Emanuele Tesauro’s Il cannocchiale aristotelico (The Spyglass of Aristotle) is widely considered a masterpiece of the Baroque, mainly because of his theory of metaphor as a cognitive tool. But this ...work is much more than that. Tesauro presents his volume as the ultimate interpretation of Aristotle’s rhetorical art, which is clearly not the case. Indeed, his work is a polycentric discourse on a revolutionary theory of rhetoric that goes beyond any previous treatise written on the subject, including Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Despite his relevance in the history of rhetorical theories, Tesauro’s work is still waiting for a comprehensive study of its own as well as investigations of some of its specific aspects. Furthermore, the majority of the existing studies of Tesauro are in Italian (with only very few in English), which makes it difficult for this text to reach an international public. This essay explores what seems to be a specific aspect that has so far been almost completely neglected: the role played by the ancient sophists in the Cannocchiale aristotelico and in the history of rhetoric that Tesauro redesigns. Tesauro proclaims his fidelity to Aristotle but actually contradicts Aristotle’s anti-sophistic approach. During this analysis, we will discover even more about Tesauro’s pro-sophistic attitude: he grounds the climax of Latin rhetorical tradition in Greek sophistry. This positive assessment of the ancient sophists, especially Thrasymachus and Gorgias of Leontini, coexists with a critique of Socrates. Except for Sperone Speroni, no other early modern Italian author—or European author—has proposed this radical inversion of the canon established by Plato. This reversal makes Tesauro a relevant case study in the on-going exploration of the legacy of ancient sophists in Western literature.
It is generally assumed that whatever else has changed about the human condition since the dawn of civilization, basic human emotions - love, fear, anger, envy, shame - have remained constant. David ...Konstan, however, argues that the emotions of the ancient Greeks were in some significant respects different from our own, and that recognizing these differences is important to understanding ancient Greek literature and culture.
WithThe Emotions of the Ancient Greeks, Konstan reexamines the traditional assumption that the Greek terms designating the emotions correspond more or less to those of today. Beneath the similarities, there are striking discrepancies. References to Greek 'anger' or 'love' or 'envy,' for example, commonly neglect the fact that the Greeks themselves did not use these terms, but rather words in their own language, such asorgêandphiliaandphthonos, which do not translate neatly into our modern emotional vocabulary. Konstan argues that classical representations and analyses of the emotions correspond to a world of intense competition for status, and focused on the attitudes, motives, and actions of others rather than on chance or natural events as the elicitors of emotion. Konstan makes use of Greek emotional concepts to interpret various works of classical literature, including epic, drama, history, and oratory. Moreover, he illustrates how the Greeks' conception of emotions has something to tell us about our own views, whether about the nature of particular emotions or of the category of emotion itself.
Our article deals with Aristotle's account of the sphere of temperance (phrase omitted) in the Nicomachean Ethics. The goal is to provide a detailed analysis of NE III.10 in order to identify the ...difficulties this chapter presents us with and to introduce and discuss the interpretations set forth by the secondary literature. Of special interest to us are Aristotle's intense dialogue with Plato; the difficulty in understanding touch as the most common of the senses and Aristotle's severe judgment of the pleasures of the sphere of temperance. In short, Aristotle seems to set out from platonic thesis and notions only to distance himself from them by introducing his own, associating temperance with the most common of the senses, namely, the sense of touch. This association is not based, as it could seem prima facie, on a merely empirical observation but on the assumption that touch is the most fundamental and necessary sense for humans and animals alike. Temperance, therefore, as the excellence in the relation with the most fundamental and necessary of the senses, seems to be a pre-condition for rational action. From this Aristotle derives the etymology of the term, as the one who preserves practical reason (phrase omitted). This hypothesis would explain why Aristotle seems to engage in apotreptic language to characterize the lack of temperance, that is, the vice of intemperance (phrase omitted)--something we do not find the in the account of any other virtue and vice. Keywords: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, temperance. O presente artigo lida com a caracterizacao do objeto da temperanca (phrase omitted) na Etica Nicomaqueia. O objetivo e oferecer uma analise minuciosa de EN III.10 com o proposito de identificar as dificuldades do texto, introduzindo e discutindo as interpretacoes propostas pela literatura secundaria. Em especial, apontamos para o dialogo de Aristoteles com Platao; para a dificuldade em entender o tato como o mais comum dos sentidos e severo juizo mantido por Aristoteles com relacao aos prazeres da esfera temperanca. Em sintese, Aristoteles parece partir de nocoes e teses platonicas, mas afasta-se delas na medida em que identifica a temperanca com o mais comum dos sentidos; qual seja, o tato. Tal identificacao, contudo, nao esta atrelada, como poderia parecer, a uma mera observacao empirica (do tato como o sentido mais comum), mas a uma consideracao da funcao desse sentido, como aquele mais fundamental e necessario para humanos e animais. A temperanca, entao, enquanto forma de excelencia da relacao com o mais fundamental e necessario dos sentidos parece operar como uma pre-condicao para as acoes orientadas por principios racionais; motivo pelo qual Aristoteles afirma que ela preserva a sabedoria pratica (phrase omitted). Tal hipotese explicaria porque o filosofo parece empregar uma linguagem apotreptica para caracteriza a sua privacao, isto e, o vicio da intemperanca (phrase omitted); um procedimento que nao pode ser identificado na discussao de nenhum das demais virtudes e vicios do tratado. Palavras-Chave: Aristoteles, Etica Nicomaqueia, temperanca.
Rabinoff strives to account for ethical perception (aisthesis) in Aristotle’s ethics—to give it a place of importance in ethical choice and action—and to offer an account of the faculty of perception ...expansive enough to include reception of the ethical significance of particulars. The book is motivated by particular features of Aristotle’s thought and by increasing philosophical awareness that the ethical agent is an embodied, situated individual, rather than a disembodied, abstract rational will. Traditionally, the soul has been understood to have a non-rational part characterized by desire and perception and a rational part characterized by thinking, knowledge, and argument. Depending on how the relationship between the sides is conceived, the non-rational is either a bane to be controlled by the rational, or plays an irreducible role in moral action. By establishing and accounting for perception’s place in ethics, Rabinoff shows the importance for ethical life of integrating both.
Pfeifer (2012) es consciente de que una posible objeción que se puede presentar contra su experimento primero es que las personas que interpretan los condicionales materialmente entienden que negar ...el condicional es, simplemente, negar su consecuente, reduciéndose, bajo una interpretación material, TAI a no-A => no-A y TA2 a A => A. TAI y TA2 serían, de este modo, enunciados tautológicos que pueden ser demostrados como teoremas en el cálculo de proposiciones (serían siempre verdaderos, independientemente del valor de A) y, por tanto, desde este punto de vista, responder que las sentencias en los recuadros son verdaderas sería compatible también con una interpretación material del condicional. De esta manera, el enunciado se transforma en bicondicional y su estructura pasa de ser A => B & convertirse en A <=> B. Como es bien sabido, A <=> Bes equivalente a (A => B) & (B => A), lo que significa que, cuando la perfección del condicional se produce, el primer término deja de ser solo antecedente, transformándose también en consecuente, y el segundo término deja de ser solo consecuente, transformándose también en antecedente. Biazzo, V.; Gilio, A. "A generalization of the fundamental theorem of De Finetti for imprecise conditional probability assessments". Harmondsworth (Middlesex) : Penguin, 1966:135-151. _____ "Reasoning about a rule", in Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 20.
In the first full-length study in any modern language dedicated to the Meteorologica, Malcolm Wilson presents a groundbreaking interpretation of Aristotle's natural philosophy. Divided into two ...parts, the book first addresses general philosophical and scientific issues by placing the treatise in a diachronic frame comprising Aristotle's predecessors and in a synchronic frame comprising his other physical works. It argues that Aristotle thought of meteorological phenomena as intermediary or 'dualizing' between the cosmos as a whole and the manifold world of terrestrial animals. Engaging with the best current literature on Aristotle's theories of science and metaphysics, Wilson focuses on issues of aetiology, teleology and the structure and unity of science. The second half of the book illustrates Aristotle's principal concerns in a section-by-section treatment of the meteorological phenomena and provides solutions to many of the problems that have been raised since the time of the ancient commentators.
Aristotle's Ethics develops a complex theory of the qualities which make for a good human being and for several decades there has been intense discussion about whether Aristotle's theory of ...voluntariness, outlined in the Ethics, actually delineates what modern thinkers would recognize as a theory of moral responsibility. Javier Echeñique presents a novel account of Aristotle's discussion of voluntariness in the Ethics, arguing - against the interpretation by Arthur Adkins and that inspired by Peter Strawson - that he developed an original and compelling theory of moral responsibility and that this theory has contributed in important ways to our understanding of coercion, ignorance and violence. His study will be valuable for a wide range of readers interested in Aristotle and in ancient ethics more broadly.
This is an engaging and accessible introduction to the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle's great masterpiece of moral philosophy. Michael Pakaluk offers a thorough and lucid examination of the entire ...work, uncovering Aristotle's motivations and basic views while paying careful attention to his arguments. The chapter on friendship captures Aristotle's doctrine with clarity and insight, and Pakaluk gives original and compelling interpretations of the Function Argument, the Doctrine of the Mean, courage and other character virtues, Akrasia, and the two treatments of pleasure. There is also a useful section on how to read an Aristotelian text. This book will be invaluable for all student readers encountering one of the most important and influential works of Western philosophy.
Aristotle's account of female nature has received mostly negative treatment, emphasising what he says females cannot do. Building on recent research, this book comprehensively revises such readings, ...setting out the complex and positive role played by the female in Aristotle's thought with a particular focus on the longest surviving treatise on reproduction in the ancient corpus, the Generation of Animals. It provides new interpretations of the nature of Aristotle's sexism, his theory of male and female interaction in generation, and his account of inherited features. It also discusses a range of more general issues which can and should be re-examined in light of Aristotle's account of female animals: his methodology, hylomorphism, teleology and psychology. Aristotle on Female Animals will be valuable to all those interested in Aristotle's philosophy and the history of gender.
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