Morality is the Condition of Inquiry (original) (raw)
Related papers
2017
PDF-PowerPoint presentation of the talk I gave on Friday, 25th August 2017 at the 54th Societas Ethica Annual Conference "Giving an Account of Evil – Das Böse Verantworten", "Thessalia" Conference Center, Melissatika, Volos Academy for Theological Studies, Volos, Greece / Griechenland, Volos, 24th – 27th August 2017.
The Monster within us. Notes on Plato's moral psychology
2017
PDF-PowerPoint presentation of the talk I gave on Friday, 25th August 2017 at the 54th Societas Ethica Annual Conference, “Giving an Account of Evil – Das Böse Verantworten”, “Thessalia” Conference Center, Melissatika, Volos Academy for Theological Studies, Volos, Greece / Griechenland, Volos, 24th – 27th August 2017.
Plato's Moral Psychology: Intellectualism, the Divided Soul, and the Desire for Good
2017
Contents ous readers for OUP. Earlier, Clerk Shaw read and commented on Chapters 1-3. Thank you all so much! In addition to talking through many of the ideas in this book with me and commenting on written versions of most of the chapters below over many years, in June 2015 Stephen Menn organized a workshop around the manuscript at the Humboldt University, Berlin. I'm grateful to him and the other participants-Alison Laywine, Hakan Genc, Ronja Hildebrandt, David Merry, Christopher Roser, and Antonio Vargas-for their comments on Chapters 1-3 and 6. Manidipa Sen organized a series of seminars on Plato's moral psychology at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, in August 2016 during which I presented the material in Chapters 1-5 of the book, and I'm thankful to the faculty and students who participated, especially Kranti Saran and Soham Shiva, for their questions and comments. Early instalments of much of the material in the book were presented to students in my seminars at the University of Arizona in spring 2013 and Cornell University in spring 2014. I am grateful to the students (especially Jeremy Reid, who later read the whole manuscript), and to Julia Annas, Tad Brennan, and Charles Brittain, who sat in on these seminars, for their thoughts about material I presented. Some of the material in Chapters 3 and 4 descends from a seminar I gave at the University of Chicago in spring 2008, and I would like to thank the students in that seminar, as well as Gabriel Richardson Lear and Jonathan Lear, who sat in, for their pointed questions about the moral psychology of the Republic. I'm grateful to André Laks, Fernando Muñiz, John Proios, and an audience at the Facultad de Filosofía at Universidad Autónoma Nacional de México for their comments on previous versions of Chapter 1. Philosophy Colloquium audiences at the
Platonic Souls in the Cave: Are They Only Rational?
M. D. Boeri, Y. Y. Kanayama y J. Mittelmann (eds.), Soul and Mind in Greek Thought. Psychological Issues in Plato and Aristotle, Berlin, Springer, 2018, 2018
The allegory of the cave ends with a distinction, at Republic 518d-e, between moral and intellectual virtues; Socrates states that the virtue of wisdom (ἡ ἀρετή τοῦ φρονῆσαι) belongs to something more divine which never loses its power. However, it is not always or even necessarily aimed at what is good, but it can be directed to evil, as the so called bad-σοφοί do. I will argue that Plato is willing to grant that the training of the rational part by itself cannot be able to bring together philosophy and good political leadership (that is why he highlights the importance of having the spirited and the appetitive parts of the soul rightly educated). From this point of view, the picture of the soul that is drawn from the allegory of the cave should not be considered fully intellectualistic. After analyzing the allegory in search of traces of the tripartite psychic model, I will connect the allegory with Lesser Hippias 366a-b and Laws III 689a-b, where Plato tries to distinguish between intellectual ability and practical wisdom. The discussion of this distinction, I shall suggest, can be seen as the background to some remarks made by Aristotle in his own discussion of ἀκρασία in Nicomachean Ethics VII.
Nietzsche and Plato on the Judgment that Being is Better than Not Being
Kronos, 2023
“Why, exactly, is it better to be than not to be?” Nietzsche saw with great clarity that the “death of God” – that is, the collapse of all previous theological and philosophical groundings for the sheer value of existence – had made the question of that value inescapable for modern man. Through his doctrine of the eternal return of the same, Nietzsche believed himself to have given a definitively modern grounding to the value of existence, free of any taint of “Platonism.” My paper investigates whether this is true – whether Nietzsche did, in fact, find a new way to say “Yes” to being or whether he, like everyone else, must ultimately “Platonize” to some degree as soon as we ask why it is good to be and to think.
2019
PDF-PowerPoint presentation of the talk I gave on Tuesday, 7th May 2019 at the Deparment of Philosophy of the University of Trnava. Elements contained in the PowerPoint can be found in the already uploaded publication "The Drama of the Human Condition. Notes on the Causes and Origins of Evil in Plato's Republic". Abstract In my analysis, I would like to expose some suggestions on Plato’s interpretation of the origins and the causes of Evil in the human dimension. I shall mainly base my analysis on some passages of Plato’s Republic. The thesis of my analysis is that the root of the existence of Evil in the human dimension lies in the structure of the human soul as such. The human condition consists in being imperfect, suspended, exposed: Human beings are exposed to the risk of moral degeneration because of the very nature of their own soul, since the soul’s being composed of different parts and the mutual relations holding between the three parts cause the emergence of justice or of injustice. The origin of Evil is within us; we are the cause of any moral degradation in the human dimension, no matter whether we speak of individuals, of societies or of human history in general. Hence, we do not need to seek far away from ourselves in order to find the cause of any bad deed whatsoever. Plato is searching, in the Republic, a way out from all the negative dispositions connected to the human soul. We can see, through Plato’s observations on the structure of the soul, that the soul is composed of three potencies (the rational part, the spirited part, the appetitive part). Every individual is, as such, a plurality of at least partially independent entities. We are borne divided in ourselves: a reunification of the parts of our soul is morally indispensable. The soul’s being composed of different parts shows us into the moral question of justice and injustice. The main problem concerning our soul is that we ought to seek a morally correct equilibrium between the parts of our soul: this equilibrium is not given; it will not arise by itself; it must be reached, and it can be reached only through an appropriate education. The relations between these three parts can be characterized by harmony, if the rational part exercises the leading authority: this state is the condition of justice. The parts can find themselves, though, in conflict with each other, without, consequently, the rational part being able to exercise the duty of leadership: Whenever a condition of conflict between parts comes about, the soul is thrown in the condition of injustice. Both good and evil in the individual come about from the correct or incorrect condition of the soul. Philosophical education exercises the decisive role in the development of justice, since only this kind of education can produce the development of the rational part; without the correct development of the rational part, individuals will be always exposed to the risk of moral degeneration. The strengthening of the rational part is, therefore, necessary. The book IV of the Republic needs the extension represented by the Book V, in oder that the instability of the dimension of opinion and the stability of the dimension of Being and of Truth is analysed. Furthermore, Book IV is connected to book VII: the programme of education is thought out in order to strengthen the rational part of the individuals. Moreover, Books VIII and IX show the consequences that would happen in case of the lack of an appropriate education. In my analysis, the causes of the presence of Evil will be shown through some passages of the Republic: I shall first describe Plato’s definition of justice and of injustice; then, I shall examine a passage in which Plato describes the presence of criminal instincts within us; afterwards, I shall take into consideration images of the soul confirming the presence of morally difficult elements within our own nature. The way out from the problems represented by the structure of our soul consists, in my opinion, in the progressive assimilation to the realm of Being. The whole description of the degeneration both of individuals and of constitutions in Republic Books VIII and IX shows that something within us morally does not function: this produces every kind of troubles in individuals, in nations and, in general, in human history. Actually, men are always exposed to the risk of moral degeneration: the weaker the philosophical education is, the greater is the risk of the moral degeneration. The common point in the different forms of degeneration is the absence of the factor of education, that is, without education there is a degeneration of individuals and of society. It is true that the degeneration can happen in any case; without education, though, the degeneration cannot be limited.
2022
The aspect of Plato’s theory of the soul: on soul’s constitution, education and developments - PDF-Powerpoint for the NATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE, DEDICATED TO WORLD PHILOSOPHY DAY - Philosophical Sciences Department at the Union of Scientists in Bulgaria, Sofia, 17th November 2022. In my inquiry, I shall analyse some aspects of the association among being, knowledge and soul in Plato. For my investigation, I shall consider passages from Republic, Phaedrus, Phaedo, Timaeus and Laws. My attention will be directed to the education and transformation of the soul. Through the process of learning, the individual becomes acquainted with the entities belonging to the dimension of being: this acquaintance brings about a complete transformation of the individual. The presence or absence of knowledge determines the moral ascent or the moral descent of the individual. Basing on the education programme of Republic book vii, I shall expose Plato’s aims, which consist in bringing the soul from the dimension of becoming to the dimension of being. The educational thread of the Republic proves to be, among other things, a progressive diminution of the influence of the senses and a corresponding growth of the rational part within the individual soul. The knowledge of the dimension of being leads the soul to the development of the rational part, to the acquisition of internal stability, to the harmony between the different components and to the correct composition of the elements of the soul. The education programme turns out to be a road of liberation from the bonds of the sense dimension. Correspondingly, the absence of knowledge is the cause of the individual’s liability to instability and moral degeneration: the effects of the absence of knowledge are described by Plato throughout his exposition of the degeneration of the forms of individuals and the forms of constitutions in Republic books viii and ix.
from: Self-Knowledge in Ancient Philosophy: The Eighth Keeling Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy. Edited by: Fiona Leigh, Oxford University Press (2020)., 2020
Many, but not all, discussions of self-knowledge in Plato take place at a generic level -- knowing that one is human, that one is mortal, that one is a soul using a body as a tool. The Republic and the Seventh Letter offer models for richer self-understanding.