A Formal Anarchy - Toward an Artaudian Philosphy (Presented at Deleuze Studies, Rome) (original) (raw)

Eidos and Dynamis. The Intertwinement of Being and Logos in Plato’s Thought

2022

Series Dynamis. Il pensiero antico e la sua tradizione: studi e testi Editorial Board Francesco Aronadio, Bruno Centrone, Franco Ferrari, Francesco Fronterotta, Fiorinda Li Vigni Scientific Board Rachel Barney, Cristina D’Ancona, Christoph Helmig, Irmgard Männlein-Robert, Pierre-Marie Morel, Lidia Palumbo, Gretchen Reydams- Schils, Barbara Sattler, Mauro Serra, Amneris Roselli, Mauro Tulli, Gherardo Ugolini This volume presents a new reading of how ontology and language intertwine in Plato’s thought. The main idea is that the structure of reality determines how language works. Conversely, analysing Plato’s view on language is key to understanding his ontology. This work first focuses on Plato’s standard theory of Forms and the plurality of functions they perform with regard to thought, knowledge and language. The volume then provides a detailed interpretation of the first definition of episteme as perception in Plato’s Theaetetus, which is ultimately said to make language impossible. The main argument is that basic linguistic acts such as reference and predication rely on fundamental ontological grounds. Finally, the critique of the Theaetetus is connected to the complex account of true and false logoi in the Sophist. The result is a new interpretation of how language is connected to the ontology of kinds put forward in the Sophist, with particular regard to the nature of the kind Being. This book provides a detailed exegetical investigation into a crucial aspect of Plato’s thought, which can also be of interest to those working in metaphysics and philosophy of language. The publication is Open Access thanks to the generous support of the IISF: https://www.iisf.it/index.php/pubblicazioni-iisf/edizioni-iisf-press/eidos-and-dynamis-the-intertwinement-of-being-and-logos-in-plato-s-thought.html

Ordinary language and transcendence of ideas. On the phenomenological "reactivation" or “repetition” of Plato’s dialogues by Leo Strauss.

The paper aims to explain the interpretation of Plato’s doctrine of ideas as advanced by Leo Strauss in one of his first works dealing with Hobbes (The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: Its Basis and Its Genesis, 1935). According to this interpretation, the theory of the separate existence of ideas is specifically justified by Plato’s awareness that ordinary language is the only gateway to the ultimate causes of things. This interpretation is based, among others, on two passages in the Platonic dialogues, Phaedo 99 c-e and Republic 472 c-e. In the former Socrates speaks of the need to “take refuge in the logoi” in order to avoid being blinded by the sight of sensible things. In the latter, Socrates claims that the purpose of the inquiry into the nature of ideal republic is “not to demonstrate the possibility of the realization of this ideal". The paper shows that Leo Strauss’s hermeneutics of Plato was influenced by the teaching of Husserl and Heidegger, particularly by the need for a critique of the modern way of conceiving the relationship between theory and practice. The excursus on Plato in the book about Hobbes shows in an exemplary way the 'phenomenological function' that Strauss assigns to the hermeneutics of the ancient classics. According to Strauss, the Platonic dialogues and in particular the figure of Socrates shows that philosophy, understood as the pursuit of truth, can never neutralize the conflict with the doxa, understood as the order established by authority. Hence, Platonic dialogues have an intrinsically ‘political’ nature, which requires the reader to perform the difficult task of reactivating the process of liberation from captivity in the world of doxa.

Change and Contrariety: Problems Plato Set for Aristotle

1994

¡le^v v Contrariety and Change: Problems Plato Set for Aristotle James B ogen (P itzer C ollege) C harles M. Y ou n g (C larem ont G raduate S ch o o l) I P la to and A risto tle each b eliev e that contrariety is fundam ental to th e a n a ly sis o f ch an ge. A t Phaedo 7 0 e 4-7 1 a l0 , for exam ple, S ocrates sa y s that a ll th in gs th at h ave an origin (ε χ ε ι γ ε ν έ σ ι ν) and th at h ave contraries (ε ν α ν τ ία 1) com e to b e (γ ίγ ν ε τ α ι) ou t o f (έ κ) con traries. T hus i f som e th in g com es to b e greater, it m ust p reviou sly have been sm aller, and v ic e versa. O ther illu stratio n s in clu d e com in g to be w eaker, faster, better, and m ore ju st from th e contrary con d ition s. "E very th in g ," S ocrates sa y s, "com es to be in th is way: contrary th ings from con traries" (Phaedo 7 1 a 9-10). A risto tle ex p resses a rem arkably sim ilar view at

On Plato's Conception of Change

Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 2018

In this paper I argue that in several passages Plato sympathizes with the following view: sensible particulars undergo continuous, pervasive physical change; as a consequence, where there seems to be one and the same object which is identical through time, there is in fact a succession of impermanent objects numerically distinct from each other but similar to each other. I illustrate the difference between this view—which invites interesting comparisons with modern and contemporary theories—and other, superficially similar views which Plato criticizes. I also suggest that this view might contribute to explaining Plato’s contention that sensible particulars lack being and are confined to coming to be. Finally, I show that my interpretation was well attested in antiquity; and I put forward the hypothesis that part of the aim of certain Aristotelian claims about substance might be to correct Plato in this respect.

Criticising Change, from Theognis to Plato

Lexis, 2022

This paper examines how socio-political and cultural change is discussed in selected archaic and classical Greek texts (Thgn. 53-60, 287-92; Pherecr. fr. 155 K.-A.; Aristoph. Nub. 889-1023; Pl. Lg. 700a-701c). The analysis underlines the thematic, rhetorical and stylistic features and the moral preoccupations that are common to these sources, arguing that they all participate in an intertextual 'discourse on change'.