Alexander of Aphrodisias and His Doctrine of the Soul

Alexander of Aphrodisias and His Doctrine of the Soul PDF Author: Eckhard Kessler
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789004207028
Category : Soul
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Following Alexander of Aphrodisias through the Aristotelian tradition from the second to the sixteenth century, this book discovers an almost forgotten leading figure in the fervently disputed development of psychology and natural philosophy in early modern times.

Alexander of Aphrodisias and his Doctrine of the Soul

Alexander of Aphrodisias and his Doctrine of the Soul PDF Author: Eckhard Keßler
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004210199
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 108

Book Description
This book describes the doctrine and impact of Alexander of Aphrodisias, the second-century commentator on Aristotle, through the centuries and up to his sixteenth-century role as the clandestine prompter of a new philosophy of nature. In the millennium after his death, Alexander first served the Neo-Platonic schools as their authority on Aristotle, and in the Arabic centuries subsequently served as Averroes’ exemplary exponent of the doctrine of the mortality of the soul. For this reason, the Latin Scholastics deemed his work unworthy of being translated. This changed only in the late Middle Ages, when Alexander emerged as the only Aristotelian alternative to Averroes. When in 1495 his account of Aristotle’s psychology was translated and published, his principles of a natural philosophy, which were exempt from metaphysics and based on sense perception, eventually became accessible. The prompt reception and widespread endorsement of Alexander’s teaching testify to his impact throughout the sixteenth century. Originally published as Volume XVI, No. 1 (2011) of Brill's journal Early Science and Medicine.

Fate, Providence and Free Will: Philosophy and Religion in Dialogue in the Early Imperial Age

Fate, Providence and Free Will: Philosophy and Religion in Dialogue in the Early Imperial Age PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004436383
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 343

Book Description
This volume offers a collection of papers about the notions of fate, providence, and free will, as developed and debated in philosophy and religion in the early Imperial age (ca. 31 BCE-250 CE).

Pain and Pleasure in Classical Times

Pain and Pleasure in Classical Times PDF Author: William V. Harris
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004379509
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 279

Book Description
Pain and Pleasure in Classical Times attempts to blaze a trail for the cross-disciplinary humanistic study of pain and pleasure, with literature scholars, historians and philosophers all setting out to understand how the Greeks and Romans experienced, managed and reasoned about the sensations and experiences they felt as painful or pleasurable. The book is intended to provoke discussion of a wide range of problems in the cultural history of antiquity. It addresses both the physicality of erôs and illness, and physiological and philosophical doctrines, especially hedonism and anti-hedonism in their various forms. Fine points of terminology (Greek is predictably rich in this area) receive careful attention. Authors in question run from Homer to (among others) the Hippocratics, Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Seneca, Plutarch, Galen and the Aristotle-commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias.

Freedom and Responsibility in Neoplatonist Thought

Freedom and Responsibility in Neoplatonist Thought PDF Author: Ursula Coope
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192558285
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
The Neoplatonists have a perfectionist view of freedom: an entity is free to the extent that it succeeds in making itself good. Free entities are wholly in control of themselves—they are self-determining, self-constituting, and self-knowing. Neoplatonist philosophers argue that such freedom is only possible for non-bodily things. The human soul is free insofar as it rises above bodily things and engages in intellection, but when it turns its desires to bodily things, it is drawn under the sway of fate and becomes enslaved. Ursula Coope discusses this notion of freedom and its relation to questions about responsibility. She explains the important role of notions of self-reflexivity in Neoplatonist accounts of both freedom and responsibility. In Part I, Coope sets out the puzzles Neoplatonist philosophers face about freedom and responsibility and explains how these puzzles arise from earlier discussions. Part II explores the metaphysical underpinnings of the Neoplatonist notion of freedom (concentrating especially on the views of Plotinus and Proclus). In what sense, if any, is the ultimate first principle of everything (the One) free? If everything else is under this ultimate first principle, how can anything other than the One be free? What is the connection between freedom and nonbodiliness? Finally, Coope considers in Part III questions about responsibility, arising from this perfectionist view of freedom. Why are human beings responsible for their behaviour, in a way that other animals are not? If we are enslaved when we act viciously, how can we be to blame for our vicious actions and choices?

Plotinus-Arg Philosophers

Plotinus-Arg Philosophers PDF Author: Lloyd P. Gerson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134687788
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Book Description
First published in 1999. We are fortunate in possessing a fascinating document, The Life of Plotinus, written by the philosopher Porphyry, a pupil and associate of Plotinus for the last eight years of his life. The basic facts contained in this Life can be quickly recounted. Plotinus was likely a Greek born in Egypt in AD 205. It is possible, though, that he came from a Hellenized Egyptian or Roman family. In his 28th year, Plotinus discovered in himself a thirst for philosophy. This is a collection of his works- Ennead I contains treatises on what Porphyry calls “ethical matters”; Enneads II–III contain treatises on natural philosophy or cosmology, with some rationalizations for the inclusion of III. 4, 5, 7, and 8. Ennead IV concerns the soul; V Intellect or and VI being, numbers, and the One. The thematic unity of Enneads I, IV, and V is somewhat greater than the rest.

Aristotle and Early Christian Thought

Aristotle and Early Christian Thought PDF Author: Mark Edwards
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315520192
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Book Description
In studies of early Christian thought, ‘philosophy’ is often a synonym for ‘Platonism’, or at most for ‘Platonism and Stoicism’. Nevertheless, it was Aristotle who, from the sixth century AD to the Italian Renaissance, was the dominant Greek voice in Christian, Muslim and Jewish philosophy. Aristotle and Early Christian Thought is the first book in English to give a synoptic account of the slow appropriation of Aristotelian thought in the Christian world from the second to the sixth century. Concentrating on the great theological topics – creation, the soul, the Trinity, and Christology – it makes full use of modern scholarship on the Peripatetic tradition after Aristotle, explaining the significance of Neoplatonism as a mediator of Aristotelian logic. While stressing the fidelity of Christian thinkers to biblical presuppositions which were not shared by the Greek schools, it also describes their attempts to overcome the pagan objections to biblical teachings by a consistent use of Aristotelian principles, and it follows their application of these principles to matters which lay outside the purview of Aristotle himself. This volume offers a valuable study not only for students of Christian theology in its formative years, but also for anyone seeking an introduction to the thought of Aristotle and its developments in Late Antiquity.

Aristotelianism in the First Century BCE

Aristotelianism in the First Century BCE PDF Author: Andrea Falcon
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139502522
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Book Description
This book is a full study of the remaining evidence for Xenarchus of Seleucia, one of the earliest interpreters of Aristotle. Andrea Falcon places the evidence in its context, the revival of interest in Aristotle's philosophy that took place in the first century BCE. Xenarchus is often presented as a rebel, challenging Aristotle and the Aristotelian tradition. Falcon argues that there is more to Xenarchus and his philosophical activity than an opposition to Aristotle; he was a creative philosopher, and his views are best understood as an attempt to revise and update Aristotle's philosophy. By looking at how Xenarchus negotiated different aspects of Aristotle's philosophy, this book highlights elements of rupture as well as strands of continuity within the Aristotelian tradition.

The Logic of the Body

The Logic of the Body PDF Author: Matthew A. LaPine
Publisher: Lexham Press
ISBN: 1683594266
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
"Do not be anxious about anything." When it comes to stress and worry, that's all we really need to say, right? Just repent of your anxiety, and everything will be fine. But emotional life is more complex than this. In The Logic of the Body, Matthew LaPine argues that Protestants must retrieve theological psychology in order to properly understand the emotional life of the human person. With classical and modern resources in tow, LaPine argues that one must not choose between viewing emotions exclusively as either cognitive and volitional on the one hand, or simply a feeling of bodily change on the other. The two "stories" can be reconciled through a robustly theological analysis. In a culture filled with worry and anxiety, The Logic of the Body offers a fresh path within the Reformed tradition.

Julius Caesar Scaliger, Renaissance Reformer of Aristotelianism

Julius Caesar Scaliger, Renaissance Reformer of Aristotelianism PDF Author: Kuni Sakamoto
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900431010X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 221

Book Description
This monograph is the first to analyze Julius Caesar Scaliger’s Exotericae Exercitationes (1557). Though hardly read today, the Exercitationes was one of the most successful philosophical treatises of the time, attracting considerable attention from many intellectuals with multifaceted religious and philosophical orientations. In order to make this massive late-Renaissance work accessible to modern readers, Kuni Sakamoto conducted a detailed textual analysis and revealed the basic tenets of Scaliger’s philosophy. His analysis also enabled him to clarify the historical provenance of Scaliger’s Aristotelianism and the way it subsequently influenced some of the protagonists of the “New Philosophy.” The author thus bridges the historiographical gap between studies of Renaissance philosophy and those of the seventeenth-century.