Peripatetic School Research Articles

Lysander, Serapis and the School of Theophrastus

The aim of this article is to draw attention to two stories found in the works of Plutarch. These are Lysander’s last efforts to obtain oracles and overthrow the Spartan Constitution and the Sinopic tradition about the aetiological myth of the introduction of Sarapis’ cult in Alexandria. There are several common points between the two: Plutarch, kingship, the young boy and his divine paternity, the Black Sea area, the travel by sea, Delphi, Apollo and oracles. After analyzing and comparing these common points, we argue for a shared cultural background in the early Hellenistic period. This background consists of the work of a historian and a philosopher of this period, Theophrastus, the successor of Aristotle in the Peripatetic School. Plutarch mentions that the story he narrated in Lysander’s Life about the admiral’s last effort to obtain oracles from Delphi and to make a change in the Spartan constitution by introducing the election of the king from thearistoi goes back to a philosopher and historian. We know that he considered Theophrastus to be both a philosopher and a historian. The most famous pupil of Theophrastus, Demetrius of Phaleron, moved to Alexandria after 307 BC, became a worshipper of Serapis and wrote books about Serapis. Other students of Theophrastus were also great worshippers of this newly created god. This combined evidence permits us to advance the hypothesis that the story of Lysander served as a model for the construction of the Sinopic tradition about the introduction of Serapis’ cult in early Ptolemaic Egypt.

The Essence of Ontology in Islamic Philosophy

This article seeks to analyze the concept of wujūd in Islamic philosophy, including the Peripatetic (al-Ḥikmat al-Mashā’iyyat) and Illuminationist (al-Ḥikmat al-Ishrāq) schools. The study employs a discourse analysis approach, using data collected from an analysis of Islamic philosophy literature with a focus on the concept of wujūd in these two schools. The findings of the study show that despite using the same term, the concept of external reality has different meanings in different schools of Islamic philosophy. The Peripatetic school interprets wujūd as the basis of reality, but its extension varies depending on the differences in māhiyat (essence). The Illuminationist school, on the other hand, interprets wujūd as an addition to external reality, as the fundamental element is māhiyat. One of the novel contributions of this study is to highlight the sensitivity of the concept of essence in Islamic ontology, as evidenced by the different meanings of wujūd in the two schools of Islamic philosophy. However, both schools agree that wujūd is manifested as a mental reality, a predication for māhiyat. In mental reality, the fundamental element is māhiyat.

Epistemologi dan Falsafah berkaitan Terapi Muzik dari Perspektif Cendekiawan Muslim

This article studies the comparative analysis of epistemology and philosophy of music in the Islamic civilization according to the viewpoints of medieval scholars in the Islamic civilization. The scholars selected are al-Kindi, Ikhwan al-Safa, al-Farabi and Ibn Sina. The basis of this research begins from the polemic among scholars concerning the legal status of using music, whether permissible or forbidden, due to the absence of authenticated textual proof (nas qat’i) from al-Quran and protracted debate over the authenticity of hadith on the prohibition of music. Behind the debate is that music was applied as an Islamic psychotherapy method of treatment in hospitals of the medieval Islamic civilization such as Fez Hospital in Morocco, cAdudi Hospital in Baghdad, al-Mansuri Hospital in Cairo, Nuri Hospital in Damascus, al-Arghuni Hospital in Allepo, Gevher Nesibe Hospital and Giyaseddin Keyhusrev Medical Hospital in Kayseri, Keykavus Hospital in Sivas, Turan Malik Hospital in Divrighi, Pervane Bey Hospital in Tokat, Atabey Ferruh Hospital in Cankiri, Ali bin Pervane Hospital in Kastamonu, Amasya Hospital in Amasya, Fatih Hospital in Istanbul, Edirne Sultan Bayezid II Hospital in Edirne and Suleymaniye Hospital in Istanbul. This research uses qualitative methodology and library research method by analyzing various primary and secondary sources. Research results show that there is a slight discrepancy of views between supporters of neo-Pythagorean (al-Kindi and Ikhwan al-Safa) and Aristotelian (al-Farabi and Ibn Sina) schools of thought from the epistemological viewpoint. However, in terms of philosophy, there seems to be points of similarity in the matter of enhancement of moral and spiritual values for the sake of human well-being, whether physical or spiritual.

Peripatetic teaching: what can medical education learn from ancient Greece?

Peripatetic teaching originated in the Aristotelian school of ancient Greece and refers to the action of walking, discussion and deep learning. A pilot study was carried out to evaluate the educational impact of peripatetic teaching in clinical medical education. There has been no previous evaluation of this form of teaching within medical education. A pilot study was carried out to evaluate small group clinical sessions encompassing peripatetic teaching. A total of 56 post teaching questionnaires were completed and evaluated (return rate ~95%). High levels of satisfaction (n~4.7/5) were reported from this method of teaching. On average, a total of 1420 steps were taken during each teaching session, identifying additional exercise benefits for all. This article identifies educational and health benefits to peripatetic teaching. The authors present a simple framework to structure each teaching session using the mnemonic FIRM - Feedback, dIscussion, Reflection and Mentorship. From this pilot study, the authors conclude that there are perceived benefits for teacher and learner from this teaching method.

Meravigliosi ragni danzanti. Interpretazioni del tarantismo nel Seicento ed. by Manuel de Carli

Reviewed by: Meravigliosi ragni danzanti. Interpretazioni del tarantismo nel Seicento ed. by Manuel de Carli Claudio Petrillo Italy, tarantism, spiders, psychogenic illness, occult, dance, music, rituality manuel de carli, ED. Meravigliosi ragni danzanti. Interpretazioni del tarantismo nel Seicento. Calimera: Kurumuny Edizioni, 2020. Pp. 244. The rich and encompassing approach of this book aims to shed light on the multifaceted phenomenon of tarantism, a mass psychogenic illness causing fits of dancing, through considerations of the debates which arose around it in the seventeenth century. This is an historical overview of the thought of several personalities regarding the question of tarantism, across the scientific and humanistic community of the 1600s. In the process, the book investigates the common grounds and ontological roots uniting various disciplines, such as medicine, philosophy, literature, astrology, and alchemy. The core topic of Meravigliosi ragni danzanti is the evidence of an interdisciplinary tradition—spanning history, sociology, ethnology, anthropology, and philosophy—within which the history and interpretations of one of the more sensational phenomena both in the Italian collective consciousness and in the cultural folklore of the country were debated. Tarantism likely assumed its unique features thanks to its climatic and geographical setting, broadly speaking the whole of southern Europe, but certainly manifested most dramatically in Apulia. This work is organized into seven chapters, each dedicated to one European scholar of the seventeenth century. These scholars of tarantism are presented and examined by experts: Giovanni Battista della Porta (1535–1615) by Donato Verardi, Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639) by Maurizio Cambi, Epifanio Ferdinando (1569–1638) by Adele Spedicati, Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680) by Silvia Parigi, Wolferd Senguerd (1646–1724) by Manuel De Carli, Antonio [End Page 451] Muscettola (1628–1679) by Marco Leone, and Giorgio Baglivi (1668–1707) by Gabriella Sava. Collectively, they form the cornerstones of an international network of scholarly dialogue and research, conceptual and empirical knowledge. The connections between these scholars were established in private libraries, where texts were passed around and ideas were confronted, interacting with each other. While the spatial and temporal details of the debate provide important context in these studies, perhaps more important are the key concepts and patterns presented throughout the collected papers. One of the shared conceptual motifs in this work is the opposition between the occult and the manifest, especially in the studies of Della Porta (17–45), Campanella (47–81), Ferdinando (85–118), Kircher (121–64), and Senguerd (149–81). This dichotomy refers to the account of the occult by the Peripatetic school, still very much trending in the seventeenth century, to which were ascribed those qualities susceptible neither to the senses nor to the human intellect. This was a common but not universal framework used for the analysis of tarantism. While some natural historians, such as Senguerd and Baglivi (221–28), relied on philosophico-scientific axioms of mechanistic-corpuscular inspiration (closer to Descartes and Bacon) and therefore saw no use in the category of the occult, the physician Epifanio Ferdinando, on the other hand, accepted the theorization of occult matters from an Aristotelian-Galenian perspective. In addition to the question of "mechanism," this dichotomy between the occult and the manifest could be found in the theoretical, conceptual, and empirical work on hypothetical cures for the condition. A question that is particularly central in the book regards the interpretation of the therapeutic tools against tarantism as operational within either the realm of magical rituality or of scientific practice. A paramount example of this is the supposed therapeutic power of music. In essence, the idea that the symptoms were expressed in the agitated bodily movements and stimulated by the external agent (spider's venom) became a central subject of discussion in many fields. Initially, the connection between the body and the spirit was debated, including the question of how spider venom could come to affect the victim's animus. Later, immaterial links between the spirit of the animal and the spirit of the victim were hypothesized, in ways that might depend on certain circumstances, periods of time, climatic variables, or the patient's feelings. The symptoms were eventually understood with the help a broader social analysis of the phenomenon, and were particularly attributed to the lower classes in the society...

Reinventing Proskynesis: Callisthenes and the Peripatetic School

Many have felt to be anachronistic the casting of proskynesis in the court of Alexander the Great as a matter of worship of the king. Taking this premise as its starting point, this article explores the possible origins of this presentation of Alexander’s proskynesis, an understanding that is articulated most fully in the ‘proskynesis debates’ of Arrian (4.10-12) and Curtius (8.5-6). It is argued that the misrepresentation was a deliberate strategy cultivated in the Peripatos, and that it was designed to deflect opprobrium away from Callisthenes and, by extension, away from the Peripatos itself.

SOPHOCLES IN AFGHANISTAN

In 1977, French excavations at Aï Khanoum in north-east Afghanistan—a foundation of Antiochus I Sotēr and subsequently one of the major cities of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom—of a building dating to shortly before the destruction of the place in 145 b.c.e. uncovered inter alia the remains of a papyrus and a parchment document. The papyrus text, dated by Cavallo on the basis of its letterforms to the mid third century b.c.e., preserved a fragment of a philosophical dialogue seemingly to be associated with the Peripatetic school. The second document consisted of two separate portions of a piece of parchment roughly assigned on the basis of its letterforms to the second half of the third or the first half of the second century b.c.e.; as also in the case of the papyrus, the letters survived not on the parchment itself but impressed upon the hardened dirt that surrounded it. Only column II of the original editors’ ‘Texte 2a’ (the more substantial of the two parchment fragments) contains a significant amount of text, which appears in neither TrGF nor PCG. I present it here without regard to standard editorial niceties, which are rendered impossible by the desperate state of the original document, now almost certainly lost, and the nature of the original publication.

PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD IN ISLAMIC THEOLOGY (KALAM)

The present article is devoted to the study of the proofs for the existence of God in the Mu‘tazilite, Ash‘arite and Maturidi schools of Kalam (Islamic rational/philosophical Theology). The arguments for God’s existence have been proposed by the doctors of Kalam are explicated in the context of their substantiation for the Quran’s assertion that God is First principle and the Ultimate cause of all creation. Of the many proofs for God’s existence — the cosmological, the teleological, and the ontological — only the cosmological type of argument was mostly pressed into service by Muslim theologians. The argument from design, though not overlooked completely, was not used as an independent proof for God’s existence. Some of the prominent As’arite thinkers, like al Ghazalī, combined kalam proofs with philosophical arguments for God’s existence have been utilized in the Islamic Peripatetic School. Special attention is given to the proofs for the existence of God proposed by Abu Mansur al-Maturidi (853–944), the founder and eponym of Maturidi Sunni Kalam school named after him. The analysis of his arguments is relevant due to the fact that Maturidi theological doctrine was the dominant source of theology, followed by most Sunni Hanafi Muslims in Central Asia, Kazakhstan, the Volga-Ural region, the European Part and Western Siberia of the former Russian Empire.

아리스토텔레스의 삼단논법과 보에티우스의 삼단논법

In this paper, we discuss the syllogisms from both fronts : Aristotle and Boethius. We mainly focus on the differences with respect to categorical and hypothetical syllogisms in Aristotle and Boethius. Regarding Aristotle’s works on logic, it is not unusual to claim that Aristotle extensively worked on categorical syllogisms. In Prior Analytics, Aristotle gave proofs for many valid moods. However we cannot find a similar treatment for hypothetical syllogism in his works. Thus, it might be a reason for his students to improve Aristotle’s theory of syllogisms by filling the gaps in hypothetical syllogisms. As Boethius already emphasized in the Book I of De Hypotheticis Syllogismis, the Peripatetic School only initiated the start. The remaining and detailed treatise was due to Boethius himself. The impression we got from Boethius’s and Aristotle’s works on syllogisms is that the categorical syllogism is almost entirely developed by Aristotle himself, whereas the extensive and the detailed study of the hypothetical syllogism was carried out by Boethius, although he was not the first figure in the history who gave concise expositions on hypothetical syllogism. Boethius’s translations of syllogisms in medieval era were the primer resource and textbook for Aristotelian logic during the early Medieval ages. Therefore, the scholars of those times had no other chance but to work from Boethius’s commentaries. So, the evident properties of Aristotelian figures were not then visible. Boethius wrote several textbooks in logic. A detailed investigation might yield significant information on Boethius’s logic compared with the influence of Aristotle on Boethius.

Origen’s Explicit References to Aristotle and the Peripateticians

Abstract The acquaintance of Origen with Aristotle and Peripatetic tradition is still unexplored in scholarship due to both the lack of documentation concerned with the Peripatetic school in the early imperial period and to the equivocal and complex approach of the early Christians to the classical philosophy. The chief aim of this study is to contribute to the understanding of Origen’s knowledge of Aristotelian thought by investigating his explicit references to Aristotelian texts and doctrines. In this respect, the analysis will focus on Origen’s references to the biography of Aristotle, to the doctrines explicitly attributed to Aristotle and the Peripateticians, finally to some specific Peripateticians.

Personalizm tomistyczny wobec nowoczesnej i ponowoczesnej antropologii

Thomistic personalism against modernand postmodern anthropologySummaryThe article is divided into four parts which discuss the following subjects:1) Anthropology of the late 19th and mid-19th century – consisting in the evolutionaryunderstanding of not only the genesis of man but also his personality,psyche, culture and morality. This approach contrasted with the Thomistictheory of man as a person, which was developed also at this time. Man understoodas a person can be characterized by the intellectual perception ofthe surrounding reality, the freedom to act, and the love for others which goesbeyond purely physical relations. A human being understood in such a waystands in opposition to every form of reductionism: biological, sociological,cultural, economic, and legal. Man as a person grows above the physical, alsoabove his body which – despite being an integral part of human existence –does not fall within the definition of a person. According to this view, mancannot be reduced to his body, which is obvious, but also carnality does notconstitute a central theme of anthropology, that being a person. As a consequence,the problem of the origin of the body becomes secondary and fromthis perspective, even the acceptance of the evolutionary origin of the bodilyorgans does not constitute a ground for negating the creative role of God inthe formation of man.2) Anthropology of postmodernism is characterized by the “fluidity” of thedefinition of man. This is caused by the “contingency” of man, which pointsto individuality, diversity and lack of one metaphysics that could cover allobjects. A postmodern man believes in historicism (looking at phenomenafrom the point of view of their historical evolution) and nominalism (thereare only individuals and their conventional names), so he can abandon anymetanarrative attempts to describe the essence of things. He creates hisown language of metaphors which he can use absolutely freely. Accordingto the theory of man as a person, postmodernism appears as a reaction to thebiological and socio-cultural reductionism that the science of the 19th and20th century – with its scientism and technocracy – offered to man. It seemsthat in this context one can pay attention to the typical characteristics of a person (constitutiva personae), such as individuality, intellectual characterand freedom of the human being, which all give rise to its subjectivity andfar-reaching autonomy.3) Anthropology of transhumanism advocates the widespread use of medicalscience (including manipulation of the DNA code) and advanced technologyin human development, leading to the transformation of man into theposthuman and beginning a new epoch of history called posthumanism.Posthumans will be beings with far greater capabilities than human beingstoday. In a discussion with transhumanism, the article referred to the fundamentalparadigms of philosophical thinking – Platonism and Aristotelianism.It was considered that transhumanism is a form of Platonism with itsdream of making man angelic or divine. It results from the concept of manas only the set of attributes and relations “mechanically” added to each other.According to Aristotelianism, the form of human being is immutable in itsessence, and it is only the properties and relationships of a human being thatchange. The Thomistic theory of a person belongs to a group of philosophiesoriginating from the Aristotelian school and – allowing for a great variabilityof features and relationships – it does not consider them to be able to changetheir subject – a human being into something else.4) Social philosophers and philosophical sociologists record a number of negativeanthropological phenomena related to the already existing postmodernand transhumanist “project”. These include primarily nihilism, scientism,materialism, and identity loss, all of which results in the infantilization ofthe human culture, and – in the economic field – in the economy of excessand lack, i.e. the continuous deepening of financial differences (fortificationsof the rich and ghettos of the poor), while in the area of health it leads to thedeterioration of the mental condition of man. It is suggested that the subjectiveand personal approach to man be opposed to extreme scientism, nihilism andthe objective and utilitarian use of man for the benefit and pleasure. Findingoneself as a person can be a way for people to get to know themselves andovercome a deepening identity crisis. Emphasizing the dignity of the personand concern for the common good may be an attempt to leave the civilizationof excess and lack. Establishing personal relationships and caring for otherscan inhibit the breakdown of interpersonal relationships, loneliness and theloss of a sense of security, and it may help improve the deteriorating spiritualcondition of the postmodern human.

Akmaluddın Al-Nahjuwanı dan Kıtab Syarḥu al-Isyārāt

In the history of philosophy, Peripatetic has been acknowledged as the most influential philosophy school. Even, in Islamic thought tradition, this Aristotelian school of philosophy has significant influence. Among Masysya’i philosophers, i.e. Peripatetic adherents in Islam, Ibn Sina is the most renowned Islamic philosopher who arduously develops Aristotelian thoughts. He is not only to copy Aristotle, instead inventing new thoughts in philosophy. Al-Isyarat wa al-tanbihat is one of vaunted Ibn Sina’s works. It becomes that last work before his passing away. This book contains the philosophy works he wrote beforehand. In the history of Islamic thought history, especially after 12 th century, this work has significant and strong influence in Moslem philosophers. Nonetheless, many Moslem philosophers, both who support or reject him, commented (Syaraḥ) this book. These comments (syur ū ḥ) are then followed with some annotative elaborations like hasyiyah, ta’liq, muhakamat, etc. While the precious values of this book are beyond question, some commentaries and annotative works remain difficult to get since most of them kept in the form of manuscripts in various large libraries around the world. One of significant and rare manuscripts is that of Syarḥ a l-Isy ā r ā t wa al - T anb ī h ā t written by Akmaluddin A l -Nahjuwani. This writing aims to introduce Akmuluddin al -Nahjuwani in his work titled Syarḥu a l-Isy ā r ā t and analyze its contents in brief. Ibn S ina, T he T radition of Isy ā r ā t wa al -Tanb ī h ā t, Akmaluddin a l -Nahjuwani, Syarḥu al -Isy ā r ā t.

The Accidentality of Existence in Avicenna and its Critique by Averroes

Abstract The accidentality of existence in Avicenna (Ebn Sinā, d. 1037) is related to his distinction between “existence (vojud)” and “quiddity (māhiyya).” Both these theories have been greatly criticized by Averroes (Ebn Roshd, d. 1198). The latter’s misunderstanding of Avicenna has been the cause of confusion for the comprehension of Aristotle (d. 322 bce) in Western Christian scholasticism. This misunderstanding has also extended to Western contemporary Aristotelian scholarship. This paper will try to clarify how this phenomenon perpetuated a global confusion and misunderstanding between the East and the West and also created a disastrous situation for the comprehension of the Peripatetic School. This state of affairs has continued up to the present day among both medievalists and scholars of Aristotelian philosophy. However, it is not my intention in this paper to give a complete review of Western and Eastern scholarship on this subject. Rather, I shall limit myself (with some exceptions) to the works of Aristotle, Alexander of Aphrodisias (fl. c. 205) and other Greek commentators, Avicenna, and Averroes, which together constitute the primary sources for the ongoing discussion around the nature of “essence” and “existence” in Avicenna’s works.

K niektorym aspektom chapania cnosti u V. Ockhama

The aim of this article is to focus on some specific perspectives of Ockham´s ethics theory. His interpretation of Aristotle´s virtue ethics was different from his contemporaries. Ockham (with D. Scotus) shifted the traditional standpoint of the various Aristotelian schools from a focus on reason and reasonable purposes toward the will and its internal/external acts. The will is faculty, in accordance with reason, which brings out an internal act and only this act can be free. Nothing else, apart from the will and its acts, can be necessarily free and thus virtuous. Nothing except for interior acts of the will can be fully virtuous. The perfect virtue is the only internal capacity of the will, although always dependent on the telos – the end of the will. Ockham presents 5 degrees of virtues and especially the heroic one, being the highest of all virtues.

FIRE AND HEAT: YAḤYĀ B. ʿADĪ AND AVICENNA ON THE ESSENTIALITY OF BEING SUBSTANCE OR ACCIDENT

AbstractAvicenna's analysis of the definition of substance and accident repeatedly emphasizes two points: one and the same essence cannot be substance in one instance and accident in another; whetherxis extrinsic or intrinsic for an underlying subject,ydoes not tell us anything as to whetherxis substance or not. Both points are development in an argument against certain unnamed people who claimed the opposite. In this article I will show that Avicenna's opponents are to be identified with the mainstream Baghdad Peripatetic School (Ibn Suwār, Ibn al-Ṭayyib) which based itself on the Late Antique rule that “parts of substances are substances”. As for Avicenna's own position, it was developed on the basis of the heterodox position of Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī, who anticipated Avicenna's first point. This is a further piece of evidence for something that has only recently begun to be appreciated: the influence of Ibn ʿAdī on Avicenna.

A Development of the Principle of Virtual Laws and its Conceptual Framework in Mechanics as Fundamental Relationship between Physics and Mathematics

Generally speaking, virtual displacement or work concerns to a timely idea according to which a motion of a certain body is not the unique possible motion. The process of reducing this motion to a particular magnitude and concept, eventually minimizing as a hypothesis, can be traced back to the Aristotelian school. In the history and philosophy of science one finds various enunciations of the Principle of Virtual Laws and its virtual displacement or work applications, i.e., from Aristotle to Leibniz’s vis viva, from Maupertuis’ least action to Euler and Lagrange with calculus of variations (statics and dynamics) to Lazare Carnot’s mechanics. In this case study, I will demonstrate that a particular approach used by Lazare Carnot is original by explaining within the historical context of rival approaches such as the development of the Principle of virtual Laws (also known as the Principle of virtual velocity or of virtual work). I will also discuss Carnot’s geometric motion as one of the possible but invertible movements applied to virtual displacement as employed in his theories of machines and collisions. I will then go on to explore how the originality of an invertible motion within his mechanical and, in general, mathematical research program permitted Carnot to introduce a new way of structuring a scientific theory and making mechanics, with respect to the Newtonian paradigm, to scholars and his students of the École polytechnique de Paris.

Senses to cultivate the collective consciousness: Physical theatre, an experimental approach to product design education

Abstract Consciousness and perception of reality are related to internal and external factors as the sum of collective and social interactions. Attila Grandpierre in his ‘The physics of collective consciousness’ underlined the prime role of performing arts quoting the words of Vekerdy, who said that theatrical artists especially in the ancient Japanese Noh Theatre have a great effect on audience in three ways: using words, hearing by movements, through seeing and the use of intense emotion. Generally in the design field the relation between user and the product is stressed; on the other hand, in the theatre field the ability to explore and underlining the social impact of a specific object or action is important. We might assume that each of us perceives the world differently according to the culture that we are a part of. The ancient Aristotle’s peripatetic School and the context of Zen Buddhism highlighted the senses and experimental knowledge as the first important tools to cultivate intellect. This article will describe an experimental blend created in Thailand between physical theatre and design education.

¿La escuela de Alejandro de Afrodisia?

<p class='p1'>Si bien los trabajos de Alejandro de Afrodisia ejercieron una influencia considerable en la filosofía antigua posterior a él y han ocupado un lugar prominente en la historia de la escuela peripatética y del aristotelismo antiguo en general, se sabe poco sobre quiénes fueron sus maestros y alumnos y sobre cuál fue su interacción con filosófos contemporáneos de otras escuelas, tales como Galeno y los estoicos de esa época. En este trabajo, R.W. Sharples ofrece una reconstrucción de este contexto inmediato y, en especial, una discusión crítica del valor de las pruebas que nos permitirían concluir que ciertos rasgos de sus trabajos —tales como ciertas inconsistencias doctrinales— reflejan distintas posturas filosóficas en el interior de su propia escuela.</p>

Ethics after Aristotle by Brad Inwood (review)

Reviewed by: Ethics after Aristotle by Brad Inwood Benjamin A. Rider Brad Inwood. Ethics after Aristotle. Cambridge-London: Harvard University Press, 2014. Pp. x + 166. Cloth, $39.95. The past half-century has seen a surge of interest in Aristotle’s ethics. For participants in this revived neo-Aristotelian tradition, Aristotle’s writings and distinctive ethical approach provide an important touchstone and inspiration for their own ideas. But this has happened before. In the classical world, from his own students and colleagues to the great commentator, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Aristotle’s followers adapted, debated, and reworked their master’s ideas, often in the context of debate with rival schools. Inwood’s short book outlines the trajectory and main developments of this tradition, tracing a history of active and often innovative philosophers working to make sense of and defend their founding genius’s insights. In this respect, of course, the peripatetic tradition is not much different from other Hellenistic schools. But a review of the ethical claims of peripatetic philosophers over the centuries reveals a surprising diversity. Early peripatetic scholiarch Strato of Lampsacus emphasized happiness as activity, “the best actualization of characteristically human capacities” (38); Lycon embraced a sort of hedonism (39–41); Critolaus rejected both, defining happiness in terms of possessing goods (55–57). So how is the peripatetic school a unified ethical tradition? Inwood explains: Aristotle’s texts, though brilliant and detailed, leave many unanswered questions and unresolved tensions. For example, what is pleasure, and what is its role in a good life? How do external goods and fortune impact a virtuous man’s happiness? What is the role of passions in an excellent life? Such questions became focal points of debate for Hellenistic and Imperial philosophy, but Aristotle’s own answers are messy or indeterminate. Therefore, a philosopher in the peripatetic tradition must choose a position and, subsequently, must defend his resulting theory against opposition from rivals. As an illustration, consider Aristotle’s colleague, Theophrastus. Aristotle himself seems genuinely torn about whether external and bodily misfortune can ruin a virtuous man’s happiness (27–28). Theophrastus, by contrast, “was wonderfully consistent on this question—external and bodily misfortunes can ruin happiness. . . . Fortune, not wisdom, is in charge of life” (28). As Inwood explains, “Aristotle left a genuine problem; Theophrastus resolved the issue by taking a position that would have been too starkly consistent for his master” (28). Something similar, Inwood argues, occurs later with figures who appear to embrace even more idiosyncratic and apparently non-Aristotelian views, like Hieronymous of Rhodes, who held that the telos “consists in a life free of disturbance” (42). Even here, says Inwood, “a neo-Aristotelian takes up a position of his own from among the options left open or at least unclear by the founder” (46). Since Inwood’s is a short book covering many centuries of philosophy, its survey is necessarily selective. Inwood therefore focuses on a topic he thinks has significant relevance for modern neo-Aristotelianism: How did Aristotle’s followers take on and extend Aristotle’s ethical naturalism, his attempt to ground ethical inquiry in an account of human nature and human continuity with the rest of the natural world, especially other animals? As Inwood explains, Aristotle himself failed to pursue this idea consistently (19–21), but as later peripatetics confronted the more firmly naturalistic positions of rival schools, it became necessary to develop a more robust account. Inwood finds attempts at such an account scattered throughout the tradition—in the ideas of the early peripatetic leader, Lycon (40–41); in Cicero’s account of Aristotelian ethics in De Finibus (66–70); and in the early Imperial text called “Doxography C” (88). According to Inwood, however, a powerful naturalistic synthesis of Aristotelian ethics finally emerges in the work of Alexander of Aphrodisias. Drawing on predecessors as well as his own voluminous knowledge of Aristotle’s texts, Alexander constructs an ethical framework in which humans, like other animals, desire to be, to live, which in Aristotelian terms means to actualize one’s distinctive capacities in activity (109–11). Each being desires unimpeded activity corresponding to what it is (117), so, as a human matures, intellectual activity [End Page 157] becomes...

Metaphysical Penetrations: A Parallel English-Arabic Text by Mulla Ṣadrā (review)

Reviewed by: Metaphysical Penetrations: A Parallel English-Arabic Text by Mulla Ṣadrā Ali Paya Metaphysical Penetrations: A Parallel English-Arabic Text by Mulla Ṣadrā, trans. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, ed. and introduced by Ibrahim Kalin, 2014. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, distributed for Brigham Young University), xli + 320 pp. (English/Arabic), $39.95. isbn: 978-0-84252-839-9. A famous philosopher – Karl Popper – once observed that ‘all men and all women are philosophers’. While this observation can hardly be challenged, when it comes to philosophy as a distinct discipline whose aim is the systematic endeavour to explore various aspects of reality by rational means, it seems that only a limited number of cultures can claim to have developed advanced and sophisticated ways of systematic philosophising and possess a variety of well-developed philosophical schools. Philosophy seems to have always been an integral part of the intellectual landscape of Iran whether in her Islamic or pre-Islamic periods. When, due to the dominance of Ash‘ari thought in the Eastern as well as the Western flanks of Muslim lands, philosophy, as a discipline, vanished from Muslims centres of learning, Iranian philosophers, whether Sunni or Shi‘i kept the flame of philosophising alive and continued their intellectual endeavour by producing new and more sophisticated schools of philosophy. Apart from the Peripatetic School with luminaries like Farabi, Ibn Sina, and Nasir al-Din Tusi, among others, Iranians managed to develop entirely new philosophical schools such as the Iluminationist (Ishraqi) School (introduced by Suhrawardi), the School of Isfahan (developed by Mir Damad), the Schools of Shiraz (the first one introduced by Sadr al-Din Dashtaki and the other by Mulla Sadra Shirazi), and School of Khorasan (due to Mulla Hadi Sabzivari). Among modern scholars who have contributed to introducing the achievements of Muslim philosophers to the Western readers, Professor [End Page 529] Seyyed Hossein Nasr deserves special mention. On his own as well as in collaboration with colleagues and students, he has managed to translate many of the works produced by Muslim philosophers since the inception of philosophy among Muslims to the present day. The book under review occupies a special place in his considerable oeuvre. As he explains in his preface, this translation and his annotations are the outcome of a novel project which was carried out for the first time in the West within the confines of an academic setting. Professor Nasr explains that in 1984 at the George Washington University, with the help of ‘a group of advanced and well-qualified students in the field of Islamic philosophy’ he ‘decided to perpetuate [the] time-honoured tradition of dars-i kharij’ by teaching two major texts of Mulla Sadra, who is regarded as one of the greatest Muslim philosophers of all time. The books in question were Kitab al-Hikmah al-‘Arshiyyah, and Kitab al-Masha’ir. As the translator explains, in dars-i kharij, the teacher first reads the text, and then comments upon it. Then students are invited to contribute to the discussions by suggesting their own critical comments, observations, and questions. The book under review is the outcome of this intellectually stimulating process which, in the case of Professor Nasr and his students, went on for a number of years. The book contains the English translation of Kitab al-Masha’ir plus the original Arabic text followed by notes and comments on various aspects of the text. The English translation is edited and annotated by Ibrahim Kalin, who was a member of Professor Nasr’s dars-i kharij sessions and at the time also one of Professor Nasr’s PhD students. The Masha’ir belongs to the period of Sadra’s intellectual and spiritual maturity. He was in his fifties when he finished the book. It provides a clear account of Mulla Sadra’s system of thought in which ‘wujud’ (Being, being, Existence) in itself, and not our conception of it, is the source/originator/creator of everything. It is also the starting point of Sadra’s philosophical deliberations. Sadra has produced a complete metaphysical/epistemological/theosophical system by pondering on wujud itself and its implications. The editor, who is now a professor of Islamic philosophy, in his introduction...