This thesis has as its focus five argumentative modes that lie at the heart of Sextus Empiricus’ Outlines of Pyrrhonism. They are the modes of disagreement, hypothesis, infinite regression, reciprocity and relativity. They are analysed, individually, in the first five chapters of the thesis (one mode per chapter) and, collectively, in the sixth. The first four chapters deal, respectively, with the modes of disagreement, hypothesis, infinite regression and reciprocity. They distinguish between two versions of these modes: “dogmatic versions”, on the basis of which a dogmatic philosopher, who holds some theoretical beliefs, might reach a sceptical conclusion; and “sceptical versions”, on the basis of which a sceptical philosopher, who lacks all theoretical beliefs, might do so. It is argued that scholars such as Jonathan Barnes have offered reconstructions of these modes which are dogmatic in the sense just described, and alternative sceptical versions of the modes are presented. A stand-alone fifth chapter offers an analysis of a stand-alone mode - the mode of relativity. It argues that there are in fact three different modes of relativity at play in the Outlines, that only one of them is non-trivial, and that the non-trivial version is incompatible with the mode of disagreement. The sixth and final chapter offers an analysis of how the modes (excluding relativity) are meant to work in combination with one another. Four different combinations are presented and it is argued that all of them are underscored by a variety of theoretical assumptions, which a sceptic, who lacks all theoretical beliefs, cannot make. The ultimate conclusion of the thesis is that, though the sceptic can deploy the various modes individually (by means of exercising his particular sceptical ability), he is not able to systematise them into a net by means of which he might trap his dogmatic opponent. Unless specified otherwise, translations are based on Annas, J., and Barnes, J., Sextus Empiricus: Outlines of Scepticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

Plato’s attitude on Art has always been hardly debated among scholars, and in recent times the interest on ancient Aesthetics in general and Plato’s attitude in particular has been even increased in the philosophical debate. The problem with Plato’s position is twofold. On the one hand he expresses hard criticism against poetry and he even banishes the poets from the ideal state he envisages in the Republic. That has been usually regarded as an illiberal, totalitarian position. On the other hand, the criticisms he makes of poetry seem to present inconsistencies among the Platonic corpus and they could prima facie appear to the modern reader odd, paternalistic or moralistic. Throughout my work I suggest to adopt a new approach, based both on historical and theoretical grounds, according to which it will be possible to resolve the problems that Plato’s objections to poetry give rise to. The historical and cultural context will be the focus of the first chapter. It consists of the following points. On the one hand I will first focus on different features that characterize Greek poetry, and on the other I will emphasize the pre-literacy of Plato’s contemporaries. I will also highlight how the ethical and political role, along with the educational function, made poetry the privileged source of information and education, and the ultimate reference for everyone in the Athens of the fifth B.C. In the second section of the first chapter I will analyze Plato’s teleologism, which I regard to be a fundamental entity in his stance on art. Such a notion, although not as much emphasized by scholars, plays a pivotal role in Plato’s arguments on poetry, I contend. This is especially evident in the Republic, where Plato’s criticism regards the flaws of poetry in teaching (Resp. II and III) first, and secondly as the main source of knowledge (X). In the third and last section of chapter one, I will face the complex issue of the alleged existence of the concept of beauty in antiquity. In this occasion I argue in favour of the existence of such an entity, both among average Greeks and for Plato, even though in different ways and degrees of awareness. After having provided the historical and theoretical frame of my approach, I will then move to textual examination of the Platonis Opera. In the second and third chapter I will analyse the so-called ‘early dialogues’, in order to single out the recurrent features of Plato’s stance on poetry. In fact, one of the main goals of my study is to retrace an overall, consistent view on art in general and poetry in particular among the Platonic corpus. While the second chapter is mainly focused on the Apology and the Protagoras, a special emphasis deserves the Ion, which is the object of the third chapter. I argue indeed that for the first time in this early dialogue we find a clear theoretical expression of a key-concept of Plato’s stance on art. In fact, Plato bases his criticism toward the eponymous rhapsode pointing out that the rhapsode on the one hand lacks the knowledge of the things he (demands to be able to) talk(s) about. On the other hand, the rhapsode lacks the knowledge of what poetry, as well as his trade, is. Such a ‘twofold ignorance’, as we will see, it is a recurring pattern in Socrates’ pupil. While the fourth chapter is mainly devoted to the analysis and comment of the Symposium, the fifth, sixth and seventh chapter present the detailed examination of the Book II, III and X of the Republic. They are respectively devoted to the analysis and criticism of the ‘middle dialogues’, the Republic and the ‘late dialogues’. Because of its capital importance for the purpose of my argument, I will analyze Plato’s criticism in the Republic in details and I will face different approaches to the subject. Afterwards I will confront them with my own theory in order to show that adopting my approach the apparent discrepancies regarding Plato’s aesthetics within the Republic itself as well as in others Platonic dialogues disappear. (And, on the contrary, this does not happen if the reader accepts the mainstream interpretation on the subject at issue). In essence: I propose to take Plato’s criticism of poetry not as an aesthetic attitude, but rather as a justified concern about the pursuit of truth through poetry, as if it were the main source of teaching, moral value, knowledge and information in the ancient Greek society. That is the core of my argument. The eighth chapter analyses the ‘late dialogues’, in particular The Laws, given the abundant of relevant passages on the matter. Finally, the ninth and last chapter faces Popper’s notorious judgement of Plato as totalitarian scholar. In this section of the study I will contend that Popper’s notorious reading of Plato’s political system is fallacious. Further, I will reveal that Plato and Popper’s stance on mass media essentially correspond. It is my understanding that such a fundamental passage will give the ultimate proof of the rightness of my revolutionary reading of the vexata quaestio of the ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry in Plato. Finally, the outcome of my investigations will show that Plato does not banish poetry because he is attacking it as a dangerous, free, “fine” Art. On the contrary, I propose to take his attack as the only way to release poetry from its educational and political context and to baptize it into the realm of Fine Art.

In this doctoral thesis, I address questions concerning teleology, chance, and necessity in Aristotle's philosophy. These three concepts are closely related. Aristotle considers chance in relation to teleology, and contrasts his conception of teleology with his own and his predecessors' views of necessity. He explains accidental causation on the basis of the absurdity of necessitarianism. In Chapter I, I clarify Aristotle's definitions of chance events and chance in Physics B 4-6 on the basis of a detailed examination of 'coming to be accidentally' (196b23), 'for the sake of something' (196b21), 'might be done by thought or by nature' (196b22). I analyze accidental and non-accidental relations involved in the marketplace example. In Chapter II, I argue that Aristotle accepts that the regularly beneficial winter rainfall is for the sake of the crops in Physics B 8. I scrutinize Empedocles’ view as described by Aristotle and show that it is not a theory of natural selection. I seek to show that the rival view against which Aristotle argues is an amalgam of reductionism and eliminativism. In Chapter III, I analyze what Aristotle means by 'simple necessity' and 'necessity on a hypothesis' (199b34-35), and argue that, in Physics B 9, he only acknowledges hypothetical necessity. Scrutinizing the wall example and Aristotle’s reply to it, I clarify his view of the relation between teleological causation and material necessity. In Chapter IV, I clarify Aristotle's conception of accidental causes, while taking his presentation of the necessitarian argument in Metaphysics E 3 as a reductio ad absurdum. I criticize the view that Aristotle himself accepts necessitation in this chapter. In doing so, I argue that, although this point is not explicitly stated in Physics B, Aristotle thinks that what is accidental is not necessary prior to its occurrence.

Thesis advisor: Gary M. Gurtler / This dissertation examines Plotinus’ pedagogy. I argue that his pedagogy aims at teaching students how to think and be attuned to their own unity, both of which have ethical ramifications. I identify six techniques he uses to achieve these aims: (1) using allusions, (2) leading readers to an impasse (aporia), (3) using and correcting images, (4) self-examination and ongoing criticism, (5) treating opposites dynamically, and (6) thought-experiments. I also explain why and how these techniques are not applied to passive recipients but require their active involvement. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

Thesis advisor: Arthur Madigan / Since at least Galileo, not only the technological abilities of natural science but the meaning of science's claims have been shaken to their very foundations, according to Edmund Husserl. We know what scientists say, but we do not know what they mean. Nor, Husserl claims, do they know what they mean. They do what works. They measure, they tabulate, they calculate. But they do not thereby really know the world. And since they are the standing authorities of knowledge in our culture, we do not have a reliable referent to which we can turn for an appropriate standard of meaning. At some level we realize that this piece of paper in my hand is not precisely a geometrical rectangle, in which all four angles are exactly ninety degrees and both sets of sides are exactly parallel to each other, but for the most part we simply identify it as a rectangle and move on. In our everyday experience, Husserl would say, we tend to conflate geometrical space and experiential space. We do not, however, have any real idea why we can do so effectively, even if we are engineers or physicists. Geometrical shapes are categorically different from the shapes we daily experience in our interactions with the world. No matter how carefully I draw lines or cut edges, I can never make a piece of paper (or, for that matter, a cow) that exactly meets the requirements of a geometrical rectangle. Even the fact that geometrical rectangles are, by definition, plane figures, which means they only have two dimensions, rather than the (at least) three that structure any perceptible thing, prevents perceptible things from ever meeting the strict requirements of geometrical figures. Given this basic disparity, what is it that justifies our using these geometrical figures to describe the perceptible world in which we live? If we want to know the world, Husserl tells us, we need to know what our scientific claims mean. This, he claims, is the only way we can meaningfully ground our increasingly science-governed lives. Plan of the Dissertation In this dissertation, then, I undertake the project of identifying more precisely what this problem is and offering some solution to it. My argument will have three steps. I shall argue first that to solve the problem Husserl so helpfully lays out, we need to go back to Aristotle's Metaphysics; second, that although Aristotle proposes a solution for the metaphysical problems implied by using mathematics to know perceptible things, this solution fails to answer the questions as he presents them, even if it is broadly interpreted; and, finally, that there are within Aristotle's metaphysical thought implicit resources for constructing this missing metaphysical justification, and that these can be found explicitly in his way of thinking about the distinction between actuality and potency, in his discussion of the metaphysical implications of knowing, and in his discussion of material causality. The basic problem is that mathematical objects and perceptible things are different kinds of things. We would not say that `Joe's idea is hungry' in anything other than a very metaphorical way, because we recognize that ideas are not the kinds of things that get hungry. Hunger is the province of animals. Ideas are not animals. Ideas, then, cannot be hungry. Mathematical objects and perceptible things, though, while also different kinds of things, are regularly combined. We do say, `This piece of paper is rectangular', although it would seem that pieces of paper (or cows) are not the kinds of things that could be rectangles. In this dissertation, I begin in chapter one with a careful recapitulation of Husserl's articulation of this problem of thoughtlessly conflating mathematical and experiential things. Husserl takes this to be the root of the crisis, not only of the meaning of the sciences, but also of all human meaning. I use Husserl's articulation, rather than simply explaining the problem as I understand it and moving directly to Aristotle's Metaphysics, where I see the roots of its solution, in part because Husserl's work was so influential in shaping my own understanding of the problem. More importantly, though not unrelatedly, Husserl helpfully contextualizes the problem both culturally and historically. He tells us why this matters, and he tells us how it seems to have happened. Both of these seem to me to be crucial to any ultimately successful resolution to the problem. In Husserl's articulation of the problem, he identifies Galileo as responsible for taking it as `obvious' that the `universally valid' shapes of geometry constituted the objectively real component of all things. He argues that Galileo inherits a tradition in which our approximations to `limit shapes' and the increased precision in replicating these made possible by technological advances gradually meld together, such that we learn to take the world to be fundamentally a mathematical manifold. In taking over this tradition, Galileo simply presumes that the world is fundamentally mathematizable and sets about developing methods by which even the concrete sensory plena through which any experienced shape is necessarily presented can be mathematized. Since we take as `given' these assumptions, whose origin Husserl attributes to Galileo, and which remain unjustified metaphysically, Husserl's tracing of the development of these assumptions can help us notice and evaluate them. This will be helpful in recovering the meaning of our mathematical scientific claims, and, ultimately, in recovering the meaning of our non-scientific claims. While Husserl helpfully identifies the problem and begins the historical tracing he proposes with his analysis of Galileo's assumptions, he does not complete the latter project, in part because he died so soon after beginning it. His project in the Crisis, as with many of the projects he undertook as a scholar, gets developed in many different directions, without any of these being completed. He proposes a philosophical-historical retracing of the assumptions of geometry, from its earliest inception through the present. He proposes a simultaneous careful consideration of the metaphysical assumptions at work in mathematical science and the justification necessary for it. He proposes transcendental phenomenology as the way to correctly understand the correlation between mathematical claims and the perceptible world they describe. While the development of transcendental phenomenology and the ways that it can help us come to understand more correctly our interaction with the world are fascinating, in this dissertation I want to focus on Husserl's other proposals toward a solution, namely the philosophical-historical retracing of assumptions and the metaphysical analysis. Specifically, I want to focus on the metaphysical analysis that Aristotle performs on the problems generated by presuming that one can use mathematical objects to know perceptible things. In chapter two, then, I explain more thoroughly the first two proposals toward a solution that Husserl proposes, and defend my claim that this metaphysical analysis in Aristotle is an appropriate continuation of Husserl's project. For completeness, Husserl's project needs, in addition to his tracing of the historical sources of lazy assumptions, an Aristotelian metaphysical analysis of what material and mathematical things are, to clarify whether and how mathematics could be appropriately (or inappropriately) applied to material things. In chapter three, I turn to Aristotle's Metaphysics and cull from its pages, primarily from Books III and XIII, the basic metaphysical questions and problems that arise in Aristotle's discussion of the use of mathematical objects to know perceptible things. I organize these into six central questions: 1) What exactly are the mathematical objects Aristotle discusses? 2) Are these mathematical objects substances? 3) Are these mathematical objects separable from perceptible things? 4) Are these mathematical objects constituents of perceptible things? 5) Are these mathematical objects principles or causes of perceptible things? 6) Is knowledge of these mathematical objects somehow knowledge of perceptible things? From these six questions, the basic problem that emerges is that knowledge of mathematical objects requires these objects to be exact, unchangeable, and indivisible, whereas the perceptible things of which they are supposed to provide knowledge are less determinate, changeable, and divisible. It seems like the mathematical objects would have to be separate from these perceptible things to be objects of mathematical knowledge, but if they were so, it is unclear how knowledge of them could be taken to also be knowledge of the perceptible things. These mathematical objects would have to somehow be part of the causal structure of these perceptible things for knowledge of them to be knowledge of these perceptible things. In chapter four, I take up the solution that Aristotle proposes for these difficulties, the `insofar as'/ `qua' (hêi) structure of knowing. Various attributes belong to a given perceptible thing in virtue of various ways of its being. Being green belongs to a plant, for example, insofar as it is a surface. The method of abstraction (aphairesis) allows us to separate out in thought the relevant way of being of the thing, so as to make the appropriate attribution to it. We can know a thing as something, even if that `something' is not itself actually separable. This proposal of Aristotle's begins to resolve some of the metaphysical problems that chapter three articulated. It is not itself, however, metaphysically justified. While it seems that we do regularly make these kinds of claims about perceptible things, it is not clear what justifies us in separating in thought what is not separate in fact, nor just how these various ways of being belong to the unified perceptible thing such that knowledge of them provides knowledge of the thing. This difficulty in giving a metaphysically coherent account of Aristotle's model of abstraction pervades the scholarly literature. Aristotle, it seems, does not have a satisfactory solution to the troubling metaphysical problems he raises about using mathematical objects to know perceptible things. In my fifth, and final, chapter, I undertake to construct from other texts in Aristotle's corpus a metaphysical justification for his model of abstraction that can, in fact, resolve the metaphysical problems that he and Husserl have raised. I find this metaphysical justification in an implicit claim of Aristotle's, to be found in the same section where he proposes his model of abstraction as a solution (Met XIII.3): the claim that mathematical objects are potential substances. I examine what these potential substances are, how they are related to their own actualizations and how they are related to the perceptible things of which they are supposed to provide knowledge, relying primarily on Metaphysics VIII and IX. I consider how knowledge of these could be possible, using texts from De Anima III, and then explore a connection between these potencies and the material cause of perceptible things in Physics II.9. I conclude at last that we are, in fact, justified in using mathematical objects to describe perceptible things. These objects, however, are mathematically describable only insofar as they are material, by which Aristotle means, insofar as they are potential, rather than actual. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

Neste trabalho argumento que o Teeteto é um diálogo sobre a relação entre o conceito de razão, entendido como uma potência específica da alma, e a sensação, compreendida como um processo inconsciente do corpo. No primeiro capítulo examino a análise platônica da epistemologia protagoreana. Tento mostrar que nesta seção Platão não está argumentando uma tese platônica sobre o mundo sensível. Ele está explicando e criticando os princípios fundamentais da epistemologia protagoreana. No final da seção Platão explica a distinção entre razão e sensação. Na análise da segunda parte defendo que a massa de argumentos dessa seção formula uma tese platônica sobre a essência do conhecimento. Por fim, no comentário da terceira definição examino o conceito de logos da teoria do sonho e o significado da tese de que os elementos são perceptíveis. / In this work I argue that the Theaetetus is a dialogue about the relation between the concept of reason, understood as a kind of power of the mind, and perception, viewed as an unconscious process of the body. In the first chapter I examine Platos analysis of Protagorean epistemology. I try to show that in this section Plato is not arguing his own view about the sensible world. He is, rather, explaining and criticizing the fundamental principles of the protagorean epistemology. At the end of this section Plato explains the distinction between reason and perception. In my analysis of the second part, I argue that the mass of arguments of this section formulates a platonic thesis about the essence of knowledge. Finally, in my commentary of the third definition, I examine Dreams concept of logos and the meaning of the thesis that the elements are perceivable.

This thesis explores Aristotle's theories of habituation and voluntariness and their impact on his ability to attribute moral responsibility to agents. Ultimately, I conclude that Aristotle should drop his assertions that we are morally responsible for our states of character in order to accommodate a compatibilist view that will still allow him to attribute moral responsibility for action to agents.

In evaluating Alcibiades' speech in Plato's Symposium, modern commentators often either conflate the historical figure and the fictive character, or else fail to make a distinction between Alcibiades the narrator and Alcibiades the eager young man whose adolescent encounters with Socrates which the more mature adult describes. The resulting scholarship tends to cast Alcibiades as a foil for Socrates and to reduce Plato's creation to a philosophic cautionary tale. Such reductions are misleadingly simplistic and require revision.By taking care to let neither history nor reputation supersede the textual evidence the Symposium provides, we can make a compelling case for a more moderate assessment of Alcibiades' philosophical progress. In doing so, we find that he is not lacking in understanding but rather that his understanding is incomplete. As such, Alcibiades occupies the vaguely defined space of intermediacy and intermediaries--the metaxu with which so much of the Symposium is concerned.

This thesis examines the extent to which the doctrine of due measure can be rightfully called the skopos of Plato’s Statesman. In order to determine the doctrine’s explanatory power, the thesis adopts the Neoplatonic method of exegesis. It first examines the current state of Platonic scholarship in general and then of studies on the Statesman in particular, then provides both the philosophic and literary context of the dialogue in question. Next, it analyses the doctrine of due measure’s philosophic content, and then proceeds to examine its ability to illuminate the literary details of the text. In completing this exercise, this thesis hopes to demonstrate a method of interpreting a Platonic text, by which we can better understand how Plato wrote his dialogues, and how we can be better interpreters of his writing—both in its philosophical and literary aspects.

The word ‘technē’ frequently appears in the argument and discussions of Socrates and his interlocutors in Plato’s early dialogues; the concept of technē as well as instances thereof often play a crucial role in effecting and rendering plausible Socrates’ argument and discussion. It is curious, therefore, that there are so few studies devoted entirely to examining Socrates’ conception of technē; this is a deficit that this thesis aims to play some role in correcting. The first chapter is concerned with elaborating some of the problematic questions connected to the philosophical integrity and originality and the historical actuality of Socrates as he appears in Plato’s dialogues. Part of this project involves responding to questions regarding which dialogues count as ‘early’ and ‘Socratic’ – and what these designations mean; part involves elaborating and articulating the character of Socrates’ person and methods in the dialogues and here the importance of the concept of technē to Socratic reflection is introduced. The second chapter examines the connection in Socratic thought between the concepts of wisdom, knowledge, and technē, and aims to bring out both their close connection as well as how they serve to illuminate each other. In this chapter, a difficulty connected with the ordinary philosophical concept of wisdom or knowledge is examined in light of the curious Socratic thesis of the sufficiency of virtue. The third chapter discusses a controversy between two ways of understanding the significance of technē in Socratic thought and attempts to avoid the controversy by suggesting a third way of understanding the concept. The fourth chapter develops and examines Socrates’ own explicit account of technē in Gorgias. The fifth, and final, chapter connects Socrates’ own account to the controversy discussed in the third chapter and the difficulty examined in the second chapter and suggests a way of overcoming these controversies. / Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2007-09-28 12:27:20.415