Calling Philosophers Names

Author(s):  
Christopher Moore

This book provides a fresh account of the origins of the term philosophos or “philosopher” in ancient Greece. Tracing the evolution of the word's meaning over its first two centuries, the book shows how it first referred to aspiring political sages and advice-givers, then to avid conversationalists about virtue, and finally to investigators who focused on the scope and conditions of those conversations. Questioning the familiar view that philosophers from the beginning “loved wisdom” or merely “cultivated their intellect,” the book shows that they were instead mocked as laughably unrealistic for thinking that their incessant talking and study would earn them social status or political and moral authority. Taking a new approach to the history of early Greek philosophy, the book seeks to understand who were called philosophoi or “philosophers” and why, and how the use of and reflections on the word contributed to the rise of a discipline. The book demonstrates that a word that began in part as a wry reference to a far-flung political bloc came, hardly a century later, to mean a life of determined self-improvement based on research, reflection, and deliberation. Early philosophy dedicated itself to justifying its own dubious-seeming enterprise. And this original impulse to seek legitimacy holds novel implications for understanding the history of the discipline and its influence.

Author(s):  
О.А. Матвейчев

Гермотим из Клазомен – фигура в истории греческой философии, можно сказать, маргинальная. В современной литературе он появляется разве что в ряду других колдунов и мистиков VII–VI вв. до н.э. В таком статусе он включается и в собрание Дильса. Анализируя сведения о Гермотиме, автор ставит перед собой цель найти ему место среди малоазийских философов первой величины, которых считают основателями греческой философии. Различение духа (души) и материи (тела) станет основополагающим принципом греческой философии, понятие Ума (нуса) выступит фундаментом для системы Анаксагора, первого афинского философа, с которого, собственно, и начнется история классической греческой философии. Автор разделяет точку зрения Э. Доддса и др., что появление нового для Греции представления о различии души и тела коренится в северной (гиперборейской?) ментальности, привнесенной в греческий мир во времена колонизации VII–VI вв. до н.э., а возможно – и в более ранние. Ключевые слова: история философии, Древняя Греция, Гиперборея, Гермотим из Клазомен, Анаксагор, шаманизм, нус, душа, тело Hermotimus of Clazomenae can be called a marginal figure in the history of Greek philosophy. In modern literature he is mentioned only among other sorcerers and mystics of the VIIth–VIth centuries BC. The collection of Hermann Diels describes him in the same manner. Analyzing available information about Hermotimus, the author makes an attempt to place him among the primary Anatolian philosophers who are considered the founders of Greek philosophy. The distinction between spirit (soul) and matter (body) will become the fundamental principle of Greek philosophy; the concept of Nous (cosmic Mind) will be the foundation for the system of Anaxagoras, the first Athenian philosopher, from which, in fact, the history of classical Greek philosophy begins. The author shares the point of view of E. Dodds and others that the emergence of a new concept about the difference between soul and body in Greece is rooted in the northern (Hyperborean?) mentality introduced into the Greek world during the colonization of the VIIth–VIth centuries BC or possibly in earlier times. Keywords: history of philosophy, Ancient Greece, Hyperborea, Hermotimus of Clazomenae, Anaxagoras, shamanism, nous, soul, body


2017 ◽  
Vol 63 ◽  
pp. 29-52
Author(s):  
P. A. Davies

Current descriptions of social status in the Greek world are strongly influenced by the works of Moses I. Finley and G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, whose models were grounded in the sociologies of Weber and Marx. This article outlines a new paradigm for social status based on a model from the social sciences, commonly described as status (in)consistency. The article demonstrates the descriptive and interpretive usefulness of this approach using two case studies: social status and social mobility in classical Lakedaimonian society; and the lives and status of Pasion of Acharnai and his son Apollodoros.


Author(s):  
Michael Ruse

Can we live without the idea of purpose? Should we even try to? Kant thought we were stuck with it, and even Darwin, who profoundly shook the idea, was unable to kill it. Indeed, purpose seems to be making a comeback today, as both religious advocates of intelligent design and some prominent secular philosophers argue that any explanation of life without the idea of purpose is missing something essential. This book explores the history of purpose in philosophical, religious, scientific, and historical thought, from ancient Greece to the present. The book traces how Platonic, Aristotelian, and Kantian ideas of purpose continue to shape Western thought. Along the way, it also takes up tough questions about the purpose of life—and whether it's possible to have meaning without purpose.


GIS Business ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 202-206
Author(s):  
SAJITHA M

Food is one of the main requirements of human being. It is flattering for the preservation of wellbeing and nourishment of the body.  The food of a society exposes its custom, prosperity, status, habits as well as it help to develop a culture. Food is one of the most important social indicators of a society. History of food carries a dynamic character in the socio- economic, political, and cultural realm of a society. The food is one of the obligatory components in our daily life. It occupied an obvious atmosphere for the augmentation of healthy life and anticipation against the diseases.  The food also shows a significant character in establishing cultural distinctiveness, and it reflects who we are. Food also reflected as the symbol of individuality, generosity, social status and religious believes etc in a civilized society. Food is not a discriminating aspect. It is the part of a culture, habits, addiction, and identity of a civilization.Food plays a symbolic role in the social activities the world over. It’s a universal sign of hospitality.[1]


2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (7) ◽  
pp. 2523-2529
Author(s):  
Slobodan Marković ◽  
Zoran Momčilović ◽  
Vladimir Momčilović

This text is an attempt to see sport in different ways in the light of ancient philosophical themes. Philosophy of sports gets less attention than other areas of the discipline that examine the other major components of contemporary society: philosophy of religion, political philosophy, aesthetics, and philosophy of science. Talking about sports is often cheap, but it does not have to be that way. One of the reasons for this is insufficiently paid attention to the relation between sport and philosophy in Greek. That is it's important to talk about sports, just as important as we are talking about religion, politics, art and science. The argument of the present text is that we can try to get a handle philosophically on sports by examining it in light of several key idea from ancient Greek philosophy. The ancient Greeks, tended to be hylomorphists who gloried in both physical and mental achievement. Тhe key concepts from Greek philosophy that will provide the support to the present text are the following: arete, sophrosyne, dynamis and kalokagathia. These ideals never were parts of a realized utopia in the ancient world, but rather provided a horizon of meaning. We will claim that these ideals still provide worthy standards that can facilitate in us a better understanding of what sports is and what it could be. How can a constructive dialogue be developed which would discuss differences in understanding of sport in Ancient Greece and today? In this paper, the authors will try to answer this question from a historical and philosophical point of view. The paper is divided into three sections. The first section of the paper presents two principally different forms or models of focus in sport competitions – focus on physical excellence or focus on game. The dialectic discourse regarding these two approaches to physical activity is even more interesting due to the fact that these two models take precedence over one another depending on context. In the second section of the paper, the focus shifts to theendemic phenomenon of the Ancient Greek Olympic Games, where the topic is discussed from the perspective of philosophy with frequent historical reflections on the necessary specifics, which observeman as a physical-psychological-social-spiritual being. In the third section of this paper, the authors choose to use the thoughts and sayings of the great philosopher Plato to indicate how much this philosopher wasactually interested in the relationship between soul and body, mostly through physical exercise and sport, because it seems that philosophers who came after him have not seriously dealt with this topic in Plato’s way, although they could.


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvana Lahama

Bentenancloth is a Minahasa traditional fabric cloth which is the only craft of weavingfrom Minahasa people that has a very long journey of history. The existence ofthis cloth cannot be separated from the cultural and historical activities ofMinahasa tribe, where this cloth reflects the symbol of social status andbecome the part of life principal acted by the Minahasa people.Theobjectives of this research are to describe : 1) The name of motifs and lingualmeaning of Bentenan  cloth, 2) Thecultural meaning behind the Bentenan cloth motifs.This research conduct in theform of qualitative-descriptive. The data taken from the books contains aboutthe history of Minahasa especially the Bentenan cloth, proposed by the formerresearchers and the culture expert of Minahasa. Fromthe result, it can be conclude that cultural meaning behind the name ofBentenan cloth motifs reflects the whole aspects of life especially theirbelieves on something considered being exist around them. The cultural meaningfromeach motifs carryingessential norm that people should know whether it isallowed to do and whether is not.KeyWords : The cultural meaning, The motifs in Bentenan cloth.


2007 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-27
Author(s):  
Gerald Massey

Contending that the quest for a logic of scientific discovery was prematurely abandoned, the author lays down eight phenomena that such a logic or theory must explain: the banality of scientific discovery; the trainability of scientists; the high incidence of simultaneous discoveries; the ubiquity of relative novices; the fact of scientific genius; the barrenness of isolated workers; the incommensurability of concepts of successive theories; and the quasi-incorporation of old concepts, objects, and methods in successor theories, The author then presents a new theory or logic of discovery according to which discoveries are the termini of "tweak paths" generated when scientists "tinker" with the laws, concepts, methods, and instruments of a given theory. Tinkering and tweaking are illustrated by examples from many-valued and modal logic and from Darwinian biology. Through the history of planetary discovery, the accidental role played by luck or good fortune in some discoveries is explored, but the author emphasizes that in a deep sense serendipity is an in eliminable feature of all scientific discovery because scientists never know m advance whether their tweaks will lead to dead ends or to positive developments. The author's new theory of scientific discovery is shown to account for all eight explananda, ft also reveals science to be a more egalitarian enterprise than the traditional view of scientific discovery as ultimately inexplicable depicts it.


This book is the first to examine the history of imaginative thinking about intelligent machines. As real artificial intelligence (AI) begins to touch on all aspects of our lives, this long narrative history shapes how the technology is developed, deployed, and regulated. It is therefore a crucial social and ethical issue. Part I of this book provides a historical overview from ancient Greece to the start of modernity. These chapters explore the revealing prehistory of key concerns of contemporary AI discourse, from the nature of mind and creativity to issues of power and rights, from the tension between fascination and ambivalence to investigations into artificial voices and technophobia. Part II focuses on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in which a greater density of narratives emerged alongside rapid developments in AI technology. These chapters reveal not only how AI narratives have consistently been entangled with the emergence of real robotics and AI, but also how they offer a rich source of insight into how we might live with these revolutionary machines. Through their close textual engagements, these chapters explore the relationship between imaginative narratives and contemporary debates about AI’s social, ethical, and philosophical consequences, including questions of dehumanization, automation, anthropomorphization, cybernetics, cyberpunk, immortality, slavery, and governance. The contributions, from leading humanities and social science scholars, show that narratives about AI offer a crucial epistemic site for exploring contemporary debates about these powerful new technologies.


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