Abstracts for Workshop in Ancient Philosophy

Chris Colvin, "Disorder in the Cube: On the Arrangement of the Hypotheses in Parmenides Part II, or 'I Want a Recount'"

Judging from the labors of recent commentaries on Plato's Parmenides, the Hypotheses exact two interpretive tasks from the reader: an account of the argumentative structure of the Hypotheses and an explanation of the categorical surplus; or in other words, what is the proper relation among the eight Hypotheses?, and what is one to make of the rich content of the separate arguments? The content is categorical in the sense that one/many, whole/part and other such pairs are terms which articulate the general structure of reality. The preferred approach of commentators to both these tasks has been to find symmetrical structure and categorical significance by pairing the eight hypotheses, and to justify their reading of the categorical surplus in term of their accurate account of the symmetrical structure. For example, R.E. Allen finds Academic and Aristotelian content set to work in Aristotelian aporetic structure; by contrast, Kenneth Sayre's recent treatment pairs hypotheses by reference to the prior philosophical tradition and finds, instead of aporetic structure, a rich critique of that tradition. Even Maurizio Migliori, writing with the explicit intent of confirming the "nuovo paradigmo" of the T?bingen school, appeals to symmetrical structure to reveal ultimate principles founding the relations among meta-Ideas (categories).

In review of several commentaries, I call into question various symmetric pairings and argue that the Hypotheses are uncountably out of order; like a faulty Rubik's cube, they cannot be symmetrically arranged. The argumentative structure is not the primary guide for interpreting the Parmenides. My claim does not necessarily negate the interpretive value of the pairings, but it does raise two problems which I address: 1) explicit structure cannot be used to justify an interpretation, and 2) an account of the "disorder" remains outstanding. I submit that the explicit order is meant for the effect it evidently has--to produce orderings of categories--but it cannot match any resultant order. The disorder is Platonic melancholy: aspirations meet confusion.

Aristotle thinks that there are some people who cannot become good. Who are these people and why are they incorrigible?

I argue that the vicious are incorrigible because they have vicious passions, wrong beliefs about virtue, and they are close-minded (i.e. they will not change their actions in response to rational persuasion no matter what it costs them). A person with any two of these faults can improve.

Taking tragic heroes to be people with only one of these three faults, people with virtuous habits and right beliefs who will not listen to reason, would solve a longstanding interpretive problem in Aristotle's Poetics. It would explain why Aristotle says that tragic heroes have a flaw (hamartia) that is not a vice.

Aristotle divides the incurably mentally ill into two groups: those that can be helped (natural slaves), and those that cannot (the brutish).

The vicious tragic heroes can deliberate, but will not listen to reason. Natural slaves have a complimentary deficiency. They listen to reason (so they act and feel rightly when rightly ruled), but cannot deliberate (so they act and feel wrongly when left on their own). By limiting slavery to natural slaves and stipulating that natural slaves must be better off enslaved than free, Aristotle severely criticizes the prevalent, exploitive practice of slavery of his day, and proposes to transform it into a new, benign institution for caring for the mentally ill. Aristotelian slavery is an infelicitously named, for-profit halfway house providing a structured environment for the dysfunctional.

The rest of the incurably mentally ill are the brutish. They cannot be helped because, "lacking a rational part," they can neither deliberate for themselves nor be guided by others. Like natural slaves, they cannot make it on their own; like the vicious, they will not listen to reason.

When in chapter eleven of Metaphysics Z Aristotle questions the comparison Socrates the Younger draws between animal and circle, the text has Aristotle say that animal and circle are incomparable because an animal is something 'perceptible', aisthŒton. Aristotle is critical of the comparison because it gives the false impression that the natural kind man could, like the circle, exist in different sorts of materials. In their commentary Aristoteles, Metaphysik Z, Frede and Patzig emend the text so that the incomparability is based on an animal's being 'perceptive', aisthŒtikon. Frede and Patzig contend that without this emendation, for which there is absolutely no basis within the manuscript tradition, the strong connection between the matter and form of organisms would be lost. An argument, however, can be drawn from the received text that retains what Frede and Patzig take to be essential. This argument turns upon recognizing that for Aristotle 'perceptible' and 'moveable' or 'changeable' have the same extension and that 'perceptible matter', in contrast with 'intelligible matter', is 'moveable matter' (1036a10f). The idea that perceptible objects must possess matter that allows for motion or change is not unusual when we recall that Aristotle's teacher Plato teaches that all, and only, perceptible objects are subject to change (e.g., Met. 987a33f., b6f.; Phdo. 78D-79A). Aristotle's criticism of Socrates the Younger has attracted notice in modern-day scholarship because of its relevance for the issue of the compositional plasticity of the human psychology, which is of considerable concern for the defenders of the functionalist interpretation of Aristotle's theory of the soul.

Errol Katayama, "The Psychic State of Piety and Justice in the Republic"

The fact that piety is absent from the list of cardinal virtues in Book 4 of the Republic is well attested. Those who attempt to explain its absence, for the most part, make the following two assumptions: (1) that piety is somehow related to justice; and (2) that piety should be defined in reference to the gods or deities. By exploring the plausibility of piety being a part of justice (hence accepting the first assumption), this paper challenges the second one by identifying the other divine entities, Platonic Forms, in reference to which piety should be defined. By tackling the notorious problem in the Republic concerning justice, that is, whether it is possible for any citizen of the ideal state other than the philosopher to be just, this paper suggests that in defining virtue as the power to preserve the inner psychic harmony, Plato leaves room for at least three kinds of such powers: (1) habit inculcated by education, (2) thought, which is some kind of knowledge (perhaps of the Forms) but definitely without the Form of the Good, and (3) the knowledge of the Forms, especially, that of the Good. If a person attains his psychic state of justice either by the first two kinds of powers, then he is just, but if a person (that is, the philosopher) attains it by the third one, he is not only just but also pious. Finally by focusing on the theme of the Republic, the paper concludes by speculating the possible reasons why Plato may have omitted the virtue of piety.

Tim O'Keefe, "Why There Are No 'Fresh Starts' in Metaphysics Epsilon or Nicomachean Ethics III 5"

Metaphysics Epsilon 2-3 and Nicomachean Ethics III 5 (1114b3-25) are often cited in favor of indeterminist interpretations of Aristotle. In Metaphysics Epsilon Aristotle denies that the coincidental has an aitia, and some (e.g., Sorabji) take this as a denial that coincidences have causes. In NE III 5 Aristotle says that a person's actions and character must have their origin (archŒ) in the agent for him to be responsible for them. From this, some conclude that Aristotle thinks a person can be the uncaused cause of his actions, (e.g., Hardie, Ross), or at least that there must be some sort of break in the causal nexus, so that the person's character cannot be traced back to an external origin (Furley).

I argue that Metaphysics Epsilon does not show that Aristotle disbelieves in causal determinism, since he is dealing with issues of explanation in these passages, not causal necessitation. Metaphysics Epsilon 2-3 is not irrelevant to the controversy between compatibilist and incompatibilist interpretations of Aristotle, however. I will argue that a proper understanding of Metaphysics Epsilon's doctrine that the sumbebekos lacks an aitia sheds light on what Aristotle means in NE III 5 when he says that the voluntary must have an internal origin, and that it helps to show how one's action and character can have an 'internal origin' even if one's actions and character can be traced entirely to external causes. Finally, I will take this doctrine of the voluntary having an 'internal origin' and use it to illuminate Aristotle's discussion of the different types of excusing conditions in NE III 1.

Although Aristotle is (apparently) a libertarian and the Stoics are determinists, there is surprisingly a deeper structural similarity between their theories of moral responsibility. Aristotle holds us responsible for our "voluntary" actions, which are defined by two criteria: the "origin" of the action must be "in us," and we must be aware of what we are doing. Aristotle is a libertarian insofar as he insists that all voluntary actions are "in our power" to perform or not perform. The Stoics cannot admit this sort of freedom, but they still consider the agent to be a vital link in the chin of events, so they redefine Aristotle's "in our power" as what comes about "through us." An "impression" of a stimulating object activates the agent's "impulse," an internal movement of the soul that is the direct and efficient cause of action. Impulse is accompanied by a mental "assent" to the proposition that we ought to go after the stimulating object. Since assent is a necessary condition for action, we always act knowing what we are doing. This means that all actions caused by our own impulse and assent are by Aristotle's criteria voluntary, where impulse provides the internal origin of the action and assent provides the awareness of what is being done. I argue that the Stoic and Aristotelian classes of what one is responsible for are coextensive, their criteria defining responsible actions are nearly identical, and the only substantial difference is that Aristotle claims such actions are in our power to do or not do while the Stoics say that such actions are necessitated. When one considers Aristotle's compatibilist leanings and the Stoic's emphasis on the efficacy of personal effort, the differences between their theories of responsibility are even further reduced.

Anyone who wishes to study separation in Plato usually receives the impulse from Aristotle's cryptic remark at Metaphysics 1078b30-32: "But Socrates did not make the universals or definitions separate; his successors, however, did separate them, and beings of this sort they called 'Ideas'."

The Phaedo is often referred to as evidence for claims about separation in general, that is, separation in both Forms and the soul. It appears that we should take statements about the relation of the soul to body as parallel to, and informative about, statements concerning the relation of Form to sensibles, especially since the Argument from Affinity (78d-84b) relies upon the resemblance of the soul to the Forms. Yet in the Phaedo the explicit language of separation (choris) and its cognates) is never used with respect to Forms, but only with respect to the soul.

The philological evidence shows us why we should resist the thought that an examination of the status of the soul with respect to the body will illuminate the metaphysics of Forms in the dialogue. When we examine several key terms (choris, auto kath' hauto [autŒ kath' hautŒn], eilikrinŒs, and middle passive-forms of the verb apallass?) as well as their uses in the dialogue, it is apparent that separation in the Phaedo is not the same in souls as it is in Forms.

What emerges from a close study of the language of the Phaedo is that distinct conceptions of separation are in play. Separation for Forms consists in independent existence in a manner essentially unavailable to souls; and while separation for both Forms and souls consists in numerical distinctness, Forms are numerically distinct because they are not in particulars, while souls are numerically distinct on the basis of their non-identity with the body.