Abstract Plato’s views on astronomy are still somehow debated, however various scholars have associated his name with the project of “saving the appearances”, which is thought to have aimed at offering a precise geometrical account of celestial motions. A passage from Theon of Smyrna’s treatise on Platonic mathematics relates this project with the construction of mechanical models of the cosmos. New information deriving from the study of the so-called Antikythera mechanism, found nearly 100 years ago in an ancient shipwreck in the Aegean, seems to provide important technical evidence illustrating the evolution of this endeavour during the Hellenistic period.
柏拉图对天文学的看法至今仍有争议，但许多学者将他的名字与“拯救现象”的计划联系在一起，该计划被认为旨在提供天体运动的精确几何描述。士麦拿的席恩(Theon of Smyrna)关于柏拉图数学的论文中的一段话，将这个项目与宇宙力学模型的构建联系起来。近100年前，在爱琴海的一艘古沉船上发现了所谓的安提基西拉机械装置，研究得出的新信息似乎提供了重要的技术证据，说明了这种努力在希腊化时期的演变。
{"title":"Platonic Astronomy and the Development of Ancient Sphairopoiia","authors":"Paul Kalligas","doi":"10.1515/rhiz-2016-0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/rhiz-2016-0010","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Plato’s views on astronomy are still somehow debated, however various scholars have associated his name with the project of “saving the appearances”, which is thought to have aimed at offering a precise geometrical account of celestial motions. A passage from Theon of Smyrna’s treatise on Platonic mathematics relates this project with the construction of mechanical models of the cosmos. New information deriving from the study of the so-called Antikythera mechanism, found nearly 100 years ago in an ancient shipwreck in the Aegean, seems to provide important technical evidence illustrating the evolution of this endeavour during the Hellenistic period.","PeriodicalId":40571,"journal":{"name":"Rhizomata-A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science","volume":"62 1","pages":"176 - 200"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81072385","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This essay argues that Empedocles envisaged the elemental “roots” fire, water, earth, and air as having their own life cycles and undergoing their own transformations like virtually everything else in his system except Love and Strife. Empedocles conceives of the elements’ destruction and generation in terms of their losing and recovering their distinctive qualitative identities as they intermingle through Love’s agency and grow apart through Strife’s. This result makes it possible to understand the crucial verses Physika I.234–36 as Empedocles’ general description of the dual processes involved in the generation and destruction of all specimen compounds.
{"title":"Elemental Change in Empedocles","authors":"J. Palmer","doi":"10.1515/rhiz-2016-0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/rhiz-2016-0003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This essay argues that Empedocles envisaged the elemental “roots” fire, water, earth, and air as having their own life cycles and undergoing their own transformations like virtually everything else in his system except Love and Strife. Empedocles conceives of the elements’ destruction and generation in terms of their losing and recovering their distinctive qualitative identities as they intermingle through Love’s agency and grow apart through Strife’s. This result makes it possible to understand the crucial verses Physika I.234–36 as Empedocles’ general description of the dual processes involved in the generation and destruction of all specimen compounds.","PeriodicalId":40571,"journal":{"name":"Rhizomata-A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science","volume":"9 1","pages":"30 - 54"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73984531","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This splendid book has been worth the wait. The papers collected here (four on Pythagoras and eight on Heraclitus) were presented in 2005 at “a bicontinental conference” (as the editors call it) on Samos and in Kuşadaı, organized by Apostolos Pierris of the Institute for Philosophical Research.1 This rich mixture of essays by established international scholars nicely complements the collection from the 2012 Symposium Praesocraticum on Heraclitus published in this journal’s volume 3 issue 1 in 2015, and other recent books on Heraclitus or Pythagoras.2 In the opening essay, “Philosophy’s Numerical Turn: Why the Pythagoreans’ Interest in Numbers is Truly Awesome”, Catherine Rowett fearlessly takes on the problems of just what it was about numbers that interested early Pythagoreans (including the elusive Pythagoras himself) and why. Rowett argues that the pre-Platonic Pythagoreans, in exploring harmony theory and its ratios (which she sees also in pre-Philolaus Pythagoreanism), deserve as much philosophical credit for commitments to reason and to order as Anaximander (who posits a mysterious apeiron) and Heraclitus (who argues that everything happens in accordance with the logos, the fundamental principle(s) of order and rationality).3 That none of these theories turn out to be correct is irrelevant, for all share the fundamental Presocratic philosophical commitment to order and explanation, and to the beauty of the cosmos. What Rowett finds particularly important and worth admiration and celebration in the “Pythagorean turn” as it develops through early Pythagoreanism, Philolaus and Archytas, is its reliance on mathematical knowledge as a prerequisite to any other knowledge and its emerging view of number as incorporeal. Rowett argues that Pythagoreanism begins with a commitment to “the explanatory power of beauty, structure, form, and indeed teleology, in the universe”; thinking of it this way shows how the “idea of appealing
{"title":"David Sider and Dirk Obbink (eds.), Doctrine and Doxography: Studies on Heraclitus and Pythagoras","authors":"P. Curd","doi":"10.1515/rhiz-2016-0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/rhiz-2016-0015","url":null,"abstract":"This splendid book has been worth the wait. The papers collected here (four on Pythagoras and eight on Heraclitus) were presented in 2005 at “a bicontinental conference” (as the editors call it) on Samos and in Kuşadaı, organized by Apostolos Pierris of the Institute for Philosophical Research.1 This rich mixture of essays by established international scholars nicely complements the collection from the 2012 Symposium Praesocraticum on Heraclitus published in this journal’s volume 3 issue 1 in 2015, and other recent books on Heraclitus or Pythagoras.2 In the opening essay, “Philosophy’s Numerical Turn: Why the Pythagoreans’ Interest in Numbers is Truly Awesome”, Catherine Rowett fearlessly takes on the problems of just what it was about numbers that interested early Pythagoreans (including the elusive Pythagoras himself) and why. Rowett argues that the pre-Platonic Pythagoreans, in exploring harmony theory and its ratios (which she sees also in pre-Philolaus Pythagoreanism), deserve as much philosophical credit for commitments to reason and to order as Anaximander (who posits a mysterious apeiron) and Heraclitus (who argues that everything happens in accordance with the logos, the fundamental principle(s) of order and rationality).3 That none of these theories turn out to be correct is irrelevant, for all share the fundamental Presocratic philosophical commitment to order and explanation, and to the beauty of the cosmos. What Rowett finds particularly important and worth admiration and celebration in the “Pythagorean turn” as it develops through early Pythagoreanism, Philolaus and Archytas, is its reliance on mathematical knowledge as a prerequisite to any other knowledge and its emerging view of number as incorporeal. Rowett argues that Pythagoreanism begins with a commitment to “the explanatory power of beauty, structure, form, and indeed teleology, in the universe”; thinking of it this way shows how the “idea of appealing","PeriodicalId":40571,"journal":{"name":"Rhizomata-A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science","volume":"104 1","pages":"1 - 276 - 287 - 349"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74997763","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The paper discusses Aristotle’s conception of motion and proposes a new perspective for a reading. Of course, motion can be located between two states of a movable, between potentiality and actuality, but it can also be located between (the state of) a movable and (that of) its mover. It is also argued that this relational perspective is the correct way to understand Aristotle’s definition of motion. When Aristotle defines motion as “the actuality of what potentially is, qua such” he does not simply mean that motion is “the actuality of the movable”: by being the actuality of the movable “qua movable”, motion is also the actuality of the mover. Indeed, in its proper meaning, ‘movable’ does not refer to a per se entity. Instead it is a relative term, always standing for “movable by the mover”; the qua-clause is intended to stress this relational aspect.
{"title":"The Actuality of the Movable (by the Mover): a Relational Interpretation of Aristotle’s Definition of Motion","authors":"Monica Ugaglia","doi":"10.1515/rhiz-2016-0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/rhiz-2016-0012","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The paper discusses Aristotle’s conception of motion and proposes a new perspective for a reading. Of course, motion can be located between two states of a movable, between potentiality and actuality, but it can also be located between (the state of) a movable and (that of) its mover. It is also argued that this relational perspective is the correct way to understand Aristotle’s definition of motion. When Aristotle defines motion as “the actuality of what potentially is, qua such” he does not simply mean that motion is “the actuality of the movable”: by being the actuality of the movable “qua movable”, motion is also the actuality of the mover. Indeed, in its proper meaning, ‘movable’ does not refer to a per se entity. Instead it is a relative term, always standing for “movable by the mover”; the qua-clause is intended to stress this relational aspect.","PeriodicalId":40571,"journal":{"name":"Rhizomata-A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science","volume":"14 1","pages":"225 - 256"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81499281","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Gabriele Cornelli, Richard McKirahan, and Constantinos Macris (eds.), On Pythagoreanism","authors":"P. Horky","doi":"10.1515/rhiz-2016-0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/rhiz-2016-0014","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40571,"journal":{"name":"Rhizomata-A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science","volume":"10 1","pages":"1 - 269 - 275 - 532"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78556125","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Empedocles posits six fundamental principles of the world: Love, Strife and the four elements (rhizōmata). On the cosmic level, he describes the interaction of the principles as an eternal recurrence of the same, i.e. as a cosmic cycle. The cycle is subject to a time-table the evidence for which was discovered by Marwan Rashed and has been edited by him in 2001 and 2014. The purpose of the present paper is to show that this timetable is based on the numerical ratios of the Pythagorean tetractys.
{"title":"Empedocles’ Cosmic Cycle and the Pythagorean Tetractys","authors":"Oliver Primavesi","doi":"10.1515/rhiz-2016-0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/rhiz-2016-0002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Empedocles posits six fundamental principles of the world: Love, Strife and the four elements (rhizōmata). On the cosmic level, he describes the interaction of the principles as an eternal recurrence of the same, i.e. as a cosmic cycle. The cycle is subject to a time-table the evidence for which was discovered by Marwan Rashed and has been edited by him in 2001 and 2014. The purpose of the present paper is to show that this timetable is based on the numerical ratios of the Pythagorean tetractys.","PeriodicalId":40571,"journal":{"name":"Rhizomata-A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science","volume":"41 1","pages":"29 - 5"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76374252","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In Empedocles’ zoogony, an original set of single-specialism organisms – solitary hands, eyes, etc. – combined into complex organisms, of which the fittest survived. A less recognized anticipation of (one strand of) the Darwinian tradition relates to the superorganism theory: what is naturally selected for is not the individual and/or its kin, but, as most manifestly in insect colonies, the cooperative group. Empedocles’ Love likewise works by promoting co-operation, whose emergence in complex organisms reflects her growing power, and the periodic world-organism, Sphairos, her ultimate triumph. This latter divinity is not a homogeneous blend of the elements, but a single self-sufficient superorganism.
{"title":"Empedoclean Superorganisms","authors":"D. Sedley","doi":"10.1515/rhiz-2016-0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/rhiz-2016-0006","url":null,"abstract":"In Empedocles’ zoogony, an original set of single-specialism organisms – solitary hands, eyes, etc. – combined into complex organisms, of which the fittest survived. A less recognized anticipation of (one strand of) the Darwinian tradition relates to the superorganism theory: what is naturally selected for is not the individual and/or its kin, but, as most manifestly in insect colonies, the cooperative group. Empedocles’ Love likewise works by promoting co-operation, whose emergence in complex organisms reflects her growing power, and the periodic world-organism, Sphairos, her ultimate triumph. This latter divinity is not a homogeneous blend of the elements, but a single self-sufficient superorganism.","PeriodicalId":40571,"journal":{"name":"Rhizomata-A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science","volume":"39 1","pages":"111 - 125"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77823412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The significance of imitation for moral development during childhood, in Aristotle’s ethics, has been recognized and studied. However, what role does imitation play in the morally mature agent’s character development? In this paper, I argue that moral development is possible for the advanced moral agent, when she imitates her character-friend. But the mature agent’s imitation is of a thoroughly different type than the imitation of the young moral agent; the mature imitation mechanism is selective and interpretative. The agent selects from the goodness in her friend, depending on the agent’s own sensitivities, and adopts this goodness as a pattern that allows for personalized implementations, depending on her own dispositions and skills. In this way, the morally mature agent develops her moral character by enriching her epistemic tools and experience within the spectrum of the good.
{"title":"Mimesis, Friendship, and Moral Development in Aristotle’s Ethics","authors":"Andreas Vakirtzis","doi":"10.1515/rhiz-2015-0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/rhiz-2015-0007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The significance of imitation for moral development during childhood, in Aristotle’s ethics, has been recognized and studied. However, what role does imitation play in the morally mature agent’s character development? In this paper, I argue that moral development is possible for the advanced moral agent, when she imitates her character-friend. But the mature agent’s imitation is of a thoroughly different type than the imitation of the young moral agent; the mature imitation mechanism is selective and interpretative. The agent selects from the goodness in her friend, depending on the agent’s own sensitivities, and adopts this goodness as a pattern that allows for personalized implementations, depending on her own dispositions and skills. In this way, the morally mature agent develops her moral character by enriching her epistemic tools and experience within the spectrum of the good.","PeriodicalId":40571,"journal":{"name":"Rhizomata-A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science","volume":"28 1","pages":"125 - 142"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82840868","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract There is discussion among critics about the authenticity of Pseudo-Aristotle’s account on Melissus in the De Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia, and especially about the refutation of mixture that he attributes to the latter. For there is no clue in the other testimonies and in the fragments that the Eleatic made such a refutation. In this article, I aim to show that the argument as it is presented is not genuinely Melissean, but inspired by some of Aristotle’s considerations on colour-mixture in the De sensu. I then claim that taking this source into account solves many of the difficulties inherent to this demonstration against mixture, and reveals something on Pseudo-Aristotle’s doxographical approach.
{"title":"Melissus’s So-called Refutation of Mixture","authors":"Mathilde Brémond","doi":"10.1515/rhiz-2015-0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/rhiz-2015-0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract There is discussion among critics about the authenticity of Pseudo-Aristotle’s account on Melissus in the De Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia, and especially about the refutation of mixture that he attributes to the latter. For there is no clue in the other testimonies and in the fragments that the Eleatic made such a refutation. In this article, I aim to show that the argument as it is presented is not genuinely Melissean, but inspired by some of Aristotle’s considerations on colour-mixture in the De sensu. I then claim that taking this source into account solves many of the difficulties inherent to this demonstration against mixture, and reveals something on Pseudo-Aristotle’s doxographical approach.","PeriodicalId":40571,"journal":{"name":"Rhizomata-A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science","volume":"9 1","pages":"143 - 158"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85655901","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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