Volume 50, Issue 4 -

One of the most intriguing aspects of Plato’s Socrates is his reliance upon the mysterious phenomenon of the daimonion . This “divine sign” seems to command Socrates’ unconditional compliance, despite its seemingly extra-rational nature. Most modern interpreters have sought to rationalize Socrates’ trust in the daimonion . In this paper, I argue that the recent attempts at rationalization employ a notion of rationality that is foreign to Plato’s texts and ends up distorting the figure of Socrates. Furthermore, when this notion of rationality is made explicit, it becomes clear that the recent attempts do not succeed in maintaining the rationality of Socrates’ trust in the daimonion . In response, I argue that Socrates employed a perspectival notion of rationality. On such an account I demonstrate that one can preserve the rationality of Socrates’ trust in the daimonion without distortion.

It is well known that Democritus posited two principles of reality, i. e . atoms and void, and that he gave them many names. Synonyms of atom include the terms “body”, “form” and “thing” or δέν, while void was also called “space”, “infinite” and “no-thing” or μηδέν. What usually escapes the attention of scholars is the problematic outcome that this apparently plain mode of expression raises at the epistemological level. Indeed, according to Proclus ( In Plat. Crat . 16=fr. 68 B 26 DK), Democritus believed that names are not established by nature, but by convention, which may imply that they do not express the true nature of the object named. Proclus gives four proofs on his behalf, among which we find the ἰσορροπία argument. Names do not have a natural link with the objects they refer to and, therefore, do not express their inner essence, since the same thing will receive different designations and meanings, none of which fully expresses its real φύσις. Now, I will argue that, if we apply this idea to the principles, it follows that Democritus may have acknowledged that they are not fully comprehensible to human beings. The fact that both the atom and the void are assigned different names/meanings shows that their nature escapes human understanding. At the same time, I will also briefly suggest that the “ἰσορροπία argument” does not lead to skepticism. Instead, it leads to a rational dogmatism, which recognizes that atoms and void exist, are known and can be expressed through language, although no mind can fully comprehend their essence.

In On Affected Places Galen asserts that animal sexuality is a self-regulating mechanism in which excess seed is ejected outside the body. Sexual desire matches the physiological urge to be rid of the seed whose retention in the system is a potential health hazard. Somewhat similar account features in several other works too. Yet Galen’s oeuvre offers meticulously detailed advice on how we should control and regulate our sexuality. Evidently, the self-regulation does not always work – at least not in humans. This article looks into the question why sex must, in Galen’s view, be regulated, while other acts of bodily evacuations clearly do not require similar regulation. It establishes that we can distinguish three different models for explaining sexual desire in Galen: Apart from the self-regulatory “evacuation model” (A), he suggests that animal sexual drive is fundamentally excessive (B), and that humans, in particular, indulge excessively in sex because of their obsessive relationship with pleasure (C). Galen’s suggestions for sexual regulation must be interpreted in light of these different models.

This paper attempts to reconstruct the Stoics’ theory (or theories) of the nature of the moon and its illumination from the fragmentary, and sometimes apparently conflicting, evidence. It reveals how the Stoics accounted for the distinctive characteristics of the moon by intricately utilising their mixture theory (especially κρᾶσις) and their elemental theory in their doctrines of the moon’s composition and the moon’s illumination. The evidence, I conclude, points to a singular, complex Stoic theory, one according to which the moon does not (as scholars have commonly supposed) have any light of its own. The details of this theory additionally furnish important new insights into the Stoic doctrines of κρᾶσις and πνεῦμα.