When reading the Bible in an independent way, i.e., not through the lenses of any official Church dogma, one is amazed by the many voices that come through to us. Add to this variety the literaiy finds from Nag Hammadi, as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls, then the question now confronting many spiritual pilgrims is how it came about that these obviously diverse theologies, represented in the socalled Old and New Testaments, were moulded into only one "orthodox" result. In what way and to what degree were the many Christian groups different and distinctive from one another, as well as from other Jewish groups? Furthermore, what was the influence of other religions, Judaism, the Mysteries, Gnostics and Philosophers on the development, variety of groups and ultimately 021 the consolidation of "orthodox" soteriology? / Systematic Theology and Theological Ethics / M.Th. (Systematic Theology)

Myth and Argument in Plato's Phaedrus, Republic, and Phaedo investigates the role played by eschatological myth in the arguments of Plato's Phaedrus, Republic and Phaedo. It argues that a reconsideration of the agenda followed by Socrates in each of these dialogues brings into view the contribution made by the mythological narrative to their argumentative line. Each of the three chapters of my thesis analyses the nature of this contribution. The first chapter argues that the myth occupying the central pages of the Phaedrus contributes to developing one of the themes addressed in the dialogue, namely a link between the divine realm and the activities thought by Phaedrus to be unrelated to the religious sphere. By showing that Eros fosters imitation of the gods, the palinode makes an important contribution to this topic. The second chapter proposes that the myth of Er and passage 608c2-621d3 in which it is included are an essential part of the line of argument of the Republic. I analyse the aims Socrates sets in Book 2 for his investigation into justice, and show that they include the description of the positive consequences of justice along with the benefits it causes in and by itself. By listing the rewards just people will receive from other people and the gods, passage 608c2-621d3 gives a description of the positive consequences of justice. The third chapter argues that the argumentative line followed in the Phaedo finds its culmination in the eschatological myth. Socrates expresses a hope for post-mortem justice in his defence of the philosophical life. To render it plausible to his interlocutors he needs to show that the soul is both immortal and intrinsically intelligent. After vindicating these notions, Socrates presents in the concluding myth the image of an afterlife governed by ethical principles.

Orientador: Alcides Hector Rodriguez Benoit / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciencias Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-05T11:00:10Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 PereiraFilho_Gerson_D.pdf: 13290018 bytes, checksum: a2fdc79aa291b09494dbcf826907d231 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005 / Resumo: A proposta desta tese de doutoramento é promover uma investigação sobre o processo de fundação da cidade platônica no Diálogo Leis, procurando verificar como esse texto e esse processo estão vinculados ao conjunto dos Diálogos, permitindo-nos compreender que o autor filósofo estabelece um percurso teórico, conceitual e metodológico relacionado diretamente ao contexto de transformações históricas das cidades e regimes políticos gregos. Assim, nesse percurso histórico dos textos dialógicos, verificamos a elaboração, ainda que incipiente, de uma teoria da história em Platão / Abstract: The proposol of this thesis of doctorate is to promote an investigation on the foundation process of the platonic city in the Dialogue of Laws, seeking to verify how this text and this process are linked to the set of dialogues, allowing us to comprehend that the philosopher author establishes a theoretical, methodological and conceptual path directly related to the context of the historical transformations of the Greek cities and their political regimes. Therefore, in this historical route of the dialogical texts, we verify an elaboration, even though incipient, of a theory of history in Plato / Doutorado / Doutor em Filosofia

Orientador: Lucas Angioni / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciencias Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-15T02:14:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Terra_CarlosAlexandre_D.pdf: 1626782 bytes, checksum: feb64d7b26a19056d1444d2b74012727 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / Resumo: Pretendemos averiguar como Aristóteles concebe a passagem do nosso conhecimento prévio do mundo ao conhecimento científico, avaliando os pressupostos e consequências de sua resposta ao paradoxo de Mênon e atentando para a metodologia científica defendida nos Segundos Analíticos. Quanto ao conhecimento preliminar necessário à edificação da ciência, procuraremos caracterizar seus tipos e também os meios pelos quais ele pode vir a ser adquirido por nós. Buscaremos estabelecer também as propriedades que o conhecimento científico deve possuir em relação à sua necessidade, universalidade e caráter explanatório. Buscaremos marcar, com precisão, a natureza da conclusão científica segundo a teoria científica aristotélica, argumentando que, nas conclusões, o atributo demonstrado, em relação com seu substrato, representa uma propriedade por si concomitante. Pretendemos averiguar como os diferentes tipos de demonstração e definição respondem a diferentes estágios de organização do saber prévio e a diferentes estágios na estruturação das demonstrações propriamente científicas, e, por conseguinte, como esses se organizam de modo a responder as quatro perguntas que toda investigação científica deve abarcar em seus dois estágios. / Abstract: Our aim is to understand how Aristotle conceives the transition of our previous knowledge of the world to our scientific understanding of it and we will do that by means of judging the presumptions and consequences of his answer to the Menon's paradox and focusing on the scientific methodology found in the Posterior Analytics. In relation to the necessary preliminary knowledge to the edification of science, we will try to characterize its types and also the means by which it can be reached by us. We will also try to settle the properties that the scientific understanding must have in relation to its necessity, universality and explanatory nature. We will mark the precise nature of the scientific conclusion according to the Aristotelian scientific theory, arguing that the attribute demonstrated in the conclusions represents a per se concomitant in relation to its substrate. We want to verify how the different types of demonstrations and definitions correspond to different stages in the organization of the previous knowledge and to different stages in the setting of the proper scientific demonstrations and hereby we will try to understand how these different demonstrations and definitions are related to themselves in order to make the scientist answer the four scientific questions that the scientific investigation must contemplate in its two stages. / Doutorado / Filosofia / Doutor em História da Filosofia Antiga

Orientador: Lucas Angioni / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-19T03:39:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ribeiro_FrancineM._M.pdf: 1073485 bytes, checksum: 61b5a8a4997a983b538dbf5f532bae26 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011 / Resumo: De acordo com Aristóteles, conhecemos algo cientificamente quando apreendemos a causa pela qual essa coisa é e apreendemos, também, certa relação necessária entre aquilo que pretendemos conhecer e o que descobrimos ser a causa adequada que explica por que tal fato é o caso. Além disso, o filósofo identifica o conhecimento científico com a posse de um silogismo científico ou demonstração. Neste trabalho, analisamos a relação entre a teoria demonstrativa que Aristóteles desenvolve, principalmente, no livro I dos Segundos Analíticos e sua teoria silogística dos Primeiros Analíticos I e tentamos responder por que o conhecimento científico deve ser via silogismo. Também procuramos explicitar como as noções de causa e de necessidade, pelas quais Aristóteles define o conhecimento científico, são contempladas pela exigência de que as proposições de uma demonstração sejam per se. Finalmente, discutiremos como essas noções de per se, necessidade e causa se encaixam na estrutura silogística, uma vez que conhecer algo cientificamente é possuir um silogismo científico / Abstract: According to Aristotle, we know something scientifically when we grasp not only the cause by which this something is and but also a certain kind of necessary relation between what we intend to know and what we have discovered to be the adequate cause that explains why this is the case. In addition, the philosopher identifies the scientific knowledge with the possession of a scientific syllogism or demonstration. In this work, we examine the relationship between the demonstrative theory that Aristotle develops mainly on book I of Posterior Analytics, and his syllogistic theory, presented in Prior Analytics I. We try to answer why scientific knowledge must be presented via syllogism. We also intend to explicit how the notions of cause and necessity, through which Aristotle defines scientific knowledge, are contemplated by the requirement that the propositions of a demonstration must be per se (in itself). Finally, we discuss how these ideas of per se, necessity and cause fit in the syllogistic structure, since knowing something scientifically means to have a scientific syllogism / Mestrado / Filosofia / Mestre em Filosofia

Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This study investigates six theoretical approaches offered as solutions to the paradox of the heap (sorites paradox), a logic puzzle dating back to the ancient Greek philosopher Eubulides. Those considered are: Incoherence Theory, Epistemic Theory, Supervaluation Theory, Many-Valued Logic, Fuzzy Logic, and Non-Classical Semantics. After critically examining all of these, it is concluded that none of the attempts to explain the sorites are fully adequate, and the paradox remains unresolved. / Philosophy / M.A. (Philosophy)

Much modern moral philosophy has conceived of its interpretative and critical aims in relation to an entity it sometimes terms 'common-sense morality'. The term was influentially used in something like its canonical sense by Henry Sidgwick in his classic work The Methods of Ethics (1874). Sidgwick conceived of common-sense morality as a more-or-less determinate body of current moral opinion, and traced his ('doxastic') conception through Kant back to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and the practice of Plato's Socrates before him. The Introduction to this thesis traces the influence of Sidgwick's conception both on subsequent (mis)understandings of Socratic practice as well as on the practice of moral philosophy in the twentieth century. The first essay offers a challenge to Sidgwick's understanding of Socratic practice. I argue that Socrates' questioning of his interlocutors, far from revealing some determinate body of pre-existing beliefs, is in fact a demonstration of the dynamic and partially indeterminate quality of common-sense morality. The value for the interlocutor of engaging in such conversation with Socrates consisted primarily in its forcing him to adopt what I term a deliberative stance with respect to his own practice and dispositions, asking himself not 'what is it that I believe?' but rather, 'what am I to believe?' This understanding of Socratic practice gives us a way of reconciling the often puzzling combination of conservative and radical elements in Plato's dialogues. The second essay is a discussion of the reception of Sidgwick's conception of ethics in twentieth-century Oxford, a hegemonic centre of Anglophone philosophy. This recent tradition consists both of figures who accepted Sidgwick's picture of moral philosophy's aims and those who rejected it. Of the critics, I am centrally concerned with Bernard Williams, whose life's work, I argue, can be fruitfully understood as the elaboration of a heterodox understanding of Socratic practice, opposed to Sidgwick's. Ethics, on this conception, is a project directed at the emancipation of our moral experience from the many distortions to which it is vulnerable. Williams's writings in moral philosophy, disparate and not entirely systematic, are unified by these emancipatory aims, aims they share with strains of psychoanalysis except in that they do not scorn philosophical argument as a tool of emancipation: in this respect among others, I claim, they are fundamentally Socratic.

The aim of this thesis is twofold: it explores Giacomo Leopardi's (1798-1837) interpretation of, and engagement with, Greek pessimistic thought and, through him, it investigates the complex and elusive phenomenon of Greek pessimistic thought itself. This thesis contends that Greek pessimistic thought – epitomised by but not limited to the famous wisdom of Silenus, the µὴ φῦναι topos – is an important element of Greek thought, a fundamental part of some of Greece's greatest literary works, and a vital element in the understanding of Greek culture in general. Yet this aspect of ancient thought has not yet received the attention it deserves, and in the history of its interpretation it has often been forgotten, denied, or purposefully obliterated. Furthermore, the pessimistic side of Greek thought plays a crucial role in both the modern history of the interpretation of antiquity and the intellectual history of Europe; I argue that this history is fundamentally incomplete without the appreciation of Leopardi's role in it. By his study of and engagement with ancient sources Leopardi contributed to the 19th century rediscovery of Greek pessimistic wisdom, alongside, though chronologically before, the likes of Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Jacob Burckhardt. Having outlined some fundamental steps in the history of the reception of Greek pessimism, this thesis examines the cardinal components of Leopardi's reception of it: his use of Greek conceptions of humanity to undermine modernity's anthropocentric fallacy, his reinterpretation of the Homeric simile of the leaves and its pessimistic undertones, and his views on the idea that it would be best for man not to be born.

Thesis (doctoral)--Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität, Greifswald, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [255]-281) and indexes.