This thesis examines the role appearances play, with notable continuity, in the psychology and ethics of Plato's Protagoras, Gorgias, and Republic. Common to these dialogues is the claim that evaluative appearances are almost invariably false: what appears to be good or bad is typically not in fact so and what is good or bad typically does not appear so. I argue that this disparity between apparent and real value forms the basis of Plato's diagnoses of a wide range of practical errors: psychological phenomena like akrasia, mistaken conceptions of the good like hedonism, and the influence of cultural sources of corruption like oratory, sophistry, and poetry. It also, relatedly, forms the basis of his account of lower passions like appetite, anger, or fear. Such passions are especially prone to lead us astray because their objects -- appetitive pleasures like food, drink, or sex, for example -- present especially deceptive appearances. One of the principal aims of this thesis is to show that this presents a significant point of agreement between the psychologies of the Protagoras, Gorgias, and Republic. In all three dialogues, I argue, motivational errors result from a specific kind of cognitive error: the uncritical acceptance of appearances. Plato's early and middle psychologies differ in their account of the subject of this error -- in the Protagoras and Gorgias, the whole person; in the Republic, the appetitive or spirited part of a person's soul -- but not in their basic theory of how our passions arise or, crucially, why they are liable to motivate us towards harmful ends.

<p>This dissertation seeks to identify what makes Cicero’s approach to politics unique. The author's methodology is to turn to Cicero’s unique interpretation of Plato as the crux of what made his thinking neither Stoic nor Aristotelian nor even Platonic (at least, in the usual sense of the word) but Ciceronian. As the author demonstrates in his reading of Cicero’s correspondences and dialogues during the downward spiral of a decade that ended in the fall of the Republic (that is, from Cicero’s return from exile in 57 BC to Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon in 49 BC), it is through Cicero's reading of Plato that the former develops his characteristically Ciceronian approach to politics—that is, his appreciation for the tension between the political ideal on the one hand and the reality of human nature on the other as well as the need for rhetoric to fuse a practicable compromise between the two. This triangulation of political ideal, human nature, and rhetoric is developed by Cicero through his dialogues "de Oratore," "de Re publica," and "de Legibus."</p> / Dissertation

Cette thèse de doctorat consiste en une nouvelle édition critique avec introduction, traduction en italien et commentaire de l’« Éryxias » pseudo-platonicien, un dialogue socratique ayant été transmis parmi les œuvres de Platon mais qui était déjà connu par les anciens pour être inauthentique et faussement attribué au grand philosophe (voir par exemple Diogène Laërce 3, 62). L’édition critique la plus récente du texte, publiée dans la « Collection des Universités de France » par les soins de Joseph Souilhé en 1930, est fondée sur une reconstruction de la tradition manuscrite qui a été remise en question par les études de L.A. Post (1934). En outre, malgré le récent retour d’intérêt pour les dialogues « apocryphes » du corpus platonicien, l’« Éryxias » reste méconnu et peu étudié : après les deux dissertations allemandes d’O. Schrohl (Göttingen 1901) et G. Gartmann (Bonn 1949), il n’y a pas eu de travaux dédiés spécifiquement au dialogue, exception faite de la décevante traduction annotée par R. Laurenti (Bari 1969). L’hypothèse avancée au cours de ce travail voit en l’« Éryxias » un produit composé à l’école fondée par Platon, l’Académie, après la mort du fondateur et plus précisément pendant la première moitié du troisième siècle avant Jésus-Christ : cela ferait du dialogue un témoin de la reconstruction de la pensée et de l’activité littéraire de l’Académie hellénistique. L’introduction est divisée en quatre chapitres. Les deux premiers abordent les problèmes plus strictement philologiques, liés à la transmission du corpus et du dialogue dans l’antiquité et à la chronologie du texte, notamment fixée par les savants sur la base de la présence d’un magistrat – le gymnasiarque – qui n’apparaît pas à Athènes avant la fin du quatrième siècle avant Jésus-Christ. Le troisième chapitre porte sur le contenu philosophique : le sujet de l’« Éryxias » est le rapport entre richesse (ploutos) et vertu (arete). Deux conclusions différentes sont présentées, en s’appuyant sur deux définitions différentes de la richesse : selon la première, ayant trait au concept de valeur, le sage est le plus riche des hommes ; selon la seconde, identifiant la richesse à la possession de biens matériels (chremata), le plus riche des hommes sera le plus méchant. Les deux conclusions sont parfaitement en accord avec un arrière-plan philosophique constitué par les dialogues de Platon et s’insèrent dans une tentative visant à accorder les divers traitements de la richesse dans les écrits authentiques. La recherche menée dans l’« Éryxias » peut bien être contextualisée dans le mouvement général de « renaissance du Socratisme » qui a été individué par les savants durant la première moitié de l’époque hellénistique (voir A. A. Long, Socrates in Hellenistic Philosophy, CQ 38, 1988, 150-171 ; F. Alesse, La Stoa e la tradizione socratica, Napoli 2000). L’Académie, comme le montre la production de dialogues socratiques, occupe un rôle central dans ce mouvement, ayant l’effort de revendiquer l’héritage de Socrate à travers son disciple, Platon. Le quatrième chapitre porte sur l’aspect littéraire : l’« Éryxias » a été reconnu par les savants comme le plus soigné des dialogues inauthentiques en ce qui concerne la cure de l’élément artistique. Après un paragraphe sur la poétique du dialogue dans l’« Éryxias », nous relevons une étude approfondie du proème, qui se montre particulièrement détaillé, ainsi que de Socrate et des autres personnages. À la fin du chapitre, le style et la langue du dialogue sont examinés. À la suite d’une note sur la tradition manuscrite, est donnée une nouvelle édition critique avec apparat du dialogue, suivie d’une traduction en italien. Le commentaire extensif porte sur des questions de détail s’insérant dans le plus grand cadre tracé au cours de l’introduction : son approche est autant philologique-littéraire qu’historique et philosophique. Un appendice de tables et une bibliographie sont ajoutés en qualité d’instruments nécessaires au lecteur. / This PhD thesis consists in a new critical edition with introduction, italian translation and commentary of the pseudo-platonic Eryxias, a Socratic dialogue transmitted inside the corpus of Plato’s works but already known in antiquity (see Diogenes Laertius 3.62) to be inauthentic and falsely attributed to the ancient philosopher. The latest critical edition of the Eryxias, which dates back to 1930 and was published by J. Souilhé in the «Collection des Universités de France», is not reliable, as it depends on a misleading reconstruction of the manuscript tradition, outdated at least since the pioneering work of L. A. Post (1934, The Vatican Plato and its Relations, Middletown); moreover, notwithstanding the text’s philosophical and literary interest and length inside the group of the Platonic spuria, the Eryxias has not been object of specific studies in the past century, exception made for the two dissertations by O. Schrohl (Göttingen 1901) and G. Gartmann (Bonn 1949), two works that remain hardly accessible even to scholars in the field, and for the italian edition by R. Laurenti (Bari 1969). Even in recent years, when the spurious dialogues have seen a renaissance as a field of study (see for example the volume edited by K. Döring, M. Erler and S. Schorn, Pseudoplatonica, Stuttgart, 2005), the Eryxias remains less studied than other items in the corpus, mainly due to its extension – fifteen pages of the canonic edition by Stephanus (1578) – and to its overall complexity. In spite of this marginal role in recent studies, the Eryxias had attracted since the 18th century the interest of scholars and historians of ancient economy, as it presents an ancient discussion on the value of wealth and material goods. The first part of the introduction deals with the philological issues and the general problems related to the transmission of the text in antiquity. In the second chapter I turn to the philosophical content. The theme of the Eryxias is an enquiry on the relationship between wealth (ploutos) and virtue (arete), led by Socrates together with his interlocutors Erasistratus, Eryxias and Critias (the tyrant). Two definitions of wealth are investigated: according to the first, which is centered on value (axios) the wealthiest man will be the wise man (sophos), as wisdom is the greatest value for mankind. According to the second, which identifies wealth with the possession of material goods (chremata), the richest man will be the most wicked. Both of these conclusions are consistent with the main model of the dialogue, that is to say the authentic writings of Plato. In the introduction I argue that the philosophical aim of the Eryxias is in fact an attempt to draw a coherent doctrine of wealth based on the Platonic dialogues and on the research developed inside Plato’s school, the Academy, in the first decades of the third century: to prove this point I show the coherence with many parallel passages in Plato’s writings, which show a careful study of the whole body of work associated to the name of the founder of the Academy, and I try to set the Eryxias in its historical frame, namely the «return to Socrates» that historians have seen in the first part of the Hellenistic Age (see A. A. Long, Socrates in Hellenistic Philosophy, CQ 38, 1988, 150-171; F. Alesse, La Stoa e la tradizione socratica, Napoli 2000). In the third and final chapter I concentrate my attention on the literary aspect, with a particular interest in the reception of the models of Socratic literature in the composition of the dialogue. Follows a note on the medieval tradition. After the text and translation, the extended commentary focuses on issues of detail, both literary-philological and philosophical. An appendix with tables as a full bibliography are included.

Este trabalho é uma tradução da Poética de Aristóteles (com exceção dos capítulos 19 a 22, que não são discutidos aqui) acompanhada de comentários. A intenção dele é estabelecer um texto que leve em conta as várias contribuições dadas pelas principais traduções francesas, inglesas, italianas e portuguesas, e situar, por meio dos comentários, a Poética dentro do corpus da filosofia aristotélica, especialmente a ética de Aristóteles e sua teoria da ação. / This paper is a translation into Portuguese of Aristotle\'s Poetics (with the exception of chapters 19 trough 22, which are not discussed here), with accompanying commentaries. Its intention views the establishment of a text that takes into account several contributions given by the main French, English, Italian and Portuguese translations. The commentaries consider Poetics as a part of the Aristotelian philosophy teachings, especially Aristotle\'s ethics and his action theory.

The paper aims to examine the nature of the relationship between beauty and the city. I examined this relationship by first providing a summary of relevant philosophers and their thoughts concerning aesthetics. Second, I compared their thoughts to my own creating my own abstract framework. Third, I implemented my abstract framework through the lens of architecture. This art form is the most organic to study the relationship of beauty within the city because it merges elements characteristic of one’s being like political discourse with the longing for some type of excitement or stimulation which might transfigure one’s self to a higher understanding, something that can only be achieved by experiencing beauty. In other words, buildings and the spaces around them drive the way in which humans interact with each other and their surroundings. I found that the beautiful is desirable and at a point becomes essential to a person’s happiness. To achieve a sense of beauty within the city, the ruling class must possess practical wisdom. A type of knowledge that allows them to pursue the appropriate and promote a kind of creativity that not only respects tradition but also aims to unveil some new form of experience.

This report examines the sectarian backdrop for Galen of Pergamum's medical epistemology. It considers the justificatory role that experience (empeiria) and theoretical accounts (logoi) play in Empiricist and Dogmatist epistemology in an attempt to track how Galen incorporates experience into theoretical accounts as a means by which to undergird them. Finally, it briefly considers the exiguous evidence for Methodism, Galen's main medical rivals in the Roman world and claims that Galen forges a middle path between these sects. / text

A philosophical and philological commentary on Cicero, first book of the Tusculan Disputations.

In a famous argument at the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argues that the function and good of the human being is the "actuality of the soul in accordance with virtue". Presenting a view critical of the widespread intellectualist reading of Aristotle's Ethics, in this thesis I argue that the characteristic function of the human being is constitutive of a distinctly human life as a dynamic formal cause teleologically operative in human awareness. I argue for the validity of my own view in a preliminary way in the introduction by way of Aristotle's critique of the Platonic forms. In the second chapter, I argue that the processes of the non-rational part of the soul are acquired and actively operate once acquired independently of singular dictates of active reason within the individual. By this I mean that the virtues do not obey reason in the sense that they receive individual commands from discursive reason to desire or feel in certain ways. Rather, although the moral virtues are formed gradually by repeated acts of choice, as affective states, they are activated by being affected from without by external stimuli. These external stimuli produce impulses in the soul which are conducive to virtuous action, including a cognitive element: primarily, non-rational and non-discursive evaluative judgments of phantasia, which supply a human agent immediately with the ends of his action and the beginning-points of deliberation. These judgments are the awareness of sensible particulars as pleasant. In the third chapter, I turn to the De Anima in order to illuminate the cognitive conditions of human praxis. Following on the arguments contained in the second chapter, I argue that there are two primary cognitive moments which are necessary conditions of action. While the ends of desire are immediate objects of awareness and move humans as unmoved movers, motivational desires, which move as efficient causes, are initiated by a distinct cognitive power: proclamations to pursue or avoid.

In both the Meno and the Protagoras, Plato investigates the unity, acquisition and nature of virtue (ἀρετή). Although these dialogues appear to reach opposing conclusions—the Protagoras that virtue is knowledge and the Meno that virtue is divinely dispensed true opinion—in fact they both articulate the same moral principle. Both dialogues argue that virtue is knowledge of the good. I investigate these two dialogues independently and on their own respective terms, dedicating Chapter 2 to the Protagoras and Chapter 3 to the Meno. Although both dialogues argue that virtue is knowledge of the good, neither offers an account of the good. This is because each dialogue is but a single part of a larger argument which culminates in the Republic, wherein we find a more complete explanation of knowledge of the good in the description of the philosopher-king.

Much has been said about the influence of Plotinus, the Platonist philosopher, on the ideas of Augustine of Hippo, the Western Church Father whose writings had the largest impact on Western Europe in the Middle Ages. This thesis considers both writers’ ideas concerning matter, evil, and language. It then considers the way in which these writers’ ideas influenced their style of writing in the Enneads and the Confessions. Plotinus’ more straightforward negative attitude towards the material word and its relationship to the One ultimately makes his writing more academic and less emotionally powerful. Augustine’s more complicated understanding of the material world and its relationship to God results in a more mystical and more emotionally powerful style, which derives its effectiveness especially from its use of antithesis and the first and second person.