Aristotle on Experience of Pain Master thesis ÚFaR FF UK Bc. Vojtěch Linka Supervisor: Mgr. Robert Roreitner Abstract in English: In my master thesis, I focus on the problem of experiencing pain in Aristotle. My work is based on analysis of Nicomachean Ethics and On the soul. With these texts, I reconstruct Aristotle's theory of pain. I start with an analysis of pleasure and of the pair pleasure-pain, by which I gain basic material for further work. The most important idea here is that there is a connection between pleasure and activity (energeia). I will use this idea in the analysis of pain, too. Pain will be analyzed through passages where Aristotle explicitly mentions it and through a thought experiment, where I focus on how Aristotle would have explained chronic pain. After these analyses I will be able to formulate a theory of pain, where pain is understood as something which hinders activity. I interpret this theory in the context of Aristotle's psychology. After the analyses and interpretation, I am able, at the end of my work, answer the question how animals are experiencing pain.

Selon Aristote, la cause finale est double, suivant ce qu’il indique en cinq endroits stratégiques du corpus : à propos de la relation causale entre la finalité et la matière, dans Physique II ; par rapport à la finalité de la reproduction animale, dans De Anima II ; et un peu plus loin, dans cette même ouvrage, le dualisme est affirmé pour éclairer la manière dont l’âme est fin pour le corps ; dans l’Éthique à Eudème, où il s’agit de préciser la façon dont le dieu est fin pour la sagesse pratique ; enfin, concernant la causalité téléologique du Premier Moteur, dans Métaphysique Λ. Ce dualisme téléologique, formulé dans les occurrences du De Anima II à travers l’expression technique τὸ οὗ et τὸ ᾧ, ayant été développée dans une étude qui ne nous est pas parvenue, est fréquemment comprise en fonction de la finalité de la production technique et traduite par « le but visé » et « le bénéficiaire ». Toutefois, cette tentative d’éclaircir cette expression laconique pose des problèmes assez importants, dont celui de sa pertinence pour l’approche des phénomènes naturels qu’elle est censée expliquer. Cette étude cherche à restituer ce dualisme de la fin au centre de la compréhension aristotélicienne de la téléologie. L’examen des occurrences, ainsi que l’étude des thèmes majeurs de la finalité dans la philosophie de la nature d’Aristote, nous conduisent à mettre en avant deux notions qui permettent expliciter ce à quoi fait référence le dualisme téléologique : la notion d’usage, χρῆσις, et celle de préservation, σωτηρία. / According to Aristotle, the final cause is twofold, as it indicates in five strategic places of the corpus: concerning the causal relation between finality and matter, in Physics II; with respect to the purpose of animal reproduction, in De Anima II; and a little further on, in this same work, this dualism is affirmed to enlighten the way in which the soul is end for the body; in Eudemian Ethics, where is it to specify the way in which the god is an end for practical wisdom; finally, concerning the teleological causality of the Prime Mover, in Metaphysics Λ. This teleological dualism, formulated in the occurrences of De Anima II through the technical expression τὸ οὗ and τὸ ᾧ, having been developed in a study that has not survived to our times, is frequently understood in terms of purpose in technical production and translated by "purpose" and "beneficiary". However, this attempt to clarify this laconic expression raises quite significant problems, including that of its relevance for the approach of the natural phenomena that it is supposed to explain. This study attempts to restore this dualism of the end at the centre of Aristotelian understanding of teleology. The examination of occurrences, as well as the study of the major themes of finality in Aristotle's philosophy of nature, lead us to put forward two notions that make explicit what the teleological dualism refers to: the notion of usage, χρῆσις, and that of preservation, σωτηρία.

L’ambition de cette thèse est de confronter les interprétations heideggérienne et patočkienne des concepts fondamentaux de la Physique d’Aristote. Un point d’accord relie les deux philosophes : Aristote conçoit le mouvement comme une détermination ontologique fondamentale. Le mouvement (κίνησις/μεταβολή) se conçoit fondamentalement en effet comme un procès d’éclosion, d’advenue au paraître des étants dans la présence manifeste. Cependant, Heidegger et Patočka ne comprennent pas de la même manière le sens de ce mouvement ontologique au cœur de la nature (φύσις) : c’est à examiner ces différences que cette thèse est consacrée, de sorte à faire ressortir, à la faveur de l’interprétation d’Aristote, deux conceptions distinctes et à bien des égards opposées chez ces deux auteurs du sens et du statut de l’ontologie phénoménologique elle-même. Cette thèse conclut à l’idéalisme philosophique de Heidegger, ainsi qu’à la tendance contraire chez Patočka à un réalisme cosmologique qui conteste, jusqu’à un certain point, l’identité de l’être et du sens. Dans le cadre de cette thèse, une attention toute particulière est accordée au concept qui concentre en lui toute la charge de la tension : à savoir le concept de matière (ὕλη). / This thesis confronts the Heideggerian and Patočkian interpretations of the fundamental concepts of Aristotelian Physics. Both interpretations share a point in common: according to Heidegger and Patočka, Aristotle conceives movement as a fundamental ontological determination of Being. Indeed, movement (κίνησις/μεταβολή) is conceived by Aristotle as a process of unconcealment, of coming into presence of entities in the openness of manifest being. Nevertheless, Heidegger and Patočka disagree on the way that one should understand the meaning of this ontological movement at the core of nature (φύσις). This thesis is entirely dedicated to examining these differences. Our aim is to show, through Heidegger’s and Patočka’s interpretations of Aristotle, that there are two distinct and by all means opposed conceptions of the meaning and status of phenomenological ontology itself. This thesis concludes both to Heidegger’s philosophical idealism, and to Patočka’s contrary attempt to build a cosmological realism that challenges to a certain extent the identity between Being and meaning. In the working out of this thesis, a very particular focus is drawn on the concept that concentrates the entire charge of the tension, i.e. the concept of matter (ὕλη).

Epideictic rhetoric, one of the classical modes of persuasion described by Aristotle, has faced some criticism concerning its value in the realm of rhetoric. Though attitudes have been shifting over the last several decades, there is still a tendency to undervalue epideictic, falling back on the Aristotelian system of ceremonial oratory. However, its “praise and blame” style of persuasion employs of the type of rhetor / audience identification described by Kenneth Burke. Epideictic rhetoric is a major component of virtually any communication, as the speaker or writer seeks to create a bond with that audience so as to persuade them of something. This is evident in Victorian women's travel narratives; not necessarily noted for rhetoricality, they are nonetheless powerfully rhetorical in their prose as they foster emotionally- based identifications. Through their employment of epideictic description, travel narratives are not merely showpieces, but rather catalysts for social consciousness and change. As we move from the civic discourse-based Aristotelian classification of epideictic to encompass literary works like the travel narrative, the multifaceted value of epideictic is undeniable.

This article examines the role of epideictic rhetoric as a tool for promoting civic virtue in the public realm through the application of Kenneth Burke's theory of identification and John Dewey's explanation of an aesthetic experience. Long the jurisdiction of Aristotle's logical arguments, civic discussion usually works within the realm of forensic or deliberative persuasion. However, scholarship in the last fifty years suggests there is an unexplored dimension of Aristotle's discussion of epideictic and emotion that needs to be examined in an attempt to identify its usefulness as a tool for examining human experience and practical behavior in the political realm. I attempt to add to the discussion by exploring the presidential funerals of Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan as opportunities for a nation to display a hero's virtues as extensions of society's virtues. Virtues often define what a nation considers good which, in turn, influences the nature of the discussion and often determines political action.

Although philosopher Robert Solomon and rhetorician Kenneth Burke wrote in isolation from one another, they discuss similar concepts and ideas. Since its introduction in Burke's A Rhetoric of Motives, identification has always been important to rhetorical theory, and recent studies in emotion, such as Solomon's, provide new insight into modes of identification—that human beings can identify with one another on an emotional level. This paper places Solomon and Burke in conversation with one another, arguing that both terministic screens and emotions are ways of seeing, acting, engaging, and judging. Hence, terministic screens and emotions affect ethos, or character, both in a specific moment and over periods of time as they are cultivated through habit. Because emotions influence ethos, it is important for a speaker to cultivate the right emotions at the right time—Solomon's notion of emotional integrity. Emotional integrity facilitates Burkean identification between speaker and audience because it enables human beings to see the other as synecdochically related to themselves, a part of the whole. Hence, this paper ultimately argues that a speaker will improve his or her ethos by cultivating emotional integrity.

[pt] Anatomia do Cômico é uma investigação filosófica acerca daquela experiência que nos é tão familiar, ao mesmo tempo em que nos é tão misteriosa, que é a percepção de algo cômico, algo que nos faz rir. Tendo como posição prévia o postulado de que não é possível formular uma definição conceitual exaustiva do cômico, buscou-se, ao invés disso, delimitar o seu horizonte em quatro aspectos possíveis, a saber: o moral, o retórico, o melancólico e o grotesco. Para tanto, partiu-se de uma análise dos corpora platônico e aristotélico, onde se investiga o modo como o cômico, a comédia e o riso foram tematizados nas obras destes autores, e de que maneira o problema do cômico dialoga com outras questões e se insere na organização de seus pensamentos. Ver-se-á, a partir dessas análises e das profundas intuições desses filósofos, que tanto a noção de senso comum, tal como elaborada nesta tese, quanto a estranha condição ontológica do ser humano, que vacila entre o espiritual e a animalidade, são as peças-chave para se pensar os diversos aspectos do cômico supramencionados. / [en] Anatomy of the Comic is a philosophical investigation concerning that experience that is so familiar to us, at the same time that is so mysterious, which is the perception of something comical, something that makes us laugh. Having as a preliminary position the postulate that it is not possible to formulate an exhaustive conceptual definition of the comic, it was sought, instead, to delimit its horizon in four possible aspects, namely: the moral, the rhetorical, the melancholic, and the grotesque. To this end, we started from an analysis of the Platonic and Aristotelian corpora, where we investigate how the comic, comedy and laughter were thematized in the works of these authors, and in what way the comic, as a problem, dialogues with other questions and is inserted in the organization of their thoughts. It will be seen, from these analyses and from the profound intuitions of these philosophers, that both the notion of common sense, as elaborated in this thesis, and the strange ontological condition of the human being, which vacillates between spirituality and animality, are the key elements to think about the various aspects of the comic mentioned above.

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In this dissertation, I motivate and defend a neo-Aristotelian concept of absolute prohibitions. The starting point of my argument is Elizabeth Anscombe’s famous critique of modern moral philosophy. Anscombe’s argument is widely interpreted as a call to rehabilitate Aristotelian ethics, but few among the scholars who responded to that call have dealt head-on with Anscombe’s insistence that modern moral philosophy’s deepest failure is its inability to account for absolute prohibitions. I argue that not only does Aristotle take the view that some actions are necessarily wrong, and therefore impermissible without exception, but also that this view is of genuine philosophical interest and merit. Drawing on Aristotle, I outline a concept of absolute prohibitions against gravely wrong actions on which absolute prohibitions emerge, as practical principles, from reflection on the goods human beings need to flourish. In neo-Aristotelian terms, absolute moral prohibitions are best formulated not as transcendent laws of reason or divine commands, but as preconditions for the shared life and the states of character that human beings need to live well. When we recognize that some actions directly and necessarily undermine or damage essential goods—human life, justice, virtue, and so on—we can and should rule those actions out as impermissible in principle. I argue that an Aristotelian concept of absolute prohibitions has considerable advantages over its rivals, found in traditional theology and in Kantian ethics, and that this concept can withstand the most powerful objection to the plausibility of absolute prohibitions, which is the problem of hard cases.

This dissertation investigates Aristotle’s theory of phantasia as a cognitive ability, in terms of which mental content is available to the mind of rational beings. The focus is on Catherine Osborne’s extension of phantasia to nonhuman animals in order to allow for and explain non-human animal behaviour in terms of a rational paradigm, which de-emphasises, and does not rely on, linguistic ability. This paradigm for understanding animal behaviour as rational supports, and is supported by, modern theories of cognitive ethology, and argues for the ability of animals to share in conceptual thought. The recognition of rationality in animals by means of this paradigm bears ethical consequences for the treatment of animals. / Classics and Modern European Languages / M.A. (Classical Studies)