Volume 56, Issue 4

This paper first examines surviving testimonies on the doctrine of the Great Year in Heraclitus and attempts to demonstrate the reliability of Aëtius’ version handed down by the mss., according to which the Great Year is equal to 18,000 solar years. On the basis of such evidence it is also possible to newly examine Diogenes of Babylon’s views about this topic. In the second part, the paper better defines the relationship between the Great Year and the theory of cosmic conflagration. It argues that in the sources at our disposal there are enough elements to credit Heraclitus with the doctrine of Ekpyrosis , although, in all probability, the philosopher never provided an in-depth description of it. Finally, the same problem is analysed in relation to Diogenes of Babylon. In the most mature phase of his career, this Stoic departed from the Ekpyrosis doctrine of the early Stoics and especially of his master Chrysippus. The paper formulates some hypotheses on the reasons for this choice (arguing that it most probably reflects an original attitude towards Heraclitus on Diogenes’ part) and highlights that it was hardly an isolated, ‘heterodox’ stance during the final phase of the early Stoa.

In this paper I focus on Proclus’ concept of the instrumental cause in his commentary on the Timaeus ( In Tim .). Unlike earlier Neoplatonists who do not make much use of this type of causality, Proclus relates the instrumental cause to the hypostasis of nature (φύσις). The Demiurge uses nature as an instrument in his ordering and creation of the cosmos. How does Proclus arrive at this understanding of nature? I argue that the definition of nature as an instrumental cause is in part based on his critical reception of Aristotle who identifies nature with the formal, efficient, and/or final cause. That is, Proclus did not develop his views on the causality of nature only by looking at the Timaeus (and other Platonic sources), but also by engaging with Aristotle’s rich – and, to a certain extent, authoritative – reflections on this issue.

I examine Alexander of Aphrodisias’ theory of action, addressing the question how his view that human actions are determined by reason accounts for the capacity of doing otherwise. Calling into question the standard view that Alexander frees agents from internal determination, I argue that (1) the capacity of doing otherwise is a consequence of determination by reason, since it enables agents to do something different from what they would have done had they followed external circumstances; and (2) this capacity is compatible with causal determination by reason because as a case of potentiality for opposites, it grants agents the qualified possibility of doing otherwise insofar as their nature as human beings is concerned – a possibility which remains also when their actions are causally determined by reason and by their internal disposition. I show further that these elements of Alexander’s theory of action are ultimately based on his conception of the soul, specifically on his commitment to Aristotle’s view that the human soul is not purely rational, as the Stoics hold, but has nonrational and rational parts.

In the Sophist , Plato claims that the philosopher is always engaged through reasonings with the idea tou ontos (254a4–b1). I argue that, contrary to appearances and to what various commentators believe, this phrase does not refer to the Kind Being singled out in the Sophist as one of the so-called ‘greatest’ or ‘most important’ Kinds, but to the whole intelligible realm. The proposed reading better accounts for Plato’s exact wording at Sophist 254a4–b1 and preserves the consistency of Plato’s view on the object of philosophical knowledge. I conclude with some broader considerations on the relationship between this passage, Platonic dialectic and Aristotle’s conception of a science of being qua being.

I argue that Plato thinks that a sunaition is a mere tool used by a soul (or by the cosmic nous ) to promote an intended outcome. In the first section, I develop the connection between sunaitia and Plato’s teleology. In the second section, I argue that sunaitia belong to Plato’s theory of the soul as a self-mover: specifically, they are those things that are set in motion by the soul in the service of some goal. I also argue against several popular and long-standing interpretations, namely, that sunaitia correspond to Aristotle’s idea of hypothetical necessity, that sunaitia are the ‘ how ’ in an explanation (whereas the true cause is the ‘ why ’), and that Plato’s causal views should be read through Aristotle’s fourfold schema. I conclude the article by surveying the history of sunaitia after Plato’s usage.

In several dialogues Socrates criticizes negative comments made against a sophist or the sophists. I show that Socrates’ target really is the sophists’ detractor, not the sophists themselves. From these passages I draw two broader conclusions. First, Plato’s defence of Socrates’ memory sometimes relies on creating a parallel between sophists and Socrates, rather than distinguishing between them and him. Secondly, Socratic philosophical practice has a widely neglected feature: examining and correcting the criticism made by his interlocutors against others.

Aristotle notoriously begins his examination of being in the sense of dunamis and energeia in Metaphysics Theta with what he describes as the sense that is ‘most dominant’ but not useful for his present aim. He proceeds to define the not-useful sense of dunamis as “the principle of change in something else or in itself qua other”, along with other senses derived from this primary sense. But what then is the useful sense? All that Aristotle tells us at the outset is that it is a sense that extends “beyond things spoken of only in relation to motion” and nowhere in Book Theta does he explicitly identify the useful sense as such. This has allowed for very different interpretations of the useful sense in the literature, the primary ones being that it is (1) ‘possibility’, (2) the potential to receive a form, (3) being-potentially-x understood modally as encompassing all specific senses of dunamis , and (4) capacity for substantial change. The present paper argues that there are significant problems with all of these suggestions and defends an identification of the useful sense of dunamis with the sense that Aristotle explicitly opposes to the not-useful sense at the start of Theta 8: phusis (‘nature’). This goes hand-in-hand with an identification of the useful sense of energeia with ‘activity’ as distinguished from motion/change at the end of Theta 6. What makes these senses of dunamis and energeia the useful ones for Aristotle’s present aim is that they are required to explain fully the priority of energeia to dunamis in substance defended in Theta 8, they support the identification in Theta 9 of energeia with the good, and they explain the unity of the only substances that Aristotle recognizes as being genuinely substances: natural living substances.

Aristotle recognises preternatural affections in numerous passages from his ethical writing s , where he claims that some desires and emotions are beyond human nature, too strong for our nature to withstand, and that an action motivated by them is συγγνωμονικ ὸ ν: something excusable. However, there has been some reluctance among scholars to explicitly acknowledge that Aristotle recognised preternatural affections as a category of excuse in its own right. The aim of this paper is to remove the obstacles that stand in the way of such a recognition, and to show that Aristotle developed a normative account of preternatural affections, based on the natural human capacity to withstand, allowing him to class them as genuine cases of βία, compulsion .