Volume 47, Issue 4

In this article, I review the debates about Socratic metaphysics. In particular, I argue with Vlastos that talk about Forms in Plato’s early dialogues does not indicate the same view as what comes to be called the “theory of forms” in later dialogues. However, I also give very different reasons from those given by Vlastos or his critics for coming to this conclusion. I note that the virtue forms of the early dialogues have part-whole relationships, which cannot be found in the forms of the middle period. I also note that the virtue forms are identified with knowledge in the early dialogues, whereas in the middle period the forms are the objects of – but are not identical to – know­ledge.

In this paper I examine what it is about a woman’s nature that, according to Aristotle, makes her suited only for partial authority in the household but not the polis. I situate this question within the context of his rejection of Plato’s more enlightened proposals about women in the Republic. My central claim is that, contra Plato, Aristotle thinks women command only partial authority in the household because their deliberative faculties are intrinsically deficient or limited in comparison to those of freeborn males. I motivate this presumption by critically examining the main interpretations of Aristotle’s notorious claim that a woman’s deliberative faculty is ‘without authority’ (akuron) and support it with evidence from the text. I also examine what implications this insight has for our interpretation of that elusive ‘without authority’ qualification.

Epicurus argued that death is no misfortune, because when a person dies, he no longer has sensation, and sensation is a necessary condition of value for a person. This argument, however, faces a powerful objection. Contemporary philosophers argue that death is bad precisely because it deprives one of good experiences one would have had, had one not died. I analyze and evaluate the Epicurean response to this objection, showing how, according to Epicurus, this objection reflects mistaken and unhealthy ideas about how lives should be evaluated. Uncovering and addressing these modes of evaluation constitutes a central aim of Epicurean therapy.

Thales often is regarded as the first philosopher and as one of the first empirical scientists of the Western tradition. In classical times Thales was also famed for astronomical observations, the prediction of an eclipse, as well as for political acumen, the application of geometrical techniques to practical problems and an astute investment in an agricultural process (olive presses). It is argued here that better sense can be made of two key extant claims attributed to him if they are less considered as grand metaphysical theses or as systematic scientific conclusions than as speculative hypotheses aimed at re­solving particular puzzles raised by everyday experience. In this sense, the analysis presented here argues that the claims concerning water attributed to Thales ought to be seen as pronouncements reflecting a kind of speculative engineering, grounded in the observational givens of his time, common sense and practical concerns.

The term grammatikē appears frequently in Plato and Aristotle as the name of an art or science that can serve as a paradigm of knowledge. It is typically rendered into English by the cognate ‘grammar.’ A close look at relevant passages, however, makes it clear that this translation is inadequate. The term never refers to grammar. Rather, grammatikē signifies the basic art of associating letters with sounds and connecting letters to represent speech. The art of letters is the basis of reading and writing–the art of literacy. When the term is understood correctly, a number of difficult passages become clear.

This paper seeks to demonstrate that propositions 23–27 of the Euclidian Optics originated in the context of geometrical astronomy. These entries, which deal with the geometry of spheres and rays, present material that overlaps considerably with propositions 1–3 of Aristarchus of Samos’ On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and the Moon . While all these theorems deal with material that could conceivably be native to celestial illumination, the proofs do not work for binocular vision. It therefore seems probable that the proofs were borrowed from Aristarchus or, more likely, some common astronomical predecessor. As an extension of this observation, this paper argues that the Optics displays a far less unified purpose than has typically been assumed. Instead, it reflects a conglomerate of concerns, goals and dependencies, insofar as it presents multiple proofs that emerge from a set of geometrical concerns not directly related to vision as a physical phenomenon. These entries complicate the idea that the Optics is about explaining light, sight or false appearances in any straightforward sense. Instead, the text is oriented toward a somewhat more diffuse goal: simply to articulate the geometry of vision and rays. Optics as a discipline should should therefore be understood not as a purely mathematical explanation of vision, but as a target-field of explanation constituted by features and boundaries derived from extra-visual geometric concerns.