List of Contributors Introduction KNOWLEDGE Episteme Avant nous le deluge: Aristotle's Notion... more List of Contributors Introduction KNOWLEDGE Episteme Avant nous le deluge: Aristotle's Notion of Intellectual Grasp The Notion of Enargeia in Hellenistic Philosophy Ancient Scepticism and Ancient Religion Concepts and inquiry: Sextus and the Epicureans An Anti-Aristotelian Point of Method in Three Rationalist Doctors LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS A Note on the Ontology of Aristotle Categories, ch. 2 Some Remarks on Substance and Essence in Metaphysics Z. 6 What Was Aristotle's Concept of Logical Form? If it's clear, then it's clear that it's clear, or is it? Higher-Order-Vagueness and the S4 Axiom Ramsey on Truth and Meaning ETHICS AND POLITICS Justice and Just Action in the Republic Practical Truth in Aristotle Democratic Aristotle and the Democratization of Politics Stoic Reservation in Wants and Expectations The Politics of Virtue: Three Puzzles in De Officiis Bibliography of Jonathan Barnes's writings: Maddalena Bonelli Index locorum Index of names
1. In Memory of Michael Frede 2. Reason and Necessity: The Descent of the Philosopher-Kings 3. El... more 1. In Memory of Michael Frede 2. Reason and Necessity: The Descent of the Philosopher-Kings 3. Elements, Causes, and Principles: A Context for Metaphysics Z 17 4. Syllogism, Demonstration, and Definition in Aristotle's Topics and Posterior Analytics 5. Why Aristotle's God is Not the Unmoved Mover 6. Aristotle's 'Common Sense' in the Doxographic Tradition 7. The Place of Ethics in Aristotle's Philosophy 8. The Combinatorics of Stoic Conjunction or, Hipparchus Refuted, Chrysippus Vindicated 9. Posidonius on the Nature and Treatment of the Emotions 10. Posidonius' Theory of Predictive Dreams 11. Reading between the Lies: Plutarch and Chrysippus on the Uses of Poetry 12. The Logical Structure of the Sceptic's Opposition 13. Galen on Unsayable Properties 14. Time, Creation, and the Mind of God: The Afterlife of a Platonist Theory in Origen 15. Plotinus on Happiness and Time 16. Two Notions of Consent 17. Boethius' Anti-Realist Arguments Index Locorum
List of Contributors Introduction KNOWLEDGE Episteme Avant nous le deluge: Aristotle's Notion... more List of Contributors Introduction KNOWLEDGE Episteme Avant nous le deluge: Aristotle's Notion of Intellectual Grasp The Notion of Enargeia in Hellenistic Philosophy Ancient Scepticism and Ancient Religion Concepts and inquiry: Sextus and the Epicureans An Anti-Aristotelian Point of Method in Three Rationalist Doctors LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS A Note on the Ontology of Aristotle Categories, ch. 2 Some Remarks on Substance and Essence in Metaphysics Z. 6 What Was Aristotle's Concept of Logical Form? If it's clear, then it's clear that it's clear, or is it? Higher-Order-Vagueness and the S4 Axiom Ramsey on Truth and Meaning ETHICS AND POLITICS Justice and Just Action in the Republic Practical Truth in Aristotle Democratic Aristotle and the Democratization of Politics Stoic Reservation in Wants and Expectations The Politics of Virtue: Three Puzzles in De Officiis Bibliography of Jonathan Barnes's writings: Maddalena Bonelli Index locorum Index of names
Sophists, Plato, Aristotle, the Atomists, the Stoics, Sceptics, Middle Platonism, Ptolemy and Gal... more Sophists, Plato, Aristotle, the Atomists, the Stoics, Sceptics, Middle Platonism, Ptolemy and Galen to the Neoplatonists. The vast material is carefully resumed and succinctly analysed. A set of causal/explanatory principles provides points of comparison or contrast throughout (abbreviated as, e.g., PSR: 'Principle of Sufficient Reason' or PCS: 'Principle of Causal Synonymy', and helpfully listed in an appendix), allowing H. to plot large-scale conceptual developments and make some telling connections (e.g. on the relationship between the Phaedrus and Alcmaeon). On occasion, one may take issue with some of H.'s specific claims. For example, it seems dangerous to argue (387) that since Aristotle thinks that organisms are fine and noble because they have purposes, his concerns are not also aesthetic, at least in a sense he would recognize (cf., e.g., Metaphysics 1078a36 ff.). But, in general, the problems one might find with this book arise more from the project itself than its execution. H. says of his project in the Preface (vii) that 'it has developed into something more like a general account of what the Greeks called physike, the inquiry into nature, since I found it impossible to treat of the meta-theoretical issues of how the Greeks viewed the concepts of explanation and cause themselves without also considering the actual explanations and causes that they championed (it also accounts for my ranging beyond the boundaries of natural science and into metaphysics)'. However, once H. has included in his brief actual instances of explanation, causal or otherwise, the floodgates are open for a consideration not just of physike and metaphysics, but also of other areas of philosophy (for which part of philosophy does not in some sense try to explain?) and, indeed, any other discipline that employs explanation. Indeed, H. does discuss not just other areas of philosophy, such as ethics, but also historiography, medicine, rhetoric, and astrology, sometimes, as in the case of medicine and astrology, very successfully, sometimes less so. (For example, in the case of historiography, no mention is made in the discussion by Herodotus of the question of different sorts of evidence, the muthos/logos contrast, explanations from generalization, induction or analogy, whilst Thucydides only gets a look-in in the context of the chapter on the plague.) But why stop at these disciplines? Why not include tragedy and epic (a rich mine for thinking about human responsibility and agency, as Bernard Williams shows in Shame and Necessity (Berkeley 1993))? On the other hand, the sheer bulk of the material that is included occasionally makes for quite elliptical accounts (e.g. of the Stoic response to the Master argument, 252) and provides frustratingly little scope for H. to develop his own interpretations (e.g. of Parmenides, 33-7). The book is thus in a sense both too long and (dare one say it of a work running to almost 500 pages?) too short. A related problem is a tendency to de-contextualize passages for the purpose of extracting, sometimes abstracting, explanatory principles. For example, in the brief account of Plato's Philebus (119-20), we are given the four principles required to generate the sensible world but no indication of how and why these principles are introduced and developed in the dialogue. In the exposition of the Timaeus, we are told, amongst other things, that Plato 'implicitly relies upon an application of P4 or PCS [both explained]; whatever is responsible for something's being fine must itself be fine' (110), but we are given little sense of why it matters to Plato to show that the kosmos could have been generated according to this principle. Given the pressure on H. to condense, the wonder is perhaps that he manages to include as much context as he does, but one is still left with the worry whether Plato's 'views' on explanation can be extracted in this way. Despite these reservations, I imagine that this work will be useful both for undergraduates and research students. With its clarity and concision it provides an excellent starting-point for anybody who wants to familiarize himself with the wealth and sophistication of Greek thinking about causes and explanations.
This contribution comments on Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium 4–5 (MA 4–5). In these chapters Arist... more This contribution comments on Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium 4–5 (MA 4–5). In these chapters Aristotle points out, among other things, that the earth is at the centre of the universe, but the force it would take to move the earth from its position at the centre of the universe is finite. How can this result be reconciled with Aristotle’s conviction that the universe is eternal and indestructible? The contribution shows that Aristotle’s solution depends on the assumption of a mover of the universe that is unmoved, not in the universe, and no part of it. He also shows how this account of cosmic motion paves the way for Aristotle’s explanation of animal motion.
This chapter discusses Aristotle’s account of the role matter, form, and privation play in a chan... more This chapter discusses Aristotle’s account of the role matter, form, and privation play in a change. It claims that Aristotle identifies a new item in the ontology, the hypokeimenon (subject) of a change, crucial for understanding the nature of change. This subject is a metaphysically complex item, the combination of some matter and a privation. Aristotle’s first, and best, example of such a metaphysically complex item is a seed, whose nature, fully specified, would be matter and privation. Such items are the ones in the world which are apt for engaging in change. Their complexity makes change intelligible, since they have a component that persists (matter) and a component that doesn’t (the privation). The interpretation offered differs from the more usual one by identifying the hypokeimenon with a complex item (e.g. a seed) rather than matter alone. This chapter explores the benefits and costs of the two interpretations.
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Volume 57, 2020
The paper presses an analogy between Aristotle’s conception of practical reasoning and theoretica... more The paper presses an analogy between Aristotle’s conception of practical reasoning and theoretical reasoning. It argues that theoretical reasoning has two optimal cognitive states associated with it, episteme and (theoretical) nous, and that practical reasoning has two counterpart states, phronēsis and (practical) nous. Theoretical nous is an expertise which enables those who have it to understand principles as principles, i.e. among other things, to know how to use them to derive other truths in their domain. It is a cognitively demanding state, which only experts have. Aristotelian practical nous is structurally similar to theoretical nous in that it requires the agent not only to know certain everyday truths, but also to know how and when to use them in deliberative reasoning. It is also a cognitively demanding notion, and only moral experts will have it.
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Volume 48, 2015
This chapter argues against the scholarly consensus that perfect syllogisms are held by Aristotle... more This chapter argues against the scholarly consensus that perfect syllogisms are held by Aristotle to be the evident or self-evident ones. Instead, it claims that perfect syllogisms are ones the explanation of whose validity takes a certain form. Perfect syllogisms are those whose validity is explained by making reference only to the dictum de omnietnullo. The explanation of the validity of all other syllogisms will proceed through relating those syllogisms to the perfect ones through conversion or reductio. Two prominent interpretations of the dictum de omnietnullo — those of Jonathan Barnes and Marko Malink — are discussed and rejected in favour of a view which treats the dictum not as a paraphrase or definition of a- and e-predication but rather as stating an inferential property of a- and e-predications, like a rule of inference. This interpretation accounts better for the modality explicit in Aristotle's formulation of the dictum and shows how no extra logical machinery is n...
Aristotle's final definition of the proper place of something is: the first immobile limit of... more Aristotle's final definition of the proper place of something is: the first immobile limit of the surrounding body. Something's surroundings can be specified in a more or less precise way, but everything is surrounded by the universe. The limit at which a body is in contact with its surroundings should be defined with reference to the limit at which the whole universe is in contact with the body; this limit is the body's proper place and can be picked out in a variety of ways. This interpretation solves the traditional problems of the immobile boat on the moving river water, and the rotation of the universe. Aristotle's concept of place is not straightforwardly either an absolute conception of place, or a relative one. He provides the metaphysical underpinning necessary for an understanding of how things are somewhere.
Because something's proper place is the first thing that surrounds it, one might think that s... more Because something's proper place is the first thing that surrounds it, one might think that something's place is its outer boundary, i.e. its shape or form. Equally, some philosophers have thought that places are extended and the same size as their occupants, which suggests that something's place is its extension or matter: Plato argued this in the Timaeus. Finally, one might think that the interval occupied by something (but existing separately from it) is also its place––this is close to what we call ‘space’. Aristotle argues that on this theory, there are an infinite number of overlapping places.
Eudemus and Alexander of Aphrodisias provide valuable evidence for the reconstruction of what Zen... more Eudemus and Alexander of Aphrodisias provide valuable evidence for the reconstruction of what Zeno's paradox of place is. Everything is somewhere: so places are in a place, which is in turn in a place, etc.; this generates an infinite regression. Aristotle thinks this infinite regression deprives us of the possibility of saying where something is, or answering where‐questions properly. He solves the paradox by giving different senses to the word ‘somewhere’.
Motion is the most important type of change. Everything is somewhere, in some sense of ‘somewhere... more Motion is the most important type of change. Everything is somewhere, in some sense of ‘somewhere’. The most evident type of change of place is replacement: when one thing replaces another. All motion in nature is a case of replacement or displacement. The four elements (earth, water, air, and fire) all have their own places, known as ‘natural places’ that are referred to in the very definitions of those elements. These natural places exist and are defined independently of us or our orientation.
List of Contributors Introduction KNOWLEDGE Episteme Avant nous le deluge: Aristotle's Notion... more List of Contributors Introduction KNOWLEDGE Episteme Avant nous le deluge: Aristotle's Notion of Intellectual Grasp The Notion of Enargeia in Hellenistic Philosophy Ancient Scepticism and Ancient Religion Concepts and inquiry: Sextus and the Epicureans An Anti-Aristotelian Point of Method in Three Rationalist Doctors LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS A Note on the Ontology of Aristotle Categories, ch. 2 Some Remarks on Substance and Essence in Metaphysics Z. 6 What Was Aristotle's Concept of Logical Form? If it's clear, then it's clear that it's clear, or is it? Higher-Order-Vagueness and the S4 Axiom Ramsey on Truth and Meaning ETHICS AND POLITICS Justice and Just Action in the Republic Practical Truth in Aristotle Democratic Aristotle and the Democratization of Politics Stoic Reservation in Wants and Expectations The Politics of Virtue: Three Puzzles in De Officiis Bibliography of Jonathan Barnes's writings: Maddalena Bonelli Index locorum Index of names
1. In Memory of Michael Frede 2. Reason and Necessity: The Descent of the Philosopher-Kings 3. El... more 1. In Memory of Michael Frede 2. Reason and Necessity: The Descent of the Philosopher-Kings 3. Elements, Causes, and Principles: A Context for Metaphysics Z 17 4. Syllogism, Demonstration, and Definition in Aristotle's Topics and Posterior Analytics 5. Why Aristotle's God is Not the Unmoved Mover 6. Aristotle's 'Common Sense' in the Doxographic Tradition 7. The Place of Ethics in Aristotle's Philosophy 8. The Combinatorics of Stoic Conjunction or, Hipparchus Refuted, Chrysippus Vindicated 9. Posidonius on the Nature and Treatment of the Emotions 10. Posidonius' Theory of Predictive Dreams 11. Reading between the Lies: Plutarch and Chrysippus on the Uses of Poetry 12. The Logical Structure of the Sceptic's Opposition 13. Galen on Unsayable Properties 14. Time, Creation, and the Mind of God: The Afterlife of a Platonist Theory in Origen 15. Plotinus on Happiness and Time 16. Two Notions of Consent 17. Boethius' Anti-Realist Arguments Index Locorum
List of Contributors Introduction KNOWLEDGE Episteme Avant nous le deluge: Aristotle's Notion... more List of Contributors Introduction KNOWLEDGE Episteme Avant nous le deluge: Aristotle's Notion of Intellectual Grasp The Notion of Enargeia in Hellenistic Philosophy Ancient Scepticism and Ancient Religion Concepts and inquiry: Sextus and the Epicureans An Anti-Aristotelian Point of Method in Three Rationalist Doctors LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS A Note on the Ontology of Aristotle Categories, ch. 2 Some Remarks on Substance and Essence in Metaphysics Z. 6 What Was Aristotle's Concept of Logical Form? If it's clear, then it's clear that it's clear, or is it? Higher-Order-Vagueness and the S4 Axiom Ramsey on Truth and Meaning ETHICS AND POLITICS Justice and Just Action in the Republic Practical Truth in Aristotle Democratic Aristotle and the Democratization of Politics Stoic Reservation in Wants and Expectations The Politics of Virtue: Three Puzzles in De Officiis Bibliography of Jonathan Barnes's writings: Maddalena Bonelli Index locorum Index of names
Sophists, Plato, Aristotle, the Atomists, the Stoics, Sceptics, Middle Platonism, Ptolemy and Gal... more Sophists, Plato, Aristotle, the Atomists, the Stoics, Sceptics, Middle Platonism, Ptolemy and Galen to the Neoplatonists. The vast material is carefully resumed and succinctly analysed. A set of causal/explanatory principles provides points of comparison or contrast throughout (abbreviated as, e.g., PSR: 'Principle of Sufficient Reason' or PCS: 'Principle of Causal Synonymy', and helpfully listed in an appendix), allowing H. to plot large-scale conceptual developments and make some telling connections (e.g. on the relationship between the Phaedrus and Alcmaeon). On occasion, one may take issue with some of H.'s specific claims. For example, it seems dangerous to argue (387) that since Aristotle thinks that organisms are fine and noble because they have purposes, his concerns are not also aesthetic, at least in a sense he would recognize (cf., e.g., Metaphysics 1078a36 ff.). But, in general, the problems one might find with this book arise more from the project itself than its execution. H. says of his project in the Preface (vii) that 'it has developed into something more like a general account of what the Greeks called physike, the inquiry into nature, since I found it impossible to treat of the meta-theoretical issues of how the Greeks viewed the concepts of explanation and cause themselves without also considering the actual explanations and causes that they championed (it also accounts for my ranging beyond the boundaries of natural science and into metaphysics)'. However, once H. has included in his brief actual instances of explanation, causal or otherwise, the floodgates are open for a consideration not just of physike and metaphysics, but also of other areas of philosophy (for which part of philosophy does not in some sense try to explain?) and, indeed, any other discipline that employs explanation. Indeed, H. does discuss not just other areas of philosophy, such as ethics, but also historiography, medicine, rhetoric, and astrology, sometimes, as in the case of medicine and astrology, very successfully, sometimes less so. (For example, in the case of historiography, no mention is made in the discussion by Herodotus of the question of different sorts of evidence, the muthos/logos contrast, explanations from generalization, induction or analogy, whilst Thucydides only gets a look-in in the context of the chapter on the plague.) But why stop at these disciplines? Why not include tragedy and epic (a rich mine for thinking about human responsibility and agency, as Bernard Williams shows in Shame and Necessity (Berkeley 1993))? On the other hand, the sheer bulk of the material that is included occasionally makes for quite elliptical accounts (e.g. of the Stoic response to the Master argument, 252) and provides frustratingly little scope for H. to develop his own interpretations (e.g. of Parmenides, 33-7). The book is thus in a sense both too long and (dare one say it of a work running to almost 500 pages?) too short. A related problem is a tendency to de-contextualize passages for the purpose of extracting, sometimes abstracting, explanatory principles. For example, in the brief account of Plato's Philebus (119-20), we are given the four principles required to generate the sensible world but no indication of how and why these principles are introduced and developed in the dialogue. In the exposition of the Timaeus, we are told, amongst other things, that Plato 'implicitly relies upon an application of P4 or PCS [both explained]; whatever is responsible for something's being fine must itself be fine' (110), but we are given little sense of why it matters to Plato to show that the kosmos could have been generated according to this principle. Given the pressure on H. to condense, the wonder is perhaps that he manages to include as much context as he does, but one is still left with the worry whether Plato's 'views' on explanation can be extracted in this way. Despite these reservations, I imagine that this work will be useful both for undergraduates and research students. With its clarity and concision it provides an excellent starting-point for anybody who wants to familiarize himself with the wealth and sophistication of Greek thinking about causes and explanations.
This contribution comments on Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium 4–5 (MA 4–5). In these chapters Arist... more This contribution comments on Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium 4–5 (MA 4–5). In these chapters Aristotle points out, among other things, that the earth is at the centre of the universe, but the force it would take to move the earth from its position at the centre of the universe is finite. How can this result be reconciled with Aristotle’s conviction that the universe is eternal and indestructible? The contribution shows that Aristotle’s solution depends on the assumption of a mover of the universe that is unmoved, not in the universe, and no part of it. He also shows how this account of cosmic motion paves the way for Aristotle’s explanation of animal motion.
This chapter discusses Aristotle’s account of the role matter, form, and privation play in a chan... more This chapter discusses Aristotle’s account of the role matter, form, and privation play in a change. It claims that Aristotle identifies a new item in the ontology, the hypokeimenon (subject) of a change, crucial for understanding the nature of change. This subject is a metaphysically complex item, the combination of some matter and a privation. Aristotle’s first, and best, example of such a metaphysically complex item is a seed, whose nature, fully specified, would be matter and privation. Such items are the ones in the world which are apt for engaging in change. Their complexity makes change intelligible, since they have a component that persists (matter) and a component that doesn’t (the privation). The interpretation offered differs from the more usual one by identifying the hypokeimenon with a complex item (e.g. a seed) rather than matter alone. This chapter explores the benefits and costs of the two interpretations.
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Volume 57, 2020
The paper presses an analogy between Aristotle’s conception of practical reasoning and theoretica... more The paper presses an analogy between Aristotle’s conception of practical reasoning and theoretical reasoning. It argues that theoretical reasoning has two optimal cognitive states associated with it, episteme and (theoretical) nous, and that practical reasoning has two counterpart states, phronēsis and (practical) nous. Theoretical nous is an expertise which enables those who have it to understand principles as principles, i.e. among other things, to know how to use them to derive other truths in their domain. It is a cognitively demanding state, which only experts have. Aristotelian practical nous is structurally similar to theoretical nous in that it requires the agent not only to know certain everyday truths, but also to know how and when to use them in deliberative reasoning. It is also a cognitively demanding notion, and only moral experts will have it.
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Volume 48, 2015
This chapter argues against the scholarly consensus that perfect syllogisms are held by Aristotle... more This chapter argues against the scholarly consensus that perfect syllogisms are held by Aristotle to be the evident or self-evident ones. Instead, it claims that perfect syllogisms are ones the explanation of whose validity takes a certain form. Perfect syllogisms are those whose validity is explained by making reference only to the dictum de omnietnullo. The explanation of the validity of all other syllogisms will proceed through relating those syllogisms to the perfect ones through conversion or reductio. Two prominent interpretations of the dictum de omnietnullo — those of Jonathan Barnes and Marko Malink — are discussed and rejected in favour of a view which treats the dictum not as a paraphrase or definition of a- and e-predication but rather as stating an inferential property of a- and e-predications, like a rule of inference. This interpretation accounts better for the modality explicit in Aristotle's formulation of the dictum and shows how no extra logical machinery is n...
Aristotle's final definition of the proper place of something is: the first immobile limit of... more Aristotle's final definition of the proper place of something is: the first immobile limit of the surrounding body. Something's surroundings can be specified in a more or less precise way, but everything is surrounded by the universe. The limit at which a body is in contact with its surroundings should be defined with reference to the limit at which the whole universe is in contact with the body; this limit is the body's proper place and can be picked out in a variety of ways. This interpretation solves the traditional problems of the immobile boat on the moving river water, and the rotation of the universe. Aristotle's concept of place is not straightforwardly either an absolute conception of place, or a relative one. He provides the metaphysical underpinning necessary for an understanding of how things are somewhere.
Because something's proper place is the first thing that surrounds it, one might think that s... more Because something's proper place is the first thing that surrounds it, one might think that something's place is its outer boundary, i.e. its shape or form. Equally, some philosophers have thought that places are extended and the same size as their occupants, which suggests that something's place is its extension or matter: Plato argued this in the Timaeus. Finally, one might think that the interval occupied by something (but existing separately from it) is also its place––this is close to what we call ‘space’. Aristotle argues that on this theory, there are an infinite number of overlapping places.
Eudemus and Alexander of Aphrodisias provide valuable evidence for the reconstruction of what Zen... more Eudemus and Alexander of Aphrodisias provide valuable evidence for the reconstruction of what Zeno's paradox of place is. Everything is somewhere: so places are in a place, which is in turn in a place, etc.; this generates an infinite regression. Aristotle thinks this infinite regression deprives us of the possibility of saying where something is, or answering where‐questions properly. He solves the paradox by giving different senses to the word ‘somewhere’.
Motion is the most important type of change. Everything is somewhere, in some sense of ‘somewhere... more Motion is the most important type of change. Everything is somewhere, in some sense of ‘somewhere’. The most evident type of change of place is replacement: when one thing replaces another. All motion in nature is a case of replacement or displacement. The four elements (earth, water, air, and fire) all have their own places, known as ‘natural places’ that are referred to in the very definitions of those elements. These natural places exist and are defined independently of us or our orientation.
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