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).

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. ...