Aristotelian Interpretation Research Articles

РЕЦЕПЦИЯ АНТИЧНЫХ ЭСТЕТИЧЕСКИХ КАТЕГОРИЙ В ПЕРВОМ «ФИЛОСОФИЧЕСКОМ ПИСЬМЕ» П. Я. ЧААДАЕВА*

The relevance of the study is due to the need for an aesthetic analysis of a famous journalistic work of Pyotr Chaadayev, which in the history of philosophy has been studied in detail from the ethical, epistemological, ontological, and theological perspectives, but the aesthetic aspect has been overlooked. The problem of identifying the reception of ancient aesthetic categories in the most famous Russian philosophical letter of the first half of the 19th century is associated with a change of cultural eras and is of interest in terms of preserving the content of the categories of aesthetics that was laid down by Plato and Aristotle. The research methodology includes the text analysis method and the comparison of the content of aesthetic categories of ancient philosophers and Chaadayev. The study revealed that Chaadaev in his letter uses the reception of the Socratic dialogue, adapted for his time, which suggests the author’s commitment to ancient traditions. Chaadaev’s most popular aesthetic categories are the sublime and the base, as well as mimesis (he uses the word “imitation” in his letter). As a result, it turns out that while characterizing Western European culture the philosophical letter’s author correlates it with the category of the sublime, which is close in content to the sublime of the Platonists and Pseudo-Longinus. The opposite category of the base in the Aristotelian interpretation, from Chaadaev’s point of view, best describes Russian history and culture. According to the results of the comparison, the reason for such a bitter picture of domestic existence found by the author seems logical – it lies in the mimesis or imitation, which in Chaadaev’s definition clearly manifests the traces of both Platonic and Aristotelian meanings. As a result, the letter obviously demonstrates the reception of ancient aesthetic categories. However, it can be noted that the entire composition of the work is built on the contrast between the sublime and the base. It was this contrast that created the plot conflict of the letter, which caused a stir among the nineteenth-century readers and leaves no one indifferent to this day.

Toward the virtuous mover: a neo-Aristotelian interpretation of physical education

ABSTRACT Background The philosophy of the discipline of physical education among school, further and higher education curriculums remains misunderstood, understudied and underdeveloped. With growing levels of uncertainty concerning its philosophical nature, general future (e.g. eradication, more of the same, radical change), and the role the profession plays within modern educational institutions, there is an urgent need to acknowledge, problematize, interpret and to study the unavoidably philosophical nature of the subject. Purpose The purpose of this paper is to strengthen the justification for movement-oriented character education in schools by articulating a neo-Aristotelian interpretation of physical education. Key Concepts Aligned with this goal, I begin by clarifying my guiding philosophical framework of neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics by synthesizing the concepts of virtue, character, phronesis and eudaemonia. Subsequently, I deconstruct contemporary practices associating character education to physical education circles with the goal of illuminating the potential of a philosophically informed approach compared to the dominant practice-driven and anecdotal view of character. In summary, I address the field’s; overreliance on caught character; overemphasis on performance virtue; disproportionate focus on résumé virtues over eulogy virtues; the use of character as a peripheral curriculum activity; and lack of emphasis on wisdom and eudaemonia. Thereafter, I articulate one Aristotelian interpretation of physical education as if (neo) Aristotle was the teacher himself. From this position, I describe an education fixated on the affective domain, primarily concerned with helping youth to comprehend their moral potential in life through movement and inspired by the view that the cultivation of virtuous skills, agency, and reasoning are foundational to a flourishing society. Conclusion By taking this approach, I philosophize the concept of the ‘Virtuous Mover’ and the potential ways in which school-based physical educators might begin to help future generations of youth to flourish.

Two Formulations of the Τhesis of Protagoras in Metaphysics Γ and Plato's Theaetetus

This presentation deals with the Aristotelian interpretation of the Thesis of Protagoras (TP) in Metaphysics Γ and its connection with Plato's Theaetetus. Particular attention is paid to the dispute about the difference between two formulations of TP, which takes place among modern scholars. If the first formulation only denies Principle of Non-Contradiction, the second allows Aristotle to interpret TP in the context of the teaching of Anaxagoras.

The Polished Mirror: Storytelling and the Pursuit of Virtue in Islamic Philosophy and Sufism (By Cyrus Ali Zargar)

Reviewed by: The Polished Mirror: Storytelling and the Pursuit of Virtue in Islamic Philosophy and Sufism by Cyrus Ali Zargar Joel Richmond (bio) The Polished Mirror: Storytelling and the Pursuit of Virtue in Islamic Philosophy and Sufism Cyrus Ali Zargar London: Oneworld Academic, 2017. 341 Pages. The contemporary revival of virtue ethics initiated by such moral philosophers as Elizabeth Anscombe (d. 2001) and Alasdair MacIntyre has provided new areas of cross-cultural investigation for researchers. One such contribution to this burgeoning field is by Cyrus Ali Zargar, whose recent monograph, The Polished Mirror: Storytelling and the Pursuit of Virtue in Islamic Philosophy and Sufism, consists of two sections, each dedicated to both Islamic philosophy and Sufism. In ten chapters, Zargar is able to provide a panoramic view of Islamic thinkers who have dedicated treatises to the varied notions of Islamic ethics. Considering thinkers from the period roughly between 900 to 1300 CE, the book challenges modern and classical Western virtue ethics by including explorations into premodern narrative, poetry, allegorical tales, and hagiography. The first ongoing problem is how to locate and then define the varieties of ethical thought in Islam. It is this question which the book's introduction sets out to specify. Beginning with a summary of ethics as it features in Islamic theology, law, the Qur'an, and ahadith, the initial chapters set out to explain where virtue ethics can be situated among these various perplexing classifications. Challenging ethical categories is the theme consistently found in The Polished Mirror, while previous attempts at classification are also noted by Zargar throughout. For example, according to the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwān al-Ṣafā'), one of the early psychological concepts used to introduce human character is that of the four bodily humors which were incorporated from Greek into Islamic medicine. In addition to these humors are the adaptations of Aristotelian faculties of the soul: the vegetative, the animal, and the rational. With the facilitation of the liver, heart, and brain, these three aspects of the soul give rise to the desire of the appetitive faculty, the anger of the irascible faculty, and the reflection of the rational faculty. In the Islamic context of the writings of the Brethren, the rational faculty is then responsible to the higher intellect. This psychological context of the character traits is only one of the features given in Zargar's monograph. In the section on Islamic philosophy, the writings of Avicenna (d. 1037), Ibn Ṭufayl (d. 1185–6), Suhrawardī (d. 1191), Miskawayh (d. 1030), and al-Ghazālī (d. 1111) capture the pedagogical role of allegories and symbols as ways to bring about virtue. Each thinker is given a separate chapter showing how the [End Page 109] use of stories convey the journey to God and the fulfillment of knowledge. For Avicenna, the lines between epistemology, psychology, metaphysics, and ethics, are sometimes blurred, but this is necessary. Practical philosophy is that which puts theoretical philosophy to work, so to speak. Likewise, ethical behaviour often reciprocally leads to the contemplation of metaphysics. These specific categories all combine to fill out the unique manner in which virtues can be newly considered. In Zargar's own treatment of Avicenna, he is able to perfectly walk the fine line between the often debated roles of Avicenna's relation to mysticism and Aristotelian philosophy. Before turning to the symbolic story of Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, we are given a full analytic treatment and summary of Avicenna's psychology and ethics that would satisfy scholars inclining towards the more Aristotelian interpretation. In the allegories, the interpretation of Corbin and others are given their full due, while supplemented with Zargar's own unique insights. Also considered here is Avicenna's ninth division of Allusions and Admonitions, named, "Stations of the Knowers." This story is very difficult to interpret as anyone who has read the text would immediately recognize. To bring the story to life, we are also given the interpretation of Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī alongside its many twists and turns. As no surprize, Ṭūsī interprets the story as the journey of the human intellect, flowering into its own perfection as an acquired intellect ('aql mustafād). Since there is...

Astell, friendship, and relational autonomy

AbstractMary Astell's theory of friendship is rich and interesting: it presents the reader with an interpretive puzzle that addresses the nature and roles of virtue and love in friendship, among other things. Recently, Jacqueline Broad and Nancy Kendrick have tackled this puzzle. Broad offers a loosely Aristotelian interpretation, and Kendrick offers an anti‐Aristotelian Christian Platonist interpretation. However, neither fully discharges the apparent tensions within Astell's account, nor do they address what I take to be the most significant result of Astell's theory. I offer a third interpretation that both makes sense of Astell's account and incorporates aspects of both Broad and Kendrick's views. With this account in hand, I turn to the upshot of Astell's theory of friendship, a nascent view of relational autonomy that emerges from friendship. Astell's theory of friendship is fascinating because relational autonomy was not formally theorized until hundreds of years later.

La filosofía de Parménides según el testimonio de Aristóteles

Este trabajo pretende exponer y comentar la interpretación aristotélica de la filosofía de Parménides. En primer lugar, se analiza la refutación del monismo parmenídeo en Phys. I 2-3. Luego se comenta una serie de pasajes relevantes del corpus en los que Aristóteles hace referencia tanto a la ontología y cosmología de Parménides como a su metodología de investigación filosófica. Se propone una interpretación compatibilista de la lectura aristotélica de Parménides, según la cual este último habría afirmado la unidad e inmovilidad de lo real según el concepto y su pluralidad cambiante según la sensación. Si bien es evidente la influencia platónica en ciertos aspectos de la interpretación aristotélica, esta última no es una mera recepción y repetición de la lectura de Platón. En efecto, Aristóteles parece haber comprendido el pensamiento de Parménides a partir de una distinción metodológica operativa en Phys. I 5.

An Aristotelian Interpretation of Bojo Jinul and an Enhanced Moral Grounding

This paper explores the eclecticism of Bojo Jinul (1158–1210 CE), who is arguably the most influential historic figure in establishing and developing the Buddhist monastic institution of Korea. As a great harmonizer of the conflicting Buddhist trends in the late Goryeo period, Jinul not only shaped the foundation of the traditional monastic discipline balanced between theory and practice but also made Korean Buddhist thoughts known to a larger part of East Asia. I revisit the eclecticism of Bojo Jinul on harmonizing the two conflicting understandings of enlightenment represented by Seon (Cha’n) and Gyo (Hwaeom study) schools: the former stressing sudden enlightenment by sitting mediation and oral transmission of dharma and the latter stressing gradual cultivation by the formal training of textual and doctrinal understanding specifically on the Hwaeom Sutra. Utilizing the metaphysics of Aristotle, I confirm the logical validity of his eclecticism and address some of its moral implications.

An Aristotelian interpretation of practical wisdom: the case of retirees

This paper aims to improve understanding of the concept of practical wisdom. The theoretical lens used is Aristotle’s practical rationality or ‘phronesis’. Researchers argue that practical wisdom should be used as an organising framework for professional knowledge. Aristotle believed that practical wisdom as the highest intellectual virtue. Phronesis is the complicated interactions between general (theory) and practical (judgement). The contribution of this paper is to discuss the properties of practical wisdom and how they interact based on an interpretation of retirees’ knowledge. The paper summarises in-depth face-to-face interviews with nine retirees, i.e., nine separate case studies. A structured interview guideline based on a conceptual framework derived from literature was used to examine the nature of retirees’ practical wisdom. People with wisdom make better decisions. Whereas episteme’s technical knowledge may address complicated tasks, techne’s wisdom enables people to resolve truly complex tasks. Techne provides personal judgement which enables the professional to judge their actions from an external and internal perspective. Knowing that others and the individual themselves are happy with the quality of their work creates a morality that enables an inner calm and personal satisfaction leading to eudaimonia (feeling happy about life). People with wisdom behave differently. Phronesis’s cognitive properties create awareness of the knowledge that may be trusted to be seen to be behaving normally or appropriately in the organisation. The global population is ageing. This has implications for future workforce planning as experience is lost and capability gaps emerge. Retires may represent a valuable source of knowledge to help address this gap. The results are limited to nine individual case studies and four disciplines. The findings provide exciting opportunities for further research. The conceptual models may be further investigated with retirees in other disciplines.

Ο «Εις κοιμηθέντας» λόγος του Θεοφίλου Κορυδαλλέως και η αριστοτελική περί ψυχής θεματική του

Among the various writings of Theophilos Corydalleus, focusing on the Aristotelian interpretation and teaching practice at the major Academies of the Hellenic world under Ottoman rule, we find a unique work, a Funeral Oration. It was performed by Corydalleus himself in Constantinople in the decade of 1630-40 in honor of Poulcheria, a young woman who passed away in her youth. The departed came from an aristocratic family of the Phanariotic society, since her father, Michael Vlastos was a high-ranking officer of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. This discourse is preserved by five manuscripts and it is written in an elaborate demotic Greek language, enriched with a lot of ancient Greek wording and stylistic elements. The main goal of this paper is to study the manuscript tradition, the content and the sources (mainly Aristotelian and secondly patristic or biblical) and to produce a critical edition of the text. In this Oration, Corydalleus managed to simplify in a vivid and fluent language major Aristotelian doctrines concerning death, such as the separation of the soul from the body, the immortality of the soul, the meaning of fear, and the perception of time etc.VASILEIOS I. TSIOTRAS

Good human functioning, health and the promotion of health

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to extend a theory of health promoting schools (Markham and Aveyard, 2003) that draws heavily upon Nussbaum’s Aristotelian interpretation of good human functioning (Nussbaum, 1990). This theory of health promoting schools proposed that health is grounded in the meeting of identified fundamental human needs and the realisation of identified essential human capacities (Markham and Aveyard, 2003). Design/methodology/approach The extension of this theory is achieved through the application of influential social theories with practical tenets to Nussbaum’s insights (Nussbaum, 1990). This extension includes additional essential human capacities, a description and definition of how good human functioning may be recognised, potential limitations of the capabilities approaches and a discussion of major factors inhibiting good human functioning. Findings The potential contribution of the outlined framework to discussions of health and health promotion is highlighted in two ways. First, this paper considers how the outlined framework may contribute to discussions of quality of life, morbidity/premature mortality and health-related behaviours. Second, this paper briefly considers how the outlined framework may contribute to discussions of public health policy, and the planning, delivery and evaluation of health promotion initiatives. Basic exemplar pre- and post-questionnaires for a hypothetical health promoting community development programme are offered. Originality/value This paper attempts to contribute to discussions of the application of Nussbaum’s Aristotelean interpretation of good human functioning to both public health and health promotion.

Bases filosóficas para una crítica al transhumanismo

The present article aims at establishing a discussion with Antonio Dieguez’s recent book intituled Transhumanism. Transhumanism is an intellectual current trend that proposes the transformation of human beings by means of diverse technological interventions. Dieguez makes a very enlightening, informed and fair exposition of what the Transhumanism is, both in its bio and info proposals. In front of the transhumanist proposals, Dieguez adopts a very sensible position. He argues that we should avoid both technophobia and uncritical techophilia. We should neither accept nor reject the anthropotechnical projects en bloc, but we should judge them one by one (section 1). Obviously, a criterion is required to carry out this screening. Dieguez dismisses that the source of this criterion could be the notion of human nature. Instead, he proposes some ideas by the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset. Let’s remember that according to Ortega “man has no nature, he has... history” (2004-2010, VI, 72; my trasnlation). I fully agree with Dieguez on the need of judging anthropotechnics one by one, but I disagree with his appreciation of both, the concept of human nature and the ideas of Ortega. Ortega’s philosophy of technique -original and suggestive as it is- becomes ultimately inoperative due to his anti-naturalist anthropology (section 2). On the other hand, Dieguez’s interpretation of the notion of human nature is - to put it shortly - platonic (section 3). Nevertheless, this concept also admits an Aristotelian interpretation, under which it becomes the best source of criteria for screening anthropotechnics (section 4). Finally, the conclusions of the article will be summarized in section 5.

Аргументы Хайдеггера против аристотелевской интерпретации времени и их критика

Аргументы Хайдеггера против аристотелевской интерпретации времени и их критика

Marxism and Aristotelian Ethics

This article surveys the interpretations of the ethical foundations of Karl Marx’s thought. These interpretations focus on the early ideas of Marx and analyze them in the context of various traditions of moral philosophy. Aristotelian ethics is often proposed as the best model to understand the ethical foundations of Marx’s work. This article also points to the significance of Alasdair MacIntyre’s works in moral philosophy for the Aristotelian interpretation of Marx’s ethics.

Nietzsche on Causation

ABSTRACT Snowed by his affirmation of certain model natural sciences, popular naturalist readings of Nietzsche, which assert that he is “engaged in giving causal explanations of various human phenomena,” fail to account for his critique of causality. This critique is at the heart of his critiques of metaphysics and natural science, for causality is the mechanism by which metaphysical concepts are generated and nature is transformed into a system of universal laws. I explain this connection by reference to his Aristotelian interpretation of causality and examine the radical entailments of this critique.

REPLY TO J. GLENN FRIESEN

Although Friesen’s recent article on “Clouser’s Aristotelian Interpretation of Dooyeweerd” (in this journal, volume 75(2010), 97-116) directs its criticisms mainly to me, I will not be at pains in what follows to reply to all of them. What I will concentrate upon instead is the correct understanding of Dooyeweerd. It is far more important that readers of this journal get Dooyeweerd straight than that they get me straight, and Friesen has proposed a number of misconstruals of fundamental concepts and ideas in Dooyeweerd’s philosophy. Therefore, in part one I will try to clear up only a few of the more glaring misrepresentations of my position in order to clear the way for considering the more serious mis-understandings of Dooyeweerd in part two. Part three will focus on Friesen’s panentheism.

Re-politicizing space through technical rules

The paper focuses on the concept of technical rules (according to an Aristotelian interpretation, that is to say as propositions that express a necessity: if you want x, you must do y). The thesis argued is that this concept is helpful in coping with some of the problems of both teleological and deontological planning theories. In particular the concept is useful in emphasizing the role of technical knowledge in planning and in ‘solving the relationship’ between planning and politics in a way consistent with the characteristics of liberal and pluralist democracies.

The issue of life: Aristotle in nursing perspective

This paper explores the issue of life and its relevance to nursing, through Aristotle's philosophy and an Aristotelian interpretation of Nightingale's Notes on Nursing. Life as process and becoming has ontological status in Aristotle's philosophy and this dynamism is particularly relevant for nursing. The paper presents aspects of Aristotle's philosophy of life: his account of life as inherent powers of the individual, his analysis of change and time, and his understanding of sickness and health as qualitative states of living beings. It is shown how the Greek medical-philosophical tradition, continued by Galenic medicine and hygiene into modern time, influenced Nightingale's nursing. Individuals' life-maintaining metabolic relations to their surroundings are investigated through Aristotle and modern philosophy of biology and through Nightingale's nursing emphasis on the patient's relation to her or his immediate surroundings. It is argued that Nightingale's concern is really the processes of individual life, which in sickness necessitate temporally continuous nursing observation. Humans' radical dependency on their surroundings is actualized as interpersonal interdependency. The paper argues that the end of nursing care, the telos for which sake it is practised, is inherent in the individual course of the patients' life. When life processes are affected by sickness, infirmity, medical interventions or mental suffering, individuals need competent help to live - and to live as well as possible. It is suggested that the special responsibility of nursing is to facilitate, relieve and protect individual life continuously during such times.

Ricoeur’s Principle of Civic Inclusion

There has been much debate on the issue of priority between redistributive and recognitive justice.1 On one hand, recognition theorists assert that injustice results from the dominant relations of cultural, political, gendered, and racialized misrecognition of society's vulnerable and marginalized members. On the other hand redistributive justice theorists argue that such cultural forms of misrecognition as sexism, racism, ableism, and ageism cannot be fully understood apart from a class analysis of the maldistribution of income, social transfers, old age and disabiUty pensions as well as the exclusion of vulnerable members of society from public institutions of health, education and employment. In this essay, I want to explore Ricoeur's Aristotelian interpretation of the redistribution - recognition debate, and in particular, how he approaches the issue of priority between redistributive and recognitive justice in his reflections on the serial or the lexical ordering of Rawls's principles of justice.2 Recently, Gary Foster has argued that whereas Ricoeur emphasizes the conceptual priority of the good over the right, Rawls's conception of justice as fairness prioritizes the right over the good.3 Foster claims that neither the good nor the right may be shown to have a strict priority over the other. Rather, we may speak of the provisional priority of the right over the good, whereby the idea of justice is continually interpreted through historical and cultural conceptions of the good life. We must go beyond Ricoeur's articulation of the ethical aim, which prioritizes the good, to get at a dialectical relationship between the right and the good. But, as I read Ricoeur's theory of justice, it is both recognitive and redistributive. In developing what he refers to as the lexical ordering of the Rawlsian principles of justice, Ricoeur is not concerned with prioritizing the good over the just, but with developing a citizenship narrative. Rawls's lexical ordering of the principles of justice articulates a principle of civic inclusion, which states that no one is to be excluded from the public institutions of citizenship. This principle of civic inclusion funds the citizenship narrative. It is this civic narrative that gets lost when we become preoccupied by the issue of prioritization between the right (or the principles of justice), and the good (or the ethical intention). Rather than take Foster's issue of priority as a starting point, I begin with Ricoeur's conception of the norm of reciprocity, or the Golden Rule. It is the dialectic of the norm of reciprocity that mediates between the imperative of recognition owed to persons as ends in themselves (reflected in the solicitous care of persons in their singularity) and the imperative of redistributive justice (which extends the ethics of equality articulated by the solicitous care for the otherness of the other to all members of the political community).4 I shall underscore the specifically political character of Ricoeur's norm of reciprocity by following its development through Rawls's principles of justice, reaching in fine the principle of civic inclusion I have here introduced. From the Problem of Priority to the Norm of Reciprocity In his concluding remarks on his conception of a mediation between the just and the good, Foster argues that rather than concern ourselves with prioritizing either the right or the good, we are better off thinking of the two notions as co-dependent.5 My own argument departs from Foster's conclusion. In citing Rawls's central claim that justice constitutes the founding virtue of social institutions, Foster goes on to consider the possibility that justice is not the only 'first virtue of social institutions'6 but that we would do well to harmonize justice with other important social virtues, such as care, emphasized by feminist philosophers. But what a priori meaning could the virtue of justice be held to have, if it did not already encompass the social virtue of care? …

Knowing by Likeness in Empedocles

AbstractContrary to the Aristotelian interpretation of Empedocles' views about cognition, according to which all cognition, like perception, is due to the compositional likeness between subject and object of cognition, this paper argues that when Empedocles says that we know one thing 'by' another (e.g. earth by earth or love by love), he is characterizing analogical reasoning, an intellectual activity quite different from perception (which is explained by the fit between effluences and pores). The paper also explores the idea that strife and love describe, in addition to physical separation and composition, the mental activities of analyzing and composing.

A Little Idealism Is Idealism Enough

Given the evidence available today, we know that the later Middle Ages knew strong forms of idealism. However, Plato alone will not do to explain some of its features. Aristotle was the most important philosophical authority in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but until now no one dared explore in his thought the roots of this idealism because of the dogma of realism surrounding him. I challenge this dogma, showing that the Stagirite contained in his thought the roots of idealist aspects that will be developed, namely by Dietrich of Freiberg and Eckhart of Hochheim, into a fully idealist epistemology. I To approach the thought of Aristotle today is like penetrating a sacrosanct bulk of long- established views that ‗guide' one's interpretations of it. Because of the major influence of his thought in the whole of Western culture and of philosophical thinking in particular, studies on the history of philosophy are greatly constrained by those same views. Their weight is so overwhelming that neither the Aristotelian interpretation nor the study of the history of Western thought advance. Particularly two all-powerful dogmas guard the access to Western thought: (D1) Aristotle was an impenitent realist; and, undoubtedly connected with this, (D2) medieval epistemology was almost exclusively a realist one. 1 The problem with this, and namely with D2, is that we have a hard time explaining modern philosophy and one of its main—if not the most important—features: idealism. Looking for the sources of modern idealism solely in Plato will not do, and not even those who first opposed D2 realized that much of its source was to be found in Aristotle and in the late medieval reception of his thought. 2 The fact is that it is manifest that the Middle Ages knew strong forms of idealism (with Augustine, John Scottus Eriugena, and Anselm of Canterbury, for instance), and that the late medieval thought in particular, precisely the one which most absorbed from Aristotle, was greatly characterized by an epistemological idealism: even a superficial reading of some texts of Dietrich of Freiberg (ca. 1250-1310) and of Eckhart of Hochheim