Freedom and Responsibility in Neoplatonist Thought

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ursula Coope
Keyword(s):  
First Principle ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
The One ◽  
Freedom And Responsibility

The Neoplatonists have a perfectionist view of freedom: an entity is free to the extent that it succeeds in making itself good. Free entities are wholly in control of themselves: they are self-determining, self-constituting, and self-knowing. Neoplatonist philosophers argue that such freedom is only possible for nonbodily things. The human soul is free insofar as it rises above bodily things and engages in intellection, but when it turns its desires to bodily things, it is drawn under the sway of fate and becomes enslaved. This book discusses this notion of freedom, and its relation to questions about responsibility. It explains the important role of notions of self-reflexivity in Neoplatonist accounts of both freedom and responsibility. Part I sets out the puzzles Neoplatonist philosophers face about freedom and responsibility and explains how these puzzles arise from earlier discussions. Part II looks at the metaphysical underpinnings of the Neoplatonist notion of freedom (concentrating especially on the views of Plotinus and Proclus). In what sense (if any) is the ultimate first principle of everything (the One) free? If everything else is under this ultimate first principle, how can anything other than the One be free? What is the connection between freedom and nonbodiliness? Part III looks at questions about responsibility, arising from this perfectionist view of freedom. Why are human beings responsible for their behaviour, in a way that other animals are not? If we are enslaved when we act viciously, how can we be to blame for our vicious actions and choices?

Art and the Senses for Ocean Conservation

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosabelle Boswell
Keyword(s):  
World Ocean ◽  
Effective Communication ◽  
Sensory Experience ◽  
Ecological Change ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The One ◽  
Conservation Plans ◽  
Ocean Conservation

This paper considers the role of art in ocean conservation. Drawing on the presentations and work of two artists featured in the One Ocean Hub Art and Emotions webinar hosted during the UN World Ocean Week, the paper focuses specifically on the sensorial nature of art and of human beings and the role that art can play in advancing ocean conservation. The main argument offered is that ocean conservation plans and policies should consider the importance of humans to ocean conservation, the importance of human artistic endeavour to ocean activism and finally the importance of the sensory to human experience. Acknowledging and recognising the importance of human sensory experience in relation to the sea, can nuance existing discourses of ocean use and benefits, revealing human priorities and potential obstacles to conservation. Third, by leveraging human sensory expression through art, ocean conservation advocates may be able to refine and produce more effective communication for ocean conservation. Finally, recognising the sensory (and the artistic) is key to reorienting humanity as it enters a post-anthropocentric age, marked by dramatic ecological change.

Plotinus (AD 204/5–70)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
EyjÓlfur Kjalar Emilsson
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Philosophical Movement ◽  
Ultimate Cause ◽  
The One

Plotinus was the founder of Neoplatonism, the dominant philosophical movement of the Graeco-Roman world in late antiquity, and the most significant thinker of the movement. He is sometimes described as the last great pagan philosopher.His writings, the so called Enneads, are preserved as whole. While an earnest follower of Plato, he reveals other philosophical influences as well, in particular those of Aristotle and Stoicism. Plotinus developed a metaphysics of intelligible causes of the sensible world and the human soul. The ultimate cause of everything is ‘the One’ or ‘the Good’. It is absolutely simple and cannot be grasped by thought or given any positive determination. The One has as its external act the universal mind or ‘Intellect’. The Intellect’s thoughts are the Platonic Forms, the eternal and unchanging paradigms of which sensible things are imperfect images. This thinking of the forms is Intellect’s internal activity. Its external act is a level of cosmic soul, which produces the sensible realm and gives life to the embodied organisms in it. Soul is thus the lowest intelligible cause that immediately is immediately in contact with the sensible realm. Plotinus, however, insists that the soul retains its intelligible character such as nonspatiality and unchangeability through its dealings with the sensible. Thus he is an ardent soul-body dualist. Human beings stand on the border between the realms: through their bodily life they belong to the sensible, but the human soul has its roots in the intelligible realm. Plotinus sees philosophy as the vehicle of the soul’s return to its intelligible roots. While standing firmly in the tradition of Greek rationalism and being a philosopher of unusual abilities himself, Plotinus shares some of the spirit of the religious salvation movements characteristic of his epoch.

scholarly journals Hearts, desires and behavioural patterns: Debating human nature in ancient China

2011 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert H. Gassmann
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Early China ◽  
Historical Reconstruction ◽  
Ancient China ◽  
Behavioural Patterns ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One

AbstractThinkers in the Zhànguó period of Chinese history debated intensely whether men were by nature “good” or “bad”. This debate has for many years been an important focus of sinological interest, but usually these properties were not attributed to men, but rather to so-called “human nature” (xìng 性) – thus, in effect, mirroring well-known (and problematic) “European” positions and discussions. The aim of this paper is, on the one hand, to redirect attention to the original Zhànguó positions and to explore the reasons for their variance by offering novel and close historical readings of relevant passages, and on the other, to propose a viable historical reconstruction of the common anthropological assumptions underlying these positions by blending it with the traces of a dominant cognitive image present in the texts. This calls for a systematic rethinking of the role of hearts (in the plural), desires, and behavioural patterns in their interplay and as elements of a concept of the psychological build of human beings current in early China.

scholarly journals The Soul, the Virtues, and the Human Good: Comments on Aristotle's Moral Psychology

Labyrinth ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 137
Author(s):  
Kathi Beier
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
Philosophy Of Psychology ◽  
Ethical Inquiry ◽  
Aristotle's Ethics ◽  
The One ◽  
Modern Moral Philosophy

In modern moral philosophy, virtue ethics has developed into one of the major approaches to ethical inquiry. As it seems, however, it is faced with a kind of perplexity similar to the one that Elisabeth Anscombe has described in Modern moral philosophy with regard to ethics in general. For if we assume that Anscombe is right in claiming that virtue ethics ought to be grounded in a sound philosophy of psychology, modern virtue ethics seems to be baseless since it lacks or even avoids reflections on the human soul. To overcome this difficulty, the paper explores the conceptual connections between virtue and soul in Aristotle's ethics. It claims that the human soul is the principle of virtue since reflections on the soul help us to define the nature of virtue, to understand the different kinds of virtues, and to answer the question why human beings need the virtues at all. 

androgyny

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luc Brisson
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Identity ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Object Choice ◽  
The One ◽  
Sexual Object

In the modern use, “bisexuality” refers to sexual object choice, whereas “androgyny” refers to sexual identity. In ancient Greece and Rome, however, these terms sometimes refer to human beings born with characteristics of both sexes, and more frequently to an adult male who plays the role of a woman, or to a woman who has the appearance of a man, both physically and morally. In mythology, having both sexes simultaneously or successively characterises, on the one hand, the first human beings, animals, or even plants from which arose male and female, and on the other, mediators between human beings and gods, the living and the dead, men and women, past and future, and human generations. Thus androgyny and bisexuality were used as a tools to cope with one’s biological, social, and even fictitious environment.

Music and the Soul

2020 ◽  
pp. 612-628
Author(s):  
Eleonora Rocconi
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Cultural Background ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
Systematic Theory ◽  
Musical Performances ◽  
Intellectual Milieu ◽  
Sympathetic Responses

The belief that music can affect the human soul was deeply rooted in ancient Greece. Many philosophers tried to describe the sympathetic responses of human beings to musical performances and their ethical consequences, even without framing their remarks within a consistent and systematic theory. “Music and the Soul” aims at analyzing the cultural background and the contemporary intellectual milieu in which Plato operated, in order to assess earlier or alternative views of the ethical power of mousikē overshadowed by his influential theorization. To this end, the chapter focuses on the role of music in the early Pythagorean environment and the evidence for sophistic (in the broadest sense) epideixeis on the psychagogic effects of music and the anti-ethical reaction documented by the fourth-century Hibeh papyrus.

The Effect of Flipped Education on Undergraduate Student Critical Thinking Ability

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 59-67
Author(s):  
Chantana Viriyavejakul
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Flipped Classroom ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Thinking Ability ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Established Norm ◽  
Critical Thinker

As much as we do not like to admit it, the world we live in is nothing like the world of 50 years ago. A visitor from 1940 would not recognize the place he had come from, in styles of dress, doing things, and architecture too. People have had to adapt their lives as technology advanced, and in the last 50 years, more technological advancements happened than in 300 years before that. In our world where everything is perpetually changing, each person must make dynamic changes to be an effective agent for a better future. With all the changes that have occurred over the years of education, the one thing that has almost never changed is the need for all people to be critical thinking people and aware of everything else around them. Human beings are probably the only creatures in the world that are capable of critical thinking, and therefore are the sole agents of future changes. The likely candidates who are ready to take over this role of critical thinking is the group of undergraduate students who are soon to enter the world's economy. This paper will closely scrutinize the role of the critical thinker and elaborate on the methods to measure which can be suitable for all students to learn from so that they in turn can become critical thinkers. This will help affect the ever more necessary future changes for the continual betterment of the world and elucidate the critical thinking measurement methods that will be suitable to use with undergraduate students of all places and levels making it able to reveal, grade, and assess this skillset, which is ultimately important, but difficult to quantify. In this study, the author introduces the addition of a reversed system, the flipped classroom, in conjunction with the established norm of teaching methods.

NATURE IN ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS AND POLITICS

2007 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Kraut
Keyword(s):  
Human Development ◽  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
External Environment ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
Ethical Life ◽  
Cooperative Relationships ◽  
Aristotle's Ethics ◽  
Treat All

Aristotle's doctrine that human beings are political animals is, in part, an empirical thesis, and posits an inclination to enter into cooperative relationships, even apart from the instrumental benefits of doing so. Aristotle's insight is that human cooperation rests on a non-rational propensity to trust even strangers, when conditions are favorable. Turning to broader questions about the role of nature in human development, I situate Aristotle's attitude towards our natural propensities between two extremes: he rejects both the view that we must bow to whatever nature dictates, and also the view that nature is generally or always to be suppressed or overcome. This middle position requires that Aristotle hold nature and goodness apart, so that the latter can serve as a standard for evaluating the former. He holds that nature does not treat all human beings alike: just as some are handicapped in their development by a deficiency in their natural abilities or propensities, others are extraordinarily fortunate and have so powerful a disposition to act well that they easily acquire good habits and skills of practical reasoning. Further, he recognizes that sociable inclinations and natural virtues have to compete in the human soul with other natural forces that make ethical life extraordinarily difficult. That is why things so often go so badly for us: we need not only to subdue the external environment, but to overcome certain inner natural obstacles as well. Even so, for Aristotle ethical life is not generally alienated from nature, as it is for other philosophers.

scholarly journals Divine and angelic cognition in St. Thomas Aquinas

2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-38
Author(s):  
Predrag Milidrag
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Future Contingents ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
Summa Theologiae ◽  
Structural Symmetry ◽  
The One ◽  
Active Intellect

In the first part of the Summa theologiae St. Thomas Aquinas analyzes the cognition in God, angels and human beings; he does that by comparing and juxtaposing them. On the one side, the questions concerning divine cognition, such as the identity of the divine cognition and the divine substance, its nondiscursivity, its scope or future contingents are considered in the articles dedicated to the angels. On the other side, the proper characteristics of the human cognition in the part of the Summa on human soul, such as the active intellect, lack of inborn intelligible species, the inductive procedure in the abstracting from sense cognition, the cognition of the particulars, those problems are analyzed in the part on angelic cognition too. So, there is a structural symmetry of corresponding questions in the Summa on divine, angelic and human cognition.

scholarly journals MICROBIOCENOSIS, IMMUNE SYSTEM AND HEREDITY

2017 ◽  
pp. 116-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. A. Voevodin ◽  
G. N. Rozanova ◽  
A. V. Poddubikov ◽  
N. A. Mikhailova
Keyword(s):  
Dominant Role ◽  
Immunological Tolerance ◽  
External Stress ◽  
Maternal Influence ◽  
Biological Mechanism ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Mechanism Of Formation ◽  
Perinatal Programming ◽  
The One

The formation of pro-/eukaryotic systems is the general biological mechanism of formation and variability of the phenotype of plants, animals, human beings under the influence of external Wednesday, i.e. formation of adaptive potency conditions to external Wednesday that increases the «biological status» prokaryotic structures in sustaining body health. Prominent role in the formation of the phenotype of micro media, immunological tolerance (immunological programming), as a basis for the formation of individual pro-/eukaryotic interactions in perinatal age, the dominant role of maternal influence in this process on the one hand, micro-variability due to external stress impact on the other, makes it possible to consider pro-/eukaryotic interaction as a possible mechanism of perinatal programming and epigenetics inheritance and therefore, as one possible approach for correction of chronic and congenital pathology. This points to the need to improve monitoring ofthe formation microbiocenosis of children, improve the methods of assessment and correction.

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