Volume 4, Issue 2

This paper takes a fresh look at the marionette image introduced by Plato in a famous passage of Book I of the Laws , as he undertakes to explain the bearing of self-rule upon virtue (644 b –645 e ). I argue that the reader of the passage is first offered a cognitive model of a unitary self, presided over by reasoning – which prompts bafflement in the Athenian Visitor’s interlocutors. The marionette image then in effect undermines that model, by portraying humans as passive subjects of contrary controlling impulses determining their behaviour. Finally the image is complicated and in the end transcended by reintroduction of reasoning as a special kind of divinely inspired impulse, with which one must actively cooperate if animal impulses are to be mastered. I examine the way Plato’s reference at this point to law (where there is a key translation problem) should be understood to bear upon the nature of the reasoning in question. In conclusion I comment on what light we may suppose to be thrown by the marionette passage on self-rule, as we are promised it will.

Although the view that Anaximander was a Material Monist is not very popular nowadays, it is still widely held that it was embraced by Aristotle at least on some occasions, then adopted by Theophrastus, and later on inherited by Simplicius, our main source on the Presocratics. I argue that none of these three philosophers held this view and that, for this reason, it should not be seen as the standard ancient interpretation of Anaximander.

Plato’s views on astronomy are still somehow debated, however various scholars have associated his name with the project of “saving the appearances”, which is thought to have aimed at offering a precise geometrical account of celestial motions. A passage from Theon of Smyrna’s treatise on Platonic mathematics relates this project with the construction of mechanical models of the cosmos. New information deriving from the study of the so-called Antikythera mechanism, found nearly 100 years ago in an ancient shipwreck in the Aegean, seems to provide important technical evidence illustrating the evolution of this endeavour during the Hellenistic period.

The aim of this paper is to challenge the claims that Plato’s theodicy, if existent at all, is meager and undeveloped. In it I focus on the Timaeus alone, and after briefly examining the question why would an omnibenevolent God create a sensible world at all, try to extract three theodicean strategies from the dialogue. The first one is known as the Principle of Plenitude, and it professes to explain the abundance of life forms in the universe, some of which seem superfluous or unwanted. In the course of presenting this strategy, I also try to show that it can justifiably be ascribed to Plato, against Sarah Broadie’s criticism. The second strategy is the Solution from Personal Responsibility, and it mainly aims at addressing the moral aspect of the problem of evil. The third and the last one I call the Coeval Entity Solution, and it discloses the Timaean Necessity as a cause of natural evils. I try to argue, against David Sedley, that Necessity is indeed of stubborn or recalcitrant nature.

The paper discusses Aristotle’s conception of motion and proposes a new perspective for a reading. Of course, motion can be located between two states of a movable, between potentiality and actuality, but it can also be located between (the state of) a movable and (that of) its mover. It is also argued that this relational perspective is the correct way to understand Aristotle’s definition of motion. When Aristotle defines motion as “the actuality of what potentially is,  qua  such” he does not simply mean that motion is “the actuality of the movable”: by being the actuality of the movable “ qua  movable”, motion is  also  the actuality of the mover. Indeed, in its proper meaning, ‘movable’ does not refer to a per se entity. Instead it is a relative term, always standing for “movable  by  the mover”; the  qua -clause is intended to stress this relational aspect.