Trinidad Silva

From the significance of the sage in ancient philosophy and the emergence of the notion of wisdom in contemporary psychology, I propose to reevaluate the role of the wise man as integral model of knowledge and action in ancient philosophy. I claim that this model is rooted in the Greek tradition from archaic literature, but it is not a central element in the philosophy of the classical period (i.e. Plato and Aristotle) as it is in Hellenistic philosophy, particularly with the Stoics. The analysis includes an assessment of the conditions allowing a theory that offers the figure of the wise man as a guiding model of both knowledge and action. For this, I consider three relevant criteria: the wise man is human (even if similar to god), he proves to be integrally wise (without excluding theory from praxis) and his wisdom is useful (because of his advice or example).

‘The material Flux’; ‘The hidden mobility beneath’; ‘Sonic Logos’. Any Classicist familiarised with the fragments of Heraclitus would be surprised to find these concepts developed in today’s theories about Sonic Art from authors from different traditions such as Salomé Voegelin, Julian Henriques, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Cristoph Cox. The present paper intends to open a dialogue between these authors and Heraclitus claiming that there is an underlying connection beyond mere coincidence. Sonic thinking proposes listening as the way to access or produce a particular knowledge–one that would otherwise be too difficult or impossible to grasp. This knowledge is produced by practices such as listening and musical meditation instead of intellectual activity alone. To make the case, the authors will present a general outline of what sonic thinking entails to compare it with the relevant points in Heraclitus’ philosophy. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to provide a new sonic framework to read Heraclitus and to provide an old framework to read sonic thinking.

In this paper I would like to challenge the received account according to which Plato’s conception of the sophist is either novel, distinct or derogatory. I propose that Plato uses common conceptions of the intellectual to create a rather loose identity for the sophist. Through the available evidence, I hope to show that Plato does not assign a new meaning to the label, but rather uses conventional conceptions of the sophist to create his main argument. I claim that apart from the Sophist, in other dialogues there is no clear conception of what and who the sophist is, no clarity as to what their activity is, and therefore (although there are reasons to suspect about them and their activity), there are no grounds to condemn them. Stemming from a conceptualization of σοφία in terms of knowledge, the σοφιστής is mainly described as someone who knows many things, or an expert in ‘all matters’—a description, we shall see, that precludes finding a single definition. My proposal is that Plato does not construct the hostility against sophists, as some accounts claim, but rather represents this hostility against experts and intellectuals by appealing to popular attitudes against the σοφοί. Importantly, Plato is critical of popular representations of sophists mainly because they are the result of people’s misjudgement or ignorance, from which the prejudice against philosophers also stems.

Plato’s characterization of the philosopher often emerges as a way to respond to popular conceptions and representations of the intellectual in Athenian society. In Book VI of the Republic in particular, he articulates his greatest defense of the philosopher against two major charges—that of being vicious and useless. Voicing what appears to be a commonly held view among Athenians, this representation of the philosopher is raised by Adeimantus as an objection to Socrates’ proposal of a philosopher-king. Surprisingly, rather than dismissing the allegations as false, Socrates admits ‘that what they say is true’ (Rep. 487d10) and incorporates these criticisms into his argument. This paper proposes that the popular depiction of the philosopher as vicious and idle plays a significant role in Plato’s own characterization of the philosopher, illustrating how Plato diagnoses the philosopher’s alienation from public affairs in a manner that defines and legitimates his own ideas of philosophy.

In the present paper I analyze some relevant textual keys of Plato's Apology (21a-23c) to show the many strands underlying Socrates' claims of ignorance. I advocate a position that seeks to reevaluate the use of epistemic lexica by considering other evidence, such as cultural and dramatic context, the use of hypothetical clauses, the comparative and the rhetoric of the pair real/apparent. From this approach, I hope to show that there are good reasons to interpret Socrates' claims of ignorance in the light of amiable irony, whereby the use of language and other literary devices create layers of meaning to express the full sense of Socratic wisdom for the audience without resorting to the charge of contradiction or insincerity. Against a position that reduces Socrates' message to the use of epistemic lexica to interpret it either by synonymy, equivocity or low/high cognitive grading, I propose to read Socrates' claims of ignorance, always in comparison to others' claim of wisdom, as a sort of cultural appropriation and revaluation of the traditional title σοφία/σοφός.

La figura del astuto y versátil tiene un lugar significativo en la tradición literaria antigua, desde Homero hasta Eurípides. Las características de σοφία propia de la astucia puede rastrearse en Teognis, en Heródoto y en los escritores trágicos. Entre los héroes épicos, Ulises πολυτροπός sobresale como un ejemplo paradigmático. Dentro del círculo socrático, la inteligencia de Ulises inspira el modelo intelectual del σοφός de Antístenes. Sorprendentemente, en Platón no hay lugar para el σοφός astuto. Aparte del Hipias Menor, que nos presenta una valoración más bien ambigua de la πολυτροπία de Ulises, el σοφός casi nunca es definido en virtud de su inteligencia, i.e. esta no es una característica distintiva del σοφός o del φιλόσοφος, sino que en virtud del conocimiento de ciertas cosas. En el presente artículo quisiera ofrecer una interpretación que diagnostica la ausencia de un atributo como la astucia en la conceptualización de σοφία en Platón, pero no como el resultado de simple condena o censura ya sea porque se aleja de la verdad filosófica o porque es inmoral que defiende, por ejemplo, Detienne y Vernant (1978) y sugiere Montiglio (2011). En el presente trabajo proponemos que, con respecto al tratamiento de estos atributos, más que censura o condena, Platón manifestaría una falta de interés. Esto se debe primordialmente a que los atributos de la inteligencia, si bien son consideradas como cualidades ventajosas y deseables, tienen solo un valor instrumental con respecto a la verdad y al bien.

En este ensayo quisiera centrarme en la importancia del lector y la lectura para la enseñanza de los diálogos de Platón. Para esto, voy a recurrir a la teoría literaria, en particular a la teoría transaccional de Louise Rosenblatt. Su propuesta me parece relevante para analizar el presente caso ya que ilumina las posibilidades del texto desde el rol del lector. La autora postula que el significado del texto se da en lo que ella llama “transacción”, un evento que involucra al texto y al lector, ambos en su contexto. El texto en sí mismo, dice Rosenblatt, si bien aporta claves para una lectura más o menos legítima, no define o no termina de definir su significado. Para esto es fundamental la actitud que adopte el lector, esto es, lo que busque en el texto de acuerdo a su experiencia y expectativas. De esto va a depender el tipo de lectura que se lleve a cabo: una lectura eferente, donde lo que prima es la obtención de resultados, o una lectura estética, donde lo que se privilegia es la experiencia del lector durante el proceso de lectura.

From the significance of the sage in ancient philosophy and the emergence of the notion of wisdom in contemporary psychology, I propose to reevaluate the role of the wise man as integral model of knowledge and action in ancient philosophy. I claim that this model is rooted in the Greek tradition from archaic literature, but it is not a central element in the philosophy of the classical period (i.e., Plato and Aristotle) as it is in Hellenistic philosophy, particularly with the Stoics. The analysis includes an assessment of the conditions allowing a theory that offers the figure of the wise man as a guiding model of both knowledge and action. For this, I consider three relevant criteria: the wise man is human (even if similar to god), he proves to be integrally wise (without excluding theory from praxis) and his wisdom is useful (because of his advice or example).

Plato’s characterization of the philosopher often emerges as a way to respond to popular conceptions and representations of the intellectual in Athenian society. In book 6 of the Republic in particular, he articulates his greatest defense of the philosopher against two major charges – that of being vicious and useless. Voicing what appears to be a commonly held view among Athenians, this representation of the philosopher is raised by Adeimantus as an objection to Socrates’ proposal of a philosopher-king. Surprisingly, rather than dismissing the allegations as false, Socrates admits ‘that what they say is true’ (Resp. 6.487d10) and incorporates these criticisms into his argument. This paper proposes that the popular depiction of the philosopher as odd, vicious and idle plays a significant role in Plato’s own characterization of the philosopher, illustrating how Plato diagnoses the philosopher’s alienation from public affairs in a manner that defines and legitimates his own ideas of p...

In the present paper I analyze some relevant textual keys of Plato's Apology (21a-23c) to show the many strands underlying Socrates' claims of ignorance. I advocate a position that seeks to reevaluate the use of epistemic lexica by considering other evidence, such as cultural and dramatic context, the use of hypothetical clauses, the comparative and the rhetoric of the pair real/apparent. From this approach, I hope to show that there are good reasons to interpret Socrates' claims of ignorance in the light of amiable irony, whereby the use of language and other literary devices create layers of meaning to express the full sense of Socratic wisdom for the audience without resorting to the charge of contradiction or insincerity. Against a position that reduces Socrates' message to the use of epistemic lexica to interpret it either by synonymy, equivocity or low/high cognitive grading, I propose to read Socrates' claims of ignorance, always in comparison to others&#3...

Considering the importance of cunning in the characterization of σοφία in the Ancient Greek tradition, from the literature of the archaic period to the Socratic circle, it is striking that in Plato there is no such thing as a cunning σοφός. Apart from the Lesser Hippias, which offers an ambiguous assessment of Odysseus πολυτροπία, the σοφός is almost never defined by its intelligence —this is not a distinctive feature of the σοφός or φιλόσοφος— but rather by the knowledge of certain things. The lack of treatment has led to most interpreters to neglect the subject. In order to remedy this situation, in this article I offer an interpretation that diagnoses the absence of an attribute such as cunning in the conceptualization of σοφία in Plato, but not as the result of simple condemnation or censorship as argued, for example, by Detienne and Vernant 1978 and suggested by Montiglio 2011. In this paper I propose that Plato would manifest a lack of interest regarding these attributes. From...

“The material Flux”; “the hidden mobility beneath”; “Sonic Logos.” Any classicist familiar with the fragments of Heraclitus would be surprised to find these concepts developed in today’s theories about sonic art from authors from different traditions such as Salomé Voegelin, Julian Henriques, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Christoph Cox. The present paper intends to open a dialogue between these authors and Heraclitus, claiming that there is an underlying connection beyond mere coincidence. Sonic thinking proposes listening as the way to access or produce a particular knowledge—one that would otherwise be too difficult or impossible to grasp. This knowledge is produced by practices such as listening and musical meditation instead of intellectual activity alone. To make the case, the authors will present a general outline of what sonic thinking entails to compare it with the relevant points in Heraclitus’s philosophy. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to provide a new sonic framework to read Heraclitus and to provide an old framework to read sonic thinking.

La Epistola a Herodoto, escrita por Epicuro (s. IV a. C.) y rescatada por Diogenes Laercio (s. III d. C.) en un libro que reune la vida y opiniones de los grandes filosofos, es un resumen de caracter mnemotecnico dirigido a estudiantes ya avanzados en la disciplina de la Fisica. El texto versa principalmente sobre los principios basicos de la naturaleza comprendidos en su atomismo fisico junto con algunas consideraciones sobre psicologia, epistemologia y cosmologia. Presentamos una traduccion anotada del escrito griego precedida por una introduccion que anuncia algunas dificultades pertinentes al tema

In the first half of the fourth century BCE, when Plato is writing his dialogues, the titles ‘sophist’ and ‘philosopher’ have no widely-accepted application and, as a result, the use of them for some purposes rather than others is controversial and subject to dispute. In the tradition that follows Plato, ‘philosophy’ becomes a term of art and the philosophos is distinguished from the class of the sophistai and other alleged sophoi such as poets, orators and politicians. Considering Plato is among other competitors for the appropriation and legitimisation of these labels, the present dissertation examines the importance each of these notions have in the Platonic corpus, drawing attention to the way they are (re)defined and appropriated, whether they are novel or distinct. By observing examples in pre-Platonic and Platonic literature, section I of the thesis focuses on sophos/sophia, section II on philosophos/philosophia and section III on sophistēs. The investigation allows us to rea...

This paper examines the problems arising from Plato’s conceptualization of sophia in moral terms. In particular, it focuses on the problematic relationship between intelligence and vice embodied by the figure of the ‘bad’ sophos and his ability to do wrong. The main question is whether the bad but smart intellectual, e.g. the crafty liar, is to be considered as simply an ignorant person or as a person possessing a kind of knowledge or intelligence that makes him ‘bad’. If sophia is an ability and a skill essentially attached to truth and goodness, how should we understand the intelligence or capacity to deceive and tell lies? Although there is enough evidence in Plato’s dialogues consistently pointing to an intellectualism whereby virtue is equated with knowledge and vice with ignorance, there are some significant passages suggesting that it is especially by means of intellectual capacity that the vicious man acts.

La "Epístola a Heródoto", escrita por Epicuro (s. IV a. C.) y rescatada por Diógenes Laercio (s. III d. C.) en un libro que reúne la vida y opiniones de los grandes filósofos, es un resumen de carácter mnemotécnico dirigido a estudiantes ya avanzados en la disciplina de la Física. El texto versa principalmente sobre los principios básicos de la naturaleza comprendidos en su atomismo físico junto con algunas consideraciones sobre psicología, epistemología y cosmología. Presentamos una traducción anotada del escrito griego precedida por una introducción que anuncia algunas dificultades pertinentes al tema. (The "Letter to Herodotus", written by Epicurus (4th c. B.C.) and recovered by Diogenes Laertius (3rd c. A.D.) in a book that collects the lives and opinions of eminent philosophers, is a mnemonic summary intended for advanced students in the field of physics. This text is mainly about the basic principles of nature understood wthin the atomist doctrine along wit...

La Epístola a Heródoto, escrita por Epicuro (s. IV a. C.) y rescatada por Diógenes Laercio (s. III d. C.) en un libro que reúne la vida y opiniones de los grandes filósofos, es un resumen de carácter mnemotécnico dirigido a estudiantes ya avanzados en la disciplina de la Física. ...