Volume 36, Issue 1

This paper discusses Aristotle’s statement (Metaph. A 9.991a8-9) that both Anaxagoras and Eudoxus claimed that things are the result of a mixture of original elements, in relation to Plato’s metaphysics. Eudoxus used this immanentistic thesis to remodel one central component of Plato’s Theory of Form, that is the “participation”. The first part of the paper analyzes some Anaxagorean aspects in Plato’s metaphysics, showing that Plato shares with Anaxagoras the “Transmission Theory of Causality” (as called by Dancy), but he refuses its immanentistic version. The second part interprets Hipp. ma. 301b2-301c2 as a refusal of a immanentistic interpretation of verbs like προσγίγνομαι and κοσμεîται. It is also rejected Morgan’s thesis according to which Hippias supports an aware mereological metaphysical theory. The third part contests that Phaed. 100-106 is a defense of an immanentistic metaphysics abandoned by Plato in his later works. The meaning of the expression τὸ έν ήμȋν does not include a mereological approach to the causality. In Plato’s metaphysics there is no strong contradiction between transcendence and immanence. The fourth part shows that the Parmenides refuses any immanentistic version of the relationship between Forms and things. Lastly, I will argue that from a Platonic point of view the only acceptable version is the separated interpretation of Transmission Theory of Causality.

Aristotle’s way of conceiving the relationship between mathematics and other branches of scientific knowledge is completely different from the way a contemporary scientist conceives it. This is one of the causes of the fact that we look at the mathematical passages we find in Aristotle’s works with the wrong expectation. We expect to find more or less stringent proofs, while for the most part Aristotle employs mere analogies. Indeed, this is the primary function of mathematics when employed in a philosophical context: not a demonstrative tool, but a purely analogical model. In the case of the geometrical examples discussed in this paper, the diagrams are not conceived as part of a formalized proof, but as a work in progress. Aristotle is not interested in the final diagram but in the construction viewed in its process of development; namely in the figure a geometer draws, and gradually modifies, when he tries to solve a problem. The way in which the geometer makes use of the elements of his diagram, and the relation between these elements and his inner state of knowledge is the real feature which interests Aristotle. His goal is to use analogy in order to give the reader an idea of the states of mind involved in a more general process of knowing.

This paper argues that Sextus Empiricus’s Pyrrhonism is a form of relativism markedly different from the positions typically referred to by this term. The scholars who have explored the relativistic elements found in Sextus’s texts have claimed that his outlook is not actually a form of relativism, or that those elements are inconsistent with his account of Pyrrhonism, or that he is confusing skepticism with relativism. The reason for these views is twofold: first, when employing the term “relativism” one hardly has in mind the sort of relativistic stance adopted by the Pyrrhonist; and second, those scholars have misinterpreted Sextus’s relativistic remarks. The purpose of this paper is to show that he adopts a phenomenological kind of relativism that is compatible with his account of Pyrrhonism.

In his only treatise explicitly devoted to the life of the statesman, De Iosepho, Philo of Alexandria expresses ambivalent views about politics. A careful examination of the line of argument of this work shows, however, that Philo’s views can be essentially read as a development in negative terms of his statement that politics is only an “addition” to virtue and wisdom. Especially, he argues that the statesman is «by all means an interpreter of dreams», since his activity has its limits within the human condition, which - because of its uncertainty and confusion - resembles daydreaming.

Aristotle introduced in the history of the reception of Anaxagoras the term “homoiomerous”. This word refers to substances whose parts are similar to each other and to the whole. Although Aristotle’s explanations can be puzzling, the term “homoiomerous” may explain an authentic aspect of Anaxagoras’ doctrine reflected in the fragments of his work. Perhaps one should find a specific meaning for the term “homoiomerous” in Anaxagoras, somewhat different from the one present in Aristotle. This requires a review of the sense of the two terms involved in it: “homoios” and “moira”. In other words, the following questions should be answered: what realities are named parts and to what whole do they belong? On the other hand, which similarity do they have to each another and to the whole? The author concludes that the parts are “all things”, which resemble each other and the universe as a whole because, according to Anaxagoras, they are all composed of all things.

The paper presents the first known evidence of the so called “late ancient philosophical curriculum” ethics, physics, theology, by demonstrating that this division of philosophy can be found already in the introduction of Aspasios’s commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics. It is argued that this text can be dated roundabout 70 years earlier than the earliest reliable testimony hitherto known in Clemens Alexandrinus. Furthermore, the paper presents some neglected evidence for this curriculum from different works of Alexander of Aphrodisias. Based upon those texts and a new analysis of some already well-known passages, it proposes to regard the scheme ethics, physics, theology as an originally Aristotelian model, which has been later taken over by Platonists. This does not rule out the possibility that Platonic ideas have been influenced the scheme at a very early date.