Original publication from author's Habilitationsschrift--Zürich, 1976. / Translation of Platon und Aristoteles in der Nuslehre Plotins. Includes bibliographical references (p. [295]-297) and indexes.

Thesis (Ph. L.)--Catholic University of America, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 73-75).

Thesis (Ph. L.)--Catholic University of America, 2008. / Description based on Microfiche version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 73-75).

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio State University, 1951. / Includes bibliographical references. Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

Original publication from author's Habilitationsschrift--Zürich, 1976. / Translation of Platon und Aristoteles in der Nuslehre Plotins. Includes bibliographical references (p. [295]-297) and indexes.

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)

1 Abstract Meaning of numbers between Plato and Aristotle Antonín Šíma The dissertation titled "The Transformation of the Concept of Number between Plato and the Early Academy" deals with the problem of numbers in early Platonism between Aristotle and Plato. In Plato's dialogues, within professional mathematical disciplines of knowledge, numbers fulfil a function of propaedeutic procedure to the method of thinking − dialectic. Dialectic engages in the most general structures of thinking whose centre is the problem of being and good, which is only mentioned marginally in our thesis. The philosophy of dialogues is based on the ontological and epistemological dignity of unchanging and eternally existing ideas. In Metaphysics A Aristotle describes Plato's and the Platonic doctrines of the early Academy in whose centre there are principles expressed by numbers: one and indefinite two, which are assessed according to Aristotelian principles doctrine as form and matter. Aristotle mentions Platonic dialectical method which focuses on researching the general in speech. This method distinguishes Platonic thought from Pythagorean philosophy in Aristotle's precursors' philosophy overview. In the criticized doctrine, numbers have the same meaning as ideas or ideal numbers standing on the scale of ontological dignity...

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Hannah Arendt argues that political action is only meaningful through the disclosure of who the actor uniquely is, and that this disclosure is the basis of human dignity. Arendt’s notion of performative disclosure helps us to rethink the individuated actor, not as a sovereign and self-transparent subject whose action expresses an authentic individual essence or constative what, but rather as a decentered and ecstatic who whose action reveals meaningful dimensions of the world and of the actor’s unique situation in history, through the performance of acts and speech before public spectators. The idea that no actor can stand in a position of control with respect to his life story extends to a critical displacement of the notion of freedom understood as sovereignty and of political projects that attempt to make history. Action, as praxis and not poiesis, is best understood through Arendt’s metaphor of performance, rather than productive art. There are new interpretive possibilities for Arendt’s theory of action, especially if we trace appearances of the ancient Greek daimon in Arendt’s publications and lecture notes, and among works that Arendt confronted: Plato’s Socratic dialogues and the myth of Er, Heidegger’s notion of aletheia as Dasein’s disclosure of Being, Jaspers’ valid personality, and Kant’s notion of aesthetic genius. The daimon implies that the public realm is a spiritual realm, that action is a form of connection to the divine, and that the actor is a decentered discloser of transcendent meanings and new possibilities within the world. The daimon also shows moral deliberation to be more vital to meaningful action than Arendt suggests prior to The Life of the Mind, so that the distinctions usually read in Arendt between actor and spectator, as well as those between acting, thinking, and judging, may be productively occluded. Arendt’s struggle to re-invigorate action’s disclosive capacity is at the center of her entire project. It sheds light on her critique of the world-alienating aspects of Marx, her insistent protection of a distinct political sphere from the private and the social spheres, and her rejection of Hegel’s philosophy of history in favor of a fragmentary historiography inspired by Kafka and Benjamin.

This thesis is a context-sensitive study of key epistemological commitments and concerns presented in Philo’s two series of exegetical writings. The major conclusion advanced in this thesis is that two theological epistemologies, distinct yet related, can be detected among these writings. The first epistemology is specific to the Allegorical Commentary. The second epistemology is specific to the ‘Exposition of the Law.’ The epistemology of the Allegorical Commentary reflects a threefold conviction: the sovereignty of God, the creaturely contingency of the human mind and its inescapable limitations. In conversation with key epistemological notions of his day, Philo develops this threefold conviction in exegetical discourses that are grounded in Pentateuchal texts portraying the God of Moses as both possessing epistemic authority and aiding the aspiring mind to gain purification and perfection in the knowledge of God. Guided by this threefold conviction, Philo enlists key metaphors of his day – initiation into divine mysteries and divine inspiration, among others –in order to capture something of the essence of Moses’ twofold way of ascending to the divine, an approach which requires at times the enhancement of human reason and at other times the eviction of human reason. The epistemology of the ‘Exposition’ reflects Philo’s understanding of the Pentateuch as a perfect whole partitioned into three distinct yet inseverable parts. Philo’s knowledge discourses in the ‘creation’ part of the ‘Exposition’ reflect two primary movements of thought. The first is heavily invested with a Platonic reading of Genesis 1.27 while the second invests Genesis 2.7 with a mixture of Platonic and Stoic notions of human transformation and well-being. Philo’s discourses in the ‘patriarchs’ segment reflect an interest in portraying the three great patriarchs as exemplars of the virtues of instruction (Abraham), nature (Isaac), and practice (Jacob) which featured prominently in Greek models of education. In the ‘Moses’ segment of the ‘Exposition,’ many of Philo’s discourses on knowledge are marked by an interest in presenting Moses as the ideal king, lawgiver, prophet and priest who surpasses Plato’s paradigm of the philosopher-king. In keeping with this view, Philo insists that the written laws of Moses represent the perfect counterpart to the unwritten law of nature. The life and laws of Moses serve as the paradigm for Philo to understand his own experiences of noetic ascent and exhort readers to cultivate similar aspirational notions and practices.