Ripensare i presocratici. Da Talete (anzi da Omero) a Zenone, 2023
"Ripensare i presocratici" ("Rethinking the Presocratics") is a book of mine, published by MIMESI... more "Ripensare i presocratici" ("Rethinking the Presocratics") is a book of mine, published by MIMESIS, Milano in July 2023..
A considerable discontinuity from the current image of most Presocratics marks it.
To begin with:: it is still widespread the idea that Thales was all about water, Anaximander all about apeiron and Anaximenes all about air, while no fourth prominent Milesian happens to be at least mentioned in current surveys on the Presocratics. Parmenides, in turn, continues to be the great philosopher of being and nothing else, Zeno a volunteer fighter in defense of the honor of Parmenides, and so on.
As it will be apparent from the synopsis, I can no more adhere to such an orthodoxy. In my opinion these ancient intellectuals did much more and much better.
In previous books and papers I argued for individual points (on Thales, on Parmenides, etc.), while this time I tried to look around and submit a whole group of ancient investigators (a 'world', one could say) to a renewed curiosity. As a consequence, their portrayals are becoming remarkably different from those that are in circulation. For example, a Presocratic Botany now surfaces for the very first time...
SINCE MANY CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHERS AND SCIENTISTS, NOT UNLIKE ALMOST ALL TEXTBOOKS, SEEM TOO OFTEN PRONE TO THE MOST CONVENTIONAL PORTRAYALS OF THIS WORLD, MY BOOK IS PRIMARILY ADDRESSED TO ALERT THEM.
'Thales The Measurer' is the title of a book of mine, published by Routledge in 2022. Here is a s... more 'Thales The Measurer' is the title of a book of mine, published by Routledge in 2022. Here is a survey of its contents.
This book is devoted to a sustained investigation on the celebrated Milesian and what he is likely to have contributed to the beginnings of Greek science.
One of the conclusions reached is that Thales spent his whole life as an investigator. If so, he was the first (first on the world!) to devise the very idea of an investigator (wth investigation as a a profession and a sort of excellence). As a consequence, our present society, with its millions of professional investigators, owes a lot to him.
no title is already available for the book as such
A previous version of this paper was read in Sep. 2023 at the conference held in Perugia and devo... more A previous version of this paper was read in Sep. 2023 at the conference held in Perugia and devoted to "Cinquant'anni di studi sul pensiero greco". A book stemming from this conference is expected to appear and include a widely revised version of it.
Below you may find, for the moment, no more than title, table of contents, and an updated section 1.
A salient feature of these notes is the attention paid to the non-doctrinal dialogues.
Capirete che è emozionante, per me, condividere questo annuncio.
Sarà un grande onore poter dare... more Capirete che è emozionante, per me, condividere questo annuncio.
Sarà un grande onore poter dare il benvenuto a chi di voi gradirà (e potrà) essere presente. - Livio
The 2017 edition having gone out of print, a beloved publisher, Petite Plaisance (Pistoia), has b... more The 2017 edition having gone out of print, a beloved publisher, Petite Plaisance (Pistoia), has been invited to prepare a new edition, no more in two volumes.
Here you have it.
469 pages may seem too many, but the new edition has been just amended, not modified, nor expanded. Apart of a short new preamble, and a set of new indexes, no further addition has been entered here or there.
This is a wholly redesigned and rewritten version of the "Invito a dialogare con Socrate" going b... more This is a wholly redesigned and rewritten version of the "Invito a dialogare con Socrate" going back to 1995. THis time too, what I can offer is only the introductory text, but I still hope to be able to prepare a YouTube exploration of my 2006 hypertext.
Its more qualifying feature is its final section (I mean the final section of the hypertext), where a group of 'liceali' want to comment what they have experienced, and a teacher is there to pay attention to them while contributing with few comments of her.
For this product I owe a lot to a former pupil of mine, Alessandro Treggiari.
Compaiono qui alcune decine di fotogrammi tratti dall'ipertesto del 2006. Visionando queste immag... more Compaiono qui alcune decine di fotogrammi tratti dall'ipertesto del 2006. Visionando queste immagini è possibile farsi un'idea di alcuni dei molti percorsi in cui l'ipertesto si articola.
Here you have dozens of frames takes from "Un Eutifrone interattivo" (2006). This way you can at least get an idea of the many paths it opens to you.
This is a booklet introducing and giving some instructions for the utlization of the floppy disk ... more This is a booklet introducing and giving some instructions for the utlization of the floppy disk associated with it. To this effect, after some introductory words, it has a chapter giving ther basic instructions and then a chapter on the dialogue it explores, namely Plato's Euthyphro. It goes back to 1995. Another version of basically the same hypertext was published in 2006.
This is an antique item. What you see is a booklet measuring 12 x 14 centimeters and a floppy dis... more This is an antique item. What you see is a booklet measuring 12 x 14 centimeters and a floppy disk (as it was called about thirty years ago) measuring 10 x 10.5 centimeters.
Now, please take a look at the cover picture. As it is evident, it is a rare miniature on parchment, once cherished by Jacques Derrida, where Socrates is portrayed as a seated person ready to write on a piece of parchment (not papyrus). Behind him, Plato is standing. He seems smaller in stature but not necessarily younger than Socrates. He appears ready to dictate what Socrates should write. However, instead of a piece of parchment, we now have a "personal computer" of the type commonly used in the 1990s, and Socrates seems to be intent on typing.
As a matter of fact, Plato conceived a number of his dialogues (for example, the Republic) with Socrates serving as the narrator, and here you have precisely this impression. Even the proportions suggest that Plato intend to emphasize the person of his master. Nevertheless, it is certain that the creator of this miniature couldn't have the least idea of these antecedents.
<>
Hre you have the cover. The whole booklet is available separately.
The Symposium Heracliteum took place in the Univ. of Chieti in 1981.
Twenty-five years later, a... more The Symposium Heracliteum took place in the Univ. of Chieti in 1981.
Twenty-five years later, a second Symposium Heracliteum was held at the UNAM, Mexico (proceedings entitled: "Nuevos ensayos sobre Heraclito. Actas del Segundo Symposium Heracliteum", edited by E. Huelsz Piccone, México 2009).
<>
As this book in two volumes is out of print since decades, and from time to time somebody asked me to supply a paper in PDF or, possibly, the whole book, I managed to get a PDF version of the first and the second volume.
THE WHOLE IS NOW AVAILABLE thanks to the support of Wojciech Wrotkowski.
Here is volume 1; volume 2 is equally available on academia.edu (as a separate entry):
Not unlike the first one, the second volume of the proceedings IS FULLY AVAILABLE HERE thanks to ... more Not unlike the first one, the second volume of the proceedings IS FULLY AVAILABLE HERE thanks to the support of Wojciech Wrotkowski,.
It deals with the 'fortuna' of Heraclitus esp. in modern time, Cusanus to Vico, Schleiermacher, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Phenomenology.
As it happens, my unique play is newly available in a fine new shape, thanks to Petite Plaisance.... more As it happens, my unique play is newly available in a fine new shape, thanks to Petite Plaisance. It now has an introductory note by Linda Napolitano Valditara and a short additional appendix. In the meanwhile, this play has been translated into Spanish and published in Argentina by Teseo Press.
This is a generous selection of the translation of 'Convincere Socrate' that was published in Bue... more This is a generous selection of the translation of 'Convincere Socrate' that was published in Buenos Aires, by Teseo Press, in 2021 (just before the second edition of the Italian text). Free access to the whole book is allowed through www.teseopress.com
This is a revised second edition, slightly supplemented, of a booklet printed in 1994 that quickl... more This is a revised second edition, slightly supplemented, of a booklet printed in 1994 that quickly went out. It is meant to serve as a basic tool for teachers and students in communication. Its deals mainly with the design side of communication, the choice of saying, drawing attention to, distracting attention from, and likewise the choice of one or more 'vehicles', plus the optimization of these choices. In a word, the strategical side of communication. Attached you'll find a generous selection from the book.
Here are my Eleatic Lectures, delivered in 2017, The book, carefully edited and introduced by Gal... more Here are my Eleatic Lectures, delivered in 2017, The book, carefully edited and introduced by Galgano, Giombini and Marcacci, includes a sustained discussion of its main tenets with W. Fratticci, F. Ferro, N.-L. Cordero, J. Mansfeld, A.P.D. Mourelatos, R. Cherubin, N.S. Galgano (section on Parmenides); V. Fano (section on Zeno), M. Brémond and E. Piergiacomi (section devoted to Melissus). I tried to say what really Parmenides, Zeno and Melissus investigated, wrote and taught, with a special attention for what was new in each of them. My first step consisted in identifying and removing (successfully, I dare to hope) a number of exegetical encrustations. < Tutto sommato questa si può considerare l'editio maior di "Parmenide e Zenone sophoi ad Elea" (2020) > This book received the award of the Serbian Assoc. of Classicists for 2020
ENGLISH BELOW < > In questo piccolo libro su Parmenide e Zenone Livio Rossetti ci propone una mar... more ENGLISH BELOW < > In questo piccolo libro su Parmenide e Zenone Livio Rossetti ci propone una marcia di avvicinamento a due pensatori antichi di primissimo ordine. Il suo proposito è stato di lavorare su due 'pezzi da museo' che ci sono stati trasmessi pieni di polvere e di incrostazioni esegetiche, riportarli alla luce e tornare a osservarli da vicino. Pretesa eccessiva? L'autore ci invita a guardare a questi due personaggi estremamente creativi senza pensare alle tradizioni interpretative, con la mente sgombra, con rinnovata curiosità. Lo fa con competenza, ma usando un linguaggio piano, cordiale, arioso, partendo dai luoghi e dal contesto. Avvicinarsi a quel mondo sarà una scoperta. Specialmente il capitolo su Zenone innova profondamente l'interpretazione. < > In this small book on Parmenides and Zeno Livio Rossetti iundertakes a march towards two ancient thinkers of the highest order. His purpose was to work on two 'museum pieces' that were sent to us full of dust and exegetical encrustations, bring them back to light and return to observe them closely. Excessive claim? The author invites us to look at these two extremely creative characters without thinking about interpretative traditions, with a clear mind, with renewed curiosity. He does it competently, but using a flat, friendly, airy language, starting from the places and the context. Approaching that world will be a discovery. Especially the chapter on Zeno deeply innovates the interpretation.
THiS BOOKLET (110 p.) IS AVAILABLE HERE: https://www.teseopress.com/parmenides/ AND IS GOING TO A... more THiS BOOKLET (110 p.) IS AVAILABLE HERE: https://www.teseopress.com/parmenides/ AND IS GOING TO APPEAR IN ITALIAN DURING 2020 < > A qualifying feature is that it is easy to read, inclusive rather than exclusive, and, at the same time, able to offer a completely new (and even bold) picture of both Parmenides and Zeno. This Parmenides is no more the philosopher of being and almost nothing else, but is also a first-order student of the cosmos and the living creatures, able to teach that our earth is spherical, and give the main features of a completely unknown part of it, the one which we use to call the southern hemisphere, and much more. In the case of Zeno I did my best to penetrate the 'secret' of his paradoxes and discover what Zeno wanted to do with them. In a sense, a lot of dust has hopefully been removed from each thinker, of those born in ancient Elea. The book starts with a glance at the territory where both P. and Z. spent their lives.
Book printed in Bologna in 2015. Attached here you'll find a generous selection of pages. ---- It... more Book printed in Bologna in 2015. Attached here you'll find a generous selection of pages. ---- It is widely assumed that philosophy began in Miletus with Thales. At the same time, scholars do not ignore that in reality a key role in the characterization and establishment of philosophy in Athens was played by Plato. Indeed, the 'universal' idea of philosophy made its first steps towards 385-380 BCE, and this means that Socrates, for instance, has been wrongly treated as a great philosopher not because he was not great, but because he had no idea of philosophy in the form Plato made it firmly established (and well known). There is enough to suspect that a seriously distorted picture of most Preplatonic thinkers still is at work. Worse, our conventional ideas about the so-called philosophy of Thales, Anaximander or Parmenides still have the power to hide the greatest achievements of these exceptional men. But Plato's work too happens to be somehow distorted because of that. Just consider how seldom scholars tried to understand how it could happen that Xenocrates, Erastos, Coriscos, Aristotle and others, though living at a considerable distance from Athens, came to get informed about Plato's school, and their parents were prepared to pay for their stay in the Academy during several years -- an event which was certainly crucial for the success of the Academy. My book dares to raise these and some related questions while assuming that, so far, a lot of points failed to receive the attention they deserve.
This is the Portuguese translation of "Le dialogue socratique" (2011), puublished in São Paulo (B... more This is the Portuguese translation of "Le dialogue socratique" (2011), puublished in São Paulo (Brazil) by Paulus Editore. Translated by Janaina Mafra. The book includes, other than a new preface (p 15 f.), a "Postfacio" (translated by Nicola Galgano) where the author and Dr. Laura Candiotto (Univ. Venezia, Univ. Edinburgh) offer a sustained exchange about subsequent developments of the investigations included in this book. The "Postfacio" is available in the section "Talks".
This is the very first book-length treatment of the topic.
This book is formally made out of p... more This is the very first book-length treatment of the topic.
This book is formally made out of previously published articles (the book originated from the suggestions of Professor François Roustang, Paris, who wisely prefaced it).
After a survey of the most ancient Socratic literature (basically, Plato and his companions, not just Plato and Xenophon), some sophisticated dialogic units (Xen. Mem. IV 2 and III 8, Plato's Euthyphro) are scrutinized. These are dialogues portraying Socrates 'at work', they uncover some features of his habits, esp. his attitude at provoking his interlocutor while governing the exchange. This, in turn, is the starting point for a new analysis of the personality of Socrates and especially of his concealed rhetoric. I conclude that, in order to preserve a sound understanding of what Socrates did and was, we need to pay a very special attention to his peculiar rhetoric.
A final chapter is meant to open the avenue to what has been submitted to a much more refined investigation in my 2015 book, "La filosofia non nasce con Talete, e nemmeno con Socrate" (and then elsewhere).
Ripensare i presocratici. Da Talete (anzi da Omero) a Zenone, 2023
"Ripensare i presocratici" ("Rethinking the Presocratics") is a book of mine, published by MIMESI... more "Ripensare i presocratici" ("Rethinking the Presocratics") is a book of mine, published by MIMESIS, Milano in July 2023..
A considerable discontinuity from the current image of most Presocratics marks it.
To begin with:: it is still widespread the idea that Thales was all about water, Anaximander all about apeiron and Anaximenes all about air, while no fourth prominent Milesian happens to be at least mentioned in current surveys on the Presocratics. Parmenides, in turn, continues to be the great philosopher of being and nothing else, Zeno a volunteer fighter in defense of the honor of Parmenides, and so on.
As it will be apparent from the synopsis, I can no more adhere to such an orthodoxy. In my opinion these ancient intellectuals did much more and much better.
In previous books and papers I argued for individual points (on Thales, on Parmenides, etc.), while this time I tried to look around and submit a whole group of ancient investigators (a 'world', one could say) to a renewed curiosity. As a consequence, their portrayals are becoming remarkably different from those that are in circulation. For example, a Presocratic Botany now surfaces for the very first time...
SINCE MANY CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHERS AND SCIENTISTS, NOT UNLIKE ALMOST ALL TEXTBOOKS, SEEM TOO OFTEN PRONE TO THE MOST CONVENTIONAL PORTRAYALS OF THIS WORLD, MY BOOK IS PRIMARILY ADDRESSED TO ALERT THEM.
'Thales The Measurer' is the title of a book of mine, published by Routledge in 2022. Here is a s... more 'Thales The Measurer' is the title of a book of mine, published by Routledge in 2022. Here is a survey of its contents.
This book is devoted to a sustained investigation on the celebrated Milesian and what he is likely to have contributed to the beginnings of Greek science.
One of the conclusions reached is that Thales spent his whole life as an investigator. If so, he was the first (first on the world!) to devise the very idea of an investigator (wth investigation as a a profession and a sort of excellence). As a consequence, our present society, with its millions of professional investigators, owes a lot to him.
no title is already available for the book as such
A previous version of this paper was read in Sep. 2023 at the conference held in Perugia and devo... more A previous version of this paper was read in Sep. 2023 at the conference held in Perugia and devoted to "Cinquant'anni di studi sul pensiero greco". A book stemming from this conference is expected to appear and include a widely revised version of it.
Below you may find, for the moment, no more than title, table of contents, and an updated section 1.
A salient feature of these notes is the attention paid to the non-doctrinal dialogues.
Capirete che è emozionante, per me, condividere questo annuncio.
Sarà un grande onore poter dare... more Capirete che è emozionante, per me, condividere questo annuncio.
Sarà un grande onore poter dare il benvenuto a chi di voi gradirà (e potrà) essere presente. - Livio
The 2017 edition having gone out of print, a beloved publisher, Petite Plaisance (Pistoia), has b... more The 2017 edition having gone out of print, a beloved publisher, Petite Plaisance (Pistoia), has been invited to prepare a new edition, no more in two volumes.
Here you have it.
469 pages may seem too many, but the new edition has been just amended, not modified, nor expanded. Apart of a short new preamble, and a set of new indexes, no further addition has been entered here or there.
This is a wholly redesigned and rewritten version of the "Invito a dialogare con Socrate" going b... more This is a wholly redesigned and rewritten version of the "Invito a dialogare con Socrate" going back to 1995. THis time too, what I can offer is only the introductory text, but I still hope to be able to prepare a YouTube exploration of my 2006 hypertext.
Its more qualifying feature is its final section (I mean the final section of the hypertext), where a group of 'liceali' want to comment what they have experienced, and a teacher is there to pay attention to them while contributing with few comments of her.
For this product I owe a lot to a former pupil of mine, Alessandro Treggiari.
Compaiono qui alcune decine di fotogrammi tratti dall'ipertesto del 2006. Visionando queste immag... more Compaiono qui alcune decine di fotogrammi tratti dall'ipertesto del 2006. Visionando queste immagini è possibile farsi un'idea di alcuni dei molti percorsi in cui l'ipertesto si articola.
Here you have dozens of frames takes from "Un Eutifrone interattivo" (2006). This way you can at least get an idea of the many paths it opens to you.
This is a booklet introducing and giving some instructions for the utlization of the floppy disk ... more This is a booklet introducing and giving some instructions for the utlization of the floppy disk associated with it. To this effect, after some introductory words, it has a chapter giving ther basic instructions and then a chapter on the dialogue it explores, namely Plato's Euthyphro. It goes back to 1995. Another version of basically the same hypertext was published in 2006.
This is an antique item. What you see is a booklet measuring 12 x 14 centimeters and a floppy dis... more This is an antique item. What you see is a booklet measuring 12 x 14 centimeters and a floppy disk (as it was called about thirty years ago) measuring 10 x 10.5 centimeters.
Now, please take a look at the cover picture. As it is evident, it is a rare miniature on parchment, once cherished by Jacques Derrida, where Socrates is portrayed as a seated person ready to write on a piece of parchment (not papyrus). Behind him, Plato is standing. He seems smaller in stature but not necessarily younger than Socrates. He appears ready to dictate what Socrates should write. However, instead of a piece of parchment, we now have a "personal computer" of the type commonly used in the 1990s, and Socrates seems to be intent on typing.
As a matter of fact, Plato conceived a number of his dialogues (for example, the Republic) with Socrates serving as the narrator, and here you have precisely this impression. Even the proportions suggest that Plato intend to emphasize the person of his master. Nevertheless, it is certain that the creator of this miniature couldn't have the least idea of these antecedents.
<>
Hre you have the cover. The whole booklet is available separately.
The Symposium Heracliteum took place in the Univ. of Chieti in 1981.
Twenty-five years later, a... more The Symposium Heracliteum took place in the Univ. of Chieti in 1981.
Twenty-five years later, a second Symposium Heracliteum was held at the UNAM, Mexico (proceedings entitled: "Nuevos ensayos sobre Heraclito. Actas del Segundo Symposium Heracliteum", edited by E. Huelsz Piccone, México 2009).
<>
As this book in two volumes is out of print since decades, and from time to time somebody asked me to supply a paper in PDF or, possibly, the whole book, I managed to get a PDF version of the first and the second volume.
THE WHOLE IS NOW AVAILABLE thanks to the support of Wojciech Wrotkowski.
Here is volume 1; volume 2 is equally available on academia.edu (as a separate entry):
Not unlike the first one, the second volume of the proceedings IS FULLY AVAILABLE HERE thanks to ... more Not unlike the first one, the second volume of the proceedings IS FULLY AVAILABLE HERE thanks to the support of Wojciech Wrotkowski,.
It deals with the 'fortuna' of Heraclitus esp. in modern time, Cusanus to Vico, Schleiermacher, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Phenomenology.
As it happens, my unique play is newly available in a fine new shape, thanks to Petite Plaisance.... more As it happens, my unique play is newly available in a fine new shape, thanks to Petite Plaisance. It now has an introductory note by Linda Napolitano Valditara and a short additional appendix. In the meanwhile, this play has been translated into Spanish and published in Argentina by Teseo Press.
This is a generous selection of the translation of 'Convincere Socrate' that was published in Bue... more This is a generous selection of the translation of 'Convincere Socrate' that was published in Buenos Aires, by Teseo Press, in 2021 (just before the second edition of the Italian text). Free access to the whole book is allowed through www.teseopress.com
This is a revised second edition, slightly supplemented, of a booklet printed in 1994 that quickl... more This is a revised second edition, slightly supplemented, of a booklet printed in 1994 that quickly went out. It is meant to serve as a basic tool for teachers and students in communication. Its deals mainly with the design side of communication, the choice of saying, drawing attention to, distracting attention from, and likewise the choice of one or more 'vehicles', plus the optimization of these choices. In a word, the strategical side of communication. Attached you'll find a generous selection from the book.
Here are my Eleatic Lectures, delivered in 2017, The book, carefully edited and introduced by Gal... more Here are my Eleatic Lectures, delivered in 2017, The book, carefully edited and introduced by Galgano, Giombini and Marcacci, includes a sustained discussion of its main tenets with W. Fratticci, F. Ferro, N.-L. Cordero, J. Mansfeld, A.P.D. Mourelatos, R. Cherubin, N.S. Galgano (section on Parmenides); V. Fano (section on Zeno), M. Brémond and E. Piergiacomi (section devoted to Melissus). I tried to say what really Parmenides, Zeno and Melissus investigated, wrote and taught, with a special attention for what was new in each of them. My first step consisted in identifying and removing (successfully, I dare to hope) a number of exegetical encrustations. < Tutto sommato questa si può considerare l'editio maior di "Parmenide e Zenone sophoi ad Elea" (2020) > This book received the award of the Serbian Assoc. of Classicists for 2020
ENGLISH BELOW < > In questo piccolo libro su Parmenide e Zenone Livio Rossetti ci propone una mar... more ENGLISH BELOW < > In questo piccolo libro su Parmenide e Zenone Livio Rossetti ci propone una marcia di avvicinamento a due pensatori antichi di primissimo ordine. Il suo proposito è stato di lavorare su due 'pezzi da museo' che ci sono stati trasmessi pieni di polvere e di incrostazioni esegetiche, riportarli alla luce e tornare a osservarli da vicino. Pretesa eccessiva? L'autore ci invita a guardare a questi due personaggi estremamente creativi senza pensare alle tradizioni interpretative, con la mente sgombra, con rinnovata curiosità. Lo fa con competenza, ma usando un linguaggio piano, cordiale, arioso, partendo dai luoghi e dal contesto. Avvicinarsi a quel mondo sarà una scoperta. Specialmente il capitolo su Zenone innova profondamente l'interpretazione. < > In this small book on Parmenides and Zeno Livio Rossetti iundertakes a march towards two ancient thinkers of the highest order. His purpose was to work on two 'museum pieces' that were sent to us full of dust and exegetical encrustations, bring them back to light and return to observe them closely. Excessive claim? The author invites us to look at these two extremely creative characters without thinking about interpretative traditions, with a clear mind, with renewed curiosity. He does it competently, but using a flat, friendly, airy language, starting from the places and the context. Approaching that world will be a discovery. Especially the chapter on Zeno deeply innovates the interpretation.
THiS BOOKLET (110 p.) IS AVAILABLE HERE: https://www.teseopress.com/parmenides/ AND IS GOING TO A... more THiS BOOKLET (110 p.) IS AVAILABLE HERE: https://www.teseopress.com/parmenides/ AND IS GOING TO APPEAR IN ITALIAN DURING 2020 < > A qualifying feature is that it is easy to read, inclusive rather than exclusive, and, at the same time, able to offer a completely new (and even bold) picture of both Parmenides and Zeno. This Parmenides is no more the philosopher of being and almost nothing else, but is also a first-order student of the cosmos and the living creatures, able to teach that our earth is spherical, and give the main features of a completely unknown part of it, the one which we use to call the southern hemisphere, and much more. In the case of Zeno I did my best to penetrate the 'secret' of his paradoxes and discover what Zeno wanted to do with them. In a sense, a lot of dust has hopefully been removed from each thinker, of those born in ancient Elea. The book starts with a glance at the territory where both P. and Z. spent their lives.
Book printed in Bologna in 2015. Attached here you'll find a generous selection of pages. ---- It... more Book printed in Bologna in 2015. Attached here you'll find a generous selection of pages. ---- It is widely assumed that philosophy began in Miletus with Thales. At the same time, scholars do not ignore that in reality a key role in the characterization and establishment of philosophy in Athens was played by Plato. Indeed, the 'universal' idea of philosophy made its first steps towards 385-380 BCE, and this means that Socrates, for instance, has been wrongly treated as a great philosopher not because he was not great, but because he had no idea of philosophy in the form Plato made it firmly established (and well known). There is enough to suspect that a seriously distorted picture of most Preplatonic thinkers still is at work. Worse, our conventional ideas about the so-called philosophy of Thales, Anaximander or Parmenides still have the power to hide the greatest achievements of these exceptional men. But Plato's work too happens to be somehow distorted because of that. Just consider how seldom scholars tried to understand how it could happen that Xenocrates, Erastos, Coriscos, Aristotle and others, though living at a considerable distance from Athens, came to get informed about Plato's school, and their parents were prepared to pay for their stay in the Academy during several years -- an event which was certainly crucial for the success of the Academy. My book dares to raise these and some related questions while assuming that, so far, a lot of points failed to receive the attention they deserve.
This is the Portuguese translation of "Le dialogue socratique" (2011), puublished in São Paulo (B... more This is the Portuguese translation of "Le dialogue socratique" (2011), puublished in São Paulo (Brazil) by Paulus Editore. Translated by Janaina Mafra. The book includes, other than a new preface (p 15 f.), a "Postfacio" (translated by Nicola Galgano) where the author and Dr. Laura Candiotto (Univ. Venezia, Univ. Edinburgh) offer a sustained exchange about subsequent developments of the investigations included in this book. The "Postfacio" is available in the section "Talks".
This is the very first book-length treatment of the topic.
This book is formally made out of p... more This is the very first book-length treatment of the topic.
This book is formally made out of previously published articles (the book originated from the suggestions of Professor François Roustang, Paris, who wisely prefaced it).
After a survey of the most ancient Socratic literature (basically, Plato and his companions, not just Plato and Xenophon), some sophisticated dialogic units (Xen. Mem. IV 2 and III 8, Plato's Euthyphro) are scrutinized. These are dialogues portraying Socrates 'at work', they uncover some features of his habits, esp. his attitude at provoking his interlocutor while governing the exchange. This, in turn, is the starting point for a new analysis of the personality of Socrates and especially of his concealed rhetoric. I conclude that, in order to preserve a sound understanding of what Socrates did and was, we need to pay a very special attention to his peculiar rhetoric.
A final chapter is meant to open the avenue to what has been submitted to a much more refined investigation in my 2015 book, "La filosofia non nasce con Talete, e nemmeno con Socrate" (and then elsewhere).
This is an interesting review where Zeno and Melissus are left aside but the core topic of 'who w... more This is an interesting review where Zeno and Melissus are left aside but the core topic of 'who was Parmenides?' receives a substantial attention. The review appeared on PHILOSOPHIE ANTIQUE 2, 2022.
Le idee di Parmenide sul mondo fisico e i suoi componenti hanno tradizionalmente costituito
una c... more Le idee di Parmenide sul mondo fisico e i suoi componenti hanno tradizionalmente costituito una cenerentola nella letteratura specialistica, ma qualcosa sta cambiando. Il libro in esame costituisce la prima e, per ora, unica monografia sull’argomento.
What I offer here is a presentation of a first-order short novel (or fake story): the eleventh bo... more What I offer here is a presentation of a first-order short novel (or fake story): the eleventh book of Plato's Republic, as devised by the late Mario Vegetti, issued in 2004; reprinted in 2018. --- --- Vegetti imagined a sequel to the tenth book where one of the attendance, a foreigner insatisfied of what the master has just reported, heavily attacks Socrates and 'his' idea of the philosopher-king. He is a foreigner coming from Treviri/Trier (!) who immediately outlines an alternative order where the workers have the power over the whole city (his hidden name is Karl Marx). Socrates, in turn, has something to say against the alternative order outlined by this aggressive foreigner, who reminds him of Thrasymachus. A fascinating exchange, in the light of the collapse of the Soviet order in Russia, and related countries. --- --- What I am attaching here il the whole issue no. 24 of CARTA, where my short text has been published.
Nel 2016 Gaetano Messina (1927-2020) ha pubblicato una penetrante discussione del mio libro "La f... more Nel 2016 Gaetano Messina (1927-2020) ha pubblicato una penetrante discussione del mio libro "La filosofia non nasce con Talete". Mi onoro di riproporla in questa sezione della mia pagina su academia.edu con il rammarico di aver perduto non solo un caro amico, ma anche un attentissimo interlocutore, come si vede anche da questo, che è stato il suo ultimo testo a stampa.
A joint review of 'Philosophy and Dialogue. Studies on Plato's Dialogues', Vol. I, edited by A. B... more A joint review of 'Philosophy and Dialogue. Studies on Plato's Dialogues', Vol. I, edited by A. Bosch-Veciana and J. Monserrat-Molas, Barcelonesa d'Edicions, Barcelona 2007, pp. 262, and 'Il Socrate dei dialoghi. Seminario palermitano del gennaio 2006', a cura di G. Mazzara, Levante Edizioni, Bari 2007, pp. 164. C'è una trama concettuale che collega i due volumi qui proposti alla attenzione: oltre alla centralità dell'elemento dialogico e al comune retroterra socratico, le due raccolte, anche per una parziale condivisione di collaboratori e la concomitanza nella eleborazione, concorrono a un generale ripensamento intorno alla natura dei sōkratikoi logoi e, in questo scenario, a ridefinire in particolare la funzione dell'opera scritta di Platone, con importanti puntualizzazioni sulla dialettica negli stessi dialoghi del filosofo ateniese.
This is another competent review of my book "Verso la filosofia: nuove prospettive su Parmenide, ... more This is another competent review of my book "Verso la filosofia: nuove prospettive su Parmenide, Zenone e Melisso", a cura di N.S. Galgano, S. Giombini e F. Marcacci. (Eleatica 8) Baden-Baden: Academia, 2020.
This is my review of Brisson-Macé-Pradeau, Les Eléates, Paris 2022 (Les Belles Lettres). It has j... more This is my review of Brisson-Macé-Pradeau, Les Eléates, Paris 2022 (Les Belles Lettres). It has just appeared on THE CLASSICAL REVIEW.
Dorella Cianci mercoledì 7 settembre 2022 su AVVENIRE:
Esce per ora soltanto in inglese un libro... more Dorella Cianci mercoledì 7 settembre 2022 su AVVENIRE: Esce per ora soltanto in inglese un libro di Livio Rossetti che indaga la singolare vicenda di questo presocratico che seppe interrogarsi sulla realtà (e darsi risposte) con occhio scientifico.
The book reviewed is 'Emotions in Plato' (2020). The main point made is that there are the opinio... more The book reviewed is 'Emotions in Plato' (2020). The main point made is that there are the opinions Plato shows to have about the emotions as well the portrayal (esp. in the aporetic dialogues) of how the emotions of Socrates' interlocutors manifest themselves, or change under the flux of his inputs. A paper discussed at some length is that by Carla Francalanci (on the Charmides).
Roberta Ioli authored this review of "Verso la filosofia" (2020), now available in PEITHO EXAMINA... more Roberta Ioli authored this review of "Verso la filosofia" (2020), now available in PEITHO EXAMINA ANTIQUA 12, 2021. A misprint occurred on p. 227, line 3, where one should read 'sfera terrestre' instead of 'sfera celeste'.
This is my review of an important contribution, where Dr Brémond undertakes a careful examination... more This is my review of an important contribution, where Dr Brémond undertakes a careful examination of the evidence on Melissus of Samos.
"This is the first collection of papers comparing the work of Plato and Xenophon ever to be publi... more "This is the first collection of papers comparing the work of Plato and Xenophon ever to be published, so far as I know," writes Gabriel Danzig in his introductory chapter. Clearly, if the state of the art is as he claims---and I am unable to deny that things are so---then this book deserves a very special attention for what it endeavours to do.
This a competent review of my recent book 'Verso la filosofia. Nuove prospettive su Parmenide, Ze... more This a competent review of my recent book 'Verso la filosofia. Nuove prospettive su Parmenide, Zenone e Melisso' (2020)
This is a penetrating review appeared in ESTUDIOS FILOSOFICOS, a journal of the Universidad de An... more This is a penetrating review appeared in ESTUDIOS FILOSOFICOS, a journal of the Universidad de Antioquia (Medellin, Colombia), n.º 63, 2021, pp. 169-171.
ERACLITO raccontato da Livio Rossetti (Filosofestival, Firenze 2019) https://www.youtube.com/watc... more ERACLITO raccontato da Livio Rossetti (Filosofestival, Firenze 2019) https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=w2kjnPyGYhg
…ma in conclusione Eraclito è il teorico del “tutto scorre”, del fuoco che tutto trasforma, della guerra che è madre di tutte le cose, del dio che vuole e non vuole farsi chiamare Zeus, della coincidentia oppositorum, del logos o di che altro? Eppoi: in questa moltiplica-zione delle etichette non c’è qualcosa che non quadra? O che va al di là, le accomuna, sta dietro a ciascuna?
Il video inizia al minuto 4.
Questa conversazione ha avuto luogo nel 2023 su invito dell'associazione IL PENSIERO GENTILE, che... more Questa conversazione ha avuto luogo nel 2023 su invito dell'associazione IL PENSIERO GENTILE, che ringrazio vivamente. <>
Per accedere al video andare su https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zDrHn3K__w <>
Viene svolta l'idea che i poemi omerici sono portatori di una cultura molto caratterizzata, che proponeva (1) non solo guerre ma tanti discorsi, (2) un Olimpo non intollerante (tutt'altro) e in cui è possibile perfino che scoppi una grande risata collettiva, (3) una società umana in cui si guarda con simpatia a chi contesta il potere costituito (ricordo la risata che conclude la scena di Tersite) e in cui si osservano molti esempi di moderazione, (4) un Olimpo in cui singole divinità impersonano emozioni, passioni, modi d'essere di cui si parla, per cui gli umani hanno molte opportunità di individuare queste emozioni e di oggettivarle, così da poterle poi riconoscere negli altri e anche in sé, (5) uno spazio importante per l'universo femminile (e per il suo mondo mentale), e non poco altro.
Si tratta di caratteristiche raramente segnalate, che sono solidali tra loro e ci parlano di un mondo che non è solo guardato con simpatia, ma in buona misura è stato conosciuto dal poeta -- e questa è una circostanza altamente significativa.
La conquista di Bisanzio da parte dei veneziani nel 1204 rese possibile la graduale presa di cosc... more La conquista di Bisanzio da parte dei veneziani nel 1204 rese possibile la graduale presa di coscienza dell’esistenza di centinaia di testi antichi – e sconosciuti – disponibili a Bisanzio, Atene etc. in moderne pergamene rilegate. Questa scoperta produsse gli effetti più vistosi solo a distanza di due secoli, spec. intorno al 1400-1450 e spec. a Firenze, quando una sorta di febbre dell’oro permise di intraprendere un massivo immagazzinamento di copie pergamenacee in parecchie biblioteche italiane, spesso di nuova istituzione e concezione.
Questo evento si rivelò irreversibile, e il salvataggio di TUTTO ciò che si tornava a conoscere si rivelò definitivo.
Nel frattempo l’arte della stampa su carta aprì la strada a processi completamente nuovi. Fu così che la preservazione dei testi antichi cessò di essere un problema, mentre l’eccellenza cominciò a consistere non nell'accesso a quelle pergamene ma nella qualità delle versioni a stampa. L'aspettative dell'epoca fu che dessero modo di rimuovere sempre nuove imperfezioni, piccole e grandi. Fu un modo di ottenere versioni ogni volta un po' più vicine agli originali.
Si è così passati dalla preocupazione di tramandare (non disperdere) al desiderio di ottenere esemplari sempre meno condizionati dal flusso di copie di copie di copie eseguite a mano. <>
<> per accedere al video andare su: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRVUSC-3GCc <>
<> La presentazione inizia al minuto 7.
All'incirca in parallelo, grosso modo tra l’800 e il 1000, un altro evento di primaria importanza... more All'incirca in parallelo, grosso modo tra l’800 e il 1000, un altro evento di primaria importanza ebbe luogo a Bisanzio: poiché dall’Egitto non venivano più i ‘soliti’ papiri, la periodica copiatura, ormai cessata, riprese con il trasferimento su pergamena. Questa volta si dovette decidere che bisognava ricopiare proprio tutto perché altrimenti i papiri, , sarebbero diventati ben presto illeggibili. Un salvataggio costoso, di grandi proporzioni, assolutamente epocale venne così intrapreso e condotto a buon fine, e senza che ci fosse chi almeno provasse a capirci qualcosa, anzi: si sospetta che ciò sia accaduto, spesso, senza nemmeno avere idea del loro contenuto!
Poi, tra il 1150 e il 1250 (circa), una volta appreso che gli arabi avevano accesso a un numero considerevole di testi, soprattutto aristotelici, che non erano disponibili tra i latini, fu la volta delle traduzioni in latino di ciò che era disponibile, se non in greco, almeno in arabo. Queste traduzioni, effettuate in Sicilia e poi soprattutto in Spagna, seppero generare cambiamenti di prim’ordine negli standard intellettuali in voga nelle neonate università europee. <>
<> Per collegarsi andare su: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywmAvrfnVOc <>
Mentre era in pieno svolgimento la 'scoperta' di alcuni filoni della cultura greca a Badgdad (e a... more Mentre era in pieno svolgimento la 'scoperta' di alcuni filoni della cultura greca a Badgdad (e altrove tra Siria e Persia), un evento comparabile si è snodato tra Siviglia, l'Irlanda, la Northumbria e York, e infine Aquisgrana. Stimoli convergenti innescarono l'avvio di un analogo e ancor più durevole processo di riscoperta della cultura del passato. Questa riscoperta conobbe sviluppi decisivi intorno all'800 quando, grazie a Carlo Magno e a Alcuino, decollarono nuovi tipi di scuole (a partire dalla scuola palatina di Aquisgrana) e, quel che non conta di meno, prese piede l'interesse per produrre sempre nuove copie di testi antichi, di norma nei monasteri e su pergamenta, ad opera dei cosiddetti amanuensi.
Si poté in tal modo ricostituire, sia pure molto gradualmente, quel circuito culturale vasto e vario che, col tempo, rese possibile la nascita delle università. <>
<> Per collegarsi andare su: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeasX_Uu_MY <>
Si suggerisce di andare subito al minuto 17. Grazie
Ciclo di sette incontri tenuti alla Biblioteca Villa Urbani di Perugia
Quarto incontro, genn. 2... more Ciclo di sette incontri tenuti alla Biblioteca Villa Urbani di Perugia
Quarto incontro, genn. 2022: “MA SIAMO QUI NOI!” (NOI DI BAGHDAD) <>
<> Una singolare combinazione di circostanze produsse questo effetto: mentre la cultura superiore con base ad Atene subiva una terribile frenata e il mondo latino addirittura perdeva di vista il patrimonio ellenico, sviluppi impensati si ebbero in territorio siriaco e a Tisifun (in greco: Ctesifonte) sul Tigri, con il sostegno della monarchia persiana. Ai persiani subentrarono poi gli arabi (intorno al 660) e, per oltre due secoli, il califfato diede ulteriore impulso a un’appropriazione della cultura greca su larga scala, fino a pensare che ormai erano loro l’avanguardia culturale dell’epoca e i veri eredi di una ormai lontana, ma ancora vitale, grecità. <>
Via via che l’impero romano si estese all’intera area mediterranea, quindi anche alla totalità de... more Via via che l’impero romano si estese all’intera area mediterranea, quindi anche alla totalità dei territori in cui si parlava greco, la diffusione del greco conobbe qualche limitazione perché le istituzioni governative e collaterali che ne avevano incoraggiato l’uso vennero rimpiazzate da istituzioni che incoraggiavano, semmai, l’uso del latino. Ma, se non sbaglio, soltanto nell’Italia meridionale e in Sicilia il latino ottenne di scalzare il greco. Anche se la conoscenza del latino venne comprensibilmente incrementata in tutta l’estensione dell’impero, a est della penisola italiana la consuetudine di parlare e studiare in greco rimase. invece, sostanzialmente inalterata. Fu perciò normale continuare a esprimersi in greco.
Intanto, laddove fu prevalente l’uso del latino, più o meno combinato con qualche lingua locale, la diffusione della conoscenza del greco conobbe una graduale battuta d’arresto. Di conseguenza, aebbe luogo sempre più spesso la rarefazione di coloro che conoscevano il greco e avevano le motivazioni giuste per accedere ai testi greci ancora disponibili. Per effetto di simili dinamiche, la dispersione dei papiri greci dovette subire una inevitabile accelerazione, limitata (ma anche estesa) a tutta l’area parlante latino, sia pure con l’eccezione di Roma.
Ne è derivata una preoccupazione inedita: l'urgenza di procedere al salvataggio dei testi antichi, soprattutto latini, che stavano dicvenendo sempre più rari. <>
Questa seconda conversazione verte proprio sul costituirsi del mito di Atene.
Un primo fattore f... more Questa seconda conversazione verte proprio sul costituirsi del mito di Atene.
Un primo fattore fu la costituzione della bibliotec a di Alessandria (intorno al 280 a.C.), che accese i riflettori soprattutto su Atene e sulla scuola di Aristotele.
Poi fu la volta di Roma. Durante le guerre puniche ebbe durevole successo la commedia 'palliata', con ambientazione costante ad Atene. Fu poi la volta delle biblioteche romane, inizialmente costituite da SOLI testi greci, e dei viaggi di istruzione in Grecia (come fece ad es. Cicerone). Veramente "Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit"!
È forse facile rendere conto delle ragioni per cui Atene ha un posto così importante nell’immagin... more È forse facile rendere conto delle ragioni per cui Atene ha un posto così importante nell’immaginario collettivo di mezzo mondo? Se parliamo tuttora di atenei, accademia, liceo, ginnasio e scuola è in relazione a Atene. E se parliamo di geometria, filosofia, teatro, commedia, astronomia e antipodi? Che pensare, poi, del ruolo che hanno avuto le biblioteche, dalle prime raccolte di papiri (es. la biblioteca di Euripide, oppure quella di Platone) fino alle grandi raccolte rinascimentali e moderne?
Per studenti liceali e universitari, bibliotecari, grecisti, filosofi, storici, medievisti. E per i greci che vivono in Italia.
Questo primo incontro ha avuto luogo a fine 2021. <>
<> Per accedere al video andare su https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f_n_skFmiQ <>
<> Attenzione: la presentazione incomincia al minuto 7.
Per il ciclo "Conversazioni in biblioteca" del Politecnico di Torino viene qui presentata una con... more Per il ciclo "Conversazioni in biblioteca" del Politecnico di Torino viene qui presentata una conversazione a più voci che risale al maggio 2021. Il mio contriuto verteva su "ANASSIMANDRO PRIMO CARTOGRAFO (altro che filosofo!)" e va dal min. 43 al min. 01.23. <> Il link è questo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhOhR3SLPsk&t=2614s <> Ho dedicato il mio intervento all'invenzione della resa cartografica (merito indiscutibile di Anassimandro) e alla creatività che, vivente Talete, gli permise di spingersi a rappresentare addirittura tutto il mondo conosciuto, da oltre Gibilterra fino a quello che per noi è il Mar Caspio.
Lunedì 28 giugno 2021, alle ore 12 in Argentina e alle ore 17 in Italia, ha avuto luogo una prome... more Lunedì 28 giugno 2021, alle ore 12 in Argentina e alle ore 17 in Italia, ha avuto luogo una promettente conversazione in spagnolo e in italiano su CONVINCERE SOCRATE. L'occasione è costituita dalla quasi contemporanea pubblicazione dell'edizione spagnola e di una seconda edizione italiana di questo testo teatrale. Nel documento figurano i dati essenziali. il video è disponibile qui: https://youtu.be/DJ61rOwDGs0
Con Guido G. Gattai. <>
Questa conversazione ha avuto luogo a Firenze nel 2018 nella cornice del... more Con Guido G. Gattai. <>
Questa conversazione ha avuto luogo a Firenze nel 2018 nella cornice del FILOSOFESTIVAL fiorentino. <>
Per accedere al video andare su https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNYtjv1lljE <>
Viene svolta l'idea che non sia molto corretto associare l'inizio della filosofia alla figura di Talete. Talete, come tutti i presocratici (e, si noti, lo stesso Socrate) appartengono, semmai alla PREISTORIA della filosogia greca. Questo non per ragioni bizzarre o soggettive ma perché, se la nozione di filosofia cominciò a conoscere una certa diffusionwe ad Atene intorno al 430 a.C., la sua ridefinizione come un tipo molto particolare di eccellenza (ed eventualmente di sapere) e la connessa introduzione della nozione di filosofo sono strettamente legate alla maturità di Platone. Finché Platone non l'ha individuata, fatta conoscere e amare, la gente non poté dire di sé "io sono un filosofo". Nemmeno Socrate, ovviamente.
Questa è una conversazione con studenti di alcuni licei fiorentini..
Sfortunatamente l'audio è p... more Questa è una conversazione con studenti di alcuni licei fiorentini..
Sfortunatamente l'audio è pessimo.
Talk given in 2014 upon invitation of the University of Girona (Spain). <>
To open this video, pl... more Talk given in 2014 upon invitation of the University of Girona (Spain). <> To open this video, please go on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NP2T8mG76E <> The leading idea was that the public life of ancient Athens owed a lot to a class of functionaries called 'grammateis' or 'hypogrammateis' (scribes, assistant scribes). Their number was probably hign, their functions often crucial and their professionality often high. Nevertheless, their appointment was for one year (renewable), their work was paid very moderately, their status was incomparable with that of the high functionaries of modern states and, what is more, it seems that there was no educational opportunity for people aiming at being enrolled as 'grammateis'. So, how did they acquire even strong skills?
Questa conversazione ha avuto luogo intorno al 2000 in un liceo di a Napoli su cortese invito del... more Questa conversazione ha avuto luogo intorno al 2000 in un liceo di a Napoli su cortese invito della RAI ("Enciclopedia Multimediale delle Scienze Filosofiche"). <> Per accedere al video andare su https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx7rehmEEL4 <> Viene avviata una conversazione con un gruppo di teenagers sulle opportunità e sulle insidie della comunicazione. I riferimenti alla figura di Socrate si limitano ad accompagnare lo scambio di idee.
G. D'Addelfio (ed.), Stupirsi. Fare filosofia con bambini, ragazzi e comunità, 2023
Da circa vent'anni le parole "Amica Sofia" indicano un modo di fare filosofia con i bambini, un'a... more Da circa vent'anni le parole "Amica Sofia" indicano un modo di fare filosofia con i bambini, un'associazione e una rivista semestrale. Qui ho provato a dare un'idea di come si caratterizza (o vorremmo che si caratterizzasse) il nostro modo di fare filosofia con bambini, ragazzi e altri gruppi sociali. Direi che un tratto caratterizzante sia l'offerta di ascolto.
Ancient Greek Sophistry and Its Legacy, Edited by Donald MacDonald, 2023
It is rather unexpected to discover that some THIRTY antilogies are still available in full. Anti... more It is rather unexpected to discover that some THIRTY antilogies are still available in full. Antilogies were authored by: at least twelve leading writers that were active in approx. the same period, namely Protagoras, Antiphon and Gorgias; Herodotus and Thucydides; Prodicus and Antisthenes; Sophocles and Euripides; Aristophanes and Alcidamas (the latter was unfortunately left aside); the anonymous Dissoi Logoi.
Antilogies were a very special sort of writing. What I offer here is a rather extensive investigation on so peculiar a genre of writings,
This article is part of the Special Issue "Ancient Greek Sophistry and Its Legacy", Edited by Michael MacDonald. It is an open access paper.
This is (or at least, seems to me) one of the best papers of mine. Here I got to account rather c... more This is (or at least, seems to me) one of the best papers of mine. Here I got to account rather clearly and briefly for a number of very complex phenomena: on the one hand the connection between antilogies and Socrates' involvement in sustained dialogical intercourses (this connection may easily escape one's attention), about Socrates' personality and on how an oral practice came to inspire dozens of 'Socratic' dialogues.
However, formally, this is but a response to a couple of sustained reviews of a book, LE DIALOGUE SOCRATIQUE (Les Belles Lettres, collection 'Encre Marine', Paris 2012), both published in NOVA TELLVS. As it happens, this issue of NOVA TELLVS appeared not in 2012 but during the subsequent year.
Centré sur la circulation du savoir à l'époque de Thalès, l'essai aborde un prérequisite indispen... more Centré sur la circulation du savoir à l'époque de Thalès, l'essai aborde un prérequisite indispensable au succès de tout modèle -- ou de toute école de pensée -- sur commernt cette circulation fut possible. Je soulève donc la question des conditions matérielles de la circulation. Le statut scientifique et la rénommée d'un Thalès se sont en effet imposées au moyen des médias dont il reste à identifier la nature. Bien audelà du phénomène de filiation scientifique -- il n'a pas suffi que Xénophane tienne le role d'intermediaire entre l'est et la 'nouvelle Hellas' qui a su fleurir au sud de l'Italie, notamment à Crotone --je suggère de considérer le role joué par les sanctuaires où se déroulaient les grands concours (e.g..les jeux olympiques) et autres évenements réligieux et culturels d'envergure. Ils pourraient avoir constitué ce média indispensable à la diffusion des modèles de pensée et des théories qui firent ensuite école. En fait, selon la conjecture de Tom Robinson, c'était dans ces crircumstances que les savants pouvaien se connaitre, se rencontrer, faire circuler leurs écrits et leurs idées, alors que les poètes profitaient des memes opportunités pour se faire connaitre comme tels, outre que comme chansonniers. Je trouve que la conjecture de Robinson et très heureuse.
S. Montgomery Ewegen and C.P. Zoller (eds.), Gorgias/Gorgias: The Sicilian Orator and the Platonic Dialogue: with new translations of the Helen, Palamedes, and On Not Being , 2022
Gorgias begun to be re-discovered in the Eighties. Only then an impressive acceleration of resear... more Gorgias begun to be re-discovered in the Eighties. Only then an impressive acceleration of research occurred, and the avenue to a comprehensive rethinking of his work, which has recently taken some important further steps, begun. The present paper is meant to account for such a global reappraisal.
My paper begins by outlining a history of the rediscovery of Gorgias. Its starting point is a statement by George Kerferd who in 1981 acknowledged, with commendable intellectual honesty, that “the interpretation of what Gorgias is saying is difficult, and we are certainly not yet even in sight of an agreed understanding of its overall significance, let alone its detailed arguments.”. In 1981!
As to Gorgias' 'Palamedes' the revolutionary event was the discovery that here Gorgias first considers one-by-one a number of indispensable objective (factual) conditions for the trahison to matarialize, and argues that none of them could have occurred (nor in fact did occur). Then, as his second claim, he surveys the subjective conditions related to his position as a Greek basileus to conclude that none occurred. All that is worth of attention. And there is more, including a memorable evocation of contradiction. The whole is a mastery logos amarturos.
A very-first-order feature of his 'Encomoium of Helen' is the disguised status of what may well be taken to be a unique treatise on the limits of responsibility. These points do not surface, but are precisely what the Encomium deals with (and slyly conceals). It is astonishing to see how often commentators remained unaware of that!
And there is more. Gorgias' extant writings reach a truly uncommon level of excellence and are full of substantive moments, even if at every turn their author strove to remain behind the scenes.
You'll find my short paper on pages 3 to 6 of the WEDNESDAY, issue no. 172.
The Homeric poems (t... more You'll find my short paper on pages 3 to 6 of the WEDNESDAY, issue no. 172.
The Homeric poems (the Iliad and the Odyssey) had a powerful influence on ancient Greek civilization, if not the whole of humankind. Many find this statement to be true but do little to examine it. I propose to reopen Homer’s case to show how the poems established themselves within their culture and gained a widespread circulation in ancient Greek society. Their appearance and diffusion are much more significant than commonly believed.
Why? Because they were able to portray a sort of society (and of Olympus) that was astonishingly 'modern'. Just one example could be supplied here: Nausicaa thinks something and says something different, helpful in view of what she thought or considered. This distance between thought (eventually wished) and actually said enacts a dialectic totally unexpected in those old times).
English below
«Bambine e bambini, ragazze e ragazzi hanno un potenziale di cui loro stessi sono ... more English below
«Bambine e bambini, ragazze e ragazzi hanno un potenziale di cui loro stessi sono i primi a non saper quasi niente. Eppure sono due le cose che contano per davvero per b. e r.: da un lato la presenza – oppure l’assenza – di una persona che, loro capiscono, “mi vuol bene”, che si interessa “a me” e per la quale “proprio io” conto qualcosa, dall’altro una mano che aiuti ognuno a tirar fuori il meglio di sé. B. e r. stanno bene con se stessi, hanno la sensazione di farsi largo, si sentono riconciliati con il mondo solo, guardano con ottimismo al nuovo giorno se e quando accadono queste due cose, o ne accade almeno una. Solo allora, infatti, qualcosa di ciò che era rannicchiato lì dentro trova il modo di uscir fuori, di manifestarsi e diventare parole, idee, suoni, gesti o una qualunque altra cosa.»
«Girls and boys have a potential they themselves are the first to know almost nothing about. Yet two things really matter for them: on the one hand the presence - or the absence - of a person who, they understand, "loves me", is interested in "me" and for whom "me" counts something; on the other hand, a hand that helps everyone to bring out the best in themselves. Girls and boys feel good about themselves, like how they are making their way, feel reconciled with the world, look with optimism at the new day if and when these two things happen, or at least if one of them happens. Only then, in fact, does something of what was huddled inside them find a way to come out, to manifest itself and become words, ideas, sounds, gestures or whatever.»
The Homeric poems were an immense gift not just for the Greeks but for the whole humankind. In su... more The Homeric poems were an immense gift not just for the Greeks but for the whole humankind. In support of this claim five reasons could be offered. One is intelligibility. To figure a situation, what speakers are trying to get or to avoid, and how they manage to get it, is remarkably clear to every reader (or audience). Moreover, words are always appropriate and almost every detail is attractive, nice. Second, the story is not meant to be attractive only for male audiences, quite the contrary. Third, some outstanding gods personify human emotions, and to rely on personified emotions is helpful since you can figure them, give them a name and acknowledge them in everyday behaviour. Fourth, a reasonable balance of powers is suggested: the Greek kings at Troy are dozens, the disturbing Achilles resists Agamemnon, and Odysseus sticks, not kills, Thersites. Fifth, 'Homer' does not formulate rules and prohibitions, does not represent the punishment for those who don't behave as recommended, let alone hastens to invoke the divine wrath, nor poses as a person who knows and turns to people who do not know. All in all, a coherent non-authoritarian way of lìfe happens to be recommended, and this in very very old times.
My full paper, circulated by the Daily Philosophy Newsletter on Sept. 19, 2022, is avalable here: https://daily-philosophy.com/rossetti-homeric-poems/
This is a draft of the paper I read in the opening session of SOCRATICA V, an international confe... more This is a draft of the paper I read in the opening session of SOCRATICA V, an international conference that took place in Houston TX on July, 2022.
Around the middle of the fifth century BC, when Socrates was reaching adulthood, an important change took place in the cultural offer by the Greek sophoi. Until then, from the formal point of view, the communication of knowledge had known a certain stability along the scheme sophos > teachings > book but, starting approximately from the mid-fifth century, a new standard affirmed itself: the antilogic model where authors outline a dispute and portray two disputants. the antilogic model where authors outline a dispute and portray two disputants.
This is likely to have been a key pre-condition for the oral dialogical interaction Socrates invented and developed.
§ 2 is devoted to a tentative catalogue of some THIRTY ANTILOGIES going back to the second half of the V Century BC.
G. Calenda, La Condanna di Socrate. Audiatur et altera pars, 2022
This is a short preface to Guido Calenda's 'La Condan'na di Socrate. Audiatur et altera pars' (Ba... more This is a short preface to Guido Calenda's 'La Condan'na di Socrate. Audiatur et altera pars' (Baden Baden 2022).
The key point is that finally we do have a book dealing with the claims of the accusers of Socrates in 399 BCE. A widely shared sympathy for Socrates and his 'prophet' Plato still prevents many students from accounting for the evaluations that lead Anytus and his associates to the indictment that brought Socrates before his judges. But why not, on earth?
Besides, it was precisely in the Apology that Plato himself acknowledged not less than five times that, in the years close to 399, Socrates was perceived as an uncomfortable character by at least a portion of his fellow Athenians. This is indeed, enlightening.
This is but the transcription of a short talk whose concern is how to do philosophy with teenager... more This is but the transcription of a short talk whose concern is how to do philosophy with teenagers. That this is far from being utopistic should be clear (however see https://www.academia.edu/44499768/Anche_i_bambini_pensano_2020_).
This time I tried to elaborate on how an adult can (and should) combine a necessary improvisation and a meassure of professionality. This is far from being clear, it seems...
This paper, carefully translated into Greek by dr. A. Tatsi, is meant to raise the question, why ... more This paper, carefully translated into Greek by dr. A. Tatsi, is meant to raise the question, why Athens got so unique a renown all around the world since ancient Alexandria and Rome (notably the republican Rome), and still gets it. Put differently, why those other Greek poleis, where many prestigious artists, writers, thinkers, scientists spent their lives (just few examples: Miletus, Alexandria, Syracuse, Rhodes), didn't, and still don't, enjoy a comparable fame?
I suspect that the main reason is not that other poleis failed to nurture (or host) a Sophocles, a Phidias or an Aristotle, but because Athens immediately became the main pole of attraction for both ancient Alexandria and ancient Rome. A presumable side-effect was that, for a long time, papyruses-with-Athenian-stuff were quickly judged worth being copied a priori, while papyruses-with-non-Athenian-stuff were judged, certainly with notable exceptions, not so prioritarily entitled to be furtherly copied. Otherwise, why could it have occurred the impressive disproportion between the quantity of Athenian and non-Athenian texts that were available to Byzantine copyists for a massive trasferral on parchment and, as a consequence, are still accessible to us in full, or almost in full?
This paper is part of a larger collection of papers, namely: Eleatic Ontology: origin and recep... more This paper is part of a larger collection of papers, namely: Eleatic Ontology: origin and reception. Tome 1.1. Galgano, N. and Cherubin, R. (eds.), Part 2 -- https://revistas.ufrj.br/index.php/FilosofiaClassica/issue/view/1583.
During the fifth century BCE Parmenides had many and qualified readers, among whom Zeno, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Leucippus, Melissus, Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias.
Three of them tried to do much more than what he was able to do with the ‘deductive exercise’ we encounter in 28B8.1-33 (or, in the case of Melissus, with the whole doctrine of being), and they succeeded. Indeed, that they strived to overcome the high standard already reached by Parmenides in the invention of strictly deductive passages is basically out of the question.
My paper is devoted to account for the ambitious aims Zeno, Melissus, and Gorgias attained, each in a very distinguished manner.
C. Marsico ed., Socrates and the Socratic Philosophies. Selected Papers from SOCRATICA IV, 2022
This paper was published as part of: C. Marsico (ed.), Socrates and the Socratic Philosophies. Se... more This paper was published as part of: C. Marsico (ed.), Socrates and the Socratic Philosophies. Selected Papers from SOCRATICA IV, Baden Baden 2022 (Intern. Socrates Studies 2). <>
Anche in filosofia antica la ricerca conosce, di tanto in tanto, fatti nuovi in grado di rimettere in discussione delle certezze consolidate, e questo non necessariamente a seguito della pubblicazione di nuovi papiri. Con riferimento a Socrate è proprio il caso di dire che le acque si sono fatte piuttosto agitate per via di due o tre fatti nuovi che, anche solo vent’anni fa, forse nessuno al mondo sarebbe stato in grado di prefigurare.
Uno di questi fatti nuovi, almeno a mio avviso, è la raccolta di fonti sui presocratici recentemente predisposta da André Laks e Glenn Most (2016), ossia il ‘nuovo Diels-Kranz’. L’opera ha sorpreso tutti per il fatto di includere una sezione dedicata a Socrate. Osservo, per cominciare, che non si tratta di un’appendice, ma di un capitolo che, non a caso, è collocato subito dopo quelli su Protagora e Gorgia e prima di quelli dedicati a Prodico, Trasimaco, Ippia, Antifonte e, a seguire, a altri intellettuali e altri testi di fine V secolo. La sua inclusione tra i presocratici non manca di sorprendere, e certamente non solo per via del paradosso di un Socrate che, se non viene trattato come un sofista, viene almeno trattato come un presocratico, cosa che non andrebbe bene ugualmente. Sarebbe tuttavia un errore perderci dietro a simili ovvietà.
La scelta di Laks e Most costituisce infatti, oso dire, un atto imprevisto ma dovuto. Socrate fu un contemporaneo dei sofisti e si è formato con loro, non certo con i suoi (o i loro) discepoli, e è corretto ravvisare in lui uno dei protagonisti della vicenda culturale del V secolo al pari di Gorgia o Antifonte. È certamente possibile che alcuni dei suoi ‘coetanei’ – per esempio Protagora – siano stati più precoci di lui nel delineare e stabilizzare la propria immagine pubblica; nondimeno si sono formati negli stessi anni, si sono affermati in modi diversi nella stessa Atene, hanno avuto la possibilità di conoscersi, di interagire e, forse, anche di scontrarsi, sono invecchiati insieme. Di conseguenza, anche se una tradizione antichissima ha ripetutamente insegnato, di generazione in generazione fino a oggi e senza deviazioni, a scorporare Socrate da quel gruppo di
intellettuali di successo, quasi che egli non fosse stato espressione del medesimo humus culturale, è ben difficile trovare una buona ragione per giustificare un simile uso ed eventualmente disapprovare la scelta di Laks e Most. Chiediamoci allora...
in F. Benoni-A. Stavru (eds.), Platone e il governo delle passioni. Studi per Linda Napolitano, Perugia, Aguaplano, 2021
The leading idea of this chapter is that a momentous change in anthropology occurred with Socrate... more The leading idea of this chapter is that a momentous change in anthropology occurred with Socrates and his direct pupils. Many texts, Homer to Demosthenes, give ample and univocal evidence of how prevailing was, among the Greeks, the attitude at emphasizing the limits of the will and the many ways in which human behavior is conditioned. Quite a different anthropology surfaces within the Socratics and the Socratic literature of the beginnings. They seem to have endorsed and disseminated the idea that the agent is largely responsible for his/her behavior and to take it under control is essential to one's self-esteem. All that without being immediately able to rely on the ad hoc apparatus of notions giving rise to the sense of duty, to the moral laws, to the moral character and so on. All that just followed.
R. Saetta Cottone (ed.), Penser les dieux avec les Présocratiques, 2021
In Parmenides' poem there are many female goddesses, indeed only goddesses. Moreover, the poem be... more In Parmenides' poem there are many female goddesses, indeed only goddesses. Moreover, the poem begins with "hippoi tai" to evoke female horses who later on receive a sort of unexpected thanksgiving on the part of another goddess. Whence the question: why on earth so uncommon an emphasis on the female? As it seems, it has nothing to do with a supposed girlfriend or so. As suggested by Rose Cherubin in a seminal article of her, it is likely to convey the idea of equal attention for male and female and, as a consequence, a need to rebalance an unbalanced relationship.
Some facts are the starting point of this paper. That the paradox of the Millet Seed exploits the... more Some facts are the starting point of this paper. That the paradox of the Millet Seed exploits the notion of to murioston (“the/a ten thousandth”) is clearly assumed by our main source (Simplicius). While murios is a notion already at use in the Homeric poems, to murioston is totally unattested before; it is therefore unlikely that it had some circulation before Zeno. A close scrutiny is indeed enough to note that Zeno exploits a whole repository of totally unknown notions. It follows that, in my opinion, no professional account of Zeno’s paradoxes is conceivable without focusing one’s attention upon what ostensibly was a total novelty, and a new beginning on the part of Zeno.
The current idea of what Parmenides was, did, taught and wrote is presently subject (this at leas... more The current idea of what Parmenides was, did, taught and wrote is presently subject (this at least is my claim) to a substantial reassessment, since the scholarly tradition is likely to have been (and still to be today) affected by the large scale adoption of some seriously misleading assumptions. Contrary to these assumptions, Parmenides is likely to have been very different from what this community seemingly continues to believe. For the «physical» doctrines are an indisputable fact, while the allusions to the brotōn doxai have been charged with a meaning they cannot have. A number of implications follow, and the matter has been argued within the limits of a paper while two books of mine, a larger and a shorter one, dealt with basically the same topics, and were printed quite recently (in 2020). One of them is entitled "Verso la filosofia: Nuove prospettive su Parmenide, Zenone e Melisso", while the other is "Parmenide e Zenone sophoi ad Elea".
Questo articolo, dopo essere uscito su AMICA SOFIA MAGAZINE, viene ora riproposto come introduzio... more Questo articolo, dopo essere uscito su AMICA SOFIA MAGAZINE, viene ora riproposto come introduzione a un volume di Dorella Cianci e Massimo Iiritano, PENSARE DA BAMBINI (Trento, Erickson, 2020). L'idea-guida che ho svolto è che il potenziale filosofico di bambini e ragazzi esiste ed è un gran peccato soffocarlo con la disattenzione (non si richiede più di questo per ottenere il risultato!) o anche semplicemente non riconoscerlo, non valorizzarlo, non dargli corda. Avviandomi a concludere, ho provato a indicare qualche strategia orientata nella direzione opposta, che è poi quella di AMICA SOFIA fin dalla sua prima configurazione (Perugia 2002-3) come associazione di interesse locale.
Σπουδῆς οὐδὲν ἐλλιποῦσα. Anna Maria Biraschi. Scritti in memoria, 2020
Anaximander is credited, i.a., for having been the author of the very first graphic rendering of ... more Anaximander is credited, i.a., for having been the author of the very first graphic rendering of the whole known world, thus with the invention of a successful protype, that of large scale maps. For a very long time, this prototype has been treated as but a secondary achievement of his, while paying the greatest attention to the ‘philosophical’ doctrine of apeiron in the vein of a celebrated page of Aristotle. My paper, inspired as it is to a substantial disagreement from such a portrayal, is devoted to reach a more definite idea of what the rendering based on the coastline is likely to have meant for him as well as for his fellow citizens, an undertaking completely autonomous with respect to the sort of investigations to which Thales was most intensely committed.
Paper appeared in Diogene Magazine 39 (2016). ---- With reference to a recent book where I claim ... more Paper appeared in Diogene Magazine 39 (2016). ---- With reference to a recent book where I claim that philosophy didn't begin with Thales', a rather radical rethinking of the most prominent masters of Miletus, though within just few pages, is being undertaken here. To outline a new identikit of Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes (and Hecataeus, who has been left aside on this occasion because of space limits) is an urgent task since the current idea of their work still is heavily affected by Aristotelian over-simplifications, and may well be taken for seriously distorted. --------- -------- Sul conto di Talete, Anassimandro e Anassimene (sorvolerò, per questa volta, su Ecateo, il quarto milesio) è tempo di ripensare in profondità, io credo, l'idea che ce ne siamo fatta un po' tutti perché l'identikit che circola sin dai tempi di Aristotele non corrisponde alle loro fattezze, e da molti punti di vista. Così ho provato a dare un'idea di ciò che i tre hanno creduto di appurare e capire, e che hanno poi insegnato. Con questa breve sintesi ho provato a dare un'ìdea di quanto profondo possa essere il ripensamento dell'eredità culturale dei maestri di Mileto.
This paper, originally written and printed in Italian, has been translated into French, then into... more This paper, originally written and printed in Italian, has been translated into French, then into Portuguese, and now into Spanish. The present translation has been printed as part of "Quadripartita Ratio", 1.2016 (http://www.revistascientificas.udg.mx/index.php/CRRAR/issue/view/539/showToc). As to macro-rhetoric, there is a book of mine interely devoted to this topic (1994 Italian; 2009 Spanish).
My main claim is that every attempt to communicate sth to sbody implies the choice of a strategy and then the choice of a number of details meant to be as functional as possible. These ideas, in turn, are helpful in order to attain a better understanding of complex text units. It may be considered a holistic rhetoric, as it concentrates on the logic of a whole. Far from being descriptive or classificatory, this sort of rhetoric goes in search of the aims (the logic of an action, a discourse, a speaker, a whole, a part...) and then pays head to the functions details are expected to play in a given context.
The opening page includes RESUMEN & ABSTRACT. -- Paper published in "IUS FUGIT. Revista de cultur... more The opening page includes RESUMEN & ABSTRACT. -- Paper published in "IUS FUGIT. Revista de cultura juridica" 19, 2016, 231-245 (www.iusfugit.com)
This paper -- appeared in Philosophia [Athens], 46, 2016, pp. 27-48 -- deals with the universalit... more This paper -- appeared in Philosophia [Athens], 46, 2016, pp. 27-48 -- deals with the universality of a rhetorically qualified communication, either elementary or scientific (not just literary or dicanic rhetoric). I first argue that communication (or, better, communicational initiatives, i.e., attempts to communicate something to somebody) never is wholly spontaneous, since a decision (thus a choice) is necessarily at work when one takes a certain initiative. Behind every attempt to communicate there is a will to say something to somebody, thus a decision, and behind the decision a need or opportunity (or the pleasure) to devise, prepare and send a given message, whose degree of appropriateness will appear later (there is, therefore, a certain wait for the feedback). It follows that rhetorical skill has quite positive features (it has always been a key resource for our welfare). But, if so, the prejudice against rhetoric, a vast and tenacious phenomenon, is likely to require a better understanding. As a matter of fact, such a prejudice goes back to Plato and even earlier times, knew a first-order rehearsal with Descartes and Kant, and continues to manifest its force even in our times. However, Chaïm Perelman’s efforts to free rhetoric from such a prejudice have been supported in many ways during XX century and now it is possible to rediscover its universality as well as its intrinsic neutrality. Since the above has to do with the past, let us look ahead. Two main inferences seems at hand. (A) Certainty, truth, and logical consequentiality are not a standard from which to judge a number of inferior forms of knowledge, disputable statements or ‘the opinions of mortals’, but mere happy exceptions to the rule (a ‘rule of mediocrity’, one could say). (B) It is conceivable to mount a ‘rhetorica universalis’, the study of most general features, and most qualifying variables, affecting all sort of communicational attempts: a general rhetoric (not a meta-rhetoric) which should prove helpful in its interaction with many ‘local’ sorts of rhetoric.
The Eleatic Lectures on Melissus by Jaap Mansfeld (book published in 2016 by Academia Verlag: see... more The Eleatic Lectures on Melissus by Jaap Mansfeld (book published in 2016 by Academia Verlag: see attachment) include a note of mine on these Lectures, followed by Mansfeld's reply.
In these few pages I argue that Melissus's book, as well as Gorgias' Peri tou me ontos, should have be perceived by their contemporaries as a powerful innovation for their strict argumentative organization: only dry argoments from the beginnins to the end, and a rather plain prose: fantastic, in my opinion (but Mansfeld, in his reply, favours a less emphatic appreciation). ---------------------- Book reviewed by Luca Gili on http://www.bmcreview.org/2017/08/20170828.html.
Overcoming the theory which divides philosophy into Analytic and Continental approach and recover... more Overcoming the theory which divides philosophy into Analytic and Continental approach and recovering the multiplicity of the various (seemingly minor) forms of 'philosophein', Rossetti stresses the need to develop the notion of 'virtual' and 'inchoative' philosophy, and so to unfold the philosophical potential that is in each of us. In this sense, the experience of 'philosophizing' with children has much to say, to teach, to give us.
in A. Setaioli (ed.), Apis Matina: studi in onore di Carlo Santini, Trieste 2016, 613-624. --- Pa... more in A. Setaioli (ed.), Apis Matina: studi in onore di Carlo Santini, Trieste 2016, 613-624. --- Parmenides has two short fragments (one hexameter each) devoted to the moon, plus few references often left aside by the scholarly community. Two main points are dealt with here. First I contend that Parmenides himself is likely to have devised 'pseudophanes' (while 'pseudophaes' goes back to Anaximander) in order to qualify the moonlight as 'false', i.e. derived from the sun. Secondly I argue that Parmenides is very likely to have discovered that the sunlight enlightens 50% of the moon continuously irrespective of what we see from earth. ----
A furtherly revised treatment of the same topics is now available as chapter 5 of my Un altro Parmenide, vol. 2 (Bologna 2017). Something more is to be found here: https://www.academia.edu/34595180/Un_altro_Parmenide_vol._II_Luna_Antipodi_Sessualit%C3%A0_Logica_2017_
"Phaedo of Elis, the author of few Socratic dialogues, has been traditionally neglected, much as ... more "Phaedo of Elis, the author of few Socratic dialogues, has been traditionally neglected, much as if we knew nothing of value about him. The main claim of this paper is that he deserves to be regularly taken into account when dealing with Socrates, and also with the beginnings of philosophy in Greece, since at least his Zopyrus has a key testimony to offer on both topics.
Especially noteworthy seem to be (a) the fact that his Socrates dares to speak about himself and reveal a feature of his natural inclinations the writer presumes to have remain wholly undetected by his regulars; (b) the appearance, here as well in Aeschines's Alcibiades, of one of the most ancient evidence about one's confidences, taken as eminently revealing remarks; (c) the availability of explicit references to philosophy, and to an idea of philosophy whose prestige happens to be linked to its pragmatic potentialities, rather than to one or more doctrines."
<><> These few pages belong to Chapter 5 of U. Zilioli (ed.), From the Socratics to the Socratic Schools. Classical Ethics, Metaphysics and Epistemology, New York and London, Routledge, 2015, 82-98 (C.J. Rowe's translation),
En estas páginas me propongo hablar sobre el conflicto (si es que sepuede usar ese término) que s... more En estas páginas me propongo hablar sobre el conflicto (si es que sepuede usar ese término) que se ha delineado entre la humanitas presocrática y la humanitas de Sócrates. Lo haré tomando ejemplos de otro conflicto queha sido tratado a profundidad en nuestro pasado común: aquel entre el catolicismo y la Modernidad. Parece, además, que este conflicto moderno tiene unprecedente importante (y, en gran medida, insospechado): el que se delineó dosmil quinientos años atrás en Grecia, grosso modo, entre Homero y Sócrates.De esta manera, quiero intentar argumentar que este conflicto moderno tieneun precedente en Grecia antigua y, por ello, se encuentran similitudes que, cuando menos, son dignas de notar. Originally read at the Univ. Lateranense, Roma, then revised , translated and published in ARETE REVISTA DE FILOSOFIA (a journal published in Lima, Peru), vol. XXVII 2015, 281-296; available through http://revistas.pucp.edu.pe/index.php/arete/article/view/14618/pdf
This exchange was prepared for the Portuguese translation of "Le dialogue socratique" (Paris 2011... more This exchange was prepared for the Portuguese translation of "Le dialogue socratique" (Paris 2011). Its Portuguese version is to be found on pages 271-296 of "O diálogo socratico", Paulus Editore, São Paulo BR, 2015, while the original Italian version is now available in the journal "Quaderni Urbinati di Cultira Classica", n.s. 109. It is devoted to current investigations on the topic.
Our ‘universal’ perception of Parmenides’ poem is biased by traditional readings to a considerabl... more Our ‘universal’ perception of Parmenides’ poem is biased by traditional readings to a considerable degree, at least if the poem actually included two different doctrinal bodies, one on being and another peri physeōs properly, the latter encompassing a number of micro-treatises on the physical world and (some) living organisms. What I plan to offer in support of this claim is, to begin with, an inventory (the first ever prepared) of the topics dealt with in the section devoted to physical world and living creatures (§ 2). Something on Parmenides’ way of studying and understanding different aspects of the physical world and living organisms follows (§ 3). Once acknowledged the above (a point which is not particularly controversial, I presume), the poem comes to look quite differently and some principles of interpretation are likely to collapse: first of all, the customary assumption that frgs. 1-9 include definite ideas on the doctrines to be found in the second main body, and tell us that they are not of great value. Indeed, the very high quality of several among these doctrines seems to imply that no devaluation of the second main doctrinal body is tenable.
-- NOTE/ see also "Parmenides' Polumathia: an inventory of his doxai [ 2016 ]", a draft paper in English which is very near to this one. It is fully available in the section OTHER of my own page on academia.edu.
Philosophy is often taken to be something that is always possible, so that everyone is fully enti... more Philosophy is often taken to be something that is always possible, so that everyone is fully entitled (and no one can avoid) sketching a ‘philosophy’ of his/her own. Nevertheless, it is widely assumed that philosophy began in Miletus with Thales. But it is equally well known that the Presocratics remained unaware of being philosophers, and therefore could not even have wanted to be identified that way. These three points are not mutually compatible. So, what lies behind them? What is escaping our attention when we state them? Probably an event in Plato’s life that has too often gone unnoticed: the key role he played in giving form and substance to philosophy almost ex nihilo, and in getting it to take root once and for all. Failure to acknowledge how, when, and on whose initiative philosophy came to occupy a very important place in Western culture and education for two and a half millennia; not including a note on this process in biographies of Plato; and overlooking another key event that probably occurred about 350-45 BC.: these are just some of the unwelcome effects due to the usual silence about the period in which philosophy took form. A REVISED VERSION of this paper has been included in my book "La filosofia non nasce con Talete, e nemmeno con Socrate" (2015).
This is a widely revised version of the paper bearing the same title and published in a Russian j... more This is a widely revised version of the paper bearing the same title and published in a Russian journal in 2013.
It deals with the REFECTIO of Heraclitus' PERI PHYSEOS by S.N. Mouraviev.
It is not by chance that it has been included in a collection of papers "sobre los Heraclitea de Serge Mouraviev".
This paper deals with Anaximenes' rejection of a key doctrine of Anaximander, namely that the sun... more This paper deals with Anaximenes' rejection of a key doctrine of Anaximander, namely that the sun is able to complete its circular motion around the earth, since the earth, in turn, far from being indefinitely deep, has a lower as well as an upper limit, is located at the centre of the universe, is stable and does not incur the risk to fall.
Parmenides resumed the basic idea of Anaximander with new conjectures and arguments, but in the meanwhile Anaximenes' rejection found several followers (not just Xenophanes).
So, these old sophoi didn't disagree only about the 'arche', whether it is to be identified with 'to apeiron' or air.
After some preliminary remarks about the Presocratics and how Anaximander happens to be accounte... more After some preliminary remarks about the Presocratics and how Anaximander happens to be accounted for in the "Neue Überweg" (volume devoted to the "Frühgriechische Philosophie", 2013), I offer some conjectures on how Anaximander's book is likely to have been structured. From that it seems to follow that Anaximander has the rare merit of having devised and prepared the very first treatise meant to serve as a comprehensive account of a stated body of (inchoative) knowledge. In fact, this way, a model or pattern came to be established, namely the sort of book called "Peri Physeos". If so, the inventor of the very idea of treatise was not Aristotle, or Herodotus, or Hippocrates, but Anaximander. PAPER INCLUDED IN: R.L. Cardullo-D. Iozzia (eds.), Kallos kai arete. Bellezza e virtù. Studi in onore di Maria Barbanti, Catania 2015.
Antilogies formed a privileged sort of writings where Sophistic excellence could manifest itself ... more Antilogies formed a privileged sort of writings where Sophistic excellence could manifest itself at the best.
Hardly a doubt on this point, since mastery works as the Tetralogies by Antiphon, or the Helen and Palamedes by Gorgias, the final agōn of Aristophanes' Clouds or Thucydides' Melian dialogue are there to offer ample evidence of that.
But the list of antilogies is much richer and antilogies have a logic of their own, worth being uncovered.
What just may seem, but is not, a paradox? This is my starting point.
Che cosa può passare per u... more What just may seem, but is not, a paradox? This is my starting point.
Che cosa può passare per un paradosso, ma non lo è? Questo è il mio punto di partenza.
When most Socratics began to write Socratic dialogues, only the orators, perhaps, were so prolifi... more When most Socratics began to write Socratic dialogues, only the orators, perhaps, were so prolific in Atherns. What could mean such a generous offer of dialogues for the town and its intellectual avant-garde? This was the question addressed here in 2006..
This is a small portion of the book, its third Appendix. Here you'll find a list of thirty-one pa... more This is a small portion of the book, its third Appendix. Here you'll find a list of thirty-one passages of Plato's 'Euthyphro' I judged rather refractory to interpretation (or: whose interpretation seemed to me unsatisfying). It is meant to account for which reasons something seems to go wrong and it is not clear what precisely Plato wanted to tell us.
So far, this sort of meta-investigation seems to have remained a unique feature of this book and, perhaps, what still survives of it.
Its introductory essay was translated into French and became a portion of 'Le dialogue socratique' (Paris 2011). Other portions of this book are available elsewhere in this sub-section of academia.edu.
La prima parte dell'articolo è dedicata al tentativo di dimostrare che non è giustificata la rice... more La prima parte dell'articolo è dedicata al tentativo di dimostrare che non è giustificata la ricerca di dottrine da attribuire a Socrate. Il motivo fondamentale addotto è che egli fu partecipe di un movimento culturale caratterizzato dalla propensione a suscitare interrogativi molto più che ad offrire risposte e gloriarsi di un certo numero di dottrine o doxai.
Nella seconda parte provo a individuare una serie di memorabili innovazioni nel comune sentire -- per esempio l'idea che sia possibile e desiderabile esercitare un fermo controllo su di sé e, di riflesso, il senso di responsabilità o perfino colpa anziché l'uso di professarsi non responsabili -- che, prima ancora di trasformarsi in insegnamenti positivi e in prese di posizione teoriche, sono entrate in circolo nel mondo greco grazie a Socrate e alla più antica letteratura socratica lasciandovi una traccia così forte da giungere fino al nostro tempo. Dissociare Socrate da simili innovazioni sarebbe a mio avviso un errore.
Socrates 2400 Years since hìs Death, edited by V. Karasmanis, 2004
We have only a second-hand Socrates, since we know him only thhrough a number of indirect sources... more We have only a second-hand Socrates, since we know him only thhrough a number of indirect sources serving as intermediaries. Among them, a very specal role is played by those who, basing themselves upon their personal (and collective) recollections, wrote a lot about him and portrayed him as a living person, a person in the act of living. This bare fact raises the question of reliabiiity. How much reliable these writers were? Their wotk is more of a hindrance or a help?
The abstract question has a definite answer: it depends on whether their Socrates is a living character and preserves an identity of his own. When thus is the case...
Resumo Presume-se que pensadores tenham começado a ser considerados como filósofos nos últimos de... more Resumo Presume-se que pensadores tenham começado a ser considerados como filósofos nos últimos decênios do séc. V aC Se for assim, nenhum dos intelectuais das épocas posteriores, de Tales a Empédocles, que fomos educados a honrar como filósofos, o ...
This paper, as two other, is a joined output of the late Claudio Lausdei and Livio Rossetti.
POx... more This paper, as two other, is a joined output of the late Claudio Lausdei and Livio Rossetti.
POxy 2890 front gives a vivid portrayal of the search for higher wisdom. Claudio and I contributed to the forther assessment of the papyrus in order to reach a better understanding of what is being said.
This paper, as two other, is a joined output of the late Claudio Lausdei and Livio Rossetti.
Ot... more This paper, as two other, is a joined output of the late Claudio Lausdei and Livio Rossetti.
Other than contributing to the editing of the papyrus, we try to understand what surfaces here: the kind of situation outlined, the personalities involved, and to some extent the mood of the scene. We also tried to connect a few other texts related to Socrates with this portion of dialogue.
Prima di Platone si scrissero circa quindici Περὶ φύσεως. Essi hanno costituito il vero e proprio... more Prima di Platone si scrissero circa quindici Περὶ φύσεως. Essi hanno costituito il vero e proprio archetipo di ciò che per noi è la forma “trattato”: un tipo di libro particolarmente adatto per archiviare e trasmettere delle conoscenze. Pur dando vita a un genere letterario suo proprio, scarsa attenzione è stata finora prestata a ciò che i vari Περὶ φύσεως potevano avere in comune. Questo articolo è dedicato all’esplorazione di alcuni tratti comuni così come di alcune tendenze evolutive del genere letterario. Include inoltre una congettura riguardo alla fissazione del titolo ben prima del IV secolo a. C.
Religión, magia y mitología en la antigüedad clásica, 1998
... | Ayuda. Il mito escatologico in Platone e il suo dubio statuto epistemico. Autores: LivioRos... more ... | Ayuda. Il mito escatologico in Platone e il suo dubio statuto epistemico. Autores: LivioRossetti; Localización: Religión, magia y mitología en la antigüedad clásica / coord. por José Luis Calvo Martínez, 1998, ISBN 84-338-2479-1 , pags. 265-282. ...
La polémique anti-sophistique de Socrate et de ses élèves constitue un véritable topos, souvent b... more La polémique anti-sophistique de Socrate et de ses élèves constitue un véritable topos, souvent banalisé, rarement analysé. Lors de la tentative d'aller au-delà des aspects les plus évidents d'un tel topos et de retrouver une représentation moins unilatérale du mouvement ...
J. Gracia-J. Yu eds., Uses and Abuses of the Classics. Western Interpretations of Greek Philosophy, 2004
A preliminary remark: in those old times (2003) I was still rooted in the wrong presumptions deno... more A preliminary remark: in those old times (2003) I was still rooted in the wrong presumptions denounced in a 2021 paper of mine, "'Né filosofo né sofista' (quem vide). If this paper is now being put on academia.edu, it is first of all in order to keep alive the memory of the late professor Jiyuan Yu (Univ. Buffalo) and the lovely conference to which I was invited to contribute a paper. Two salient ideas of this paper: 1. The Iceberg Argument, i.e. that one should not consider only what Plato has to say on the so-called Presocratics, but also what he does not say, something which often is even more helpful in order to form an idea of what may lie behind his remarks. Whence the question raised in § 3: "Does Shortage of References mean Disregard?" 2. The Velvet Revolution, namely the rapid rarefaction of new writings due to the 'Sophists, and, almost contemporarily, the abundance of new Socratic dialogues authored during the very first decades of the IV century. A first-order change.
Begun in the Fifties, the 'Grande Antologia Filosofica', a history of western philosophy in 39 bi... more Begun in the Fifties, the 'Grande Antologia Filosofica', a history of western philosophy in 39 big volumes was completed in less than thirty years. Then a need to update it (and especially its first volumes, devoted to ancient Greek philosophy) was deeply felt. A survey of the relevant literature published in the meanwhile was then prepared. The present survey is devoted to the advancement of studies on Greek philosophy as a whole, with details on a variety of tools being made available for the very first time.
Begun in the Fifties, the 'Grande Antologia Filosofica', a history of western philosophy in 39 bi... more Begun in the Fifties, the 'Grande Antologia Filosofica', a history of western philosophy in 39 big volumes was completed in less than thirty years. Then a need to update it (and especially its first volumes, devoted to ancient Greek philosophy) was deeply felt. A survey of the relevant literature published in the meanwhile was then prepared. This is the chapter devoted to Presocratics (Sophists not included).
Begun in the Fifties, the 'Grande Antologia Filosofica', a history of western philosophy in 39 bi... more Begun in the Fifties, the 'Grande Antologia Filosofica', a history of western philosophy in 39 big volumes was completed in less than thirty years. Then a need to update it (and especially its first volumes, devoted to ancient Greek philosophy) was deeply felt. A survey of the relevant literature published in the meanwhile was then prepared. This is the chapter devoted to the so-clled Sophists.
Begun in the Fifties, the 'Grande Antologia Filosofica', a history of western philosophy in 39 bi... more Begun in the Fifties, the 'Grande Antologia Filosofica', a history of western philosophy in 39 big volumes was completed in less than thirty years. Then a need to update it (and especially its first volumes, devoted to ancient Greek philosophy) was deeply felt. A survey of the relevant literature published in the meanwhile was then prepared. This is the chapter devoted to Socrates and the so-called Minor Socratic Schools.
Thiis is the German version of a paper originally published in Italian in 1971. It was included i... more Thiis is the German version of a paper originally published in Italian in 1971. It was included in a selection of papers on the so-called Socratic Question spanning over more that 150 years, Schleiermacher (1818) to Patzer (1984). My paper begins by commenting on Guthrie and Gigon, then on several other contributions, and finishes with the attempt to draw one's attention on the 'secundary' sources on Socrates, so often neglected during almost the whole 20th century, but often able to expand and refine our knowledge of Socrates.
Begun in the Fifties, the 'Grande Antologia Filosofica', a history of western philosophy in 39 bi... more Begun in the Fifties, the 'Grande Antologia Filosofica', a history of western philosophy in 39 big volumes was completed in less than thirty years. Then a need to update it (and especially its first volumes, devoted to ancient Greek philosophy) was deeply felt. A survey of the relevant literature published in the meanwhile was then prepared. This is the chapter devoted to Plato.
Begun in the Fifties, the 'Grande Antologia Filosofica', a history of western philosophy in 39 bi... more Begun in the Fifties, the 'Grande Antologia Filosofica', a history of western philosophy in 39 big volumes, was completed in less than thirty years. Then a need to update it (and especially its first volumes, devoted to ancient Greek philosophy) was deeply felt. A survey of the relevant literature published in the meanwhile was then prepared. This is the chapter devoted to Aristotle.
Begun in the Fifties, the 'Grande Antologia Filosofica', a history of western philosophy in 39 bi... more Begun in the Fifties, the 'Grande Antologia Filosofica', a history of western philosophy in 39 big volumes was completed in less than thirty years. Then a need to update it (and especially its first volumes, devoted to ancient Greek philosophy) was deeply felt. A survey of the relevant literature published in the meanwhile was then prepared. This is the chapter devoted to the Neoplatonists.
il 18 maggio 2024 il Comune di Bevagna mi ha conferito la cittadinanza onoraria, che ho accolto c... more il 18 maggio 2024 il Comune di Bevagna mi ha conferito la cittadinanza onoraria, che ho accolto con gratitudine.
Con questa cerimonia hanno voluto onorare la decisione di venire a Bevagna, nel settembre 1989, a fondare la Società Internazionale dei Platonisti che, in effetti, ha subito goduto di prestigio e vasta notoietà.
Il 5 dicembre 2023, alle 19 conversazione sulla terza parte del 'Peri tou me ontos' di Gorgia (ve... more Il 5 dicembre 2023, alle 19 conversazione sulla terza parte del 'Peri tou me ontos' di Gorgia (versione di Sesto Empirico). Ne ragionerò con il collega Fernando Santoro (UFRJ, Rio de Janeiro) e con gli intervenuti. Come sempre, questi incontrib promossi da Marco Formisano ci mettono di fronte a cospicui imprevisti.
In what follows you have a preview of a work in progress that is expected to be published by Rout... more In what follows you have a preview of a work in progress that is expected to be published by Routledge in 2022. Title: "Thales the measurer" It is well known that the basic evidence on Thales is available since 1903. However, because of what Aristotle supposedly assured, namely that 'water is the archē', every other merit of his has been often treated as eminently accessorial, and therefore, in comparison, much less meaningful, much less representative, much less interesting. As a consequence, all the rest often received a rather cursory attention. But is that the way it is? It will be argued that the contrary is the case, that the water theory is, at the most, accessorial, while the qualifying features of Thales' work and teachings have to be looked for elsewhere.
NB/ cultura CULTURA PRESOCRATICA ha preparato la strada a un volune che ora sta per essere pubbli... more NB/ cultura CULTURA PRESOCRATICA ha preparato la strada a un volune che ora sta per essere pubblicato, RIPENSARE I PRESOCRATICI.
Di questo libro è disponibile una sinossi. Si trova qui:
https://www.academia.edu/82498263/Ripensare_i_presocratici_SINOSSI_2022
[ last update: 08.06.2020 ]
INDICE: Il programma (p. 1) ― An overview / Uno sguardo all'insieme (p. 2) ― 0. Preliminarmente (p. 9) ― 1. Omero (p. 12) ― 2. Saffo (p. 19) ― 3. Talete (p. 26) ― 4. Anassimandro (p. 35) ― 5. Anassimene (p. 46) ― 5bis. Ecateo (p. 55) ― 6. Senofane (p. 59) ― 7. Eraclito (p. 67) ― 8. Pitagora (p. 77) ― 8bis. Alcmeone (p. 84) ― 9. Parmenide, I parte (p. 88) ― 10. Parmenide, II parte (p. 100) ― 11. Melisso (p. 109) ― Zenone (p. 117).
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Una intera serie di incontri sui Presocratici (e su un articolato insieme di altri intellettuali coevi) ha avuto luogo a Perugia tra il novembre 2017 e il maggio 2018.
Su Youtube sono disponibili sette video. Qui il settimo della serie:: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnG1hsGquYA ----------- -----------
A whole series of public talks, devoted to the Presocratics (plus other Greek 'intellectuals' who were active in the same period) took place in Perugia between November 2017 and May 2018..
On Youtube seven videos are available. Just digit 'Cultura presocratica'. The last one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnG1hsGquYA
Per onorare l'amico Marcelo Perine (professore alla Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo... more Per onorare l'amico Marcelo Perine (professore alla Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo) propongo di indugiare un poco sulle vorticose - e creative - trasformazioni che, durante tutto il V secolo, interessarono in modo particolarissimo Atene.
To honor my friend Marcelo Perine (professor at Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo) I propose to dwell a little on the whirlwind and creative transformations that, affected Athens in the fifth century BC, .
Conférence donnée le 29 septembre 2022 à l'Institut de Philosophie de l'Université Grenoble Alpes... more Conférence donnée le 29 septembre 2022 à l'Institut de Philosophie de l'Université Grenoble Alpes sous.l'invitation de Michel Fattal.
<> Dans le Sophiste Platon avoue s'éloigner de l'enseignement d'un maître faisant autorité (et, d'ailleurs, très respecté), Parménide. S'en éloigner signifie produire une objection qui soit à son tour incontournable ou presque. Pour Platon, le faire c'est strictement nécessaire bien que cela pourrait passer pour une sorte de parricide. Pour nous, comprendre ce qui se passe n'est pas du tout facile.
<> De plus, nous avons récemment pris conscience d'un passage comparable dû à Gorgias et remontant à un bon demi-siècle avant ce dialogue platonicien.
<> Il s'agit du passage du PTMO (MXG 17) où la notion d'objects de la pensée (ta phronoumena) vient d'etre introduit, l'idée étant que, si le non-etre est un objet de la pensée (une notion, une 'chose' dont on parle), alors le non-etre existe. Il s'agit, évidemment, d'une objection de taille ò une des idées maitresses de la doctrine parménidienne de l'etre.
<> A noter qu'Alexius Meinong a cru découvrir la meme chose en 1904 avec un livre fameux, sa 'Gegenstandtheorie'.
<> Platon n'arrive pas à ce niveau de clarté.
In order to open this document please click here: 'http://www.rossettiweb.it/livio/engel/' and th... more In order to open this document please click here: 'http://www.rossettiweb.it/livio/engel/'; and then on either 'Italiano' or 'Deutsche' (these words are enclosed in two small rectangles). This set of files has the whole German text, according to the third edition of Engel's' 'Schriften', volume 9 (Berlin 1844) as well as an Italian translation prepared by a colleague and friend of mine, Dr. Gigliola Grazi. The Italian section includes a 'Nota introduttiva' of mine. The whole was printed 1n 1998 as part of L. Rossetti-O. Bellini (eds.), Retorica e verità. Le insidie della comunicazione.
Unpublished paper, read at the Austin (TX) IAPS conference in 2016, to be compared with "La polum... more Unpublished paper, read at the Austin (TX) IAPS conference in 2016, to be compared with "La polumathia di Parmenide" (journal CHORA, 13, 2015) and the furtherly revised version included in my own "Un altro Parmenide" (Ch. 1). Our ‘universal’ perception of Parmenides’ poem is biased by traditional readings to a considerable degree, at least if the poem actually included two different doctrinal bodies, one on being and another on the physis, the latter encompassing a number of sustained chapters on the physical world and (some) living organisms. What I plan to offer in support of this claim is, first of all, an INVENTORY of the topics dealt with in the large section devoted to physical world (sky and earth), and living creatures. Once acknowledged the above (which, I presume, should not be found very controversial), the poem comes to look quite differently.
available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNYtjv1lljE, 2019
"Preistoria della filosofia" is available as a video recording on YouTube at https://www.youtube.... more "Preistoria della filosofia" is available as a video recording on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNYtjv1lljE < > SINTESI Viene introdotta la nozione di "preistoria della filosofia" intendendo che, se la nozione di philosophos è stata coniata e immessa in circolo da Platone, allora né Socrate né altri intellettuali vissuti prima di lui ebbero la possibilità di considerarsi filosofi o di aspirare a diventare dei filosofi. Questa circostanza non è da poco, perché vuol dire, anzitutto, che da Talete a Socrate nessuno seppe di fare della filosofia né ebbe la possibilità di confrontarsi con altre filosofie. In secondo luogo solleva il velo sull'universo dei filosofi virtuali, ossia di coloro che, come tutti noi, costruiscono una loro filosofia più o meno improvvisata, e si tratta dell'umanità intera, con l'eccezione dei pochi che sono a conoscenza di una tradizione filosofica esplicita, come quella incominciata a Atene. In terzo luogo ci permette di sollevare il velo sulla filosofia virtuale di Omero, e posso assicurare che non si tratta né di un dettaglio né di un accessorio. Di riflesso anche la fisionomia dei Presocratici cambia non poco proprio perché non ha molto senso accostarsi ai loro insegnamenti nell'ottica della filosofia posteriore (es. di Aristotele, che associa Talete all'acqua e Anassimandro all'aria). C'è molto altro da scoprire. Nel corso di questa conversazione vengono fatti alcuni esempi, tra i quali Anassimandro e Ecateo. In particolare mi sono soffermato sulla memorabile innovazione introdotta da Zenone per il fatto di scompaginare la comunicazione da uno a molti e istituire, per il suo pubblico, la possibilità di riflettere sulla paradossalità da lui delineata e dire qualcosa: deve essersi trattato di un evento assolutamente privo di precedenti e del tutto memorabile. E molto altro. ________________________________
Un personnage et un livre à ne pas oublier. La relecture de Socrate par François Roustang est une... more Un personnage et un livre à ne pas oublier. La relecture de Socrate par François Roustang est une ressource pour tout effort de ne pas banaliser la figure de Socrate.
Siracusa 1927-Genova 2020. Indagando sull'opera di Gaetano Messina si scopre che egli aveva svilu... more Siracusa 1927-Genova 2020. Indagando sull'opera di Gaetano Messina si scopre che egli aveva sviluppato competenze e interessi anche in ambiti non sospettati, come la letteratura italiana e la linguistica. Nondimeno il suo nome è legato da un lato al 'Giornale di Metafisica', dall'altro alle opere filosofiche di Antonio Rosmini, e più ancora ai presocratici e al greco antico. Una bellissima figura.
This is the preliminary draft prepared for an online talk to be taken on April 21, 2021, and held... more This is the preliminary draft prepared for an online talk to be taken on April 21, 2021, and held within the Seminario interateneo di letture sui testi classici Filosofia-Letteratura-Filologia-Storia (Univ. Verona e Univ. Napoli Orientale) -- anno 2020-21. People wanting to attend the talk should contact alessandro.stavry@univr.it
Three notes. No. 1 tells you something on how a group of adults living in Perugia ended up writin... more Three notes. No. 1 tells you something on how a group of adults living in Perugia ended up writing poetry. No. 2 is on creativity. In my opinion school operators do not value enough how crucial creativity may be for pupils and secondary school students. No. 3 is there to remind that there is not only the philosophy appreciated by groups of learned adults who are on the average doing well, but also the philosophy due to (and done by) the rest of the world: to begin with, the children.
The ISSS in the IPS <>
Livio Rossetti, Honorary President of the ISSS, commemorated the thirty y... more The ISSS in the IPS <>
Livio Rossetti, Honorary President of the ISSS, commemorated the thirty years of the IPS of which he was a founding member and presented the new society before our fellow Platonists. We share the text in English and Italian.
Attached here are the opening lines of the short speech I addressed to the participants to the XI... more Attached here are the opening lines of the short speech I addressed to the participants to the XII Symp. Plat. in Paris, July 2029. The full text (bilingual) is available here: https://socratessociety.rice.edu/2019/07/16/the-isss-in-the-ips/ < >
The short document made available here is a way of remembering Paola Vianello de Cordova who, in ... more The short document made available here is a way of remembering Paola Vianello de Cordova who, in the eighties and the nineties, was a prominent professor of Greek at the UNAM (Univ. Nacional Autonoma de México). It was a privilege for me to be invited to offer eight lectures dealing with a stimulating topic, which still seems to deserve to be studied in deep. In the sequel, my ms. remained unpublished, and only few of these lectures gave rise to extended articles, helas.
This is a gift I received in September 2023, when a whole conference was dedicated to celebrate m... more This is a gift I received in September 2023, when a whole conference was dedicated to celebrate my 85 years. I am very grateful to Professor Alessandro Stavru (Univ. Verona) and Prof. Marco Beconi (Liceo Classico "Annibale Mariotti", Perugia) who prepared this booklet, as weii as (if not even more) to Professor Graziano Ranocchia (Univ. Pisa) who mounted the whole conference and managed to have this book duly printed. This bibliography is updated to summer 2023.
Il Quinto Secolo, Studi etc. edited by 5tefania Giombini and Flavia Marcacci , 2010
This is a bibliography carefully prepared by a former and qualified pupil of mine, Raffaele Marci... more This is a bibliography carefully prepared by a former and qualified pupil of mine, Raffaele Marciano, who is also the boss of AGUAPLANO. It covers forty years, from 1971 to 2010.
La Società Serba per gli Studi Antichi conferisce ogni anno il premio "Milan Budimir" a un classi... more La Società Serba per gli Studi Antichi conferisce ogni anno il premio "Milan Budimir" a un classicista. Il premio 2020 è stato conferito, lo riconosco con emozione, a me. Sono il secondo studioso straniero a riceverlo dopo Carl Joachim Classen (Goettingen). L'emergenza COVID mi ha impedito di recarmi di persona a Belgrado per riceverlo. Saluto con rispettoso affetto la presidente Prof. Dr. Ksenija Mariski Gadjianski e tutti i membri della giuria. --- The Serbian Society for Ancient Studies annually awards the "Milan Budimir" prize to a classicists. The 2020 award has been awarded, I recognize it with emotion, to me. I am the second foreign scholar to receive it after Carl Joachim Classen (Goettingen). The COVID emergency prevented me from going to Belgrade in person to receive it. I deeply greet its President Professor Ksenija Mariski Gadjanski and the whole board.
This is a Festschrift. It was published by AGUAPLANO. The opening pages offer a benevolent overvi... more This is a Festschrift. It was published by AGUAPLANO. The opening pages offer a benevolent overview and, then, a list of 212 publications, covering forty years (1971-2010). -- Most recent entries in are available in this section of academia.edu
These "Fragments from a life" has been largely superseded by Alessandro Stavru's friendly biograp... more These "Fragments from a life" has been largely superseded by Alessandro Stavru's friendly biographical sketch (in the BIO-BIBLIOGRAFIA; above in this section).
Méthexis. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Antigua …, 2006
... La dimensione metacognitiva dei testi paradossali nell'età dei sofisti: oltre il "d... more ... La dimensione metacognitiva dei testi paradossali nell'età dei sofisti: oltre il "demonstrandum". Autores: Livio Rossetti; Localización: Méthexis. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Antigua = International journal for ancient philosophy, ISSN 0327-0289, Nº. 19, 2006 , págs. 125-138. ...
Platón: los diálogos tardíos: actas del Symposium …, 1994
... Sui rischi di un'attitudine troppo benevola dell'interprete verso il testo: il caso... more ... Sui rischi di un'attitudine troppo benevola dell'interprete verso il testo: il caso del "politico". Autores:Livio Rossetti; Localización: Platón : los diálogos tardíos : actas del Symposium Platonicum / coord. por Conrado Eggers Lan, 1994, ISBN 3-88345-631-4 , págs. ...
Información del artículo Il momento conviviale dell' eteria socratica e il suo significato p... more Información del artículo Il momento conviviale dell' eteria socratica e il suo significato pedagogico.
Like in the previous volumes of the series, the book encompasses two parts: Firstly, the main aut... more Like in the previous volumes of the series, the book encompasses two parts: Firstly, the main author Livio Rossetti gives three lectures on the Eleatics, aiming to open up new perspectives on them. For instance, he delves into Zeno’s paradoxes – not to attempt to resolve them as has been attempted too many times, but to find how Zeno mounted them and captured his audience. Furthermore, Rossetti raises the point of ‚virtual philosophy‘ concerning the Eleatics, as those who are not aware of being philosophers, like Confucius, or Thales and Heraclitus. The second part of this book hosts some vivid exchanges between its main author and several scholars, among them Nestor Cordero, A.P.D. Mourelatos, Jaap Mansfeld, Rose Cherubin and Vincenzo Fano.
La componente metacognitiva della filosofia e del filosofare ... Giornale di Metafisica - Nuova S... more La componente metacognitiva della filosofia e del filosofare ... Giornale di Metafisica - Nuova Serie - XXX (2008), pp. 3-30. ... LA COMPONENTE METACOGNITIVA DELLA FILOSOFIA E DEL FILOSOFARE ... Non chiederci la parola che squadri da ogni lato l&#x27;animo nostro ...
La historia de la filosofía occidental ha conocido un paso que, a pesar de su relevancia objetiva... more La historia de la filosofía occidental ha conocido un paso que, a pesar de su relevancia objetiva, continúa un poco en sordina, al punto de ser un hecho poco estudiado y, es más, muy expuesto a la minimización cuando no al silencio. En pocas palabras, hasta los ...
Revista de Filosofía de la Universidad de Costa Rica, 2008
Resumen. Muchos textos breves, intensos, paradójicos, unilaterales que son obras de Zenón y de lo... more Resumen. Muchos textos breves, intensos, paradójicos, unilaterales que son obras de Zenón y de los Sofistas parecen tener un denominador común importante. Esos no nos presentan un contenido cognitivo u doctrina, sino intentan hacer el público consciente de ...
ABSTRACT: It is no surprise if a good quality communication unit succeeds in seizing the attentio... more ABSTRACT: It is no surprise if a good quality communication unit succeeds in seizing the attention of the intended audience (or readership) and is able to let people see precisely what the author wanted them to see, while avoiding that the average addressee become aware of what ...
Zeno’s paradoxes, although they might appear to be simple theses directed against common perspect... more Zeno’s paradoxes, although they might appear to be simple theses directed against common perspectives, show themselves to be an extraordinary innovation for the purpose of creating science. In their argumentative structure they operate at a high philosophical level, and in a way that forbids us to reduce them to mere puzzles or dramatic presentations of problems to be solved. Zeno’s paradoxes retain their problematic status, serving as a provocative challenge to his interlocutors and to many commonly accepted notions, and thus permit us to regard him as the philosopher of philosophy.
The Socratic heritage is a difficult topic scholars seem rather unwilling to address; however, st... more The Socratic heritage is a difficult topic scholars seem rather unwilling to address; however, starting from ideas going back to Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, it seems possible to grasp some qualifying lines of influence exerted by Socrates upon Greek ideas of life, values, and models of behavior. In this paper I’ll address the theme of self-control by pointing out that, while a widely shared attitude was in favor of acknowledging various limits to human freedom, and thus of admitting human akrasia (a large amount of the relevant evidence, going back to Homer and down to Attic orators, has been collected by Sir Kenneth Dover in his Greek Popular Morality, section iii), Socrates not only was personally enkratēs, but at the same time has devised a global strategy in order to inculcate the enkrateia as something viable, thus far from impossible, and treating akrasia as a source of true shame. As a consequence, there is room for reconsidering the traditional objections against the possibil...
In Plato’s Laws several passages have been clearly conceived of as preambles. The most extended, ... more In Plato’s Laws several passages have been clearly conceived of as preambles. The most extended, and prominent, is the one we find at the beginnings of Book five. It amounts to a complicate tour de force, not easy to be accounted for.What surfaced during the present investigation is a meandrical line of thought which ends with the unexpected adoption of a proto-utilitarianist point of view. This turn is not only interesting (and possibly surprising) per se, since it implies that the author fully acknowledges the role of subjective evaluations that may well ignore the ontological hierarchy between gods-souls-bodies as well as the force of persuasion a wise legislator avails of.
C. Fornis, J. Gallego, P. López Barja et M. Valdés (eds.) …, 2010
Università degli Studi di Perugia specialmente a partire al 1947, anno in cui venne pubblicato il... more Università degli Studi di Perugia specialmente a partire al 1947, anno in cui venne pubblicato il Sokrates di olof Gigon, la ricerca su socrate è stata fortemente condizionata dal dubbio sulla possibilità di raccordare fonti discordanti e, in particolare, di superare il filtro ...
The present paper argues that the teachings of Anaximander are much better knowable than they act... more The present paper argues that the teachings of Anaximander are much better knowable than they actually appear, since a number of his teachings have the privilege of being almost transparent in their predicative content as well as in their logic. As a matter of fact, one can quite easily come to understand the train of thought which lies behind Anaximander’s most momentous conjectures. Thus, a largely unexpected Anaximander comes to light despite the availability of the majority of the relevant sources since 1903. Two main areas appear to be particularly prominent: on the one hand, the complex body of various conjectures and doctrines that helps to understand the system of spatial relationships from Miletus to the stars and, on the other hand, the equally complex body of conjectures and doctrines whose primarily concern is the macro-story of the Earth from its most remote past to its predictable future. The merits of Anaximander as an earth-researcher are much greater than one could ...
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Books by Livio Rossetti
A considerable discontinuity from the current image of most Presocratics marks it.
To begin with:: it is still widespread the idea that Thales was all about water, Anaximander all about apeiron and Anaximenes all about air, while no fourth prominent Milesian happens to be at least mentioned in current surveys on the Presocratics. Parmenides, in turn, continues to be the great philosopher of being and nothing else, Zeno a volunteer fighter in defense of the honor of Parmenides, and so on.
As it will be apparent from the synopsis, I can no more adhere to such an orthodoxy. In my opinion these ancient intellectuals did much more and much better.
In previous books and papers I argued for individual points (on Thales, on Parmenides, etc.), while this time I tried to look around and submit a whole group of ancient investigators (a 'world', one could say) to a renewed curiosity. As a consequence, their portrayals are becoming remarkably different from those that are in circulation. For example, a Presocratic Botany now surfaces for the very first time...
SINCE MANY CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHERS AND SCIENTISTS, NOT UNLIKE ALMOST ALL TEXTBOOKS, SEEM TOO OFTEN PRONE TO THE MOST CONVENTIONAL PORTRAYALS OF THIS WORLD, MY BOOK IS PRIMARILY ADDRESSED TO ALERT THEM.
This book is devoted to a sustained investigation on the celebrated Milesian and what he is likely to have contributed to the beginnings of Greek science.
One of the conclusions reached is that Thales spent his whole life as an investigator. If so, he was the first (first on the world!) to devise the very idea of an investigator (wth investigation as a a profession and a sort of excellence). As a consequence, our present society, with its millions of professional investigators, owes a lot to him.
Below you may find, for the moment, no more than title, table of contents, and an updated section 1.
A salient feature of these notes is the attention paid to the non-doctrinal dialogues.
Sarà un grande onore poter dare il benvenuto a chi di voi gradirà (e potrà) essere presente. - Livio
<> <> A BASIC LINK IS THIS:
https://www.unipi.it/index.php/unipieventi/event/7358-cinquant-anni-di-studio-sul-pensiero-greco <> <>
LIVE:
https://fileli.unipi.it/c/230918-20-pensiero-greco <> <>
ON YOUTUBE:
https://www.youtube.com/StudiumGeneralePerugia1308
Here you have it.
469 pages may seem too many, but the new edition has been just amended, not modified, nor expanded. Apart of a short new preamble, and a set of new indexes, no further addition has been entered here or there.
Its more qualifying feature is its final section (I mean the final section of the hypertext), where a group of 'liceali' want to comment what they have experienced, and a teacher is there to pay attention to them while contributing with few comments of her.
For this product I owe a lot to a former pupil of mine, Alessandro Treggiari.
Here you have dozens of frames takes from "Un Eutifrone interattivo" (2006). This way you can at least get an idea of the many paths it opens to you.
It goes back to 1995. Another version of basically the same hypertext was published in 2006.
Now, please take a look at the cover picture. As it is evident, it is a rare miniature on parchment, once cherished by Jacques Derrida, where Socrates is portrayed as a seated person ready to write on a piece of parchment (not papyrus). Behind him, Plato is standing. He seems smaller in stature but not necessarily younger than Socrates. He appears ready to dictate what Socrates should write. However, instead of a piece of parchment, we now have a "personal computer" of the type commonly used in the 1990s, and Socrates seems to be intent on typing.
As a matter of fact, Plato conceived a number of his dialogues (for example, the Republic) with Socrates serving as the narrator, and here you have precisely this impression. Even the proportions suggest that Plato intend to emphasize the person of his master. Nevertheless, it is certain that the creator of this miniature couldn't have the least idea of these antecedents.
<>
Hre you have the cover. The whole booklet is available separately.
Twenty-five years later, a second Symposium Heracliteum was held at the UNAM, Mexico (proceedings entitled: "Nuevos ensayos sobre Heraclito. Actas del Segundo Symposium Heracliteum", edited by E. Huelsz Piccone, México 2009).
<>
As this book in two volumes is out of print since decades, and from time to time somebody asked me to supply a paper in PDF or, possibly, the whole book, I managed to get a PDF version of the first and the second volume.
THE WHOLE IS NOW AVAILABLE thanks to the support of Wojciech Wrotkowski.
Here is volume 1; volume 2 is equally available on academia.edu (as a separate entry):
It deals with the 'fortuna' of Heraclitus esp. in modern time, Cusanus to Vico, Schleiermacher, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Phenomenology.
It now has an introductory note by Linda Napolitano Valditara and a short additional appendix.
In the meanwhile, this play has been translated into Spanish and published in Argentina by Teseo Press.
Free access to the whole book is allowed through www.teseopress.com
Its deals mainly with the design side of communication, the choice of saying, drawing attention to, distracting attention from, and likewise the choice of one or more 'vehicles', plus the optimization of these choices. In a word, the strategical side of communication.
Attached you'll find a generous selection from the book.
I tried to say what really Parmenides, Zeno and Melissus investigated, wrote and taught, with a special attention for what was new in each of them. My first step consisted in identifying and removing (successfully, I dare to hope) a number of exegetical encrustations.
< Tutto sommato questa si può considerare l'editio maior di "Parmenide e Zenone sophoi ad Elea" (2020) >
This book received the award of the Serbian Assoc. of Classicists for 2020
Avvicinarsi a quel mondo sarà una scoperta. Specialmente il capitolo su Zenone innova profondamente l'interpretazione.
< >
In this small book on Parmenides and Zeno Livio Rossetti iundertakes a march towards two ancient thinkers of the highest order. His purpose was to work on two 'museum pieces' that were sent to us full of dust and exegetical encrustations, bring them back to light and return to observe them closely. Excessive claim? The author invites us to look at these two extremely creative characters without thinking about interpretative traditions, with a clear mind, with renewed curiosity. He does it competently, but using a flat, friendly, airy language, starting from the places and the context.
Approaching that world will be a discovery. Especially the chapter on Zeno deeply innovates the interpretation.
A qualifying feature is that it is easy to read, inclusive rather than exclusive, and, at the same time, able to offer a completely new (and even bold) picture of both Parmenides and Zeno.
This Parmenides is no more the philosopher of being and almost nothing else, but is also a first-order student of the cosmos and the living creatures, able to teach that our earth is spherical, and give the main features of a completely unknown part of it, the one which we use to call the southern hemisphere, and much more.
In the case of Zeno I did my best to penetrate the 'secret' of his paradoxes and discover what Zeno wanted to do with them.
In a sense, a lot of dust has hopefully been removed from each thinker, of those born in ancient Elea.
The book starts with a glance at the territory where both P. and Z. spent their lives.
The book includes, other than a new preface (p 15 f.), a "Postfacio" (translated by Nicola Galgano) where the author and Dr. Laura Candiotto (Univ. Venezia, Univ. Edinburgh) offer a sustained exchange about subsequent developments of the investigations included in this book. The "Postfacio" is available in the section "Talks".
This book is formally made out of previously published articles (the book originated from the suggestions of Professor François Roustang, Paris, who wisely prefaced it).
After a survey of the most ancient Socratic literature (basically, Plato and his companions, not just Plato and Xenophon), some sophisticated dialogic units (Xen. Mem. IV 2 and III 8, Plato's Euthyphro) are scrutinized. These are dialogues portraying Socrates 'at work', they uncover some features of his habits, esp. his attitude at provoking his interlocutor while governing the exchange. This, in turn, is the starting point for a new analysis of the personality of Socrates and especially of his concealed rhetoric. I conclude that, in order to preserve a sound understanding of what Socrates did and was, we need to pay a very special attention to his peculiar rhetoric.
A final chapter is meant to open the avenue to what has been submitted to a much more refined investigation in my 2015 book, "La filosofia non nasce con Talete, e nemmeno con Socrate" (and then elsewhere).
A considerable discontinuity from the current image of most Presocratics marks it.
To begin with:: it is still widespread the idea that Thales was all about water, Anaximander all about apeiron and Anaximenes all about air, while no fourth prominent Milesian happens to be at least mentioned in current surveys on the Presocratics. Parmenides, in turn, continues to be the great philosopher of being and nothing else, Zeno a volunteer fighter in defense of the honor of Parmenides, and so on.
As it will be apparent from the synopsis, I can no more adhere to such an orthodoxy. In my opinion these ancient intellectuals did much more and much better.
In previous books and papers I argued for individual points (on Thales, on Parmenides, etc.), while this time I tried to look around and submit a whole group of ancient investigators (a 'world', one could say) to a renewed curiosity. As a consequence, their portrayals are becoming remarkably different from those that are in circulation. For example, a Presocratic Botany now surfaces for the very first time...
SINCE MANY CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHERS AND SCIENTISTS, NOT UNLIKE ALMOST ALL TEXTBOOKS, SEEM TOO OFTEN PRONE TO THE MOST CONVENTIONAL PORTRAYALS OF THIS WORLD, MY BOOK IS PRIMARILY ADDRESSED TO ALERT THEM.
This book is devoted to a sustained investigation on the celebrated Milesian and what he is likely to have contributed to the beginnings of Greek science.
One of the conclusions reached is that Thales spent his whole life as an investigator. If so, he was the first (first on the world!) to devise the very idea of an investigator (wth investigation as a a profession and a sort of excellence). As a consequence, our present society, with its millions of professional investigators, owes a lot to him.
Below you may find, for the moment, no more than title, table of contents, and an updated section 1.
A salient feature of these notes is the attention paid to the non-doctrinal dialogues.
Sarà un grande onore poter dare il benvenuto a chi di voi gradirà (e potrà) essere presente. - Livio
<> <> A BASIC LINK IS THIS:
https://www.unipi.it/index.php/unipieventi/event/7358-cinquant-anni-di-studio-sul-pensiero-greco <> <>
LIVE:
https://fileli.unipi.it/c/230918-20-pensiero-greco <> <>
ON YOUTUBE:
https://www.youtube.com/StudiumGeneralePerugia1308
Here you have it.
469 pages may seem too many, but the new edition has been just amended, not modified, nor expanded. Apart of a short new preamble, and a set of new indexes, no further addition has been entered here or there.
Its more qualifying feature is its final section (I mean the final section of the hypertext), where a group of 'liceali' want to comment what they have experienced, and a teacher is there to pay attention to them while contributing with few comments of her.
For this product I owe a lot to a former pupil of mine, Alessandro Treggiari.
Here you have dozens of frames takes from "Un Eutifrone interattivo" (2006). This way you can at least get an idea of the many paths it opens to you.
It goes back to 1995. Another version of basically the same hypertext was published in 2006.
Now, please take a look at the cover picture. As it is evident, it is a rare miniature on parchment, once cherished by Jacques Derrida, where Socrates is portrayed as a seated person ready to write on a piece of parchment (not papyrus). Behind him, Plato is standing. He seems smaller in stature but not necessarily younger than Socrates. He appears ready to dictate what Socrates should write. However, instead of a piece of parchment, we now have a "personal computer" of the type commonly used in the 1990s, and Socrates seems to be intent on typing.
As a matter of fact, Plato conceived a number of his dialogues (for example, the Republic) with Socrates serving as the narrator, and here you have precisely this impression. Even the proportions suggest that Plato intend to emphasize the person of his master. Nevertheless, it is certain that the creator of this miniature couldn't have the least idea of these antecedents.
<>
Hre you have the cover. The whole booklet is available separately.
Twenty-five years later, a second Symposium Heracliteum was held at the UNAM, Mexico (proceedings entitled: "Nuevos ensayos sobre Heraclito. Actas del Segundo Symposium Heracliteum", edited by E. Huelsz Piccone, México 2009).
<>
As this book in two volumes is out of print since decades, and from time to time somebody asked me to supply a paper in PDF or, possibly, the whole book, I managed to get a PDF version of the first and the second volume.
THE WHOLE IS NOW AVAILABLE thanks to the support of Wojciech Wrotkowski.
Here is volume 1; volume 2 is equally available on academia.edu (as a separate entry):
It deals with the 'fortuna' of Heraclitus esp. in modern time, Cusanus to Vico, Schleiermacher, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Phenomenology.
It now has an introductory note by Linda Napolitano Valditara and a short additional appendix.
In the meanwhile, this play has been translated into Spanish and published in Argentina by Teseo Press.
Free access to the whole book is allowed through www.teseopress.com
Its deals mainly with the design side of communication, the choice of saying, drawing attention to, distracting attention from, and likewise the choice of one or more 'vehicles', plus the optimization of these choices. In a word, the strategical side of communication.
Attached you'll find a generous selection from the book.
I tried to say what really Parmenides, Zeno and Melissus investigated, wrote and taught, with a special attention for what was new in each of them. My first step consisted in identifying and removing (successfully, I dare to hope) a number of exegetical encrustations.
< Tutto sommato questa si può considerare l'editio maior di "Parmenide e Zenone sophoi ad Elea" (2020) >
This book received the award of the Serbian Assoc. of Classicists for 2020
Avvicinarsi a quel mondo sarà una scoperta. Specialmente il capitolo su Zenone innova profondamente l'interpretazione.
< >
In this small book on Parmenides and Zeno Livio Rossetti iundertakes a march towards two ancient thinkers of the highest order. His purpose was to work on two 'museum pieces' that were sent to us full of dust and exegetical encrustations, bring them back to light and return to observe them closely. Excessive claim? The author invites us to look at these two extremely creative characters without thinking about interpretative traditions, with a clear mind, with renewed curiosity. He does it competently, but using a flat, friendly, airy language, starting from the places and the context.
Approaching that world will be a discovery. Especially the chapter on Zeno deeply innovates the interpretation.
A qualifying feature is that it is easy to read, inclusive rather than exclusive, and, at the same time, able to offer a completely new (and even bold) picture of both Parmenides and Zeno.
This Parmenides is no more the philosopher of being and almost nothing else, but is also a first-order student of the cosmos and the living creatures, able to teach that our earth is spherical, and give the main features of a completely unknown part of it, the one which we use to call the southern hemisphere, and much more.
In the case of Zeno I did my best to penetrate the 'secret' of his paradoxes and discover what Zeno wanted to do with them.
In a sense, a lot of dust has hopefully been removed from each thinker, of those born in ancient Elea.
The book starts with a glance at the territory where both P. and Z. spent their lives.
The book includes, other than a new preface (p 15 f.), a "Postfacio" (translated by Nicola Galgano) where the author and Dr. Laura Candiotto (Univ. Venezia, Univ. Edinburgh) offer a sustained exchange about subsequent developments of the investigations included in this book. The "Postfacio" is available in the section "Talks".
This book is formally made out of previously published articles (the book originated from the suggestions of Professor François Roustang, Paris, who wisely prefaced it).
After a survey of the most ancient Socratic literature (basically, Plato and his companions, not just Plato and Xenophon), some sophisticated dialogic units (Xen. Mem. IV 2 and III 8, Plato's Euthyphro) are scrutinized. These are dialogues portraying Socrates 'at work', they uncover some features of his habits, esp. his attitude at provoking his interlocutor while governing the exchange. This, in turn, is the starting point for a new analysis of the personality of Socrates and especially of his concealed rhetoric. I conclude that, in order to preserve a sound understanding of what Socrates did and was, we need to pay a very special attention to his peculiar rhetoric.
A final chapter is meant to open the avenue to what has been submitted to a much more refined investigation in my 2015 book, "La filosofia non nasce con Talete, e nemmeno con Socrate" (and then elsewhere).
The review appeared on PHILOSOPHIE ANTIQUE 2, 2022.
una cenerentola nella letteratura specialistica, ma qualcosa sta cambiando.
Il libro in esame costituisce la prima e, per ora, unica monografia sull’argomento.
Vegetti imagined a sequel to the tenth book where one of the attendance, a foreigner insatisfied of what the master has just reported, heavily attacks Socrates and 'his' idea of the philosopher-king. He is a foreigner coming from Treviri/Trier (!) who immediately outlines an alternative order where the workers have the power over the whole city (his hidden name is Karl Marx). Socrates, in turn, has something to say against the alternative order outlined by this aggressive foreigner, who reminds him of Thrasymachus.
A fascinating exchange, in the light of the collapse of the Soviet order in Russia, and related countries. --- ---
What I am attaching here il the whole issue no. 24 of CARTA, where my short text has been published.
C'è una trama concettuale che collega i due volumi qui proposti alla attenzione: oltre alla centralità dell'elemento dialogico e al comune retroterra socratico, le due raccolte, anche per una parziale condivisione di collaboratori e la concomitanza nella eleborazione, concorrono a un generale ripensamento intorno alla natura dei sōkratikoi logoi e, in questo scenario, a ridefinire in particolare la funzione dell'opera scritta di Platone, con importanti puntualizzazioni sulla dialettica negli stessi dialoghi del filosofo ateniese.
Esce per ora soltanto in inglese un libro di Livio Rossetti che indaga la singolare vicenda di questo presocratico che seppe interrogarsi sulla realtà (e darsi risposte) con occhio scientifico.
A misprint occurred on p. 227, line 3, where one should read 'sfera terrestre' instead of 'sfera celeste'.
…ma in conclusione Eraclito è il teorico del “tutto scorre”, del fuoco che tutto trasforma, della guerra che è madre di tutte le cose, del dio che vuole e non vuole farsi chiamare Zeus, della coincidentia oppositorum, del logos o di che altro? Eppoi: in questa moltiplica-zione delle etichette non c’è qualcosa che non quadra? O che va al di là, le accomuna, sta dietro a ciascuna?
Il video inizia al minuto 4.
Per accedere al video andare su https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zDrHn3K__w <>
Viene svolta l'idea che i poemi omerici sono portatori di una cultura molto caratterizzata, che proponeva (1) non solo guerre ma tanti discorsi, (2) un Olimpo non intollerante (tutt'altro) e in cui è possibile perfino che scoppi una grande risata collettiva, (3) una società umana in cui si guarda con simpatia a chi contesta il potere costituito (ricordo la risata che conclude la scena di Tersite) e in cui si osservano molti esempi di moderazione, (4) un Olimpo in cui singole divinità impersonano emozioni, passioni, modi d'essere di cui si parla, per cui gli umani hanno molte opportunità di individuare queste emozioni e di oggettivarle, così da poterle poi riconoscere negli altri e anche in sé, (5) uno spazio importante per l'universo femminile (e per il suo mondo mentale), e non poco altro.
Si tratta di caratteristiche raramente segnalate, che sono solidali tra loro e ci parlano di un mondo che non è solo guardato con simpatia, ma in buona misura è stato conosciuto dal poeta -- e questa è una circostanza altamente significativa.
Questo evento si rivelò irreversibile, e il salvataggio di TUTTO ciò che si tornava a conoscere si rivelò definitivo.
Nel frattempo l’arte della stampa su carta aprì la strada a processi completamente nuovi. Fu così che la preservazione dei testi antichi cessò di essere un problema, mentre l’eccellenza cominciò a consistere non nell'accesso a quelle pergamene ma nella qualità delle versioni a stampa. L'aspettative dell'epoca fu che dessero modo di rimuovere sempre nuove imperfezioni, piccole e grandi. Fu un modo di ottenere versioni ogni volta un po' più vicine agli originali.
Si è così passati dalla preocupazione di tramandare (non disperdere) al desiderio di ottenere esemplari sempre meno condizionati dal flusso di copie di copie di copie eseguite a mano. <>
<> per accedere al video andare su: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRVUSC-3GCc <>
<> La presentazione inizia al minuto 7.
Poi, tra il 1150 e il 1250 (circa), una volta appreso che gli arabi avevano accesso a un numero considerevole di testi, soprattutto aristotelici, che non erano disponibili tra i latini, fu la volta delle traduzioni in latino di ciò che era disponibile, se non in greco, almeno in arabo. Queste traduzioni, effettuate in Sicilia e poi soprattutto in Spagna, seppero generare cambiamenti di prim’ordine negli standard intellettuali in voga nelle neonate università europee. <>
<> Per collegarsi andare su: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywmAvrfnVOc <>
Si poté in tal modo ricostituire, sia pure molto gradualmente, quel circuito culturale vasto e vario che, col tempo, rese possibile la nascita delle università. <>
<> Per collegarsi andare su: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeasX_Uu_MY <>
Si suggerisce di andare subito al minuto 17. Grazie
Quarto incontro, genn. 2022: “MA SIAMO QUI NOI!” (NOI DI BAGHDAD) <>
<> Una singolare combinazione di circostanze produsse questo effetto: mentre la cultura superiore con base ad Atene subiva una terribile frenata e il mondo latino addirittura perdeva di vista il patrimonio ellenico, sviluppi impensati si ebbero in territorio siriaco e a Tisifun (in greco: Ctesifonte) sul Tigri, con il sostegno della monarchia persiana. Ai persiani subentrarono poi gli arabi (intorno al 660) e, per oltre due secoli, il califfato diede ulteriore impulso a un’appropriazione della cultura greca su larga scala, fino a pensare che ormai erano loro l’avanguardia culturale dell’epoca e i veri eredi di una ormai lontana, ma ancora vitale, grecità. <>
<> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUfowLlRVZk <>
Intanto, laddove fu prevalente l’uso del latino, più o meno combinato con qualche lingua locale, la diffusione della conoscenza del greco conobbe una graduale battuta d’arresto. Di conseguenza, aebbe luogo sempre più spesso la rarefazione di coloro che conoscevano il greco e avevano le motivazioni giuste per accedere ai testi greci ancora disponibili. Per effetto di simili dinamiche, la dispersione dei papiri greci dovette subire una inevitabile accelerazione, limitata (ma anche estesa) a tutta l’area parlante latino, sia pure con l’eccezione di Roma.
Ne è derivata una preoccupazione inedita: l'urgenza di procedere al salvataggio dei testi antichi, soprattutto latini, che stavano dicvenendo sempre più rari. <>
<> Per accedere al video andare su: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f_n_skFmiQ <>
Un primo fattore fu la costituzione della bibliotec a di Alessandria (intorno al 280 a.C.), che accese i riflettori soprattutto su Atene e sulla scuola di Aristotele.
Poi fu la volta di Roma. Durante le guerre puniche ebbe durevole successo la commedia 'palliata', con ambientazione costante ad Atene. Fu poi la volta delle biblioteche romane, inizialmente costituite da SOLI testi greci, e dei viaggi di istruzione in Grecia (come fece ad es. Cicerone). Veramente "Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit"!
<> per accedere al video andare su: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUKgg57YbMQ <> .
Per studenti liceali e universitari, bibliotecari, grecisti, filosofi, storici, medievisti. E per i greci che vivono in Italia.
Questo primo incontro ha avuto luogo a fine 2021. <>
<> Per accedere al video andare su https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f_n_skFmiQ <>
<> Attenzione: la presentazione incomincia al minuto 7.
Il link è questo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhOhR3SLPsk&t=2614s <>
Ho dedicato il mio intervento all'invenzione della resa cartografica (merito indiscutibile di Anassimandro) e alla creatività che, vivente Talete, gli permise di spingersi a rappresentare addirittura tutto il mondo conosciuto, da oltre Gibilterra fino a quello che per noi è il Mar Caspio.
Nel documento figurano i dati essenziali. il video è disponibile qui:
https://youtu.be/DJ61rOwDGs0
Questa conversazione ha avuto luogo a Firenze nel 2018 nella cornice del FILOSOFESTIVAL fiorentino. <>
Per accedere al video andare su https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNYtjv1lljE <>
Viene svolta l'idea che non sia molto corretto associare l'inizio della filosofia alla figura di Talete. Talete, come tutti i presocratici (e, si noti, lo stesso Socrate) appartengono, semmai alla PREISTORIA della filosogia greca. Questo non per ragioni bizzarre o soggettive ma perché, se la nozione di filosofia cominciò a conoscere una certa diffusionwe ad Atene intorno al 430 a.C., la sua ridefinizione come un tipo molto particolare di eccellenza (ed eventualmente di sapere) e la connessa introduzione della nozione di filosofo sono strettamente legate alla maturità di Platone. Finché Platone non l'ha individuata, fatta conoscere e amare, la gente non poté dire di sé "io sono un filosofo". Nemmeno Socrate, ovviamente.
Sfortunatamente l'audio è pessimo.
Per accedere al video andare su:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4n5aQlaYzo
To open this video, please go on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NP2T8mG76E <>
The leading idea was that the public life of ancient Athens owed a lot to a class of functionaries called 'grammateis' or 'hypogrammateis' (scribes, assistant scribes). Their number was probably hign, their functions often crucial and their professionality often high. Nevertheless, their appointment was for one year (renewable), their work was paid very moderately, their status was incomparable with that of the high functionaries of modern states and, what is more, it seems that there was no educational opportunity for people aiming at being enrolled as 'grammateis'. So, how did they acquire even strong skills?
Per accedere al video andare su https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx7rehmEEL4 <>
Viene avviata una conversazione con un gruppo di teenagers sulle opportunità e sulle insidie della comunicazione. I riferimenti alla figura di Socrate si limitano ad accompagnare lo scambio di idee.
Qui ho provato a dare un'idea di come si caratterizza (o vorremmo che si caratterizzasse) il nostro modo di fare filosofia con bambini, ragazzi e altri gruppi sociali. Direi che un tratto caratterizzante sia l'offerta di ascolto.
Antilogies were a very special sort of writing. What I offer here is a rather extensive investigation on so peculiar a genre of writings,
This article is part of the Special Issue "Ancient Greek Sophistry and Its Legacy", Edited by Michael MacDonald. It is an open access paper.
However, formally, this is but a response to a couple of sustained reviews of a book, LE DIALOGUE SOCRATIQUE (Les Belles Lettres, collection 'Encre Marine', Paris 2012), both published in NOVA TELLVS. As it happens, this issue of NOVA TELLVS appeared not in 2012 but during the subsequent year.
My paper begins by outlining a history of the rediscovery of Gorgias. Its starting point is a statement by George Kerferd who in 1981 acknowledged, with commendable intellectual honesty, that “the interpretation of what Gorgias is saying is difficult, and we are certainly not yet even in sight of an agreed understanding of its overall significance, let alone its detailed arguments.”. In 1981!
As to Gorgias' 'Palamedes' the revolutionary event was the discovery that here Gorgias first considers one-by-one a number of indispensable objective (factual) conditions for the trahison to matarialize, and argues that none of them could have occurred (nor in fact did occur). Then, as his second claim, he surveys the subjective conditions related to his position as a Greek basileus to conclude that none occurred. All that is worth of attention. And there is more, including a memorable evocation of contradiction. The whole is a mastery logos amarturos.
A very-first-order feature of his 'Encomoium of Helen' is the disguised status of what may well be taken to be a unique treatise on the limits of responsibility. These points do not surface, but are precisely what the Encomium deals with (and slyly conceals). It is astonishing to see how often commentators remained unaware of that!
And there is more. Gorgias' extant writings reach a truly uncommon level of excellence and are full of substantive moments, even if at every turn their author strove to remain behind the scenes.
The Homeric poems (the Iliad and the Odyssey) had a powerful influence on ancient Greek civilization, if not the whole of humankind. Many find this statement to be true but do little to examine it. I propose to reopen Homer’s case to show how the poems established themselves within their culture and gained a widespread circulation in ancient Greek society. Their appearance and diffusion are much more significant than commonly believed.
Why? Because they were able to portray a sort of society (and of Olympus) that was astonishingly 'modern'. Just one example could be supplied here: Nausicaa thinks something and says something different, helpful in view of what she thought or considered. This distance between thought (eventually wished) and actually said enacts a dialectic totally unexpected in those old times).
«Bambine e bambini, ragazze e ragazzi hanno un potenziale di cui loro stessi sono i primi a non saper quasi niente. Eppure sono due le cose che contano per davvero per b. e r.: da un lato la presenza – oppure l’assenza – di una persona che, loro capiscono, “mi vuol bene”, che si interessa “a me” e per la quale “proprio io” conto qualcosa, dall’altro una mano che aiuti ognuno a tirar fuori il meglio di sé. B. e r. stanno bene con se stessi, hanno la sensazione di farsi largo, si sentono riconciliati con il mondo solo, guardano con ottimismo al nuovo giorno se e quando accadono queste due cose, o ne accade almeno una. Solo allora, infatti, qualcosa di ciò che era rannicchiato lì dentro trova il modo di uscir fuori, di manifestarsi e diventare parole, idee, suoni, gesti o una qualunque altra cosa.»
«Girls and boys have a potential they themselves are the first to know almost nothing about. Yet two things really matter for them: on the one hand the presence - or the absence - of a person who, they understand, "loves me", is interested in "me" and for whom "me" counts something; on the other hand, a hand that helps everyone to bring out the best in themselves. Girls and boys feel good about themselves, like how they are making their way, feel reconciled with the world, look with optimism at the new day if and when these two things happen, or at least if one of them happens. Only then, in fact, does something of what was huddled inside them find a way to come out, to manifest itself and become words, ideas, sounds, gestures or whatever.»
My full paper, circulated by the Daily Philosophy Newsletter on Sept. 19, 2022, is avalable here: https://daily-philosophy.com/rossetti-homeric-poems/
Around the middle of the fifth century BC, when Socrates was reaching adulthood, an important change took place in the cultural offer by the Greek sophoi. Until then, from the formal point of view, the communication of knowledge had known a certain stability along the scheme sophos > teachings > book but, starting approximately from the mid-fifth century, a new standard affirmed itself: the antilogic model where authors outline a dispute and portray two disputants. the antilogic model where authors outline a dispute and portray two disputants.
This is likely to have been a key pre-condition for the oral dialogical interaction Socrates invented and developed.
§ 2 is devoted to a tentative catalogue of some THIRTY ANTILOGIES going back to the second half of the V Century BC.
The key point is that finally we do have a book dealing with the claims of the accusers of Socrates in 399 BCE. A widely shared sympathy for Socrates and his 'prophet' Plato still prevents many students from accounting for the evaluations that lead Anytus and his associates to the indictment that brought Socrates before his judges. But why not, on earth?
Besides, it was precisely in the Apology that Plato himself acknowledged not less than five times that, in the years close to 399, Socrates was perceived as an uncomfortable character by at least a portion of his fellow Athenians. This is indeed, enlightening.
This time I tried to elaborate on how an adult can (and should) combine a necessary improvisation and a meassure of professionality. This is far from being clear, it seems...
I suspect that the main reason is not that other poleis failed to nurture (or host) a Sophocles, a Phidias or an Aristotle, but because Athens immediately became the main pole of attraction for both ancient Alexandria and ancient Rome. A presumable side-effect was that, for a long time, papyruses-with-Athenian-stuff were quickly judged worth being copied a priori, while papyruses-with-non-Athenian-stuff were judged, certainly with notable exceptions, not so prioritarily entitled to be furtherly copied. Otherwise, why could it have occurred the impressive disproportion between the quantity of Athenian and non-Athenian texts that were available to Byzantine copyists for a massive trasferral on parchment and, as a consequence, are still accessible to us in full, or almost in full?
During the fifth century BCE Parmenides had many and qualified readers, among whom Zeno, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Leucippus, Melissus, Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias.
Three of them tried to do much more than what he was able to do with the ‘deductive exercise’ we encounter in 28B8.1-33 (or, in the case of Melissus, with the whole doctrine of being), and they succeeded. Indeed, that they strived to overcome the high standard already reached by Parmenides in the invention of strictly deductive passages is basically out of the question.
My paper is devoted to account for the ambitious aims Zeno, Melissus, and Gorgias attained, each in a very distinguished manner.
Anche in filosofia antica la ricerca conosce, di tanto in tanto, fatti nuovi in grado di rimettere in discussione delle certezze consolidate, e questo non necessariamente a seguito della pubblicazione di nuovi papiri. Con riferimento a Socrate è proprio il caso di dire che le acque si sono fatte piuttosto agitate per via di due o tre fatti nuovi che, anche solo vent’anni fa, forse nessuno al mondo sarebbe stato in grado di prefigurare.
Uno di questi fatti nuovi, almeno a mio avviso, è la raccolta di fonti sui presocratici recentemente predisposta da André Laks e Glenn Most (2016), ossia il ‘nuovo Diels-Kranz’. L’opera ha sorpreso tutti per il fatto di includere una sezione dedicata a Socrate. Osservo, per cominciare, che non si tratta di un’appendice, ma di un capitolo che, non a caso, è collocato subito dopo quelli su Protagora e Gorgia e prima di quelli dedicati a Prodico, Trasimaco, Ippia, Antifonte e, a seguire, a altri intellettuali e altri testi di fine V secolo. La sua inclusione tra i presocratici non manca di sorprendere, e certamente non solo per via del paradosso di un Socrate che, se non viene trattato come un sofista, viene almeno trattato come un presocratico, cosa che non andrebbe bene ugualmente. Sarebbe tuttavia un errore perderci dietro a simili ovvietà.
La scelta di Laks e Most costituisce infatti, oso dire, un atto imprevisto ma dovuto. Socrate fu un contemporaneo dei sofisti e si è formato con loro, non certo con i suoi (o i loro) discepoli, e è corretto ravvisare in lui uno dei protagonisti della vicenda culturale del V secolo al pari di Gorgia o Antifonte. È certamente possibile che alcuni dei suoi ‘coetanei’ – per esempio Protagora – siano stati più precoci di lui nel delineare e stabilizzare la propria immagine pubblica; nondimeno si sono formati negli stessi anni, si sono affermati in modi diversi nella stessa Atene, hanno avuto la possibilità di conoscersi, di interagire e, forse, anche di scontrarsi, sono invecchiati insieme. Di conseguenza, anche se una tradizione antichissima ha ripetutamente insegnato, di generazione in generazione fino a oggi e senza deviazioni, a scorporare Socrate da quel gruppo di
intellettuali di successo, quasi che egli non fosse stato espressione del medesimo humus culturale, è ben difficile trovare una buona ragione per giustificare un simile uso ed eventualmente disapprovare la scelta di Laks e Most. Chiediamoci allora...
As it seems, it has nothing to do with a supposed girlfriend or so. As suggested by Rose Cherubin in a seminal article of her, it is likely to convey the idea of equal attention for male and female and, as a consequence, a need to rebalance an unbalanced relationship.
A close scrutiny is indeed enough to note that Zeno exploits a whole repository of totally unknown notions.
It follows that, in my opinion, no professional account of Zeno’s paradoxes is conceivable without focusing one’s attention upon what ostensibly was a total novelty, and a new beginning on the part of Zeno.
very different from what this community seemingly continues to believe. For the «physical» doctrines are an indisputable fact, while the allusions to the brotōn doxai have been charged with a meaning they cannot have.
A number of implications follow, and the matter has been argued within the limits of a paper while two books of mine, a larger and a shorter one, dealt with basically the same topics, and were printed quite recently (in 2020). One of them is entitled "Verso la filosofia: Nuove prospettive su Parmenide, Zenone e Melisso", while the other is "Parmenide e Zenone sophoi ad Elea".
L'idea-guida che ho svolto è che il potenziale filosofico di bambini e ragazzi esiste ed è un gran peccato soffocarlo con la disattenzione (non si richiede più di questo per ottenere il risultato!) o anche semplicemente non riconoscerlo, non valorizzarlo, non dargli corda. Avviandomi a concludere, ho provato a indicare qualche strategia orientata nella direzione opposta, che è poi quella di AMICA SOFIA fin dalla sua prima configurazione (Perugia 2002-3) come associazione di interesse locale.
As to macro-rhetoric, there is a book of mine interely devoted to this topic (1994 Italian; 2009 Spanish).
My main claim is that every attempt to communicate sth to sbody implies the choice of a strategy and then the choice of a number of details meant to be as functional as possible. These ideas, in turn, are helpful in order to attain a better understanding of complex text units. It may be considered a holistic rhetoric, as it concentrates on the logic of a whole. Far from being descriptive or classificatory, this sort of rhetoric goes in search of the aims (the logic of an action, a discourse, a speaker, a whole, a part...) and then pays head to the functions details are expected to play in a given context.
It follows that rhetorical skill has quite positive features (it has always been a key resource for our welfare). But, if so, the prejudice against rhetoric, a vast and tenacious phenomenon, is likely to require a better understanding. As a matter of fact, such a prejudice goes back to Plato and even earlier times, knew a first-order rehearsal with Descartes and Kant, and continues to manifest its force even in our times. However, Chaïm Perelman’s efforts to free rhetoric from such a prejudice have been supported in many ways during XX century and now it is possible to rediscover its universality as well as its intrinsic neutrality.
Since the above has to do with the past, let us look ahead. Two main inferences seems at hand.
(A) Certainty, truth, and logical consequentiality are not a standard from which to judge a number of inferior forms of knowledge, disputable statements or ‘the opinions of mortals’, but mere happy exceptions to the rule (a ‘rule of mediocrity’, one could say).
(B) It is conceivable to mount a ‘rhetorica universalis’, the study of most general features, and most qualifying variables, affecting all sort of communicational attempts: a general rhetoric (not a meta-rhetoric) which should prove helpful in its interaction with many ‘local’ sorts of rhetoric.
In these few pages I argue that Melissus's book, as well as Gorgias' Peri tou me ontos, should have be perceived by their contemporaries as a powerful innovation for their strict argumentative organization: only dry argoments from the beginnins to the end, and a rather plain prose: fantastic, in my opinion (but Mansfeld, in his reply, favours a less emphatic appreciation). ---------------------- Book reviewed by Luca Gili on http://www.bmcreview.org/2017/08/20170828.html.
A furtherly revised treatment of the same topics is now available as chapter 5 of my Un altro Parmenide, vol. 2 (Bologna 2017). Something more is to be found here: https://www.academia.edu/34595180/Un_altro_Parmenide_vol._II_Luna_Antipodi_Sessualit%C3%A0_Logica_2017_
Especially noteworthy seem to be (a) the fact that his Socrates dares to speak about himself and reveal a feature of his natural inclinations the writer presumes to have remain wholly undetected by his regulars; (b) the appearance, here as well in Aeschines's Alcibiades, of one of the most ancient evidence about one's confidences, taken as eminently revealing remarks; (c) the availability of explicit references to philosophy, and to an idea of philosophy whose prestige happens to be linked to its pragmatic potentialities, rather than to one or more doctrines."
<><> These few pages belong to Chapter 5 of U. Zilioli (ed.), From the Socratics to the Socratic Schools. Classical Ethics, Metaphysics and Epistemology, New York and London, Routledge, 2015, 82-98 (C.J. Rowe's translation),
Originally read at the Univ. Lateranense, Roma, then revised , translated and published in ARETE REVISTA DE FILOSOFIA (a journal published in Lima, Peru), vol. XXVII 2015, 281-296; available through http://revistas.pucp.edu.pe/index.php/arete/article/view/14618/pdf
It is devoted to current investigations on the topic.
What I plan to offer in support of this claim is, to begin with, an inventory (the first ever prepared) of the topics dealt with in the section devoted to physical world and living creatures (§ 2). Something on Parmenides’ way of studying and understanding different aspects of the physical world and living organisms follows (§ 3).
Once acknowledged the above (a point which is not particularly controversial, I presume), the poem comes to look quite differently and some principles of interpretation are likely to collapse: first of all, the customary assumption that frgs. 1-9 include definite ideas on the doctrines to be found in the second main body, and tell us that they are not of great value. Indeed, the very high quality of several among these doctrines seems to imply that no devaluation of the second main doctrinal body is tenable.
-- NOTE/ see also "Parmenides' Polumathia: an inventory of his doxai [ 2016 ]", a draft paper in English which is very near to this one. It is fully available in the section OTHER of my own page on academia.edu.
These three points are not mutually compatible. So, what lies behind them? What is escaping our attention when we state them?
Probably an event in Plato’s life that has too often gone unnoticed: the key role he played in giving form and substance to philosophy almost ex nihilo, and in getting it to take root once and for all.
Failure to acknowledge how, when, and on whose initiative philosophy came to occupy a very important place in Western culture and education for two and a half millennia; not including a note on this process in biographies of Plato; and overlooking another key event that probably occurred about 350-45 BC.: these are just some of the unwelcome effects due to the usual silence about the period in which philosophy took form.
A REVISED VERSION of this paper has been included in my book "La filosofia non nasce con Talete, e nemmeno con Socrate" (2015).
It deals with the REFECTIO of Heraclitus' PERI PHYSEOS by S.N. Mouraviev.
It is not by chance that it has been included in a collection of papers "sobre los Heraclitea de Serge Mouraviev".
Parmenides resumed the basic idea of Anaximander with new conjectures and arguments, but in the meanwhile Anaximenes' rejection found several followers (not just Xenophanes).
So, these old sophoi didn't disagree only about the 'arche', whether it is to be identified with 'to apeiron' or air.
From that it seems to follow that Anaximander has the rare merit of having devised and prepared the very first treatise meant to serve as a comprehensive account of a stated body of (inchoative) knowledge. In fact, this way, a model or pattern came to be established, namely the sort of book called "Peri Physeos".
If so, the inventor of the very idea of treatise was not Aristotle, or Herodotus, or Hippocrates, but Anaximander.
PAPER INCLUDED IN: R.L. Cardullo-D. Iozzia (eds.), Kallos kai arete. Bellezza e virtù. Studi in onore di Maria Barbanti, Catania 2015.
Hardly a doubt on this point, since mastery works as the Tetralogies by Antiphon, or the Helen and Palamedes by Gorgias, the final agōn of Aristophanes' Clouds or Thucydides' Melian dialogue are there to offer ample evidence of that.
But the list of antilogies is much richer and antilogies have a logic of their own, worth being uncovered.
Che cosa può passare per un paradosso, ma non lo è? Questo è il mio punto di partenza.
So far, this sort of meta-investigation seems to have remained a unique feature of this book and, perhaps, what still survives of it.
Its introductory essay was translated into French and became a portion of 'Le dialogue socratique' (Paris 2011). Other portions of this book are available elsewhere in this sub-section of academia.edu.
Nella seconda parte provo a individuare una serie di memorabili innovazioni nel comune sentire -- per esempio l'idea che sia possibile e desiderabile esercitare un fermo controllo su di sé e, di riflesso, il senso di responsabilità o perfino colpa anziché l'uso di professarsi non responsabili -- che, prima ancora di trasformarsi in insegnamenti positivi e in prese di posizione teoriche, sono entrate in circolo nel mondo greco grazie a Socrate e alla più antica letteratura socratica lasciandovi una traccia così forte da giungere fino al nostro tempo. Dissociare Socrate da simili innovazioni sarebbe a mio avviso un errore.
The abstract question has a definite answer: it depends on whether their Socrates is a living character and preserves an identity of his own. When thus is the case...
POxy 2890 front gives a vivid portrayal of the search for higher wisdom. Claudio and I contributed to the forther assessment of the papyrus in order to reach a better understanding of what is being said.
Other than contributing to the editing of the papyrus, we try to understand what surfaces here: the kind of situation outlined, the personalities involved, and to some extent the mood of the scene. We also tried to connect a few other texts related to Socrates with this portion of dialogue.
Two salient ideas of this paper:
1. The Iceberg Argument, i.e. that one should not consider only what Plato has to say on the so-called Presocratics, but also what he does not say, something which often is even more helpful in order to form an idea of what may lie behind his remarks. Whence the question raised in § 3: "Does Shortage of References mean Disregard?"
2. The Velvet Revolution, namely the rapid rarefaction of new writings due to the 'Sophists, and, almost contemporarily, the abundance of new Socratic dialogues authored during the very first decades of the IV century. A first-order change.
The present survey is devoted to the advancement of studies on Greek philosophy as a whole, with details on a variety of tools being made available for the very first time.
This is the chapter devoted to Presocratics (Sophists not included).
This is the chapter devoted to the so-clled Sophists.
This is the chapter devoted to Socrates and the so-called Minor Socratic Schools.
My paper begins by commenting on Guthrie and Gigon, then on several other contributions, and finishes with the attempt to draw one's attention on the 'secundary' sources on Socrates, so often neglected during almost the whole 20th century, but often able to expand and refine our knowledge of Socrates.
This is the chapter devoted to Plato.
This is the chapter devoted to Aristotle.
This is the chapter devoted to the Neoplatonists.
Con questa cerimonia hanno voluto onorare la decisione di venire a Bevagna, nel settembre 1989, a fondare la Società Internazionale dei Platonisti che, in effetti, ha subito goduto di prestigio e vasta notoietà.
Come sempre, questi incontrib promossi da Marco Formisano ci mettono di fronte a cospicui imprevisti.
It is well known that the basic evidence on Thales is available since 1903. However, because of what Aristotle supposedly assured, namely that 'water is the archē', every other merit of his has been often treated as eminently accessorial, and therefore, in comparison, much less meaningful, much less representative, much less interesting. As a consequence, all the rest often received a rather cursory attention.
But is that the way it is? It will be argued that the contrary is the case, that the water theory is, at the most, accessorial, while the qualifying features of Thales' work and teachings have to be looked for elsewhere.
Di questo libro è disponibile una sinossi. Si trova qui:
https://www.academia.edu/82498263/Ripensare_i_presocratici_SINOSSI_2022
[ last update: 08.06.2020 ]
INDICE: Il programma (p. 1) ― An overview / Uno sguardo all'insieme (p. 2) ― 0. Preliminarmente (p. 9) ― 1. Omero (p. 12) ― 2. Saffo (p. 19) ― 3. Talete (p. 26) ― 4. Anassimandro (p. 35) ― 5. Anassimene (p. 46) ― 5bis. Ecateo (p. 55) ― 6. Senofane (p. 59) ― 7. Eraclito (p. 67) ― 8. Pitagora (p. 77) ― 8bis. Alcmeone (p. 84) ― 9. Parmenide, I parte (p. 88) ― 10. Parmenide, II parte (p. 100) ― 11. Melisso (p. 109) ― Zenone (p. 117).
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Una intera serie di incontri sui Presocratici (e su un articolato insieme di altri intellettuali coevi) ha avuto luogo a Perugia tra il novembre 2017 e il maggio 2018.
Su Youtube sono disponibili sette video. Qui il settimo della serie:: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnG1hsGquYA
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A whole series of public talks, devoted to the Presocratics (plus other Greek 'intellectuals' who were active in the same period) took place in Perugia between November 2017 and May 2018..
On Youtube seven videos are available. Just digit 'Cultura presocratica'. The last one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnG1hsGquYA
To honor my friend Marcelo Perine (professor at Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo) I propose to dwell a little on the whirlwind and creative transformations that, affected Athens in the fifth century BC, .
<> Dans le Sophiste Platon avoue s'éloigner de l'enseignement d'un maître faisant autorité (et, d'ailleurs, très respecté), Parménide. S'en éloigner signifie produire une objection qui soit à son tour incontournable ou presque. Pour Platon, le faire c'est strictement nécessaire bien que cela pourrait passer pour une sorte de parricide. Pour nous, comprendre ce qui se passe n'est pas du tout facile.
<> De plus, nous avons récemment pris conscience d'un passage comparable dû à Gorgias et remontant à un bon demi-siècle avant ce dialogue platonicien.
<> Il s'agit du passage du PTMO (MXG 17) où la notion d'objects de la pensée (ta phronoumena) vient d'etre introduit, l'idée étant que, si le non-etre est un objet de la pensée (une notion, une 'chose' dont on parle), alors le non-etre existe. Il s'agit, évidemment, d'une objection de taille ò une des idées maitresses de la doctrine parménidienne de l'etre.
<> A noter qu'Alexius Meinong a cru découvrir la meme chose en 1904 avec un livre fameux, sa 'Gegenstandtheorie'.
<> Platon n'arrive pas à ce niveau de clarté.
This set of files has the whole German text, according to the third edition of Engel's' 'Schriften', volume 9 (Berlin 1844) as well as an Italian translation prepared by a colleague and friend of mine, Dr. Gigliola Grazi.
The Italian section includes a 'Nota introduttiva' of mine.
The whole was printed 1n 1998 as part of L. Rossetti-O. Bellini (eds.), Retorica e verità. Le insidie della comunicazione.
Our ‘universal’ perception of Parmenides’ poem is biased by traditional readings to a considerable degree, at least if the poem actually included two different doctrinal bodies, one on being and another on the physis, the latter encompassing a number of sustained chapters on the physical world and (some) living organisms.
What I plan to offer in support of this claim is, first of all, an INVENTORY of the topics dealt with in the large section devoted to physical world (sky and earth), and living creatures.
Once acknowledged the above (which, I presume, should not be found very controversial), the poem comes to look quite differently.
People wanting to attend the talk should contact alessandro.stavry@univr.it
Livio Rossetti, Honorary President of the ISSS, commemorated the thirty years of the IPS of which he was a founding member and presented the new society before our fellow Platonists. We share the text in English and Italian.
In the sequel, my ms. remained unpublished, and only few of these lectures gave rise to extended articles, helas.
This bibliography is updated to summer 2023.