimensions of philosophical inquiry by focusing on historical and systematic interpretation in the corpus of Francesco Coniglione. (shrink)

This book presents a textual dialogue examining the cosmology and metaphysics of the Presocratic thinker Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (pp. 2, 5). Staged as a direct exchange between a "Seeker" and a "Scribe" in ancient Ionia, the text strips away centuries of later historical commentary to engage exclusively with the surviving Greek text (pp. 2, 18, 26). The discussion systematically unpacks the foundational concepts of the Diels-Kranz fragments, focusing closely on the original undifferentiated mixture (homou) (pp. 5, 11, 22), the ordering (...) power of Cosmic Mind (Nous) (pp. 5, 7, 9), and the definition of the boundless (apeiron) relative to limit (peras) (pp. 11, 41, 43). Through granular philological analysis of terms like chremata and ta eonta, the work provides a literal, unembellished reconstruction of how Anaxagoras answered the unchanging logic of Parmenides and the flux of Heraclitus (pp. 2, 5, 29, 31, 41). -/- . (shrink)

The objective of this paper is modest yet significant. We aim to explore how, within the Aristotelian framework, a body at rest can be considered temporal given that time is ontologically derived from change. Aristotle’s translators employ the term “in time” to categorize at-rest bodies as temporal, but the precise interpretation of this expression is far from straightforward. We contend that the commonly favored interpretation, which we refer to as the celestial solution, is inadequate and warrants reconsideration. This analysis facilitates (...) a deeper understanding of the intricate relationship between time and substance, leading us to advocate for what we believe is a more fitting solution. (shrink)

Many modern commentators think that the way we understand EN I.7, especially the socalled “Function Argument”, determines greatly the Aristotelian perspective over human happiness. But, although starting from the same point, they hold diverging opinions with regard to what this human happiness consist in (the two traditional interpretation of eudaimonia). This paper argues that most commentators have misunderstood the role of the Function Argument within the economy of the Nicomachean Ethics by taking it out of its context and by making (...) it say too much for a preparatory step. Therefore, a special attention is paid to the concept of function (ergon) both in the Aristotelian Ethics and Psychology and the manner the Stagirite builds his case in this section of the 1st Book. The conclusion of the analysis deployed here is that the Function Argument in I.7 cannot be taken to send us to a comprehensive or an intellectualist position. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to re-evaluate the notion and experience of friendship in Aristotle’s 'Eudemian Ethics' and 'Nicomachean Ethics'. The main point of reference in my discussion will be Derrida’s dense analyses of Aristotle in 'Politics of Friendship' (1994), as I explicate the logic behind the deconstructive formula ‘the telos of friendship would be the end of friendship’. Aristotle initiates a dominant philosophical conceptuality of friendship, and establishes a framework within which all subsequent theories have been formulated. According (...) to his construal, friendship is determined on the basis of an axiological network of concepts such as ‘brother’ but also ‘enemy’, ‘community’, ‘reciprocity’, ‘equality’, ‘democracy’, ‘consciousness’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘will’. What is at stake is a conceptual network which has rarely been questioned, and which is affirmed as much in Aristotle as in the works of Cicero, Augustine, Montaigne and Carl Schmitt, among others. In the first section, I identify the canonical philosophical conceptualization of both primary and political friendship in terms of reciprocity in Aristotle’s writings. I also investigate the intimate association between brotherly friendship and the relation of equality that the citizens of a democratic polity enjoy, as well as some of the aporetic consequences of this association that Derrida points out. In the second section, I focus on specific moments in Aristotle that undermine the canonical conceptuality. Doing justice to the complexity of the Aristotelian text, Derrida draws attention to cases whereby, according to the Greek philosopher himself, authentic friendships arguably presuppose an immeasurable and radical asymmetry between friends. Whether in question is friendships between the living and the dead, the active friendship offered unselfishly to the other, or the incalculable virtue that ethical friendship entails, all these cases gesture towards the necessity of an asymmetry or a certain incommensurability on which the chance not only of an authentic friendly relation to the other but also of democracy depends. (shrink)

To Turn the Soul collects fourteen essays (three by Eva Brann) inspired by the life and thought of philosopher Jacob Klein. The contributors have been animated by Klein’s legacy—whether because they knew him, studied at St. John’s College, the institution he shaped, or found his writings a rich stimulus for thought and exploration. While the majority of the essays are based primarily on the study of Klein’s writings, they all take up an inquiry inspired by an encounter with his work. (...) Their goal is to deepen or expand Klein’s thought by exploring its consequences, or traveling down avenues of investigation that Klein himself pursued and in some cases even initiated. The essays are offered in the hope that they inspire others to read Klein’s writings and think for themselves about the matters he takes up in them. (shrink)

This chapter assesses the philosophical background to Thomas Aquinas’s interpretation of Proposition 1 from the _Liber de causis_ that “every primary cause influences its effect more than a secondary cause.” Aquinas claims to find the doctrine in Aristotle, although at first glance—and following some recent commentators—Aristotle himself does not seem to hold this causal principle, where contemporary commentators highlight Aristotle's departure from the Platonic hierarchy between a strictly-called 'cause' (αἰτία/αἴτιον) and instrumental or co-cause (συναίτιον). Despite this apparent opposition, I show (...) how Neoplatonists—particularly Proclus—develop certain strands of Aristotle's thought, where the latter tacitly accepts a distinction between primary and secondary efficient causes. Proclus' integration of Aristotle with Plato on causes leads to his formulation of the principle of primary/secondary causality, as adapted in the _Liber's_ Prop. 1: a key foundation for all medieval philosophical thought. (shrink)

This article analyzes Maximus the Confessor’s account of the soul-body relation in _Ambiguum_ 7, arguing that he employs a mereological account of the soul-body relation that leads to a via media between rejecting a Platonist-inspired view of the soul’s pre-existence and rejecting a strict Aristotelian hylomorphic view of the soul and body. By assessing Maximus’ sources (esp. Aristotle, Nemesius, Gregory of Nyssa, and John Philoponus), I maintain that Maximus’ account gives us a unique position in the history of ancient and (...) late antique positions on the human soul and its relation to the body. (shrink)

Increasingly dissatisfied with utilitarianism and deontology as templates for the creation of “moral machines,” machine ethicists call for Aristotle’s virtue ethics to be the lodestar for the production of such machines. Given that the locus of virtue’s embedment here is artifacts, on what conception of human nature are claims that machines could be virtuous anything other than non-starters? I argue that this commitment seems plausible only if one has wholly embraced core tenets of information theory and “classical” cybernetics, which date (...) to the 1940s and 1950s. Per this “third-person” vantage point, humans and machines are essentially information, whose “behavior” follows the same basic patterns. This view of us is a mismatch with human existence and is itself dehumanizing. My in-principle critique of advocacy of “artificial virtuous agents,” based primarily on Aristotle’s virtue ethics and mounting findings within life sciences, fits with themes of the present volume by bringing together virtue ethics, humanism, and phenomenology, broadly construed. If consideration of how machines might (and might not) contribute to human flourishing is to be availing, the human ontology that it brings to bear must include an irreducibly experiential perspective. (shrink)

Offering an in-depth examination of the political philosophy of Plato's Republic, Stephen O. Peprah challenges the prevalent scholarly interpretation that misreads and underestimates Plato's view of the status and role of non-philosophical citizens. Rather than seeing the ordinary human beings who make up the civic population as servile to the select philosophical elite, the argument is not only that they make an important contribution to the polis based on their moral, epistemic, and somatic competences, but that the political community serves (...) their well-being. Grounded in recent work on Plato's political philosophy and within Plato's contractarian commitment (koinonia) in Book II of Republic, this study shows that the individual and the polis have positive, if not equal, standing. Each is positively dependent on the other, and political authority of the philosopher-rulers is justified to create enabling conditions to facilitate this mutual interdependence. And so, by arguing that Plato's just society – Kallipolis – evolves from the collaborative efforts of individuals who aim to deal with a common human predicament (insufficiency), Peprah reveals that Platonic political theory is engineered to be a more inclusive system than previously thought. This study is an important reassessment that shows the artisans of Republic as possessing individual and political agency. (shrink)

Prezentul studiu oferă o traducere românească adnotată a tratatului Risala fi al-`aql, atribuit lui al-Kindi, însoțită de o analiză filosofică a principalelor concepte dezvoltate în text. Tratatul prezintă o clasificare a modurilor intelectului și formulează, într-o manieră concisă, distincția fundamentală dintre potență și act, care structurează teoria cunoașterii. -/- Studiul este organizat în mai multe etape. În prima parte este prezentat contextul istoric și intelectual al filosofiei arabe timpurii, în special în cadrul mișcării de traducere din Bagdad. În continuare sunt (...) discutate transmiterea textuală a tratatului și principiile adoptate în realizarea traducerii. Partea centrală o constituie traducerea românească a textului, însoțită de note explicative. -/- Analiza filosofică evidențiază caracterul sistematic al clasificării modurilor intelectului, rolul trecerii de la potență la act și importanța intelectului permanent în act ca principiu al actualizării. De asemenea, este analizată relația dintre intelect și inteligibil, înțeleasă ca o formă de identitate în act. -/- În ultima parte sunt examinate influențele tratatului asupra filosofiei islamice ulterioare, în special la al-Farabi, Avicenna și Averroes. Studiul arată că, deși concis, tratatul constituie un punct de plecare esențial pentru dezvoltarea ulterioară a teoriei intelectului în tradiția filosofică islamică. (shrink)

This book chapter discusses how and why the author was drawn to study Aristotle's philosophy, and focuses on nine key ideas one can draw from Aristotle's works that when properly understood and applied contribute to leading a fuller and better life.

This thesis examines the philosophical ideologies of three prominent late-Byzantine thinkers—Gemistos Plethon, George of Trebizond (Trapezuntios), and Bessarion—and evaluates which perspective offers the most compelling approach to the revival of Greek philosophy in the 15th century. It contextualizes their work within the intellectual and cultural milieu of late Byzantium, including the preservation of classical texts and the doctrinal negotiations of the Council of Florence. Pletho advocates for a Platonic revival, emphasizing metaphysical hierarchy, divine unity, and cosmology, while Trapezuntios defends Aristotle, (...) stressing logical rigor, empirical reasoning, and compatibility with Christian doctrine. Bessarion, trained in Neoplatonism, seeks to harmonize the two, arguing that Plato and Aristotle share fundamental principles and that their apparent opposition is largely a matter of misinterpretation. By analyzing their arguments, including formal logical reconstructions, the thesis concludes that Bessarion’s reconciliatory approach provides the most persuasive framework for integrating classical philosophy with Christian thought, demonstrating a balance between fidelity to tradition and intellectual synthesis. (shrink)

Prezentul studiu ofera o traducere romaneasca adnotata a unui tratat scurt atribuit lui al-Kindi, transmis in editia lui Muhammad Abd al-Hadi Abu Rida sub titlul al-qawl fi al-nafs al-mukhtasar min kitab Aristu wa Filatun wa sair al-falasifa. Textul prezinta o expunere concisa a doctrinei filosofilor despre natura sufletului, cunoasterea inteligibila si destinul spiritual al omului. -/- Articolul prezinta contextul istoric si intelectual al operei lui al-Kindi in cadrul miscarii de traducere din Bagdad, discuta traditia textuala a tratatului si principiile filologice (...) ale traducerii, iar in partea centrala ofera traducerea romaneasca a textului insotita de note explicative. -/- Analiza filosofica arata ca tratatul trebuie inteles ca o reflectie asupra naturii sufletului si asupra finalitatii vietii filosofice, in care elemente aristotelice sunt combinate cu motive platonice si neoplatonice caracteristice filosofiei arabe timpurii. (shrink)

The so-called Third Man argument in Plato’s Parmenides exposes a structural instability within the theory of Forms. If many particulars are F in virtue of a Form of F, and if the Form itself is F, then a further unifying principle appears required, generating an infinite regress. This paper offers a minimal formal reconstruction of the regress and argues that its source lies in a collapse of explanatory levels: the unifying principle is treated as belonging to the same ontological domain (...) as the plurality it explains. To clarify this structural difficulty, two mathematical models are developed. A stratified set-theoretic framework enforces level-sensitivity by typing participation across distinct domains. A topological model interprets Forms as limit-structures determined by patterns of convergence rather than as additional members of a plurality. Both models preserve the unifying function attributed to Forms while blocking the regress-generating step. The formal analysis is then situated within a comparative interpretation of Plato, Aristotle, and al-Kind¯ı. Plato’s dialectic exposes the instability of unregulated self-application; Aristotle resolves it by denying the separate ontological status of universals; al-Kind¯ı preserves explanatory hierarchy through disciplined abstraction. The paper advances a moderate structural claim: regress arises when explanatory structure is confused with membership. Clarifying this distinction illuminates a central tension in ancient metaphysics concerning unity and multiplicity. (shrink)

This brief offers a structured historical overview of the concept of aether as the “fifth element” within the development of ancient cosmology and its later transformations. Beginning with archaic mythological cosmologies and early Greek thought, it traces the emergence of aether as a distinct celestial substance associated with luminosity, purity, and incorruptibility. Particular attention is given to its systematic formulation in Aristotle’s De caelo, where the fifth body becomes the material principle of the supralunar realm, distinguished from the four sublunary (...) elements by its eternal circular motion. The study then follows the persistence and gradual transformation of the concept through medieval interpretations of the quinta essentia, Renaissance natural philosophy, early modern physics, and finally its restricted survival in modern chemical terminology. Rather than advancing a polemical thesis, this text is conceived as a pedagogical support document for students and researchers in ancient cosmology and classical Greek philosophy, offering a historically grounded synthesis of primary sources and key interpretative traditions. (shrink)

Two prominent Japanese scholars of ancient Greek philosophy in the 20th century, Takashi Ide (1892–1980) and Norio Fujisawa (1925–2004), both offered similar critiques of Aristotle’s philosophy. They questioned the value placed by Aristotle on theōria (contemplation) and its separation from praxis (action) and poiēsis (production), advocating for their reunification. Their interpretations went beyond mere historical study, encompassing broader visions of the history of Western philosophy and of philosophy in general. Despite their differing philosophical inclinations, they converged in identifying Aristotle as (...) the emblematic figure of the decline of Western philosophy and endeavoured to rediscover their authentic philosophy before Aristotle – Socrates for Ide and Plato for Fujisawa. Ide struggled with the question of philosophy’s active role in the midst of war and eventually turned to Marxism, while Fujisawa focused on the challenges posed by modern scientific technology and called for a return to Plato’s philosophical insights. (shrink)

Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics can each be understood as claiming that all human beings desire to live well, and that this desire, when accompanied by correct beliefs about the role of virtue in living well, moves people to be virtuous. Call this claim ‘psychological eudaimonism’ (‘PE’). Neither Plato, Aristotle, nor the Stoics, however, investigate PE's warrant. After identifying the claim in these ancients' writings, this paper argues in their stead that PE is warranted by what is involved in understanding (...) others as rational generally, and what is involved in understanding ourselves as practically rational specifically. The former is interestingly and unexpectedly informed by Donald Davidson’s account of linguistic interpretation. The latter is the ancients’ account of practical rationality itself. (shrink)

This teaching material explores ancient cosmological conceptions of the world by examining the figure of Atlas and the meaning of “world” (kosmos, ouranós) in Greek thought. Drawing on classical sources such as Plato’s Timaeus, Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, and Hesiod’s Theogony, it shows that in antiquity the world was not identified with the planet Earth, but with a unified and ordered cosmic structure, often represented as a celestial sphere. The material is presented here for greater visibility and (...) is also available in the Teaching Materials section, with the aim of providing an accessible framework for understanding the symbolic and conceptual foundations of ancient cosmology. (shrink)

This essay challenges the widespread assumption that fully developed, secular rationality originates exclusively in ancient Greece. While acknowledging Aristotle’s foundational role in the theoretical systematization of formal logic, it argues that other forms of rational, non-mythical thought existed long before the Greek tradition. Focusing on the Egyptian mathematical papyri of Rhind and Moscow (second millennium BCE), the study shows that these documents embody a structured, rule-governed, and transferable mode of reasoning based on explicit procedures, internal criteria of correctness, and abstract (...) geometric-mathematical operations. Although not articulated as logical theory, this operative rationality functions as a formal system in practice. Recognizing this challenges the myth–reason dichotomy and expands the historical threshold of human rationality beyond its traditional Greek framework. (shrink)

This article examines the sources of Plotinus’ doctrine of extension, a central aspect of his Platonic dualism whose origins have received little scholarly attention. This doctrine entails a distinction between two central concepts: the notion of body as primarily divisible or extended ‘mass’ (ὄγκος) and that of immanent form as secondarily divisible or extended quality (ποιότης). The article argues that, although Plotinus presents this doctrine as an interpretation of Plato, Timaeus 35a, its philosophical content is irreducible to the Timaeus, and (...) that Plotinus rather employs, adapts, and develops concepts drawn from Aristotle. First, Plotinus’ notion of ‘mass’ finds conceptual and textual parallels in Aristotle’s Physics, especially in the discussions of place and continuous magnitudes (Books IV and VI). Second, Plotinus’ distinction between bodies and qualities as primarily and secondarily divisible or extended represents a sophisticated development of chapter 6 of the Categories, where Aristotle discusses quantity and distinguishes per se and accidental quantities. Finally, the article shows that Middle Platonic authors (Ammonius Saccas, Numenius) had already employed Aristotle’s distinction between per se and accidental quantities in their anti-Stoic polemics, and that Plotinus’ engagement with Aristotle is far more sophisticated. (shrink)

The essay provides a comprehensive historical and methodological framework (a « user’s manual » in short) for approaching Aristotle’s elusive treatise on Ideas – « not quite lost, not quite recovered ». Its starting point is the observation that Aristotle’s anti-Platonic remarks on Forms rank among the sharpest in the corpus, yet they confront the reader with a methodological paradox: on the one hand, his attacks are strikingly coherent and appear to presuppose a long and technically sophisticated debate; on the (...) other hand, precisely because Aristotle so often writes in a laconic, recapitulatory mode, the dossier remains frustratingly obscured by gaps in detail. The result is a familiar interpretive dilemma: either one treats the treatise as essentially unrecoverable and contents oneself with scattered allusions, or one attempts an ambitious reconstruction that risks conflating later paraphrase, doxography, or scholastic smoothing with Aristotle’s own text. The paper rejects this forced choice. It argues that the Peri Ideôn can be approached with genuine philological traction, provided one adopts a rigorous protocol that distinguishes types of evidence and assigns each an appropriate inferential weight. In short, the paper function less as a speculative reconstruction than as an operational guide to what can be reconstructed and to what must remain conjectural. The essay unfolds in three stages. First, it situates the Peri Ideôn within Aristotle’s broader metaphysical preoccupations with universality—what it is to say that something is one over many, and what kind of being (if any) such a universal enjoys. This framing matters because it allows the reader to see that Aristotle’s engagement with Platonic Forms is not an episodic quarrel, but a cluster of pressure-points where issues about science, definition, and predication come to the fore. Second, the paper reopens the textual and editorial dossier with special attention to the transmission-layer through which the treatise is known. Here its contribution is deliberately practical: it explains how the fragments traditionally assembled from Alexander of Aphrodisias’ commentary tradition can now be handled more finely by asking what we should count as a “fragment,” what we should count as a paraphrase, and where Alexander may already be interpreting rather than transmitting. Third, the essay tests this protocol on a set of canonical argumentative nodes – those places where Aristotle’s own writings gesture most clearly toward the treatise and where later readers most insistently return (most notably in connection with the « Third Man Argument », which serves as a case in point). In sum, the essay does not claim to offer a new grand reconstruction, but rather a disciplined way of reading a lost work through layered witnesses. By offering explicit rules of use (what to extract, what to bracket, what to treat as later mediation), the essay aims to make the Peri Ideôn usable again for historians of Platonism and Aristotelianism alike: usable as a map of argumentative options within the Academy, and usable as a key for interpreting the most compressed and allusive anti-Platonic passages of Aristotle’s surviving corpus. (shrink)

While there is little doubt that Aristotle had no sympathy for Plato’s Ideas, it is not always clear what his grievances with them were, and to what extent he did justice to the arguments Plato and other proponents of the Ideas put forward in favour of their existence. His criticism is usually both highly condensed and allusive. In fact, Aristotle seems to assume everywhere that his readers were remarkably familiar with the complexities of a debate that it would be difficult (...) to reconstruct solely on the basis of the traces it has left in his school writings. Hence the great interest of a quasi-canonical source – the Peri ideôn – in which Aristotle addresses the problems of knowing whether there are ideas, whether it is possible to prove that they exist, and whether or not such proofs are all of equal value or not. Yet from the earliest attempts at reconstruction to the most recent interpretations, Aristotle’s lost work on Plato’s Ideas remains an enigmatic text. In particular, we may wonder whether the language and content, as revealed by Alexander of Aphrodite in his commentary on the book Great Alpha of the Metaphysics, reflect the letter of the original or whether it has been reorganised or rearranged, or even reworked in ways and for purposes that were at the sole discretion of the commentator. The translation and the eight essays collected in this volume explore the fragments of the Peri ideôn precisely from the angle of this multi-term equation, each time taking into account the difficulties associated with the testimony of Alexander of Aphrodite, who used the Peri ideôn in order to explain an Aristotelian text other than the Peri ideôn itself. (shrink)

This chapter examines a range of ancient Greek and Roman views regarding hope, developing themes drawn from philosophical sources—including Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoic and Epicurean schools—and discussing approaches and applications in the narratives of Thucydides and in ancient Greek medicine. Selected references to Greek and Roman literature and cultural practices are also included. Together, these ancient sources reveal complex human attitudes about the future, and the chapter considers various criteria used to make judgments about the value of hope. Themes (...) include the relationships of hope to fear and courage, rationality and memory, emotion and pleasure, and human agency and well-being. Throughout, connections are made with current philosophical literature on hope, in the belief that familiarity with the variety and nuance of ancient attitudes can promote a deeper understanding of our own notions of hope. (shrink)

Chapter of Back to the Future and Philosophy on character formation via the lens of Aristotle and Heidegger in the first film.

This chapter explores Plato’s and Aristotle’s thoughts on omnipresence. Neither Plato nor Aristotle provides a unified theory of divine omnipresence. In each we see tension between opposing tendencies. Plato posits in the Timaeus a world-soul aware of particular things and events throughout the cosmos, although it is unclear whether this implies that the world-soul is omnipresent. But if it is, Plato may face conflict with his doctrine that human souls are the individual loci of responsibility. Similarly, Aristotle’s metaphysics of organic (...) substances seems to preclude any strong notion of an omnipresent being, since it is based on the idea that each organic substance is governed by its own essence-providing soul. Even so, the everlasting species of such substances owe the sempiternity of their life conditions to the eternal actuality of the divine prime mover. While this ultimate principle is particularly associated with the outermost celestial sphere, its effects are certainly omnipresent. (shrink)

In response to Sean Kirkland’s recent book Heidegger and the Destruction of Aristotle (2023), this paper examines Kant’s role in Heidegger’s phenomenology. The overall goal of the paper is to distance Heidegger’s mature phenomenology from the Greeks and show how Heidegger’s engagement with Kant is indispensable for his overall project and destructive hermeneutic. By drawing Heidegger’s reading of Kant into relation with Destruktion, Zeitlichkeit, and Temporalität, this paper argues that Kant is the foremost historical reference point for Being and Time (...) and for the lineage from Destruktion to deconstruction. Kant alone offers Heidegger with a model for a groundlaying for metaphysics from the ground up, that is, from the co-primordiality of being and time. (shrink)

Das Verhältnis von Kants Philosophie zum Denken der Antike ist Gegenstand einer anhaltenden Kontroverse. Einerseits wurde im Sinne der querelle des anciens et des modernes behauptet, dass sich Kants Denken aus spezifisch neuzeitlichen Prämissen und Problemstellungen heraus entwickelt habe, sodass von einem Einfluss der antiken Philosophie auf das Denken Kants sensu stricto nicht gesprochen werden könne. Andererseits wurde immer wieder die besondere Bedeutung der antiken Philosophen und Philosophenschulen für die Genese des kantischen Systems herausgestellt. Vor allem Platon wurde dabei wiederholt (...) als wichtige Inspirationsquelle genannt. Das Ziel des vorliegenden Bandes ist es, ein wenig Licht in dieses philosophiehistorische Dickicht zu bringen, indem Kant-Expert*innen und Antike-Forscher*innen miteinander in einen Austausch gebracht werden, um das Verhältnis von Kants Praktischer Philosophie zur antiken philosophischen Tradition anhand von einigen ausgewählten Themenkomplexen zu beleuchten. Im Mittelpunkt der Analysen der Autor*innen stehen zentrale Begrifflichkeiten der Individualethik Kants (Tugend, Glück, Pflicht), seiner Politischen Philosophie (Staatsbürgerschaft, Kosmopolitismus) sowie die Frage nach Kants philosophischer Methode. (shrink)

This fifth chapter of A Conscious History traces the axial emergence of the classical roots of Western civilization in Classical Athens to a deeper, recurring cultural dynamic. It posits a fundamental dialectic between two perennial modes of human consciousness and social organization: the Participatory-Ecological and the Instrumental-Hierarchical. This analysis begins in pre-Mycenaean Crete, archetypally framed as a civilization embodying a participatory-ecological consciousness - a world that is then contrasted with the subsequent Indo-European-derived adaptations toward a warrior-aristocracy, sky-god worshipping, and a (...) hierarchical cosmic order, effectively marginalizing the older, wilder ecological deities to the countryside and the margins. The chapter’s central, illuminating thesis is that this repressed participatory consciousness did not vanish but resurfaced in a transformative, culturally recursive form during the Athenian Golden Age. We argue that the near-simultaneous emergence of democracy and theater was not coincidental but causally and structurally linked. Through a careful synthesis of history, archetypal psychology, and political theory, the text demonstrates that the Great Dionysia served as the ritual arm of the nascent democratic polis. Theater in its ancient origins was clearly not mere entertainment, but ritual tribemaking - democracy in mask and garb - a civic technology of collective catharsis and meta-narrative that allowed a multicultural empire to forge a shared identity by publicly wrestling with irreconcilable polarities (justice/mercy, individual/state, mortality/heroism, etc.). Concurrently, the chapter investigates a parallel cognitive revolution: the adoption and modification of the Phoenician phonetic alphabet. This is analyzed not as a mere tool, but as a cognitive technology that fundamentally restructured thought, enabling the abstract, analytical reasoning necessary for Socratic inquiry and Platonic metaphysics. The alphabet created the conditions for a new literate consciousness, separating the knower from the known and fostering the deepening recursion that drove both the spiral of growing psycho-cultural interiority and an increasing divide of literate humankind from natural embodiment. The lineage of Socrates → Plato → Aristotle is presented as the epitome of this recursive deepening - a process where knowledge is not a static transmission but a dynamic co-becoming through direct mentorship and lived dialogical confrontation. This stands in stark contrast to the modern, impersonal knowledge systems of modern technical and academic institutions. Ultimately, this analysis provides a powerful lens for contemporary inquiry. It frames modern discontent - the crisis of meaning, procedural alienation, and the denial of subjective consciousness within a dominant mechanistic paradigm - as a new manifestation of an ancient dialectic. The search for authentic community, ecological integration, and epistemology that honors lived experience is revealed as the modern effort to re-inhabit the same participatory-ecological consciousness that Athens temporarily but brilliantly channeled through its agora, its theater, and its thinking philosophers. This understanding is essential for anyone seeking to grasp the roots of our current societal impasses and to imagine pathways beyond them. (shrink)

The article explores the differences and similarities between the ancient concept of eudaimonia and the modern idea of happiness. It first highlights two key differences: eudaimonia requires virtue, whereas happiness does not; and while the ancient understanding of eudaimonia is objectivist, the modern view of happiness is more subjectivist. Then, an important similarity is pointed out: both the ancients’ pursuit of eudaimonia and our search for happiness are about finding the best possible life within the constraints of luck, whose influence (...) pervades our lives. (shrink)

I argue that Metaphysics H.6 is not an isolated chapter but the conclusion of an argument begun in H.3. This view will provide further and better arguments for the following view about long-standing interpretative debates: first, Aristotle provides a substantive account of the unity of the composite substance (although he also briefly addresses the unity of the form); second, neither Aristotle’s conception of matter nor his account of form changes between H.1–5 and H.6; and third, H does not rely on (...) and is not completed by book Θ in any significant way. (shrink)