Volume 49, Issue 4 -

The standard “gladiatorial” interpretation of the Modes of Agrippa has undergone several recent attacks. Scholars have criticized it because it seems to portray the skeptic as a dogmatist about logical support and because it does not treat all five Modes as part of the system. Although some have attempted to patch up the standard interpretation to address these issues, I raise a further problem: The gladiatorial interpretation cannot make sense of the skeptic using the Modes on herself, to suspend her own judgment. In light of these problems, I propose a fresh interpretation: The Agrippan Modes should be understood, not as arguments (or argument forms), but as types of dialectical challenge that the skeptic can use in an endless inquiry into any dogmatic position.

The main purpose of this short paper is to study the possible criticism that Posidonius might have raised against Epicurus’ method of multiple explanations. We know this Epicurean doctrine mainly thanks to the Letter to Pythocles , a doctrinal epistle preserved by Diogenes Laertius and fully devoted to the study of celestial and meteorological phenomena. In his Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics (291, 21–292, 31 Diels = Posid. F18 Edelstein-Kidd = 255 Theiler) Simplicius quotes Alexander of Aphrodisias, which in turn refers to a passage of Geminus’ Concise Exposition of the Meteorology of Posidonius . Here Posidonius deals with the distinction between philosophy and the special sciences. Although Posidonius enters into a rich debate of his day, I believe it would be legitimate to include Epicurus and his doctrine of multiple explanations among Posidonius’ potential polemical targets.

Making mental phenomena to depend on certain elements or organs of the body is famously recognized as a distinctive feature of physiologia both in the so-called “autobiography” of Socrates in the Phaedo and in a further “doxographic” passage in the dialogue, where Simmias develops the argument that the soul is like “a blending and an attunement” of the bodily elements. While no earlier thinker is mentioned here, one can easily identify Parmenides and Empedocles as two of the main supporters of the notion that thought and perception depend on the various blendings of the physical constituents of the body. That they had such a view is indeed well known thanks to a few fragments, for whose discussion Aristotle’s and Theophrastus’ comments prove to be particularly helpful. What neither Plato nor Aristotle acknowledge, though, is that no such specific bearer of mental functions as psyche is needed in this kind of account. As a matter of fact, both Parmenides and Empedocles share with the epic and lyric tradition the idea of the precariousness of human knowledge, due to the constant exposure of human beings to change. Yet they “translate” the topos of human existence and thought subjected to the divine into a vision where the physical krasis of the body (not by chance, a medical notion) is all that matters .

This paper addresses the contentious issue of Aristotle’s commitment to causal determinism, particularly as concerns the efficient cause. After distinguishing between determinism, fatalism, and necessitarianism, several common arguments in favor of indeterminist interpretations of Aristotle are examined and rebutted. Afterwards, several positive arguments in favor of a determinist interpretation are advanced. The paper then turns to Aristotle’s seminal theory of chance and his resistance to systemic/metaphysical conceptions of determinism. Finally the paper asks whether Aristotle’s theory of chance succeeds in vanquishing determinism, or even necessitarianism.

The absolute king as a god-like ruler is a notorious exception to Aristotle’s political paradigm of ruling and being ruled in turn. Since the idea appears several times in the Politics , it must bear some philosophical importance. In elucidating the latter, I will make two claims: first, this importance can only be grasped by referring to Plato, and especially his Statesman . Second, the philosophical point of these passages within Aristotle’s Politics is to indicate that such a kingly regime is not primarily better than, but different from a political one.