De Mundo
De Mundo

Author: Aristotle

Publisher:

Published: 1955

Total Pages: 454

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Traces the history of clothes emphasizing their changing styles from prehistory to the present day.

Forgotten Ancient Commentaries on Aristotle’s ›Sophistical Refutations‹
Forgotten Ancient Commentaries on Aristotle’s ›Sophistical Refutations‹

Author: Victor Gysembergh

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2023-12-18

Total Pages: 114

ISBN-13: 3111332969

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

How were Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations read in Antiquity? What were the perceived intentions, messages and problems of this treatise, the last within the Organon? This book presents newly discovered fragments from the lost ancient commentaries by Aspasios, Herminos, Alexander and Syrianos on Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations. After presenting the fragments, which were preserved by the humanist and philosopher Agostino Nifo (ca. 1473-1538), the introduction makes the case for their authenticity. There follows an edition of the fragments, accompanied by a translation and detailed commentary. This material sheds new light on the history and philosophy of logic, and especially on the theory of fallacies. It further documents how the Sophistical Refutations were interpreted and used in ancient Aristotelianism. Finally, it complements our knowledge of the philosophy of two major Aristotelians, Herminos and his pupil, the great Alexander of Aphrodisias. This study is of immediate relevance to readers with an interest in philosophy, logic, history, and/or Greco-Roman antiquity. Because it concerns the use and abuse of fallacies, and ways to counteract them, it also has countless practical applications in all fields of mundane life.

The Last Writings of Thomas S. Kuhn
The Last Writings of Thomas S. Kuhn

Author: Thomas S. Kuhn

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2024-05-08

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0226833313

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A must-read follow-up to The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, one of the most important books of the twentieth century. This book contains the text of Thomas S. Kuhn’s unfinished book, The Plurality of Worlds: An Evolutionary Theory of Scientific Development, which Kuhn himself described as a return to the central claims of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and the problems that it raised but did not resolve. The Plurality of Worlds is preceded by two related texts that Kuhn publicly delivered but never published in English: his paper “Scientific Knowledge as Historical Product” and his Shearman Memorial Lectures, “The Presence of Past Science.” An introduction by the editor describes the origins and structure of The Plurality of Worlds and sheds light on its central philosophical problems. Kuhn’s aims in his last writings are bold. He sets out to develop an empirically grounded theory of meaning that would allow him to make sense of both the possibility of historical understanding and the inevitability of incommensurability between past and present science. In his view, incommensurability is fully compatible with a robust notion of the real world that science investigates, the rationality of scientific change, and the idea that scientific development is progressive.

Clement and Scriptural Exegesis
Clement and Scriptural Exegesis

Author: H. Clifton Ward

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022-06-16

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 0192678124

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

How might one describe early Christian exegesis? This question has given rise to a significant reassessment of patristic exegetical practice in recent decades, and H. Clifton Ward makes a new contribution to this reappraisal of patristic exegesis against the background of ancient Greco-Roman education. In tracing the practices of literary analysis and rhetorical memory in the ancient sources, Clement and Scriptural Exegesis argues that there were two modes of archival thinking at the heart of the ancient exegetical enterprise: the grammatical archive, a repository of the textual practices learned from the grammarian, and the memorial archive, the constellations of textual memories from which meaning is constructed. In a new treatment of the theological exegesis of Clement of Alexandria-the first study of its kind in English scholarship-this study suggests that an assessment of the reading practices that Clement employs from these two ancient archives reveals his deep commitment to scriptural interpretation as the foundation of a theological imagination. Clement employs various textual practices from the grammatical archive to navigate the spectrum between the clarity and obscurity of Scripture, resulting in the striking conclusion that the figurative referent of Scripture is one twofold mystery, bound up in the incarnation of Christ and the higher knowledge of the divine life. This twofold scriptural mystery is discovered in an act of rhetorical invention as Clement reads Scripture to uncover the constellations of texts-about God, Christ, and humanity-that frame its entire narrative.

Aristotle and the Animals
Aristotle and the Animals

Author: Claudia Zatta

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2022-03-30

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 1000533891

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

With a novel approach to Aristotle’s zoology, this study looks at animals as creatures of nature (physis) and reveals a scientific discourse that, in response to his predecessors, exiles logos as reason and pursues the logos intrinsic to animals’ bodies, empowering them to sense the world and live. The volume explores Aristotle’s conception of animals through a discussion of his ad hoc methodology to study them, including the pertinence of the soul to such a study, and the rise of zoology as a branch of natural philosophy. For Aristotle, animal life stems from the body in the space of existence and revolves around sensation, which is entwined with pleasure, pain, and desire. Lack of human reason is irrelevant to an understanding of the richness of animal life and cognition. In sum, the reader will acquire knowledge of the "animal as such," which lay at the core of Aristotle’s agenda and required a study of its own, separate from plants and the elements. This book is intended for students of the history of science, ancient biology, and philosophy and all those who, from different fields, are interested in animal studies and the human-animal relation.

The Enthymeme
The Enthymeme

Author: James Fredal

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2020-03-12

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 0271086815

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Central to rhetorical theory, the enthymeme is most often defined as a truncated syllogism. Suppressing a premise that the audience already knows, this rhetorical device relies on the audience to fill in the missing information, thereby making the argument more persuasive. James Fredal argues that this view of the enthymeme is wrong. Presenting a new exegesis of Aristotle and classic texts of Attic oratory, Fredal shows that the standard reading of Aristotle’s enthymeme is inaccurate—and that Aristotle himself distorts what enthymemes are and how they work. From close analysis of the Rhetoric, Topics, and Analytics, Fredal finds that Aristotle’s enthymeme is, in fact, not syllogistic and is different from the enthymeme as it was used by Attic orators such as Lysias and Isaeus. Fredal argues that the enthymeme, as it was originally understood and used, is a technique of storytelling, primarily forensic storytelling, aimed at eliciting from the audience an inference about a narrative. According to Fredal, narrative rather than formal logic is the seedbed of the enthymeme and of rhetoric more broadly. The Enthymeme reassesses a fundamental doctrine of rhetorical instruction, clarifies the viewpoints of the tradition, and presents a new form of rhetoric for further study and use. This groundbreaking book will be welcomed by scholars and students of classical rhetoric, the history of rhetoric, and rhetorical theory as well as communications studies, classical studies, and classical philosophy.