Platonic Ideas and Appearance in Aristotle's Topics (forthcoming AGPh). (original) (raw)
Related papers
Phenomenology and the Metaphysics of Sight, 2000
Our theme is the metaphysics of sight and phenomenology. Our topic is seeing and being seen in Plato. Our thesis: properly understood, there are no metaphors of sight in Plato's dialogues, if by sight is understood vision putatively determined and limited by so-called sense perception. Our argument: in Plato the origin of all vision and therefore the seeing of that which is seen (and thus being seen) is eidetic, in the sense of having its source in the community of eidê together with their generic archai. This means, among other things, that the likening of images in the dialogues to visible things (e.g., the sun) and the body's organ of sight (the eyes) functions not to induce a comparison with invisible referents designed to draw our attention to qualities of the invisible shared by those belonging to the more accessible visible ones, but actually the reverse. That is, the likeness of these images to visible things draws our attention to the "ontological" priority of the original over the image in all domains, and thus, in the two most encompassing domains, the eidê of the 'visible' and 'invisible'. Our phenomenology is implicit, taking its departure from what we have tried to establish elsewhere, 1 namely, the interpretive necessity of eliding the modern priority accorded to mind and symbolically formalized concepts in investigating that which appears and the conditions for its appearance in ancient Greek thought. But its results are anything but implicit, as following the elision of these two modern presuppositions the phenomenological logic of image and original in Plato's thought becomes manifest and indeed patent. The author's conviction of the irrefutability of this logic will not be 1 Burt C. Hopkins, The Origin of the Logic of Symbolic Mathematics. Edmund Husserl and Jacob Klein (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011).
A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN PLATO & ARISTOTLE’S PHILOSOPHY
*Mahfuza Zannat, **Zhang Longhai, ***Sanjida Forkan , Universe International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research, 2020
The paper mainly focused on discovering how Plato and Aristotle's experience differ when both of them dealt with same concepts, such as, body and form, social-political system etc. The immutable point is they both purposed to quest truth. Implying comparative method, the research has been carried out. In 367 B.C.EAristotle took part in Plato's Academy in Athens as a student, where he came to be known as Plato's one of the best students being distinguished himself from Plato's view, eventually he became a mentor himself. Philosophically, Aristotle's research is more pragmatic than Plato, focusing on nature and real world. Plato's experience of 'artistic golden age' has made him more envisioned toward an 'ideal world' and being influenced by his father Aristotle prioritizes a philosophy depending upon rational world. The present study has discovered a comparison and contrast between two cornerstones of philosophy. Albeit Plato was Aristotle's mentor, we notice a number of prominent differences between their ideologies. Being Plato's favourite pupil in Academy, Aristotle has deliberately represented his own views. It seems both these ancient philosophers have put some efforts to enlighten the modern society approaching that two people with different moral perspectives still might be good to each other. Taking considering both of their ethics when one is materialistic, other is idealistic, the study accentuates that if pragmatically things can be done in accordance of Aristotle, Plato's 'ideal world' cannot be placed together because human world cannot be isolated from imperfection.
Review of \u3cem\u3eBeing, Essence, and Substance in Plato and Aristotle\u3c/em\u3e by Paul Ricoeur
2014
This is the translation of a course that Paul Ricoeur taught at the University of Strasbourg in 1953-1954 and several times since then. It circulated in a mimeographed version made at the Sorbonne in 1957 and was published as a course in 1982. The French edition by Jean-Louis Schlegel appeared in 2011. Several other courses will become available electronically in the near future. There are three main benefits in the publication and translation of this course. The first is Ricoeur's genuine contribution to the scholarship to Plato and Aristotle. This course represents his most detailed discussion of two philosophers who have remained his discussion partners until the end. Ricoeur sets for himself a long-term and a short-term goal. The long-term goal is rather ambitious and would make many commentators uncomfortable by its breadth. It is nothing less than "to work out the ontological foundations of our Western philosophy, so as to understand its intention by way of the history of its beginning" (p. 1). The short-term goal is more manageable. He wants to have a debate between Plato and Aristotle about being, essence, and substance, but against the traditional view at Ricoeur's time that Plato is a philosopher of essence and Aristotle a philosopher of substance. If we look beyond Platonic essentialism and Aristotelian substantialism, we see, Ricoeur argues, that they share a common ground. This comparison is divided into two parts, one on Plato and the other on Aristotle. The part on Plato
REFLECTIONS ON ARISTOTLE'S CRITICISM OF FORMS
Indian Philosophical Quarterly, 1990
The central doctrine of Plato, his 'Theory of Ideas' faces some acute problems. This theory is harshly attacked by the critics and therefore stands in need of re-examination. Aristotle shows the invalidity of the argument with his contra-argument called the 'Third-Man'. We consider here some ancient as well as contemporary arguments and conclude by trying to defend Plato in his own merit.
The Onto-epistemic Nature of Plato's Forms
This paper moves from a very specific understanding of the correlation between ontology and epistemology in Plato’s thought, namely the view that the way something is affects, and is identified by, the sort of cognition it makes possible. The view has been maintained by a number of scholars, whose positions will be briefly surveyed in what follows. I will be calling it the onto-epistemic correlation throughout the paper. The first expected outcome is to lay hold of a more systematic understanding of the view, which has not received the acknowledgment it actually deserves. Having the onto-epistemic correlation in the background, this paper has two goals: firstly, it sheds light on one of the fundamental facts at the core of Plato’s metaphysics, namely that being or beings are both objective and intelligible. Here “objective” means being mind-independent: genuine parts of reality exist and have an identity independent of the existence of thoughts in general and independent of the existence of subjects actually thinking of them. “Intelligible” means that one cannot come into contact with being or reality by means of the senses. On the contrary, it is possible by means of thought. Obviously, the being in question are Plato’s Forms. The connection between objectivity and intelligibility is prima facie paradoxical: what is the point of conceiving reality as strictly mind-independent and then characterising it as essentially related to thought? The final message of the paper is that this critical point was not perceived as such by Plato. Secondly, the paper employs the concept of sustainability, as framed in the introduction, as a novel way to understand Plato’s view that what is fully real exists and is what it is only by itself. Sustainability features twice in Plato’s metaphysics: on the one hand, Forms are the basic reality and thus they sustain the existence or appearance of sensible particulars; on the other hand, Forms qualify as perfect objects of knowledge, thereby sustaining it. This helps to highlight one fact about Plato’s philosophy, i.e. that what is responsible for the existence of sensible particulars is also what makes knowledge possible. In this way, the paper will test the theoretical and exegetical value of the concept of sustainability in one of the crucial moments of the history of metaphysics.
Perception, Relativism, and Truth: Reflections on Plato's Theaetetus 152–160
Dialogue, 1985
My purpose in this paper is to investigate the ontological structure of the theory that Plato ascribes to Protagoras in the Theaetetus (152-160). My interest is not just historical-what I wish to do is to explore the contemporary significance of Plato's Protagorean thesis, especially with regard to the theory of truth and the theory of perception. Even so, I shall attempt to say quite a lot about the text-I think that certain recent interpreters (especially M. F. Burnyeat [1982]) are on the wrong track with regard to Protagorean relativism, precisely due to their misjudging the relation of the Theaetetus doctrine to more recent philosophy. My essay falls into two parts: the first explores the text itself; the second deals with philosophical questions arising out of the theory of relativism that Plato ascribes to Protagoras. I must emphasize, to avoid misunderstanding, that in this second part it is my intention to treat of Protagoreanism sub specie aeternitatis, and consequently I shall not restrict myself to issues Plato himself raises-or, for that matter, to issues that Plato cared about. I have, for example, found it useful to stress the parallels between the possible worlds semantics pioneered by Saul Kripke (1963) and the private worlds of Protagoras. We shall see that some of the issues concerning the coherence and consistency of Protagorean relativism are similar in outline to questions about worlds. Because of this parallelism, reflections on both sorts of structures are, as I hope to show, reciprocally illuminating. Because my paper is a hybrid of textual and more purely philosophical investigation, it may be useful for me to say a further word about methodology. There is a tradition developing in analytic philosophy of examining the arguments of ancient philosophers. The methodology of
Méthexis , 1996
The word theologia is attested for the first time in Plato’s Republic II, 379a4: Hoi tupoi peri theologias. According to Werner Jaeger (The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers, Oxford 1947, 4-13), Plato coined the word to support the introduction of a new doctrine which resulted from a conflict between the mythical and the natural (rational) approach to the problem of God. For Jaeger, the word theologia designates what Aristotle was later to call theologikê or “first philosophy (hê protê philosophia) – whence his translation of hoi tupoi peri theologias by “outlines of theology.” Victor Goldschmidt, for his part, in an illuminating article entitled “Theologia” (in Questions Platoniciennes, Paris, 1970, 141-72) will have nothing to do with such a contention. He argues that the word theologia here used by Plato means nothing more than a species of muthologia. While the principal lexicons agree with Jaeger, that is, that theologia bears the sense of “science of divine things,” the majority of contemporary translators follow Goldschmidt in taking theologia as an equivalent to muthologia or a species of it. In view of the importance of the concept of theologia in the Western tradition, I believe it merits another analysis. The aim of this paper is to show that the word theologia in this passage of the Republic can mean “science of divine things,” contrary to the claim of Goldschmidt and his followers, but not in the context of natural philosophy as Jaeger seems to imply. The most important thing is to determine whether the element logia should be translated as “science” or “speech,” that is, whether Plato is making a value judgement about theos. I argue that he does, and this is something that contemporary translators continue to miss.