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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.

Thesis advisor: Brian Dunkle / Caius Marius Victorinus (c. 285-c.365CE), the famed professor of rhetoric in Rome who brought Neoplatonic philosophy into the Latin theological tradition, wrote several treatises of trinitarian theology shortly after his conversion late in life. The uniqueness and sophistication of his homoousian trinitarian thought has been recognized. His contribution to pro-Nicene theologies of the Holy Spirit has likewise been noticed in patristic scholarship, but has received little direct scholarly attention. The key contention of my dissertation is that in Book Three of Adversus Arium (written c. 361) Victorinus expounds a sophisticated pneumatology consonant with the developments in pro-Nicene theology. The true purport of his pneumatology is difficult to grasp because of Victorinus’s complex and fluid use of language which has led some scholars to consider his theology incoherent and his argumentation obscure. A careful reading of Adv. Ar. III allows us to assess his doctrine of the Holy Spirit for its precocious and idiosyncratic assertions while making a contribution to scholarship on early Christian thought, especially as relates to pro-Nicene Trinitarian theology and pneumatology before Constantinople I (381). / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

This thesis examines possible philosophies to account for the practice of mathematics, exploring the metaphysical, ontological, and epistemological outcomes of each possible theory. Through a study of the two most probable ideas, mathematical platonism and fictionalism, I focus on the compelling argument for platonism given by an appeal to the sciences. The Indispensability Argument establishes the power of explanation seen in the relationship between mathematics and empirical science. Cases of this explanatory power illustrate how we might have reason to believe in the existence of mathematical entities present within our best scientific theories. The second half of this discussion surveys Newtonian Cosmology and other inconsistent theories as they pose issues that have received insignificant attention within the philosophy of mathematics. The application of these inconsistent theories raises questions about the effectiveness of mathematics to model physical systems.

Esta dissertação tem dois objetivos principais: (i) apresentar um estudo introdutório e (ii) uma tradução integral do Eutífron de Platão. O Eutífron é um diálogo de definição. Nesta obra, Sócrates quer saber o que é o piedoso. Enquanto pergunta, examina e refuta as respostas de seu interlocutor, o filósofo também fornece um conjunto de instruções sobre como entender e responder a sua pergunta. Essas instruções podem ser entendidas como exigências ou requerimentos socráticos. O nosso estudo tentará identificar, prioritariamente, (i) o conjunto de exigências que acompanham a pergunta o que é o piedoso? e (ii) algum procedimento socrático específico que visa definir o piedoso. Quanto à tradução, utilizaremos a edição recente de E. A. Duke, W. F. Hicken, W. S. M. Nicoll, D. B. Robinson e J. C. G. Strachan (Oxford Classical Texts, 1995), que substitui a edição canônica de John Burnet na mesma coleção (Oxford Classical Texts, 1903). / This dissertation has two main objectives: (i) present an introductory study and (ii) an integral translation of Platos Eutífron. The Eutífron is a dialogue of definition. In this work, Socrates wants to know what the pious is. While asks, examines and refutes the answers of his interlocutor, the philosopher also provides a set of instructions about how to understand and to answer his question. These instructions may be understood as socratic exigencies or requirements. Our study aims to try to identify, prioritarily, (i) the set of exigencies that follows the question what is the pious? and (ii) any specific socratic procedure that intends to define the pious. Concerning the translation, we will use the recent edition of E. A. Duke, W. F. Hicken, W. S. M. Nicoll, D. B. Robinson e J. C. G. Strachan (Oxford Classical Texts, 1995), that replaces the canonic edition of John Burnet of the same collection (Oxford Classical Texts, 1903).

Esta dissertação tem dois objetivos principais: (i) apresentar um estudo introdutório e (ii) uma tradução integral do Eutífron de Platão. O Eutífron é um diálogo de definição. Nesta obra, Sócrates quer saber o que é o piedoso. Enquanto pergunta, examina e refuta as respostas de seu interlocutor, o filósofo também fornece um conjunto de instruções sobre como entender e responder a sua pergunta. Essas instruções podem ser entendidas como exigências ou requerimentos socráticos. O nosso estudo tentará identificar, prioritariamente, (i) o conjunto de exigências que acompanham a pergunta o que é o piedoso? e (ii) algum procedimento socrático específico que visa definir o piedoso. Quanto à tradução, utilizaremos a edição recente de E. A. Duke, W. F. Hicken, W. S. M. Nicoll, D. B. Robinson e J. C. G. Strachan (Oxford Classical Texts, 1995), que substitui a edição canônica de John Burnet na mesma coleção (Oxford Classical Texts, 1903). / This dissertation has two main objectives: (i) present an introductory study and (ii) an integral translation of Platos Eutífron. The Eutífron is a dialogue of definition. In this work, Socrates wants to know what the pious is. While asks, examines and refutes the answers of his interlocutor, the philosopher also provides a set of instructions about how to understand and to answer his question. These instructions may be understood as socratic exigencies or requirements. Our study aims to try to identify, prioritarily, (i) the set of exigencies that follows the question what is the pious? and (ii) any specific socratic procedure that intends to define the pious. Concerning the translation, we will use the recent edition of E. A. Duke, W. F. Hicken, W. S. M. Nicoll, D. B. Robinson e J. C. G. Strachan (Oxford Classical Texts, 1995), that replaces the canonic edition of John Burnet of the same collection (Oxford Classical Texts, 1903).

This thesis provides an answer to the question, “what is a musical work?” I begin by canvasing four of the leading accounts in the literature, two Platonist theories and two Nominalist theories. Nominalism is, I suggest, well motivated, though neither of the two accounts given is satisfying. Next, I provide a detailed account of the main view in the literature, Julian Dodd’s type theory of musical works. According to Dodd, musical works are types and therefore are abstract entities. In Chapter 3 I criticize Dodd’s view by arguing that positing abstract type-entities provides no explanatory power so they should be rejected. Finally in Chapter 4 I show that a satisfying Nominalist account that does not identify any entity with musical works can be given. Thus, Dodd is correct to say that musical works are types but incorrect to suggest that this thereby commits us to an ontology including types.

This study engages a network of music, myth, and metaphysics within late-ancient and twelfth-century music theory and cosmology. It traces the development, expansion, and demise of a (natural-)philosophical harmonic speculation that stems largely from an a priori commitment to a harmonic cosmology with its deepest roots in Plato’s Timaeus. It argues that music theory not only allowed twelfth-century thinkers to conceptualize the fabric of the universe, but it also provided a hermeneutic tool for interpreting the ancient and late-ancient texts that offered detailed theories of the world’s construction. The twin goals of this study are thus philosophical and musicological: firstly and philosophically, to analyze and re-assert the importance of musical speculation in the writings of the self-styled physici, who probed the physical world and its metaphysical foundations during the ‘Twelfth-Century Renaissance’; secondly and musicologically, to document the sources and scope of this musical speculation and to situate it within the larger tradition of ‘speculative music theory.’ The first part of the thesis (chapters one and two) disentangles the knotty question of sources for and connections between the late-ancient texts (by Calcidius, Macrobius, and Boethius) that form the background of twelfth-century thought, and it sketches the proper domain of musical thought by tracing the expansion of music’s role in quadrivial and natural-philosophical contexts from late-ancient encyclopedism though various twelfth-century divisiones scientiae. The second part of the thesis (chapters three through five) assembles and analyzes the direct evidence for twelfth-century harmonic theory. These chapters, heuristically organized around the Boethian tripartition of music, present an anagogic ascent per aspera ad astra. Chapter three (musica instrumentalis) highlights the occasional and perhaps surprising employ of practical, technical music theory in cosmological contexts, and focuses on the epistemological foundations of hearing and the ontological status granted to the sonorous ‘objects’ of hearing. Chapter four (musica humana) targets the anthropological, psychological, and ethical implications of musical relations in and between body and soul. Finally, chapter five (musica mundana) outlines the cosmological framework, the anima mundi in particular, that underpins the concordant machinations of the machina mundi in all its manifestations.

This study engages a network of music, myth, and metaphysics within late-ancient and twelfth-century music theory and cosmology. It traces the development, expansion, and demise of a (natural-)philosophical harmonic speculation that stems largely from an a priori commitment to a harmonic cosmology with its deepest roots in Plato’s Timaeus. It argues that music theory not only allowed twelfth-century thinkers to conceptualize the fabric of the universe, but it also provided a hermeneutic tool for interpreting the ancient and late-ancient texts that offered detailed theories of the world’s construction. The twin goals of this study are thus philosophical and musicological: firstly and philosophically, to analyze and re-assert the importance of musical speculation in the writings of the self-styled physici, who probed the physical world and its metaphysical foundations during the ‘Twelfth-Century Renaissance’; secondly and musicologically, to document the sources and scope of this musical speculation and to situate it within the larger tradition of ‘speculative music theory.’ The first part of the thesis (chapters one and two) disentangles the knotty question of sources for and connections between the late-ancient texts (by Calcidius, Macrobius, and Boethius) that form the background of twelfth-century thought, and it sketches the proper domain of musical thought by tracing the expansion of music’s role in quadrivial and natural-philosophical contexts from late-ancient encyclopedism though various twelfth-century divisiones scientiae. The second part of the thesis (chapters three through five) assembles and analyzes the direct evidence for twelfth-century harmonic theory. These chapters, heuristically organized around the Boethian tripartition of music, present an anagogic ascent per aspera ad astra. Chapter three (musica instrumentalis) highlights the occasional and perhaps surprising employ of practical, technical music theory in cosmological contexts, and focuses on the epistemological foundations of hearing and the ontological status granted to the sonorous ‘objects’ of hearing. Chapter four (musica humana) targets the anthropological, psychological, and ethical implications of musical relations in and between body and soul. Finally, chapter five (musica mundana) outlines the cosmological framework, the anima mundi in particular, that underpins the concordant machinations of the machina mundi in all its manifestations.

Peut-on dire Dieu ? Dieu lui-même parle-t-il et se dit-il ? Les deuxquestions semblent intimement liées : si le langage est tenu pour une réalité étrangèreà la nature divine, il est en effet susceptible d’être jugé inapte à son expression. Cettethèse est consacrée à l’exploration d’une question qui a rencontré un intérêt sansprécédent dans le platonisme des débuts de l’époque impériale : celle de l’articulationentre le discours (λόγος) et le divin (θεός). Le signe le plus évident de cet intérêtnouveau pour la question du rapport entre discursivité et divinité est l’essor queconnaît alors le motif du « dieu ineffable » (θεὸς ἄρρητος). Les trois auteurs surlesquels porte cette étude – Philon, Plutarque et l’auteur présenté dans l’Élenchos(VII, 14-27, X, 14) comme « Basilide » – se caractérisent par une commune adhésionà l’idée que Dieu échappe à l’appréhension verbale, mais cette idée est loin des’exprimer chez eux de façon uniforme : si Plutarque semble réticent à déclarer Dieu« ineffable », Philon, lui, le reconnaît tel avec insistance, tandis que « Basilide »,considérant que le dire « ineffable » revient encore à en dire quelque chose,surenchérit en le déclarant « pas même ineffable ». Pour comprendre ces divergences,il s’agira d’examiner les données ontologiques, gnoséologiques et linguistiques quiexpliquent les positions respectives de ces auteurs sur la question de l’expression dudivin. Cette enquête débutera par un chapitre préliminaire où l’on situera dans soncontexte – celui du médioplatonisme – le débat sur le divorce entre λόγος et θεός etoù l’on en recherchera les prémisses chez Platon, Aristote et dans la spéculationpythagorisante. / Can one make statements about God ? Does God speak and does hemake statements about himself ? These two questions are intimately related: iflanguage is taken to be a reality extraneous to God’s nature, it might be consideredunsuitable for expression of his nature. This dissertation explores the question of thearticulation between discourse (λόγος) and the divine (θεός) that became a prominentlocus of debate in early imperial Platonism. The clearest sign of this new-foundinterest in the relationship between discursivity and divinity is the growth in the motifof “ineffable God” (θεὸς ἄρρητος). The study looks at three authors – Philo,Plutarch, and the author presented in the Elenchos (VII, 14-27, X, 14) as “Basilides” –linked by a common adherence to the idea that God escapes verbal apprehension.Their respective way of expressing this idea is by no means uniform, however : ifPlutarch seems reticent to declare God “ineffable”, Philo declares this moreemphatically; “Basilides”, meanwhile, reckoning that declaring God “ineffable” isstill saying something about him, goes even further by declaring him “not evenineffable”. In order to understand these differences we must examine the ontological,gnoseological, and linguistic facts that explain the respective positions of theseauthors on the expression of the divine. This inquiry starts with a preliminary chapterwhich situates the debate about the gulf between discourse and God in its context –Middle Platonism – and seeks its premises in the thinking of Plato, Aristotle andPythagoreanizing speculation.