Volume 47, Issue 1

In this article, we treat the Euthyphro as thematically akin to the Charmides and other early dialogues, where the structure of human action is explored and different modes of doing (the poiein and ergazesthai of prattein) are studied, in order to figure out what a particular virtue (piety) is. Under this approach, as we will argue, the key question of why gods love piety falls into the general issue of why the Good attracts, namely, of the passive-active agency of loving, rather than constitutes a religious inquiry on volitionism or otherwise. The key point of the essay is this: love belongs to a special type of action category (along with “to be friendly to,” “to admire,” and “to see” or “to perceive”) that the actor is the sufferer or at least partially passive, whereas the party acted upon is hardly passive at all. The real active agency may be hard to pinpoint, but is initially found in/through the beloved (or the party acted upon).

Why Parmenides had a cosmology is a perennial puzzle, if, as the ‘truth’ part of his poem appears to claim, what exists is one, undifferentiated, timeless and unchanging.1 Indeed, not only does the cosmological part of the poem tell us how the cosmos is arranged, it also tells us how the cosmos, humans and animals all came into being. Although more of the truth has survived, the cosmology originally made up some 2/3 to 3/4 of the poem.2 The poem claims it will give the ‘complete ordering’ and Parmenides is perceived to have ‘completed all the phenomena’.3 Parmenides also seems to have made some important original contributions to cosmology.4 These I take to be important facts which any explanation of the nature of this cosmology must account for. The aim of this paper is to explore a new suggestion for the status of the cosmology, that it may be equalled but not surpassed by other cosmologies which are capable of accounting for all of the phenomena. Its function, I argue, is to raise sufficient reason issues about some fundamental questions in cosmogony and cosmology. I will also argue that we can find sufficient reason considerations relating to cosmogony and cosmology in the truth part of the poem. This opens the possibility that it is at least in part issues of sufficient reason that link the two parts of the poem. Finally I will argue that by paying close attention to what Parmenides has to say about signs, σήματα, we can see how he leaves open the possibility of making positive contributions to cosmology. I believe this gives us a richer account of Parmenides, places him more firmly in the debates of presocratic cosmology and cosmogony and gives him interesting relations to his predecessors and successors.5 These sufficient reason considerations may work both as a critique of contemporary cosmogony and cosmology and a challenge to any future cosmogony and cosmology.

In the Euthydemus, Socrates argues that one needs no more eutuchia than sophia. He then goes on to argue that sophia is the one and only thing that is agathon. These arguments are much maligned. In this paper I defend Socrates. First, he did not express himself badly, he means the extreme claims he states. Second, his arguments are valid and rely on premises that any reasonable person in his cultural context would have accepted: as usual, he relies on common sense to call common sense into question. Third, Socrates relies on the “romance of competence” to prove soundly that sophia guarantees eutuchia. Finally, Socrates makes a good case for his claim that sophia is the only agathon, and in doing so argues against a kind of “commodity fetishism,” but his argument relies on one false assumption.

This paper argues that the widespread impression of Parmenides as a poor poet has led to consequential errors in the reconstruction of his poem. A reconsideration of the sources behind two of the more disputed lines in the standard arrangement of the fragments leads to the suggestion that modern editors have mistakenly treated what were similar but separate lines in the original poem as variants of a single verse. Seeing through that confusion allows us to see Parmenides in a better poetic light, and gives potential insight into how his manner of exposition relates to his philosophic message.

Aristotle had a developed theory of animal motion with an elaborate physiological component. In this paper we present the physiological component in which the main role is assigned to structures called neura that operate on the bones to which they are attached. We demonstrate that neura exclude muscles and we propose an explanation for Aristotle’s curious failure to observe the actual role of muscles in producing limb motion. Also, we try to identify the main neura specified by Aristotle, we show that he conceived of their operation on the bones in producing limb motion in much the same way as we conceive of the operation of muscles, and we point out the main difficulties for his account.

I investigate how, through which channels, and with what adaptations the Stoic doctrine of oikeiosis was received and transformed by the two main Patristic philosophers, Origen of Alexandria and Gregory Nyssen. I also endeavour to assess how much Gregory’s oikeiosis theory owes to Origen - a great deal, I suspect. In sum, it is Origen who Christianised the doctrine, but Gregory seems to have identified apokatastasis as the Godhead’s oikeiosis or reappropriation of all beings, which belong to it. I contend that these Christian Platonists and other early Christian sources can help to clarify the Stoic oikeiosis doctrine itself, which poses substantial problems and which they received. They even present the technical vocabulary of oikeiosis, which in Hierocles’ non-technical circles passage is absent (and this has raised concerns). Therefore, it is useful to consider their texts when assessing the oikeiosis doctrine at least in Stoicism.