This thesis investigates reflexivity in ancient Greek literature and philosophy from Homer to Plato. It contends that ancient Greek culture developed a notion of personhood that was characteristically reflexive, and that this was linked to a linguistic development of specialized reflexive pronouns, which are the words for 'self'.

This thesis is about Plato‘s dialogue Cratylus, which is one of the earliest texts in the history ofphilosophy of language and has generated much interpretive controversy. In the dialogue, Platoexamines two theories on the correctness of names; conventionalism and naturalism. However,there is no clear positive outcome in the dialogue in regard to the debate betweenconventionalism and naturalism. Therefore, scholars have long been divided as to what Plato‘sown position on the correctness of names is. Another puzzling feature of the dialogue concernsthe etymological section, which has often been ignored or treated in isolation in modernscholarship. This section takes up about half of the dialogue and offers elaborate explanations ofa large number of words in the Greek language. Some recent studies of the Cratylus, however,are shedding much welcome light on the etymological section and the role it plays in thedialogue as a whole. In this thesis, I compare two competing interpretations of the etymologicalsection and discuss how an understanding of the etymologies can help us understand Plato‘sposition on the correctness of names and the purpose of the dialogue as a whole. In TimothyBaxter‘s interpretation, the etymological section should be read as a parody which amounts to aPlatonic critique of a mistaken attitude towards names and language found especially in thepoetry and philosophy in Plato‘s time. David Sedley, on the other hand, argues that theetymologies are seriously intended by Plato as a method of linguistic and historical analysis, amethod he himself endorsed and practiced. If the etymologies are taken seriously, Sedley argues,they show that Plato favored a form of naturalism in regard to the correctness of names. Afterproviding an outline and evaluation of these two interpretations, the thesis concludes with myown proposal. Although I disagree with some of Sedley‘s particular interpretations andarguments, I find myself in broad agreement with his general conclusions.

This doctoral dissertation aims to give a comprehensive and contextual account of Aristotle’s theory of metaphor. The dissertation is organized around the central claim that Aristotle’s definition of metaphor in Chapter 22 of the Poetics, as well as his discussion of it in Book III of the Rhetoric, commit him to what I call a vertical theory of metaphor, rather than to a horizontal one. Horizontal theories of metaphor assert that ‘metaphor’ is a word that has been transferred from a literal to a figurative sense; vertical theories of metaphor, on the other hand, assert that ‘metaphor’ is the transference of a word from one thing to another thing. In addition to the introduction and conclusion, the dissertation itself has five chapters. The first chapter sketches out the historical context within which the vertical character of Aristotle’s theory of metaphor becomes meaningful, both by (a) giving a rough outline of Plato’s critical appraisal of rhetoric and poetry in the Gorgias, Phaedrus, Ion, and Republic, and then (b) showing how Aristotle’s own Rhetoric and Poetics should be read as a faithful attempt to reform both activities in accordance with the criteria laid down by Plato in these dialogues. The second and third chapters elaborate the main thesis and show how Aristotle’s texts support it, by painstakingly reconstructing the relevant passages of the Poetics, Rhetoric, On Interpretation, Categories and On Sophistical Refutations, and resolving a number of interpretive disputes that these passages raise in the secondary literature. Finally, the fourth and fifth chapters together pursue the philosophical implications of the thesis that I elaborate in the first three, and resolve some perceived contradictions between Aristotle’s theory of metaphor in the Poetics and Rhetoric, his prohibition against the use of metaphors in the Posterior Analytics, and his own use of similes and analogical comparisons in the dialectical discussions found in the former text, the De Anima and the later stages of his argument in the Metaphysics. In many ways, the most philosophically noteworthy insight uncovered by my dissertation is the basic consideration that, for Aristotle, all metaphors involve a statement of similarity between two or more things – specifically, they involve a statement of what I call secondary resemblance, which inheres to different degrees of imperfection among things that are presumed to be substantially different, as opposed to the primary and perfect similarities that inhere among things of the same kind. The major, hitherto unnoticed consequence I draw from this insight is that it is ultimately the philosopher, as the one who best knows these secondary similarities, who is implicitly singled out in Aristotle’s treatises on rhetoric and poetry as being both the ideal poet and the ideal orator, at least to the extent that Aristotle holds the use of metaphor to be a necessary condition for the mastery of both pursuits. This further underscores what I argue in the first chapter is the inherently philosophical character of the Poetics and the Rhetoric, and shows the extent to which they demand to be read in connection with, rather than in isolation from, the more ‘central’ themes of Aristotle’s philosophical system.

This essay tries to demarcate and analyse Artificial Intelligence ethics. Going away from the traditional distinction in normative, meta, and applied ethics, a different split is executed, inspired by the three most prominent schools of thought: deontology, consequentialism, and Aristotelian virtue ethics. The reason behind this alternative approach is to connect all three schools back to ancient Greek philosophy. Having proven that the majority of arguments derive from some ancient Greek scholars (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle), a new voice is initiated into the discussion, Protagoras the Sophist. A big advocate of -the later conceived- humanism and relativism, Protagoras is used as a prism to examine a new ethical model that is based on the personalization of agents. In other words, even though theories of objectivity have overflown contemporary discussions of finding a robust ethical model for Artificial Intelligence agents, there is potential in a subjective model, personalised after each and every user.

Many of Gilles Deleuze’s most celebrated arguments are developed in conversation with Plato, Aristotle, Chrysippus and Epicurus. This thesis argues that ancient Stoic conceptions of causality and language and Epicurean contributions to geometry and physics are especially important to Deleuze because they significantly undergird the concepts of “event” and “problem” that characterize Deleuze’s alternative image of thought and philosophy of nature. The role of Hellenistic influences on Deleuze has been underappreciated, probably because his references are often allusive and oblique. My dissertation reconstructs and supplements Deleuze’s interpretations of these ancient Greek philosophers. I offer critical analysis and discussion of the uses to which Deleuze is trying to put them, as well as evaluations of Deleuze’s readings in light of contemporary scholarship on Greek philosophy. Specifically, I defend Deleuze’s claim that the theory of events in The Logic of Sense is derived in large part from the ancient Stoics. Despite being supplemented by a healthy dose of twentieth-century structuralism, Deleuze’s reading of the Stoics is not indefensible, especially his interpretation of incorporeal lekta as events linked by relationships of compatibility and incompatibility independent of conceptual entailment or physical causality. I also offer an entirely new evaluation of Deleuze's polemic with Aristotle’s conception of difference. The correct understanding of Deleuze’s position has been obscured by his apparent conflation of the Aristotelian concepts of homonymy and analogy. What might otherwise seem to be a misreading of Aristotle should be read as part of an incompletely realized argument to the effect that Aristotle’s account of the core-dependent homonymy of being fails. Finally I explicate Deleuze's contention that Epicurean atomism is a “problematic Idea,” which is derived from a careful but almost entirely implicit reading of both Epicurus and Lucretius. Deleuze reads the Epicurean “swerve” as a mechanism for the self-determination of physical systems, which models the capacity of problematic ideas to provoke new lines of reasoning and alternative forms of thought. The influence of Epicureanism and Stoicism on Deleuze’s late work on meta-philosophy in What is Philosophy? accounts for the way it treats the images of nature and of thought as inextricably linked. Deleuze understands the ambition to give a joint account of nature and thought to be typical of Hellenistic philosophy. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

L’étude porte sur les conceptions philosophiques, physiologiques et cliniques mises en jeu par la question des troubles psychiques chez Galien de Pergame ; elle se fonde sur le commentaire de textes collectés dans l’ensemble du corpus disponible. Les perturbations de l’âme sont dans l’Antiquité le lieu d’un conflit d’autorité entre médecine et philosophie. La participation de Galien à chacun des deux champs de savoir et le manque apparent d’homogénéité de sa conception de l’âme invitent dès lors à questionner la cohérence de ses propos. Le premier chapitre présente son approche théorique du problème et défend l’idée que les perspectives matérialistes et téléologiques sont chez lui compatibles à la fois entre elles et avec son agnosticisme quant à la nature de l’âme. Le deuxième chapitre montre que ce dernier n’est pas un aveu de faiblesse qui serait contredit dans la pratique et récuse l’idée que le médecin ait vocation à se substituer au philosophe. Les deux derniers chapitres en cherchent les raisons et pointent les facteurs de résistance à la constitution d’une psychopathologie englobante ; il est d’abord montré que le médecin approche les affections cognitives et émotionnelles selon des catégories distinctes et limite son intervention aux premières ; une reconstitution détaillée des théories étiologiques à l’œuvre dans la pratique diagnostique et thérapeutique vise ensuite à expliquer pourquoi leur prise en charge est malgré tout conçue comme difficile. L’étude entend par là contribuer à une lecture décloisonnée de l’œuvre galénique et montrer que la tension entre esprit de système et prudence théorique se résout dans la visée pratique du propos. / The study examines Galen of Pergamon’s philosophical, physiological and clinical ideas at play in his approach to psychic disorders; it is based on a commentary of texts collected from the entire available corpus. Disturbances of the soul are giving rise to a conflict of authority between medicine and philosophy in Antiquity. Galen’s engagement in both fields of knowledge as well as apparent tensions within his views on the soul expose the consistency of his works. The first chapter presents his theoretical approach to the problem and argues that the materialistic and teleological perspectives are indeed compatible both with each other and with his agnosticism about the nature of the soul. The second chapter shows that it is not an admission of weakness which would be at odds with his practice; it thus dismisses the idea that the doctor would aim to replace the philosopher. The last two chapters look into the reasons for it and underline a number of factors inhibiting the creation of an overbearing psychopathology; it is first shown that the physician assigns cognitive and emotional disorders to different categories and will mostly take direct action on the first one; a detailed reconstruction of the etiological theories engaged in his diagnostic and therapeutic practice then shows why it is nonetheless deemed difficult to take care of such disorders. The study thus aims at contributing to an unified reading of the Galenic corpus by showing that the tension between systematic thought and theoretical cautiousness finds solution in his practical goal.

This dissertation is generally concerned with Plato's conception of philosophy, as the conception is ascertainable from the Republic and certain ‘post-Republic' dialogues. It argues that philosophy, according to Plato, is multi-disciplinary; that ‘philosophy' does not mark off just one art or science; that there are various philosophers corresponding to various philosophical sciences, all of which come together under a common aim: betterment of self through intellectual activity. A major part of this dissertation is concerned with Plato's science par excellence, ‘the science of dialectic' (he epistêmê dialektikê). The science of dialectic is distinguished in Plato by being concerned with Forms or Kinds as such; the science of dialectic, alone amongst the philosophical sciences, fully understands what it means for Form X to be a Form. I track the science of dialectic, from its showcase in Republic VI and VII, and analyze its place in relation to the other philosophical sciences in certain post-Republic dialogues. Ultimately, I show that, whilst it is not the only science constituting philosophy, Plato's science of dialectic represents the intellectual zenith obtainable by man; the expert of this science is the topmost philosopher. In this dissertation I also argue that Socrates, as variously depicted in these dialogues, always falls short of being identified as the philosopher par excellence, as that expert with positive knowledge of Forms as such. Yet I also show that, far from being in conflict, the elenctic Socrates and the philosopher par excellence form a complementary relationship: the elenctic philosopher gets pupils to think about certain things in the right way prior to sending them off to work with the philosopher par excellence.

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