Self-Intellection and its Epistemological Origins in Ancient Greek Thought

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian M. Crystal
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek Thought

Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought

2002 ◽  
Vol 111 (2) ◽  
pp. 294
Author(s):  
Michael Ferejohn ◽  
R. J. Hankinson
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek Thought

scholarly journals Kant’s Confrontation with Plato and the Greek World in the Inaugural Dissertation

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 107
Author(s):  
Gualtiero Lorini
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek Thought ◽  
Greek Tradition ◽  
Greek World

The discussion concerning Kant’s knowledge of the Greek world has long been a subject of debate. Our contribution is intended to show that in the Dissertation of 1770 Kant is measured against some currents of Greek thought, and above all with Plato, on topics which will become very important in the articulated development of criticism in the 1770s. One aspect of our analysis deals with the texts that could have filtered Kant’s knowledge of ancient Greek tradition. We will then pore over some crucial features of the Dissertation, such as the distinction between sensible and intelligible knowledge and the ambiguous nature of the intellectualia, in order to assess how Kant’s understanding of certain issues of Greek classicism may have contributed to the outline of some still problematic theses in the text of 1770.

Psyche in Ancient Greek Thought

1988 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael F. Frampton
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek Thought

Space in Ancient Times

Space ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 11-51
Author(s):  
Barbara Sattler
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Greek Thought ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Way

This chapter tells the story of the way in which, in ancient Greek thought, space first came to be established as an independent and unified dimension. The story begins with prephilosophical as well as philosophical understandings of space, in which spatial notions are often not clearly distinguished from time and matter. This leads to difficulties accounting for motion and change. While Plato’s Timaeus conceives of time and space for the first time as two independent magnitudes, this chapter shows that they are assumed to be different to such a degree that it is unclear how they could be related to each in an account of motion and change. The task of distinguishing time and space in a way that they can, nevertheless, be intelligibly related, is finally accomplished in Aristotle’s Physics. There, time and space are both conceived as (distinct) continua, which can be combined.

Athens and Jerusalem

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Vincent P. Pecora
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
James Joyce ◽  
Thomas Hardy ◽  
Stephane Mallarme ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Meister Eckhart ◽  
Promised Land ◽  
Greek Thought ◽  
Medieval Europe

Autochthony is fundamental to ancient Greek notions of belonging to the land. While the motif had a negligible presence in the literature of European Christendom, it returns with some force in modern productions by Stéphane Mallarmé, Thomas Hardy, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, and James Joyce. Martin Heidegger too draws on pre-Socratic Greek thought on the theme of autochthony. But there is a parallel tradition of belonging to the land that begins in the Pentateuch. In Exodus, God speaks to Moses about a Promised Land. In medieval Europe, Meister Eckhart reads Exodus as providing a special, mystical understanding of God’s soul, one that intertwines promised land with the human soul’s creative capacities, and lays the foundation for theologically infused politics in the German tradition. In Alexander Baumgarten, Immanuel Kant, and J. G. Fichte, nationalism is linked to Eckhart. In the twentieth century, Heidegger phenomenologically reinscribes earth, divinities, and dwelling poetically.

Philosophy

2020 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-118
Author(s):  
Jenny Bryan
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Ancient China ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
Cultural Constructs ◽  
Chinese Thought ◽  
Greek Thought ◽  
Universal Applicability ◽  
Single Set

G. E. R. Lloyd's economically persuasive study addresses the question of the universalism or relativism of rationality. Drawing careful comparisons, primarily between ancient Greek and Chinese thought, but also more widely, Lloyd introduces a range of disciplinary perspectives and specific points of focus. In doing so, he challenges his reader to think critically about their own assumptions and concepts. In particular, he asks us to consider the degree to which our own broad concepts, especially oppositions such as between rationality and irrationality, are themselves informed by their derivation from ancient Greek thought. His first chapter (‘Aims and Methods’) introduces his central commitments. Rationality and irrationality are not universal across societies in such a way that they can be judged by a single set of criteria. But nor are they just cultural constructs, so that the possibility of mutual intelligibility collapses. The truth lies somewhere in between, in the recognition of the heterogeneity to be identified in what is shared across cultures. Lloyd argues that ancient China is a particularly useful foil for a consideration of these questions, since it provides a perspective from beyond the reach of the Graeco-Roman legacy. His subtle middle road is further supported by his second chapter (‘Rationality Reviewed’), which summarizes some influential accounts of rationality and considers the ‘state of play’ across a variety of disciplines, including palaeontology, child development, and psychology, all of which present evidence of continuities between societies. The next four chapters approach the question of the diversity and commonality of reason from a range of perspectives, including cosmology, metaphysics, language, epistemology, and religion. In the case of cosmology, for example, Lloyd argues that we can identify a difference between the Greeks’ tendency to focus on the thing that is ‘Nature’, and the Chinese interest in natural phenomena and processes, absent a concept of ‘Nature’ itself. He is careful to note the difficulty of generalizing across all Greek or all Chinese thinkers. We can, however, identify a significantly similar belief in the two societies: that understanding the cosmos matters for the sake of the life you live as a result of that knowledge. In the case of the binary ‘Seeming and Being’ (as discussed in Chapter 4), Lloyd argues that the Chinese shared with the Greeks an awareness that appearances can be deceptive. However, their conception of the fundamental binary yin and yang is one of interdependence rather than sharp differentiation, such as we sometimes see in Greek thought between Being and Becoming. Throughout the volume, Lloyd argues for the need to recognize both the similarities and the differences identified as a result of careful comparative study. He ends with a recommendation for his readers to reconsider the universal applicability of certain key Western concepts, without resorting to a claim that it is impossible to recognize or communicate similarities. We must, he suggests, work from a position that demonstrates ‘due recognition both of the commonalities in human cognitive capacities, and of the differences in their deployment’ (96).

Dangerous Gifts: Ideologies of Marriage and Exchange in Ancient Greece

2003 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Lyons
Keyword(s):  
Durable Goods ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek Myth ◽  
Economic Role ◽  
Positive Side ◽  
Greek Thought ◽  
Gendered Division Of Labor ◽  
Economic Contribution ◽  
Mythic Thinking

A familiar theme in Greek myth is that of the deadly gift that passes between a man and a woman. Analysis of exchanges between men and women reveals the gendered nature of exchange in ancient Greek mythic thinking. Using the anthropological categories of male and female wealth (with examples drawn from many cultures), it is possible to arrive at an understanding of the protocols of exchange as they relate to men and especially to women. These protocols, which are based in part on the distinction between metals and other durable goods as "male" and textiles as "female," are closely related to the gendered division of labor. Anxiety about women as exchangers derives in part from their status as objects exchanged in marriage (as exemplified by Helen in the Iliad), and partly from a misogynist and pessimistic strand of Greek thought (embodied by Hesiod's Pandora) that discounts any female economic contribution to the oikos. Indeed, the majority of destructive exchanges take place within the context of marital crisis. While some texts, beginning with the Odyssey, show the positive side of women's economic role, tragedy tends to follow the Hesiodic distrust of women as exchange partners. Passages from the Agamemnon and the Trachiniai are analyzed to show how in situations of perverted reciprocity brought about by marital discord, even women's traditional gifts of textiles may become deadly.

La différence sexuelle chez les Grecs

1998 ◽  
pp. 75-82
Author(s):  
Vigdis Songe-Møller
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Reproduction ◽  
Sexual Difference ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Human Vulnerability ◽  
Greek Thought ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
European Thought ◽  
Platonic Tradition

I want to look at two contrasting ways of seeing the relation between the sexes within ancient Greek thought by dividing Greek thought into two main traditions: the Platonic tradition from Parmenides through Plato to Aristotle, and what one might call 'the tragic tradition' including thinkers such as Anaximander, Heraclitus, and Empedocles. The Platonic tradition is characterized by hierarchical thinking in which the norm is unity, harmony and self-sufficiency. In Plato, this turns out to be the norm also for human existence, with the result that there is no room in his philosophy for thinking of sexual difference and sexual reproduction. When, on the other hand, conflicts, discord, and human vulnerability towards misfortune and death are looked upon as the constitutive elements of life-as with the tragic poets-sexual difference also plays an important part. When human existence is treated as something radically different from divinity, the Greek thinkers-in this paper exemplified by Empedocles and the tragic poets-tend to look upon sexual difference as a constitutive element in human existence. For the philosophers in this tradition, all being is constituted by two oppositional elements which do not form a hierarchy but rather an inimical antagonism. Misogyny is perhaps as strong in this 'tragic' tradition as it is in the Platonic-Aristotelian one. However, even if the former tradition has at least provided some space for thinking of sexual difference, it has not been very influential in western, European thought.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document