Volume 46, Issue 4

This essay offers a new interpretation of Aristotle’s remarks on how music affects the character of its listeners (Pol. VIII 5, 1340a14-b5). I will argue that these remarks appear less cryptic if we remember that Aristotle’s conception of moral virtue regards emotions not just as motivational forces (which help or hinder us from doing the right things) but as constitutive of virtuous behaviour itself. The main advantage of this approach to Polities VIII 5 is that it fits the dialectical setting of the text, which is marked by a disagreement over the powers of music and by the attempt to rely on empirical observations.

This article examines Aristotelian definitions of ‘political community’. Most accounts of this concept focus on the polis, the type of community that features prominently in the Politics. However, if one takes into account passages from the History of Animals and the Nicomachean Ethics VIII-IX, it is possible to uncover a formal definition of ‘political community’. It then becomes clear that other communities, such as those based in virtue-friendship, can be considered political as well according to the criterion set out by Aristotle: a fact which suggests Aristotle has a richer understanding of the concept than scholars usually ascribe to him.

In developing his theory of aether in De Caelo 1, Aristotle argues, in DC 1.4, that one circular motion cannot be contrary to another. In this paper, I discuss how Aristotle can maintain this position and accept the existence of celestial spheres that rotate in contrary directions, as he does in his revision of the Eudoxan theory in Metaphysics 12.8.

The De architectura of Vitruvius represents architecture as a discipline blending elements of theory and practice, science and social utility, and Greek and Roman culture. His vision of architecture accordingly embraces both the natural and the artificial, emphasizing the connections between their governing principles rather than a polar or antagonistic opposition. He uses this connection to clarify and simplify his descriptions of both natural systems and mechanical artifacts, and to reinforce each body of knowledge using what is known from the other. The analogy between the natural and artificial appears as well in other ancient authors, but Vitruvius restructures this analogy in a distinctive way. His version is predicated on the careful observation of a specific set of mechanical artifacts, each chosen because it models some natural phenomenon particularly well. Artifacts that model natural phenomena, such as clocks and celestial models, help the user to visualize natural systems that may not be subject to direct sensory apprehension because of their great size. He insists that mechanical cleverness can elucidate the divinity within the principles of natural phenomena, which would otherwise remain hidden in the heavens. Vitruvius complements this type of modeling with a reciprocal version in which natural phenomena serve as models to shape technological works like theaters. Throughout the De architectura, Vitruvius proposes a variety of ways in which the natural and artificial can model one another. A material model may replicate the behavior of a natural system which is already known from observation; a material model may replicate unknown but hypothesized behavior of such a system; finally, a hypothesized material model may replicate the hypothesized behavior of a natural system through a kind of thought-experiment. Alternatively, the unknown behavior of one natural system may be hypothesized to resemble the behavior of another natural system known from observation, and this hypothesis applied to the design of man-made artifacts. From this viewpoint, describing technological artifacts and explaining the natural world are mutually reinforcing activities. So, in composing the De architectura, Vitruvius is not merely attempting to provide a picture of the state of the art of technology in his day, but is at the same time seeking to communicate a particular technologically-informed way of understanding natura itself.

The central issue for this paper is whether for Leucippus and Democritus, 1 the like to like principle, which is critical to cosmos formation once a vortex forms, operates outside of the vortices. Should we consider like to like in the early atomists to be akin to a ‘fundamental force’, with a universal application, as some commentators have suggested?3 Or should we rather consider it to be a sorting effect generated by certain types of motion, occurring only when those types of motion occur? As a matter of detail this is interesting in itself and it also bears on several important interpretive issues for Leucippus and Democritus. What are the intrinsic properties of atoms, if any, beyond their size and shape? Is the initial formation of a vortex a matter of necessity or a matter of chance? Is what happens in a cosmos a matter of necessity or chance? Although not immediately obvious, this will also raise issues concerning to what extent Leucippus and Democritus are committed to the principle of sufficient reason. I will argue that there are good theoretical and textual reasons to believe that like to like occurs only in the vortices. I will also argue that just as there are no preferred sizes and shapes for atoms for Leucippus and Democritus, no preferred distribution of the atoms in the void and there are no preferred times or places for vortex/cosmos formation either. This I suggest gives Leucippus and Democritus a coherent and interesting position relative to Parmenides. Where Parmenides denies multiplicity and raises sufficient reason issues about the time and place of cosmos formation, Leucippus and Democritus assert multiplicity but without preferred shapes and sizes of atoms and cosmogony without preferred times and places of cosmos formation. Of importance here will be an interesting paradox in cosmogony - if we begin with a uniform entity or uniform distribution of entities how does a non-uniform state such as a cosmos arise, while if we begin with a non-uniform entity or non-uniform distribution of entities how do we explain this non-uniformity?

In Plato’s Phaedo, the soul is mereologically simple; in the Republic, it is tripartite. The arguments in the Phaedo against the harmonia theory of the soul seem to undercut the psychology of the Republic. Commentators have long been puzzled by this apparent inconsistency. I argue that conceiving of a harmonia as a structure dispels persisting confusions about the theory and why Plato rejects it.