History of ancient philosophy,

Translation of Geschichte der Alten Philosophie.

Greek thinkers: a history of ancient philosophy.

Vol. 1 tr. by L. Magnus, v. 2-4, by G. G. Berry.

Elements of the reception of aristotelian thought in 19th century german-language philosophy and economics

La cuestión de la interpretación de Aristóteles por parte de la Academia alemana del siglo XIX es de interés tanto para filósofos como para economistas. Esto se debe a que el pensamiento clásico constituyó una cuestión de discusión e inspiración para el Idealismo, el Hegelianismo, el Historicismo y los economistas históricos alemanes (comenzando por Roscher) y su oponente austríaco, Carl Menger, fundador de la Escuela Austríaca de Economía. De este modo la filosofía antigua permaneció vigente. Al evaluar esta recepción, en este trabajo se muestra que el debate sobre entidades colectivas versus individualidad encuentra allí una base, y el individualismo metodológico, una justificación. Esto resulta útil aún hoy en el siglo veintiuno, en que presenciamos una crisis de la corriente principal de la economía.

The history of philosophy : from Thales to Comte /

Includes bibliographical references.

The biographical history of philosophy : from its origin in Greece down to the present day /

Two volumes in one.

Chaucer and the Disconsolations of Philosophy: Boethius, Agency, and Literary Form in Late Medieval Literature

This study argues that Chaucer's poetry belongs to a far-reaching conversation about the forms of consolation (philosophical, theological, and poetic) that are available to human persons. Chaucer's entry point to this conversation was Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, a sixth-century dialogue that tried to show how the Stoic ideals of autonomy and self-possession are not simply normative for human beings but remain within the grasp of every individual. Drawing on biblical commentary, consolation literature, and political theory, this study contends that Chaucer's interrogation of the moral and intellectual ideals of the Consolation took the form of philosophical disconsolations: scenes of profound poetic rupture in which a character, sometimes even Chaucer himself, turns to philosophy for solace and yet fails to be consoled. Indeed, philosophy itself becomes a source of despair. In staging these disconsolations, I contend that Chaucer asks his readers to consider the moral dimensions of the aspirations internal to ancient philosophy and the assumptions about the self that must be true if its insights are to console and instruct. For Chaucer, the self must be seen as a gift that flowers through reciprocity (both human and divine) and not as an object to be disciplined and regulated.

Chapter one focuses on the Consolation of Philosophy. I argue that recent attempts to characterize Chaucer's relationship to this text as skeptical fail to engage the Consolation on its own terms. The allegory of Lady Philosophy's revelation to a disconsolate Boethius enables philosophy to become both an agent and an object of inquiry. I argue that Boethius's initial skepticism about the pretentions of philosophy is in part what Philosophy's therapies are meant to respond to. The pressures that Chaucer's poetry exerts on the ideals of autonomy and self-possession sharpen one of the major absences of the Consolation: viz., the unanswered question of whether Philosophy's therapies have actually consoled Boethius. Chapter two considers one of the Consolation's fascinating and paradoxical afterlives: Robert Holcot's Postilla super librum sapientiae (1340-43). I argue that Holcot's Stoic conception of wisdom, a conception he explicitly links with Boethius's Consolation, relies on a model of agency that is strikingly similar to the powers of self-knowledge that Philosophy argues Boethius to posses. Chapter three examines Chaucer's fullest exploration of the Boethian model of selfhood and his ultimate rejection of it in Troilus and Criseyde. The poem, which Chaucer called his "tragedy," belonged to a genre of classical writing he knew of only from Philosophy's brief mention of it in the Consolation. Chaucer appropriates the genre to explore and recover mourning as a meaningful act. In Chapter four, I turn to Dante and the House of Fame to consider Chaucer's self-reflections about his ambitions as a poet and the demands of truth-telling.

John Waldridge, The Leaven of the Ancients: Suhrawardi and the Heritage of the Greeks, SUNY Series in Islam (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999). Pp. 323

In the Leaven of the Ancients, John Walbridge studies the appropriation of non–Peripatetic philosophical ideas by an anti–Aristotelian Islamic philosopher, Shihab al-Din al-Suhrawardi (d. 1191). He proposes a comprehensive explanation of the origin of Suhrawardi's philosophical system, a revival of the “wisdom of the Ancients” and its philosophical affiliations “grounded” in Greek philosophy (p. xiii). Walbridge attempts to uncover the reasons for Suhrawardi's rejection of the prevailing neo–Aristotelian synthesis in Islamic philosophy, Suhrawardi's knowledge and understanding of non–Aristotelian Greek philosophy, the ancient philosophers Suhrawardi was attempting to follow, the relationship between Suhrawardi's specific philosophical teachings (logic, ontology, physics, and metaphysics), and his understanding of non–Aristotelian ancient philosophy and the relationship between Suhrawardi's system and the major Greek philosophers, schools, and traditions—in particular the Presocratics, Plato, and the Stoics (p. 8). Copyright © 2003 Cambridge University Press

The morals of metaphysics: Kant's 'Groundwork' as intellectual paideia

To approach philosophy as a way of working on the self means to begin not with the experience it clarifies and the subject it discovers, but with the acts of self‐transformation it requires and the subjectivity it seeks to fashion. Commenting on the variety of spiritual exercises to be found in the ancient schools, Pierre Hadot remarks that: Some, like Plutarch’s ethismoi, designed to curb curiosity, anger or gossip, were only practices intended to ensure good moral habits. Others, particularly the meditations of the Platonic tradition, demanded a high degree of mental concentration. Some, like the contemplation of nature as practiced in all philosophical schools, turned the soul toward the cosmos, while still others—rare and exceptional—led to a transfiguration of the personality, as in the experiences of Plotinus. We also saw that the emotional tone and notional content of these exercises varied widely from one philosophical school to another: from the mobilization of energy and consent to destiny of the Stoics, to the relaxation and detachment of the Epicureans, to the mental concentration and renunciation of the sensible world among the Platonists.1 While successfully applied to ancient philosophy,2 this approach has not been widely exploited in the history of philosophy more broadly. There is, however, at least one study of medieval metaphysics in these terms,3 and there are some important discussions of early modern Stoicism and Epicureanism.4 And a recent study of Hume shows the fruitfulness of the approach for Enlightenment philosophy.5 It is all the more surprising then that there seems to have been no serious attempt to approach Kant’s moral philosophy in this way.

Voice and presence

De que forma pode a voz ser considerada enquanto tema de investigação filosófica? Utilizando principalmente aproximações fenomenológicas, esta tese é uma tentativa de mapear uma constelação transdisciplinar de pontos-­‐chave temáticos, onde a voz surge como uma manifestação expressa de presença e de processos vitais. Simultaneamente situada, corpórea e transgressora no contexto da noção de território acústico, a ambiguidade da voz e o seu potencial enquanto fenómeno, conceito e ressonância tangível de subjetividade, são explorados através do recurso a análise de fontes pertencentes à Filosofia Antiga, aos Estudos Sonoros, à Ciência Acústica, à Fenomenologia e à Pesquisa Artística.

Tradició misògina grega en el De amore d'Andreu el Capellà

L'objectiu d'aquest article és mostrar com els trets fonamentals de la misogínia grega, que és a la base de la secular misoginia occidental -i que no és només un llegat judeucristià- perviu en un text medieval del segle XIII com ara el De amore d'Andreas Capellanus. L'autor assenyala igualment les vies de transmissió més versemblants des de la Grècia Antiga fins al món medieval.

Greek misogynist tradition in Andreas Capellanus's De amore

The title of this brief article quite clearly illustrates its aims and evident limitations. In principle, a search for a Greek basis of the misogynist content of Andreas Capellanus's De amore is likely to lead researchers to focus on analysis of the sources -Greek sources, of course. However, there is no doubt that Ovid, the most frequently quoted ancient author, in this case the structural source, above all his Ars Amatoria, Remedia Amoris and Heroides, which is quite logical in light of the remarkable presence and influence of Ovid's works throughout that time. There was also a good knowledge of the works of Cicero, Virgil, Horace and Juvenal. However, other classical authors, even the Greeks -those who were known then-, were undoubtedly read in the schools, but the knowledge of their works was certainly superficial. Furthermore, given the scholastic method followed in De amore, it would be absurd not to consider the use of many quotations that appeared in the Compendia and in handbooks of religious instruction.

Tradición misógina griega en el De amore de Andés el Capellán

El objetivo de este artículo es mostrar cómo los rasgos esenciales de la misoginia griega, que está en la base de la secular misoginia occidental -y que no es sólo un legado judeocristiano- pervive en un texto medieval del siglo XIII como el De amore de Andreas Capellanus. El autor señala igualmente las vías de transmisión más verosímiles des de la Grecia Antigua hasta el mundo medieval

Demócrito y Epicuro: el átomo como elemento y como límite onto-lógico

El presente artículo ofrece una interpretación parcialmente heterodoxa del atomismogriego que interpreta aquella revolucionaria teoría como: 1) Un salto adelante respecto de la ontología eleática que suministra una nueva base más sólida al principio básico de ésta,a saber, "El ser no puede generarse a partir del no-ser" (tesis más bien convencional y ya clásica). 2) Una respuesta, tímidamente formulada, a la pregunta pitagórica por una universalismensura de cada cosa, a saber, la hipótesis, claramente avanzada por Demócrito, de que las piezas constitutivas de la materia, las partículas atómicas, poseen infinitos tamañosdiferentes a fin de eludir las dificultades planteadas por el programa pitagórico y ejemplificadas en la inconmensurabilidad de la diagonal y el lado del cuadrado; dicha hipótesis (yaquí radica el aspecto innovador del artículo) podría considerarse como una anticipación implícita de la moderna noción de fluxión o infinitésimo; la refutación de dicha soluciónpor la teoría aristotélica del continuo forzará a la segunda generación de atomistas, encabezada por Epicuro, a intentar un nuevo enfoque del problema con la formulación de la teoríade las rninirnaepartes, que, según nuestra interpretación, habría que identificar con los límites geométricos de las figuras atómicas.