scholarly journals NOUS AND AISTHĒSIS: TWO COGNITIVE FACULTIES IN ARISTOTLE

Méthexis ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
ADRIANA RENERO
Keyword(s):  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
The Core ◽  
Fundamental Distinction ◽  
Cognitive Faculties

In disagreement with Claudia Baracchi's controversial thesis that there is a 'simultaneity and indissolubility' if not an 'identity' of intelligence (nous) and perception (aisthēsis) at the core of Aristotle's philosophy, I will argue that Aristotle maintains a fundamental distinction between these cognitive faculties. My goal in this paper is to examine specific parts of two central and complex passages, VI.8, 1142al2-30 and VI. 11, 1143a33-bl5, from the Nicomachean Ethics to show that Baracchi's view is unpersuasive. I will show that Aristotle considers nous to be a different capacity than mere perception and one through which particulars and indemonstrable principles become intelligible. Moreover, I will show that Aristotle considers that the objects of nous differ in kind from those that sensation (our senses) and perception (inference from our senses) grasp. After examining critically Baracchi's thesis in light of a close reading of those two relevant passages, I will conclude the paper by showing the significance of Aristotle's claim that a state is defined in terms of its objects of apprehension for understanding the distinction between nous and aisthēsis.

Lenin’s Philosophy: A New Dialectics of Revolution?

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Coombs
Keyword(s):  
Dialectical Materialism ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Marxist Philosophy ◽  
Science Of Logic ◽  
The Core

This chapter argues against the Hegelian-Marxist narrative, in which Lenin’s reading of the Science of Logic in 1914 led him to refound Marxist dialectics. Through a close reading of Lenin’s Philosophical Notebooks it is shown that although he made withering remarks about Engels’s and Plekhanov’s dialectics, this did not lead Lenin to reject the core principles of dialectical materialism. Indeed, it is demonstrated that Lenin neither intended to nor accomplished a refoundation of Marxist dialectics in 1914. The notion of quantity-quality leaps Lenin adds to his works from the time onwards show him less as an innovator in Marxist philosophy and more as a keeper of the flame of dialectical materialist orthodoxy.

Getting to the Core of Close Reading: What do we Really Know and What Remains to be Seen?

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-116
Author(s):  
Jodi G. Welsch ◽  
Jennifer Jones Powell ◽  
Valerie J. Robnolt
Keyword(s):  
Close Reading ◽  
The Core

scholarly journals Forgotten Memories: Stephanie Ye’s Seascrapers

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-98
Author(s):  
Daniella Ysabel B. dela Cruz
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Writing Style ◽  
The Core

The paper aims to perform a close reading of Singaporean short story author Stephanie Ye. Using formalism as the core discipline, the researcher aims to develop and explain the concepts of time and memory presented by the author. In addition, a critique of the writing style and syntax in relation to the themes of the story will be tackled as well.  

Mary in Medieval Prayer: The Hours of the Virgin

2019 ◽  
pp. 337-351
Author(s):  
Rachel Fulton Brown
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
The Core ◽  
The World ◽  
The Hours ◽  
Hearts And Minds ◽  
The Temple

By the later Middle Ages, every man, woman, or child, cleric or lay, who could read would have known the Hours or ‘Little Office’ of the Virgin Mary. Even those who could not read the Office in full would have known to recite its opening antiphon (Ave Maria) at the appropriate hours of the day. This chapter argues that a close reading of the texts of the Hours themselves is necessary to appreciate fully the place that Mary held in the hearts and minds of her medieval devotees. Through the hymns, antiphons, and psalms that make up the core of her Office, Mary is revealed as above all the temple in which God made himself present to the world, the Lord whom the psalmist called upon to make his face shine on his people. It was with this understanding of Mary that her medieval devotees sought to serve her through the recitation of her Hours.

Aristotle on Co-causes of One’s Dispositions

Elenchos ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 107-126
Author(s):  
Filip Grgić
Keyword(s):  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Social Environment ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Main Concern ◽  
Final Cause ◽  
General Objection

Abstract In this paper I offer a close reading of Aristotle’s argument in the Nicomachean Ethics 3.5.1114a31–b25 and try to show that despite considerable interpretive difficulties, some clear structure can nevertheless be discerned. While Aristotle’s main concern in this passage is to refute the so-called asymmetry thesis – the thesis that virtue is voluntary, but vice is not – there is much more in it than just a dialectical encounter. Aristotle wants to respond to a more general objection, which has as its target the voluntariness of both virtue and vice, and which is provoked by some of his ideas in EN 3.4 and 3.5. Further, I will try to show why Aristotle thinks that we are only co-causes (sunaitioi) of our dispositions. In my opinion, his reasons have nothing to do with compatibilist or incompatibilist considerations as they are commonly understood in modern philosophy. In particular, he does not want to argue that nature (as well as social environment, early educators, etc.) is aitios of our dispositions just as ourselves are. Rather, we are co-causes of our dispositions because we are (efficient) causal origins of actions without which a certain good, which is the final cause of our actions and of our dispositions, cannot be achieved. Finally, I will try to show that Aristotle’s discussion implies that there is no more to the responsibility for dispositions than there is to the responsibility for actions.

The Conclusion of the Guide of the Perplexed in View of the Conclusion of The Nicomachean Ethics

AJS Review ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 334-347
Author(s):  
Assaf Malach
Keyword(s):  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Moral Virtues ◽  
The Core ◽  
Significant Addition ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Guide Of The Perplexed ◽  
Core Issues

One of the well-known conundrums of the Guide of the Perplexed, found in its last chapter, pertains to Maimonides's contradictory presentation of the hierarchy of human virtues and perfections. This article draws attention to a parallel between the paradox posed by the closing paragraphs of the Guide and the contradiction found in the concluding paragraphs of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, a parallel that has never been noted by students of Maimonides. The intention here is not to make a categorical statement about Maimonides's position on the core issues of the relationship between the intellect and the moral virtues. Rather, it is to shed new light on the unexpected structure of the last chapter, and thus also provide a significant addition to the important debate about Maimonides's position on these issues.

Bodhisattva of Progress

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin R. Ritzinger
Keyword(s):  
Close Reading ◽  
The Core ◽  
Meaningful Relationship

This chapter offers an analysis of Taixu’s Maitreyan theology through a close reading of his commentaries on the Three Essentials—the texts he identified as the cult’s foundation. These were the “Chapter on Knowing Reality,” the Yoga Bodhisattva Prātimokṣa, and the Sutra of Maitreya’s Ascent. It argues that Taixu found in these texts, and in his interpretations augmented, indigenous analogues to the key values that inspired him as a young anarchist: science, a revolutionary ethic, and utopia. These texts further allowed him to bring these values into meaningful relationship with the core Buddhist good of Buddhahood.

Do the ten Mohist theses represent Mozi's thought? Reading the masters with a focus on mottos

2014 ◽  
Vol 77 (2) ◽  
pp. 337-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carine Defoort
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Philosophy ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Difference

AbstractIn order to introduce Mozi's thought, almost every contemporary textbook on Chinese philosophy refers to his ten novel theses or dogmas, which have been preserved as the titles of the Core chapters (8–37): to elevate the worthy, to conform upward, to care for all, to condemn military aggression, to moderate expenses as well as burials, to acknowledge the will of Heaven and the percipient ghosts, and to condemn music as well as fatalism. Through a close reading of the Mozi and other early sources written by or attributed to masters, this paper argues, first, that these ten core ideas may not have been promoted by the earliest spokesmen of Mohism but gradually emerged while various layers of the book Mozi were written, and, second, that these ten ideas were not consistently attributed to early Mohism by Zhou and Han masters: their association of Mo with these specific mottos is limited and inconsistent. A focus on the most well-known motto – “care for all” – shows that there was no awareness of its belonging exclusively to one thinker or school. The difference between the earliest and the contemporary characterizations of Mozi sheds new light not only on early Mohism, but also on our preconceptions when reading early sources.

Aristotle, Tyranny, and the Small-Souled Subject

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-191
Author(s):  
Jordan Jochim
Keyword(s):  
Michel Foucault ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Subject Formation ◽  
The Social

Political theorists converge in identifying modern techniques of domination as habit-formative and psychologically invasive, in contrast to earlier, more blatantly coercive forms of repression. Putting Aristotle on tyranny in conversation with Michel Foucault on subject formation, this article argues for continuity across the pre- and postmodern divide. Through a close reading of the “three heads of tyranny” in Politics 5.11 (1314a13-29)—those being the tyrant’s efforts to form subjects who (1) have small thoughts (2) are distrustful of one another, and (3) are incapable of action—I argue that central to Aristotle’s account of tyrannical domination is how tyrants cultivate the ethical vice of “small-souledness” ( Nicomachean Ethics 1123b7), thus producing subjects with humbled desires for a proportionate distribution of political power. This article deepens our appreciation of the social and psychological registers of Aristotle’s theorization of domination and gives reasons for continuing to take Aristotle’s insights into tyranny seriously today.

The rebellion of Zhang Yuxian 張遇賢 (942–943)

2014 ◽  
Vol 77 (3) ◽  
pp. 523-545
Author(s):  
Johannes L. Kurz
Keyword(s):  
Southern China ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Historical Texts ◽  
The Core ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Original Area

AbstractThis paper is about a rebellion in southern China in the first half of the tenth century and its depiction in historical sources from the tenth to the seventeenth centuries. At the core of this study is Zhang Yuxian, the rebel leader, and his allegiance to a spirit. The latter suggested moving from Guangdong, the territory of the Southern Han empire (917–971), and the original area of the rebellion, to Jiangxi, the territory of the Southern Tang empire (937–976). The approach of the paper is twofold: first, it examines the historical setting and context; and second, through a close reading of some of the major features of the sources, such as the labelling of Zhang as ayaozei, the adoption of red clothes by the rebels, and so forth, the essay makes evident the close relationship and dependency between successive historical texts.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document