The Development of Dialectic from Plato to Aristotle
The Development of Dialectic from Plato to Aristotle

Author: Jakob Leth Fink

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2012-11-01

Total Pages: 365

ISBN-13: 1139789287

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The period from Plato's birth to Aristotle's death (427–322 BC) is one of the most influential and formative in the history of Western philosophy. The developments of logic, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and science in this period have been investigated, controversies have arisen and many new theories have been produced. But this is the first book to give detailed scholarly attention to the development of dialectic during this decisive period. It includes chapters on topics such as: dialectic as interpersonal debate between a questioner and a respondent; dialectic and the dialogue form; dialectical methodology; the dialectical context of certain forms of arguments; the role of the respondent in guaranteeing good argument; dialectic and presentation of knowledge; the interrelations between written dialogues and spoken dialectic; and definition, induction and refutation from Plato to Aristotle. The book contributes to the history of philosophy and also to the contemporary debate about what philosophy is.

Dialectic after Plato and Aristotle
Dialectic after Plato and Aristotle

Author: Thomas Bénatouïl

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-11-15

Total Pages: 405

ISBN-13: 1108676251

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Ancient dialectic started as an art of refutation and evolved into a science akin to our logic, grammar and linguistics. Scholars of ancient philosophy have traditionally focused on Plato's and Aristotle's dialectic without paying much attention to the diverse conceptions and uses of dialectic presented by philosophers after the classical period. To bridge this gap, this volume aims at a comprehensive understanding of the competing Hellenistic and Imperial definitions of dialectic and their connections with those of the classical period. It starts from the Megaric school of the fourth century BCE and the early Peripatetics, via Epicurus, the Stoics, the Academic sceptics and Cicero, to Sextus Empiricus and Galen in the second century CE. The philosophical foundations and various uses of dialectic are closely analysed and systematically examined together with the numerous objections that were raised against them.

Plato's Laughter
Plato's Laughter

Author: Sonja Madeleine Tanner

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2017-11-14

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 1438467389

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Plato was described as a boor and it was said that he never laughed out loud. Yet his dialogues abound with puns, jokes, and humor. Sonja Madeleine Tanner argues that in Plato's dialogues Socrates plays a comical hero who draws heavily from the tradition of comedy in ancient Greece, but also reforms laughter to be applicable to all persons and truly shaming to none. Socrates introduces a form of self-reflective laughter that encourages, rather than stifles, philosophical inquiry. Laughter in the dialogues—both explicit and implied—suggests a view of human nature as incongruous with ourselves, simultaneously falling short of, and superseding, our own capacities. What emerges is a picture of human nature that bears a striking resemblance to Socrates' own, laughable depiction, one inspired by Dionysus, but one that remains ultimately intractable. The book analyzes specific instances of laughter and the comical from the Apology, Laches, Charmides, Cratylus, Euthydemus, and the Symposium to support this, and to further elucidate the philosophical consequences of recognizing Plato's laughter.

Plato's Parmenides
Plato's Parmenides

Author: Samuel Scolnicov

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2003-07-08

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 0520925114

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Of all Plato’s dialogues, the Parmenides is notoriously the most difficult to interpret. Scholars of all periods have disagreed about its aims and subject matter. The interpretations have ranged from reading the dialogue as an introduction to the whole of Platonic metaphysics to seeing it as a collection of sophisticated tricks, or even as an elaborate joke. This work presents an illuminating new translation of the dialogue together with an extensive introduction and running commentary, giving a unified explanation of the Parmenides and integrating it firmly within the context of Plato's metaphysics and methodology. Scolnicov shows that in the Parmenides Plato addresses the most serious challenge to his own philosophy: the monism of Parmenides and the Eleatics. In addition to providing a serious rebuttal to Parmenides, Plato here re-formulates his own theory of forms and participation, arguments that are central to the whole of Platonic thought, and provides these concepts with a rigorous logical and philosophical foundation. In Scolnicov's analysis, the Parmenides emerges as an extension of ideas from Plato's middle dialogues and as an opening to the later dialogues. Scolnicov’s analysis is crisp and lucid, offering a persuasive approach to a complicated dialogue. This translation follows the Greek closely, and the commentary affords the Greekless reader a clear understanding of how Scolnicov’s interpretation emerges from the text. This volume will provide a valuable introduction and framework for understanding a dialogue that continues to generate lively discussion today.

Aristotle on Teleology
Aristotle on Teleology

Author: Monte Ransome Johnson

Publisher: Clarendon Press

Published: 2005-11-03

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0191536504

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Monte Johnson examines one of the most controversial aspects of Aristiotle's natural philosophy: his teleology. Is teleology about causation or explanation? Does it exclude or obviate mechanism, determinism, or materialism? Is it focused on the good of individual organisms, or is god or man the ultimate end of all processes and entities? Is teleology restricted to living things, or does it apply to the cosmos as a whole? Does it identify objectively existent causes in the world, or is it merely a heuristic for our understanding of other causal processes? Johnson argues that Aristotle's aporetic approach drives a middle course between these traditional oppositions, and avoids the dilemma, frequently urged against teleology, between backwards causation and anthropomorphism. Although these issues have been debated with extraordinary depth by Aristotle scholars, and touched upon by many in the wider philosophical and scientific community as well, there has been no comprehensive historical treatment of the issue. Aristotle is commonly considered the inventor of teleology, although the precise term originated in the eighteenth century. But if teleology means the use of ends and goals in natural science, then Aristotle was rather a critical innovator of teleological explanation. Teleological notions were widespread among his predecessors, but Aristotle rejected their conception of extrinsic causes such as mind or god as the primary causes for natural things. Aristotle's radical alternative was to assert nature itself as an internal principle of change and an end, and his teleological explanations focus on the intrinsic ends of natural substances - those ends that benefit the natural thing itself. Aristotle's use of ends was subsequently conflated with incompatible 'teleological' notions, including proofs for the existence of a providential or designer god, vitalism and animism, opposition to mechanism and non-teleological causation, and anthropocentrism. Johnson addresses these misconceptions through an elaboration of Aristotle's methodological statements, as well as an examination of the explanations actually offered in the scientific works.

Brill's Companion to German Platonism
Brill's Companion to German Platonism

Author: Alan Kim

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2019-02-04

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 9004285164

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For six centuries, Plato has held German philosophy in his grip. Brill’s Companion to German Platonism examines how German thinkers have interpreted Plato and how in turn he has decisively influenced their thought. Under the editorship of Alan Kim, this companion gathers the work of scholars from four continents, writing on figures from Cusanus and Leibniz to Husserl and Heidegger. Taken together, their contributions reveal a characteristic pattern of “transcendental” interpretations of the mind’s relation to the Platonic Forms. In addition, the volume examines the importance that the dialogue form itself has assumed since the nineteenth century, with essays on Schleiermacher, the Tübingen School, and Gadamer. Brill’s Companion to German Platonism presents both Plato and his German interpreters in a fascinating new light.

Plato's Logic
Plato's Logic

Author: Tommi Juhani Hanhijärvi

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2019-03-22

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 0761870903

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Plato uses a logic without defining or naming it, somewhat as verbs are used in daily life without saying “verbs” or defining them. Linguists may define them. Similarly, Plato’s Logic identifies Plato’s logic: Plato does not. He lives by it. The logic in question is used to track down first causes. These begin or end causal series of all four of Aristotle’s types of cause. Thus for instance God in the Laws is the first mover in a chain of movers, so God is the first efficient cause. The Republic’s Form of the Good, again, is the highest authority or order, and due to this it is the first formal cause. The Symposium’s Form of Beauty is the first final cause, that is the ultimate reward. The Phaedo’s psyche is a first material cause, being simple (and therefore immortal). This is not a logic in Aristotle’s sense, but luckily that is not the only sense there is. Plato’s logic is relational, not Aristotelian. This is because the causes are easiest to interpret as causal relations. Then the causal relations form series, and the series begin or end in Forms or Gods. In this book’s formal vocabulary Plato’s logic is always of the form aRbRc… zRz (if the terminus is a God) or aRbRc… zRR (if the terminus is a Form). All of Plato’s writing is not quite like this, that is true. But his wildest and most characteristic writings are. He does admittedly write many other things as well. But the core of his philosophy consists of his hyperbolical claims about the Forms and Gods, and so they deserve to be in the limelight. The general idea of this book is that Plato’s idealistic demands make sense in relational idioms. The idealism is not nonsensical or fallacious but rational. Speculation is a duty, not a joke or a sin. Numerous recent scholars are attacked because they belittle it.

The Aporetic Tradition in Ancient Philosophy
The Aporetic Tradition in Ancient Philosophy

Author: George Karamanolis

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 1107110157

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The first comprehensive study of the function and value of aporia, or puzzlement, as a key tool in ancient philosophical enquiry.

Plato's Dialectical Ethics
Plato's Dialectical Ethics

Author: Hans-Georg Gadamer

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 1991-01-01

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 9780300048070

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Plato's Dialectical Ethics, Gadamer's earliest work, has now been translated into English for the first time. This work, published in 1931 and reprinted in 1967 and 1982, is still important today, both as one of the most extensive and imaginative interpretations of Plato's Philebus and as an introduction to Gadamer's thinking, showing how his influential hermeneutics emerged from his application of his teacher Martin Heidegger's phenomenological method to classical texts and problems.