scholarly journals The Propedeutic of the Theory of Judgment in Ancient Philosophy from the Sophists to Plato’s Theaetetus

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-45
Author(s):  
Janina Gajda-Krynicka

In the ancient epistemology, precisely stated definition of judgment (axioma) appears only in the 3rd century B.C. It was formulated by Chrysippus of Soli, the founder of the Stoic logic. However, on the other hand, the analysis of the extant utterances in which the knowledge had been objectified since the first Greek thinkers, allows us to state that the evolution of the theory of judgment was a long process. In this development, Greek epistemology had to deal with a number of problems connected with the object of the judgment –– knowledge, with the form of its objectification –– predication, and also with the predicates of the true and false judgment –– categories of “truth” (aletheia) and “falsehood” (pseudos). The first definition of the false judgement (logos pseudes) and the true judgment (logos alethes) can be found only in the late dialogue of Plato, Sophist, which delivers precisely established terminology of the theorem. Yet, such a definition could be formulated only when Greek epistemology re-defined the scope of the meaning of the key terms-concepts, aletheia and pseudos. The term-concept aletheia was identified with the term-concept being, functioning in the ontological-axiological sphere. On the other hand, pseudos did not mean false in the sense of negating the truth, but something, which is different than truth, is its imperfect copy. Thus, the pre-Platonic philosophy has not yet formulated the terminology in which predication of something inconsistent with the actual state of being, with the truth, could be verbalized. Often to express such a form of predication, a phrase “to utter things, which are not” was used. The other problem was connected with –– characteristic ofthe Greek language –– dual function of the verb to be/einai, which included both existential and truthful function. Accordingly, every utterance, in which the predicate was the verb einai or its derivates, was ex definitione a true predication –– “it spoke beings (things, which are).” In such a situation, there was noneed in epistemology to precisely define judgment as such, and to state the conditions which the true judgment hadto meet. The problem is definitely solved by Plato in his dialogue Theaetetus, in which the philosopher defines the object of the judgment, which is knowledge (however, its object is not stated yet) and introduces the project of verification of the utterances/opinion, thanks to which an opinion ––doxa can reach the status of judgment ––logos. An opinion needs to be verified with the dialectical procedures.

2009 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 45-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irène Fenoglio

Abstract: Very little research has been devoted to the way in which the textual genetics approaches the manuscripts in the text processing. However the future of the genetics depends, partly, on the interest which one can carry to this new materiality of the manuscript. The notion of text, the concept of what text is, have they been changed, or at least modified by the use of text processing? To write a text is to elaborate a discourse in the form of an utterance and to record it. The order of the discourse, in other words, the semiotic (the linguistic recognizable) / semantic (the meaning expressed (uttered) in the discourse) ratio should in no way be modified by the use of text processing. What changes, on the other hand, it is the materialization of the paper support of the text and consequently the status of this materialization.


Author(s):  
Webb Keane

This introductory chapter provides a definition of some key terms: ethics, morality, reflexive awareness, and affordance. Studies that focus on virtues, values, and ways of life tend to fall under the rubric of ethics. Those that focus on obligations, prohibitions, general principles, systematicity, and momentary decisions are treated as morality. There is a great deal of overlap and interaction between these. Cutting across the distinction between ethics and morality is another one, that between the tacit and the explicit—those background assumptions, values, and motives that go without saying or are difficult to put into words, on the other hand, and those that easily lend themselves to conscious reflection, on the other. Meanwhile, ethical affordance is any aspects of people's experiences and perceptions that they might draw on in the process of making ethical evaluations and decisions, whether consciously or not.


2003 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 541-556
Author(s):  
Eliezer Ben-Rafael ◽  
Yitzhak Sternberg

This article argues that recent heated debates within sociology around the definition of the discipline’s terms of reference reflect basic identity dilemmas of sociology the seeds of which are found in the discipline’s “deep structures.” Our contention is that sociology is given to inner tensions rooted in a fundamental dilemma between its two basic and original aspirations: moral commitment and scientific validation. From this dilemma stem four syndromes that represent different solutions to this tension and which imply contrasting assertions of what sociology means to be: the moral commitment syndrome, the methodology syndrome, the engagement syndrome and the relativistic syndrome. General developments of sociology as well as of national sociologies are considered historically and comparatively in the light of these four syndromes. One is then led to see in the debates of today sociology a genuine crisis of identity where the basic inner tensions of the discipline engender acute divisiveness. These developments jeopardize the status and unity of sociology as a scientific and academic discipline, though on the other hand, they can also be seen as a proof of vitality formulating new problems, opening new horizons and creating new environments.


Chôra ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 455-486
Author(s):  
Fabienne Jourdan ◽  

Οὐσία in Numenius: a notion which is progressively elaborated: Analysis of the difficulties linked to οὐσία and ἰδέα in fragments 22 F, 24 F and 28 F (fr. 14, 16 et 20 dP). In the Περὶ τἀγαθοῦ, Numenius refines his definition of οὐσία step by step. He uses the word at first as a synonym of τὸ ὄν (15 F) and as another designation of being. Then, he associates it to the ἕξις when he refers to the specific οὐσία which possesses science (22 F): in all likelihood, this οὐσία is the intellect as the essence common to God and Man in the possession of science. Finally, Numenius gives οὐσία two aspects or sides which, in our opinion, represent two manners of conceiving the intelligible it constitutes: on the one hand, οὐσία comes from Being itself (the Good) and seems to represent the eidetic predicates or what we could name the “fundamental intelligibility”, a state in which the form is not determined yet, but which gives it the status of a real being ; on the other hand, οὐσία is the product of the second god and intellect and the determined aspect of the previous one, which makes it possible to distinguish the forms one from the other. In this last case, Numenius seems to name οὐσία more specifically ἰδέα, even if both words are elsewhere synonymous and used to refer to the two aspects previously mentioned according to the context in which they are employed. The paper presents the analysis of fragments 22 F, 24 F and 28 F from which we arrive at this interpretation. The distinction between two manners of conceiving οὐσία makes it possible then to discover two levels in the Being at the origin of each of them: Being itself (αὐτοόν which is the Good itself, αὐτοάγαθον) and the ≪second≫ or ≪just≫ Being, constituted by the good demiurge which is probably the “One who is good par excellence”. From there, two ways of conceiving ἰδέα also appear: on the one hand, ἰδέα is synonymous with οὐσία, then it refers to the second aspect of οὐσία, the determined one; on the other hand, it can also refer to the level of Being which is the Good when, in fragment 28 F, it is conceived as a form and probably as the Form par excellence identified with the intellect which this Good is itself.


Author(s):  
Kyle Fruh

Discussions of closely associated notions of practical necessity, volitional necessity, and moral incapacity have profited from a focus on cases of agential crisis to further our understanding of how features of an agent’s character might bind her. This paper turns to agents in crises in order to connect this way of being bound to the phenomenon of moral heroism. The connection is fruitful in both directions. Importing practical necessity into examinations of moral heroism can explain the special sense of bindingness moral heroes frequently express while preserving the status of heroic acts as supererogatory. It also helps explain how heroes persevere and act as so few others do. On the other hand, the context of moral heroism allows a fuller development of some features of the concept of practical necessity, shedding more illuminating light on the roots of practical necessity in character through recent findings in the psychology of moral exemplars.


1943 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-34
Author(s):  
Kenneth Scott Latourette

A strange contrast exists in the status of the Christian Church in the past seventy years. On the one hand the Church has clearly lost some of the ground which once appeared to be safely within its possession. On the other hand it has become more widely spread geographically and, when all mankind is taken into consideration, more influential in shaping human affairs than ever before in its history. In a paper as brief as this must of necessity be, space can be had only for the sketching of the broad outlines of this paradox and for suggesting a reason for it. If details were to be given, a large volume would be required. Perhaps, however, we can hope to do enough to point out one of the most provocative and important set of movements in recent history.


2007 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 5-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kader Konuk

AbstractThe place of Jews was highly ambiguous in the newly founded Turkish Republic: In 1928 an assimilationist campaign was launched against Turkish Jews, while only a few years later, in 1933, German scholars—many of them Jewish—were taken in so as to help Europeanize the nation. Turkish authorities regarded the emigrants as representatives of European civilization and appointed scholars like Erich Auerbach to prestigious academic positions that were vital for redefining the humanities in Turkey. This article explores the country's twofold assimilationist policies. On the one hand, Turkey required of its citizens—regardless of ethnic or religious origins—that they conform to a unified Turkish culture; on the other hand, an equally assimilationist modernization project was designed to achieve cultural recognition from the heart of Europe. By linking historical and contemporary discourses, this article shows how tropes of Jewishness have played—and continue to play—a critical role in the conception of Turkish nationhood. The status of Erich Auerbach, Chair of the Faculty for Western Languages and Literatures at İstanbul University from 1936 to 1947, is central to this investigation into the place of Turkish and German Jews in modern Turkey.


Proglas ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anton Getsov ◽  
◽  
◽  

The paper is part of a series of publications that set out to examine various aspects in the analysis of appositive constructions. The purpose of this particular study is to reveal the multidimensional, diverse, and complex interaction between three types of syntactic relations – attributive, predicative, and appositive. The study offers a critical review of various theories on the status of the grammatical relation between the components of non-detached (close) appositive constructions. The main argument of this paper is that determining this status, on the one hand, is a function of the morphological and semantic characteristics of the components of the construction, while, on the other hand, it determines their syntactic status.


2021 ◽  
Vol 60 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 363-398

Abstract The Roman father and son of the same name, P. Decius Mus, became paragon heroes by deliberately giving their lives in battle that Rome might win over a fierce enemy. Both engaged in a special ritual called devotio (from which our word “devotion” derives) to offer themselves to the gods of the Underworld, with whom regular people have very little interaction and to whom they rarely sacrifice. While the Mus family is the most famous for this act, it turns out the willingness to sacrifice oneself for Rome frequently occurs within stories of great patriots, including the story of Horatius Cocles, Mettius Curtius, Atilius Regulus, and even the traitors Coriolanus and Tarpeia. Romans regarded self-sacrifice as a very high, noble endeavor, whereas they loathed and persecuted practitioners of human sacrifice. It is therefore quite amazing to read that the Romans thrice engaged in state-sponsored human sacrifice, a fact they rarely mention and generally forget. The most famous enemy practitioners of human sacrifice were the Druids, whom the Romans massacred on Mona Island on Midsummer Night's Eve, but the Carthaginians, the Germans, the Celts, and the Thracians all infamously practiced human sacrifice. To Romans, the act of human sacrifice falls just short of cannibalism in the spectrum of forbidden practices, and was an accusation occasionally thrown against an enemy to claim they are totally barbaric. On the other hand, Romans recognized their own who committed acts of self-sacrifice for the good of the society, as heroes. There can be no better patriot than he who gives his life to save his country. Often the stories of their heroism have been exaggerated or sanitized. These acts of heroism often turn out to be acts of human sacrifice, supposedly a crime. It turns out that Romans have a strong legacy of practicing human sacrifice that lasts into the historic era, despite their alleged opposition to it. Numerous sources relate one story each. Collecting them all makes it impossible to deny the longevity of human sacrifice in Rome, although most Romans under the emperors were probably unaware of it. The paradox of condemning but still practicing human sacrifice demonstrates the nature of Roman religion, where do ut des plays a crucial role in standard sacrifice as well as in unpleasant acts like human sacrifice. Devotio was an inverted form of sacrifice, precisely because it was an offering to the gods of the Underworld, rather than to Jupiter or the Parcae. Romans may have forsaken devotio, but they continued to practice human sacrifice far longer than most of us have suspected, if one widens the current narrow definition of human sacrifice to include events where a life is taken in order to bring about a better future for the commonwealth, appease the gods, or ensure a Roman victory in battle.


Author(s):  
Anne Knudsen

Anne Knudsen: The Century of Zoophilia Taking as her point of departure the protests against a dying child having his last wish fulfilled because his wish was to kill a bear, the author argues that animals have achieved a higher moral status than that of humans during the 20th century. The status of animals (and of “nature”) is seen as a consequence of their muteness which on the one hånd makes it impossible for animals to lie, and which on the other hånd allows humans to imagine what animals would say, if they spoke. The development toward zoophilia is explained as a a logical consequence of the cultural naturalisation of humans, and the author draws the conclusion that we may end up entirely without animals as a category. This hypothetical situation will lead to juridical as well as philosophical complications.


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