Author: Michael Vernon Wedin
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198715471
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 287
Book Description
Michael V. Wedin presents a new interpretation of Parmenides' Way of Truth: the most important philosophical treatise before the work of Plato and Aristotle. The Way of Truth contains the first extended philosophical argument in the western tradition - an argument which decrees that there can be no motion, change, growth, coming to be, or destruction; and indeed that there can be only one thing. These severe metaphysical theses are established by a series of deductions and these deductions in turn rest on an even more fundamental claim, namely, the claim that it is impossible that there be something that is not. This claim is itself established by a deduction that Wedin calls the Governing Deduction. Wedin offers a rigorous reconstruction of the Governing Deduction and shows how it is used in the arguments that establish Parmenides' severe metaphysical theses (what Wedin calls the Corollaries of the Governing Deduction). He also provides successful answers to most commentators who find Parmenides' arguments to be shot through with logical fallacies. Finally, Wedin turns to what is currently the fashionable reading of Parmenides, according to which he falls squarely in the tradition of the Ionian natural philosophers. He argues that the arguments for the Ionian Interpretation fail badly. Thus, we must simply determine where Parmenides' argument runs, and here there is no substitute for rigorous logical reconstruction. On this count, as our reconstructions make clear, the argument of the Way of Truth leads to a Parmenides who is indeed a severe arbiter of philosophical discourse and who brings to a precipitous halt the entire enterprise of natural explanation in the Ionian tradition.
Parmenides' Grand Deduction
Author: Michael Vernon Wedin
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198715471
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 287
Book Description
Michael V. Wedin presents a new interpretation of Parmenides' Way of Truth: the most important philosophical treatise before the work of Plato and Aristotle. The Way of Truth contains the first extended philosophical argument in the western tradition - an argument which decrees that there can be no motion, change, growth, coming to be, or destruction; and indeed that there can be only one thing. These severe metaphysical theses are established by a series of deductions and these deductions in turn rest on an even more fundamental claim, namely, the claim that it is impossible that there be something that is not. This claim is itself established by a deduction that Wedin calls the Governing Deduction. Wedin offers a rigorous reconstruction of the Governing Deduction and shows how it is used in the arguments that establish Parmenides' severe metaphysical theses (what Wedin calls the Corollaries of the Governing Deduction). He also provides successful answers to most commentators who find Parmenides' arguments to be shot through with logical fallacies. Finally, Wedin turns to what is currently the fashionable reading of Parmenides, according to which he falls squarely in the tradition of the Ionian natural philosophers. He argues that the arguments for the Ionian Interpretation fail badly. Thus, we must simply determine where Parmenides' argument runs, and here there is no substitute for rigorous logical reconstruction. On this count, as our reconstructions make clear, the argument of the Way of Truth leads to a Parmenides who is indeed a severe arbiter of philosophical discourse and who brings to a precipitous halt the entire enterprise of natural explanation in the Ionian tradition.
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198715471
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 287
Book Description
Michael V. Wedin presents a new interpretation of Parmenides' Way of Truth: the most important philosophical treatise before the work of Plato and Aristotle. The Way of Truth contains the first extended philosophical argument in the western tradition - an argument which decrees that there can be no motion, change, growth, coming to be, or destruction; and indeed that there can be only one thing. These severe metaphysical theses are established by a series of deductions and these deductions in turn rest on an even more fundamental claim, namely, the claim that it is impossible that there be something that is not. This claim is itself established by a deduction that Wedin calls the Governing Deduction. Wedin offers a rigorous reconstruction of the Governing Deduction and shows how it is used in the arguments that establish Parmenides' severe metaphysical theses (what Wedin calls the Corollaries of the Governing Deduction). He also provides successful answers to most commentators who find Parmenides' arguments to be shot through with logical fallacies. Finally, Wedin turns to what is currently the fashionable reading of Parmenides, according to which he falls squarely in the tradition of the Ionian natural philosophers. He argues that the arguments for the Ionian Interpretation fail badly. Thus, we must simply determine where Parmenides' argument runs, and here there is no substitute for rigorous logical reconstruction. On this count, as our reconstructions make clear, the argument of the Way of Truth leads to a Parmenides who is indeed a severe arbiter of philosophical discourse and who brings to a precipitous halt the entire enterprise of natural explanation in the Ionian tradition.
Actology
Author: Malcolm Torry
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725266768
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 233
Book Description
Two streams run through the Western philosophical stream: one characterized by Being, beings, the unchanging, the static, and the unitary; and the other by Action, actions, the changing, the dynamic, and the diverse. The former might be represented by Parmenides, Plato, and much of what followed; the latter by Heraclitus, and by rather less of what followed. The book explores the "Action" stream as it wound its way through history, through Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, Maurice Blondel, Henri Bergson, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, process philosophy and theology, Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and John Boys Smith. The journey enables us to create the beginnings of an "actology": a way of seeing ourselves, the universe, and God in terms of actions in patterns rather than as beings that change. Such an actology offers a complete alternative narrative far more in tune with the diverse and rapidly changing world in which we live than the ontology that has shaped philosophy, theology, and much else for the past two thousand years.
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725266768
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 233
Book Description
Two streams run through the Western philosophical stream: one characterized by Being, beings, the unchanging, the static, and the unitary; and the other by Action, actions, the changing, the dynamic, and the diverse. The former might be represented by Parmenides, Plato, and much of what followed; the latter by Heraclitus, and by rather less of what followed. The book explores the "Action" stream as it wound its way through history, through Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, Maurice Blondel, Henri Bergson, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, process philosophy and theology, Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and John Boys Smith. The journey enables us to create the beginnings of an "actology": a way of seeing ourselves, the universe, and God in terms of actions in patterns rather than as beings that change. Such an actology offers a complete alternative narrative far more in tune with the diverse and rapidly changing world in which we live than the ontology that has shaped philosophy, theology, and much else for the past two thousand years.
The Parmenidean Ascent
Author: Michael Della Rocca
Publisher:
ISBN: 0197510949
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 347
Book Description
The Parmenidean Ascent is a full-throated and wide-ranging defense of an extreme form of monism or the denial of all distinctions, a form of monism rarely seen since the time of the pre-Socratic philosopher, Parmenides. At once historically sensitive and deeply engaged with trends in recent and contemporary metaphysics, philosophy of action, epistemology, and philosophy of language, The Parmenidean Ascent aims, on rationalist grounds and in a skeptical spirit, to challenge the content of-and to overturn the methods of much of contemporary philosophy.
Publisher:
ISBN: 0197510949
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 347
Book Description
The Parmenidean Ascent is a full-throated and wide-ranging defense of an extreme form of monism or the denial of all distinctions, a form of monism rarely seen since the time of the pre-Socratic philosopher, Parmenides. At once historically sensitive and deeply engaged with trends in recent and contemporary metaphysics, philosophy of action, epistemology, and philosophy of language, The Parmenidean Ascent aims, on rationalist grounds and in a skeptical spirit, to challenge the content of-and to overturn the methods of much of contemporary philosophy.
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Volume 60
Author: Victor Caston
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192864890
Category : Philosophy, Ancient
Languages : en
Pages : 295
Book Description
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy is a volume of original articles on all aspects of ancient philosophy. The articles may be of substantial length, and include critical notices of major books. OSAP is now published twice yearly, in both hardback and paperback.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192864890
Category : Philosophy, Ancient
Languages : en
Pages : 295
Book Description
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy is a volume of original articles on all aspects of ancient philosophy. The articles may be of substantial length, and include critical notices of major books. OSAP is now published twice yearly, in both hardback and paperback.
Homer, Parmenides, and the Road to Demonstration
Author: Benjamin Folit-Weinberg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316517810
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Book Description
Demonstrates how the invention of extended deductive argumentation by Parmenides depended on his use of poetic road imagery.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316517810
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Book Description
Demonstrates how the invention of extended deductive argumentation by Parmenides depended on his use of poetic road imagery.
Essays on Argumentation in Antiquity
Author: Joseph Andrew Bjelde
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030708179
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 277
Book Description
This book provides a collection of essays representing the state of the art in the research into argumentation in classical antiquity. It contains essays from leading and up and coming scholars on figures as diverse as Parmenides, Gorgias, Seneca, and Classical Chinese "wandering persuaders." The book includes contributions from specialists in the history of philosophy as well as specialists in contemporary argumentation theory, and stimulates the dialogue between scholars studying issues relating to argumentation theory in ancient philosophy and contemporary argumentation theorists. Furthermore, the book sets the direction for research into argumentation in antiquity by encouraging an engagement with a broader range of historical figures, and closer collaboration between contemporary concerns and the history of philosophy.
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030708179
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 277
Book Description
This book provides a collection of essays representing the state of the art in the research into argumentation in classical antiquity. It contains essays from leading and up and coming scholars on figures as diverse as Parmenides, Gorgias, Seneca, and Classical Chinese "wandering persuaders." The book includes contributions from specialists in the history of philosophy as well as specialists in contemporary argumentation theory, and stimulates the dialogue between scholars studying issues relating to argumentation theory in ancient philosophy and contemporary argumentation theorists. Furthermore, the book sets the direction for research into argumentation in antiquity by encouraging an engagement with a broader range of historical figures, and closer collaboration between contemporary concerns and the history of philosophy.
Philosophic Classics: Volume 1
Author: Forrest Baird
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315305577
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 1158
Book Description
This seventh edition of Philosophic Classics, Volume I: Ancient Philosophy includes essential writings of the most important Greek philosophers, along with selections from some of their Roman followers. In updating this edition, editor Forrest E. Baird has continued to follow the same criteria established by the late Walter Kaufmann when the Philosophic Classics series was first established: (1) to use complete works or, where more appropriate, complete sections of works (2) in clear translations (3) of texts central to the thinker’s philosophy or widely accepted as part of the "canon." To make the works more accessible to students, most footnotes treating textual matters (variant readings, etc.) have been omitted and important Greek words have been transliterated and put in angle brackets. In addition, each thinker is introduced by a brief essay composed of three sections: (1) biographical (a glimpse of the life), (2) philosophical (a résumé of the philosopher’s thought), and (3) bibliographical (suggestions for further reading). New to this seventh edition: Changes in translations: New translations of Plato’s Apology and Phaedo and Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics and Politics from the acclaimed Focus Philosophical Library Series. New translations of Plato’s Euthyphro and Crito. New translations of Epicurus’s Letter to Herodotus, Letter to Menoeceus, and Principal Doctrines. New translation of the Parmenides fragments. Additional material: Gorgias’s model oration, Encomium on Helen, which gives a defense of Helen of Troy. A selection from Plato’s Gorgias on nature versus convention or law . Additional material from the opening of Plato’s Symposium to contextualize the dialogue. Additional material from Plato’s Republic (Book IX) on the tri-partite soul. Additional material from Aristotle’s Metaphysics (Book IV, 1-4, 7) on the nature of being and the so-called "three rules of thought." A brief selection from Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus, giving a sense of the person. Updated and reorganized bibliographies. To allow for all these changes, a section of Book V from Plato’s Republic has been dropped. Those who use this first volume in a one-term course in ancient philosophy will find more material here than can easily fit a normal semester. But this embarrassment of riches gives teachers some choice and, for those who offer the same course year after year, an opportunity to change the menu.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315305577
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 1158
Book Description
This seventh edition of Philosophic Classics, Volume I: Ancient Philosophy includes essential writings of the most important Greek philosophers, along with selections from some of their Roman followers. In updating this edition, editor Forrest E. Baird has continued to follow the same criteria established by the late Walter Kaufmann when the Philosophic Classics series was first established: (1) to use complete works or, where more appropriate, complete sections of works (2) in clear translations (3) of texts central to the thinker’s philosophy or widely accepted as part of the "canon." To make the works more accessible to students, most footnotes treating textual matters (variant readings, etc.) have been omitted and important Greek words have been transliterated and put in angle brackets. In addition, each thinker is introduced by a brief essay composed of three sections: (1) biographical (a glimpse of the life), (2) philosophical (a résumé of the philosopher’s thought), and (3) bibliographical (suggestions for further reading). New to this seventh edition: Changes in translations: New translations of Plato’s Apology and Phaedo and Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics and Politics from the acclaimed Focus Philosophical Library Series. New translations of Plato’s Euthyphro and Crito. New translations of Epicurus’s Letter to Herodotus, Letter to Menoeceus, and Principal Doctrines. New translation of the Parmenides fragments. Additional material: Gorgias’s model oration, Encomium on Helen, which gives a defense of Helen of Troy. A selection from Plato’s Gorgias on nature versus convention or law . Additional material from the opening of Plato’s Symposium to contextualize the dialogue. Additional material from Plato’s Republic (Book IX) on the tri-partite soul. Additional material from Aristotle’s Metaphysics (Book IV, 1-4, 7) on the nature of being and the so-called "three rules of thought." A brief selection from Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus, giving a sense of the person. Updated and reorganized bibliographies. To allow for all these changes, a section of Book V from Plato’s Republic has been dropped. Those who use this first volume in a one-term course in ancient philosophy will find more material here than can easily fit a normal semester. But this embarrassment of riches gives teachers some choice and, for those who offer the same course year after year, an opportunity to change the menu.
Selfhood and Rationality in Ancient Greek Philosophy
Author: A. A. Long
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192525085
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Book Description
A. A. Long presents fourteen essays on the themes of selfhood and rationality in ancient Greek philosophy. The discussion ranges over seven centuries of innovative thought, starting with Heraclitus' injunction to listen to the cosmic logos, and concluding with Plotinus' criticism of those who make embodiment essential to human identity. For the Greek philosophers the notion of a rational self was bound up with questions about divinity and happiness called eudaimonia, meaning a god-favoured life or a life of likeness to the divine. While these questions are remote from current thought, Long also situates the book's themes in modern discussions of the self and the self's normative relation to other people and the world at large. Ideas and behaviour attributed to Socrates and developed by Plato are at the book's centre. They are preceded by essays that explore general facets of the soul's rationality. Later chapters bring in salient contributions made by Aristotle and Stoic philosophers. All but one of these pieces has been previously published in periodicals or conference volumes, but the author has revised and updated everything. The book is written in a style that makes it accessible to many kinds of reader, not only professors and graduate students but also anyone interested in the history of our identity as rational animals.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192525085
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Book Description
A. A. Long presents fourteen essays on the themes of selfhood and rationality in ancient Greek philosophy. The discussion ranges over seven centuries of innovative thought, starting with Heraclitus' injunction to listen to the cosmic logos, and concluding with Plotinus' criticism of those who make embodiment essential to human identity. For the Greek philosophers the notion of a rational self was bound up with questions about divinity and happiness called eudaimonia, meaning a god-favoured life or a life of likeness to the divine. While these questions are remote from current thought, Long also situates the book's themes in modern discussions of the self and the self's normative relation to other people and the world at large. Ideas and behaviour attributed to Socrates and developed by Plato are at the book's centre. They are preceded by essays that explore general facets of the soul's rationality. Later chapters bring in salient contributions made by Aristotle and Stoic philosophers. All but one of these pieces has been previously published in periodicals or conference volumes, but the author has revised and updated everything. The book is written in a style that makes it accessible to many kinds of reader, not only professors and graduate students but also anyone interested in the history of our identity as rational animals.
Aristotle and the Eleatic One
Author: Timothy Clarke
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191030457
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 266
Book Description
In this book Timothy Clarke examines Aristotle's response to Eleatic monism, the theory of Parmenides of Elea and his followers that reality is 'one'. Clarke argues that Aristotle interprets the Eleatics as thoroughgoing monists, for whom the pluralistic, changing world of the senses is a mere illusion. Understood in this way, the Eleatic theory constitutes a radical challenge to the possibility of natural philosophy. Aristotle discusses the Eleatics in several works, including De Caelo, De Generatione et Corruptione, and the Metaphysics. But his most extensive treatment of their monism comes at the beginning of the Physics, where he criticizes them for overlooking the fact that 'being is said in many ways' - in other words, that there are many ways of being. Through a careful analysis of this and other criticisms, Clarke explains how Aristotle's engagement with the Eleatics prepares the ground for his own theory of the principles of nature. Aristotle is commonly thought to be an unreliable interpreter of his Presocratic predecessors; in contrast, this book argues that his critique can shed valuable light on the motivation of the Eleatic theory and its influence on the later philosophical tradition.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191030457
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 266
Book Description
In this book Timothy Clarke examines Aristotle's response to Eleatic monism, the theory of Parmenides of Elea and his followers that reality is 'one'. Clarke argues that Aristotle interprets the Eleatics as thoroughgoing monists, for whom the pluralistic, changing world of the senses is a mere illusion. Understood in this way, the Eleatic theory constitutes a radical challenge to the possibility of natural philosophy. Aristotle discusses the Eleatics in several works, including De Caelo, De Generatione et Corruptione, and the Metaphysics. But his most extensive treatment of their monism comes at the beginning of the Physics, where he criticizes them for overlooking the fact that 'being is said in many ways' - in other words, that there are many ways of being. Through a careful analysis of this and other criticisms, Clarke explains how Aristotle's engagement with the Eleatics prepares the ground for his own theory of the principles of nature. Aristotle is commonly thought to be an unreliable interpreter of his Presocratic predecessors; in contrast, this book argues that his critique can shed valuable light on the motivation of the Eleatic theory and its influence on the later philosophical tradition.
Mortal and Divine in Early Greek Epistemology
Author: Shaul Tor
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108377998
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 421
Book Description
This book demonstrates that we need not choose between seeing so-called Presocratic thinkers as rational philosophers or as religious sages. In particular, it rethinks fundamentally the emergence of systematic epistemology and reflection on speculative inquiry in Hesiod, Xenophanes and Parmenides. Shaul Tor argues that different forms of reasoning, and different models of divine disclosure, play equally integral, harmonious and mutually illuminating roles in early Greek epistemology. Throughout, the book relates these thinkers to their religious, literary and historical surroundings. It is thus also, and inseparably, a study of poetic inspiration, divination, mystery initiation, metempsychosis and other early Greek attitudes to the relations and interactions between mortal and divine. The engagements of early philosophers with such religious attitudes present us with complex combinations of criticisms and creative appropriations. Indeed, the early milestones of philosophical epistemology studied here themselves reflect an essentially theological enterprise and, as such, one aspect of Greek religion.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108377998
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 421
Book Description
This book demonstrates that we need not choose between seeing so-called Presocratic thinkers as rational philosophers or as religious sages. In particular, it rethinks fundamentally the emergence of systematic epistemology and reflection on speculative inquiry in Hesiod, Xenophanes and Parmenides. Shaul Tor argues that different forms of reasoning, and different models of divine disclosure, play equally integral, harmonious and mutually illuminating roles in early Greek epistemology. Throughout, the book relates these thinkers to their religious, literary and historical surroundings. It is thus also, and inseparably, a study of poetic inspiration, divination, mystery initiation, metempsychosis and other early Greek attitudes to the relations and interactions between mortal and divine. The engagements of early philosophers with such religious attitudes present us with complex combinations of criticisms and creative appropriations. Indeed, the early milestones of philosophical epistemology studied here themselves reflect an essentially theological enterprise and, as such, one aspect of Greek religion.