Greek Concept Research Articles

Re‐examining the ancient roots of the concept of intellectual virtue

AbstractContemporary scholars working in virtue epistemology profess to take inspiration and build on the ancient Greek conception of intellectual virtues. In this paper, I show that, despite their claim, contemporary models of intellectual virtue differ in notable ways from the ancient Greek account of the concept. I pinpoint two major differences between the ancient Greek conception of intellectual virtues and the contemporary understandings of the term. These amount to (a) what the term of intellectual virtues includes and (b) the location of the value of intellectual virtues. I argue that re‐examining the philosophical history of the concept of intellectual virtue can have significant positive implications for contemporary virtue epistemology. Indicatively, I show that it could lead to the development of theories that maintain that intellectual excellences are conducive to leading a good life because their activity is constitutive of the human good—instead of locating their value, as contemporary virtue epistemologists currently do, in the epistemic goods that they enable the agent to acquire and/or in the agent's epistemic motivations.

Free speech and democracy in Palestinian Universities: A call for parrhesiastic speech

This article examines the factors contributing to the suppression of free speech in Palestine, with a focus on the West Bank. We argue that anti-democratic politics and restricted public discourse in both public and academic spheres are mutually reinforced by the Israeli occupation and the Palestinian Authority. Despite education’s potential as a tool of liberation, the ongoing cooperation between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, as well as internal factional conflict, impede free speech within Palestine. Traditional teaching methods based on rote learning continue to dominate, posing a significant challenge to critical thinking and expression. Although education may serve as a pathway to freedom, constraints transform it into a tool for subjugation. Drawing on Foucault’s adaptation of the ancient Greek concept of parrhesia, we argue that Palestinian universities require more robust protections for free speech. At the same time, we argue that the struggle for free speech in these universities can be instructive to liberal democracies. Through analysis of the atrocities perpetrated against journalists and other dissenting voices, we shed light on the obstacles to democracy in Palestinian intellectual life.

Shrewdness and Coup d’œil: The Cognitive Attributes of the Consummate General (Greek Antiquity, Byzantine Era, Modern Times)

Abstract This article tests Everett Wheeler’s hypothesis that the Greek concept of ankhínoia finds its equivalent in the 18th-century military writers’ notion of the coup d’oeil by comparing treatises on the art of war written in the two periods. After highlighting the different meanings of the coup d’oeil in 18th -century military terminology, Carl von Clausewitz’s approach is examined in his new conceptual way.

Athens or Rome? A New Perspective on the Political Philosophy of H. Arendt

Hannah Arendt is widely known as a philosopher who attempted to rehabilitate the ancient Greek conception of politics. According to established readings of The Human Condition, Arendt is generally regarded as a ‘Graecophile’ whose thought is underwritten by ‘Athenian nostalgia’. Arendt’s sympathies for the Greeks are hard to deny: she did indeed turn to the Athenian understanding of politics in an attempt to crystallise in it the core elements of authentic politics. However, this interpretation is excessively one-sided. In Arendt’s view, the greatest contribution to the understanding of politics was offered by the Romans, not the Greeks. The Romans were much better at dealing with the problem of stability, continuity and order of politics. In Arendt’s view, an exclusive focus on action, spontaneity and extraordinary deeds threatens to destabilise the life of the political community. By introducing concepts such as tradition, authority, the sacredness of foundation, the law (lex), as well as the political significance of promise and forgiveness, the Romans opened up a dimension of political sedimentation which was alien to the Greeks. Political sedimentation provides safeguards, without which a sustainable political existence would become impossible.

Artistic practice in Waldorf teacher education: a sensory-aesthetic concept for a digital age

One of the general concepts underlying Waldorf education is that teaching is an art. Although this idea is certainly not unique to Waldorf education, what is unique is the way it has been integrated into Waldorf teacher education. While Waldorf teacher education programs are diverse, both in national and international contexts, one of the central elements which they share is the prominent role which different forms of artistic practice play throughout the course of pre-service and in-service programs. This article explores the reasons and aims behind the inclusion of subjects such as music, sculpture, and speech in Waldorf teacher education, at first within the larger context of viewing different perspectives and justifications for the inclusion of the arts in teacher education outside of Waldorf pedagogy. In light of the educational challenges posed by widespread sensory deficits among children and adolescents, viewed here as being connected to the extensive role/s which different forms of digital media play in their lives, the case is made for the potentials of the arts as a way to address those deficits. In examining both the arguments for arts-based courses in teacher education and the pedagogical challenges of our times I propose a concept for the inclusion of the arts in teacher education connected to the concept of aesthesis, from the Ancient Greek concept of aisthésis, understood here as the primary perceptual-sensory basis of aesthetic experience. The integration of scientific courses with arts-based practice in teacher education is seen as providing a fruitful basis for teachers to be able to take on these educational challenges.

K. H. Ting’s One-Sided Interpretation of Xin (信) as a verb

K. H. Ting has challenged traditional Reformed theology with xin (信), since he understood the Chinese word xin so differently from the Religious Reformers, e.g., Martin Luther, understanding the NT Greek concepts πιστεύω, πιστός and πίστις to the point that Ting proposed to dilute its role in justification (danhua yinxin chengyi；淡化因信称义). I hereby aim to explore the distinction of and reason for Ting’s understanding which departs from traditional Reformed theology from within the framework of traditional “Chinese” conception of religion and ethics; in the meanwhile the NT Greek and Reformation Latin traditions have also been studied as a subsidiary role insofar as they illumine the Reformers’ positions. This study is not conducted through political theology, but in the light of systematic and semantical, especially conceptual analysis, because the former has been well studied but the latter approach has not been explored well enough. Both πίστις and xin have many layers of meaning in NT Greek and Chinese classics, literature, or even common parlance, but Ting paid attention only to the connotation of xin as a verb. When Ting discussedthe doctrine of justification by faith, he had neither distinguished clearly enough the differences among πιστεύω, πιστός and πίστις, nor among credo, fidelium and fides. In addition to a verb, xin is used also as an adjective, a verb-noun, an adjective-noun and a noun, but because of his one-sided interpretation Ting has understood xin differently from Martin Luther and other Western predecessors.

Grace in a Time of War: Herder’s ‘Das Fest der Grazien’ between Schiller and Hölderlin

This article situates Herder’s little-read essay ‘Das Fest der Grazien’ (1795) in the conceptual history of grace between Schiller and Hölderlin. All three authors champion grace as an answer to modern conflict and division. But while Schiller articulates his theory of grace on the basis of Kantian dualisms, Herder and Hölderlin both turn to ancient Greek conceptions of charis and to an emphasis on the gratuitousness of grace, or of grace as gift and as gratitude. Herder argues implicitly against Schiller’s isolated observers of grace in order to emphasize interdependence rather than autonomy, participation rather than observation, and he stages a fictionalized scene of persuasion as a strategy to help persuade us of his claims. Hölderlin presents a similar understanding of grace but avoids strategies of persuasion, replacing them with a discourse of invitation, fidelity, and hope. Thus if for Herder grace in its gift-quality is always already present and need only be recognized, for Hölderlin grace is an event that happens to us, perennially unexpected and yet also surprisingly often even in a time of conflict and war.

Understanding Poison: Study of a Word Du from the Perspective of Comparative History

This article investigates the word Du (毒) in premodern Chinese medicine and culture. It highlights the paradoxical meaning of the word that served as a foundation for the therapeutic use of poisons in traditional Chinese medicine. The article then situates the study in a comparative framework. By comparing the Chinese notion of Du with the Greek concept of pharmakon, it demonstrates significant similarities on the medical use of poisons in the two cultures. It further identifies a striking difference: While the European pharmacy started to separate poisons from medicines in the medieval era, poisons remained an integral part of healing repertoire throughout imperial China. The article ends with offering some cultural explanations for this divergence, and more broadly, a distinct worldview as revealed by the intimate relationship between poisons and medicines in traditional Chinese pharmacy.

Robert Boyle, the Bible, and Natural Philosophy

The great chemist Robert Boyle was also a serious student of the Bible and Christian theology, both of which profoundly influenced his natural philosophy. Christian beliefs and moral attitudes motivated him to extend human dominion over the creation by advancing scientific knowledge and giving medicines from his laboratory to the poor. His outspoken advocacy of empiricism, over and against those who believed that unaided reason was sufficient to probe the depths of nature, was rooted in the conviction that the free, wise, and powerful Creator knows the creation far better than we creatures ever will. He vigorously promoted what he called “the mechanical philosophy”, partly because he found it far more theologically attractive than the pagan Greek conception taught in the universities, which conceived of “Nature” as a semi-divine being with a mind and powers of its own. It also underscored the great complexity of the world machine, requiring an intelligent Creator to have assembled it—thereby (he hoped) moving people not only to acknowledge God but to live piously and humbly.

The Validity Measurement of Murder using Model Penal Code of Statutory Codes and Common Law Jurisdiction based on Heidegger’s Theory of Truth

Heidegger’s philosophy of truth is a critical revelation concerning criminalization. The idea of truth has been a long series of debates among scholastic artworks since the idea of man’s interactions cannot be extrapolated to knowledge-seeking existence. Hence, evidence law pertaining to types of killings, such as degrees of murder, with depraved heart killings of another, based on statutory codes and murder from common law jurisdiction, have elements for evaluation of its severity of criminal offense subject to punishment based on Model Penal Code. Although centuries have passed, erudite articulation of these issues led to the development of questions, like ‘what are the elements of murder crucial for unlawful perpetration?’, ‘what are the arguments concerning exact copy of legal instruments?’ or ‘what must be the facts needed to make it essential for the validity of measurement concerning crime perpetration of murder?’ for tools of becoming. This article asserts that when the concept of truth, known as Aletheia (disclosure), is applied to criminal law, there must be three repercussions for this truth characterization. First, Aletheia is not restricted to propositions resulting in the discovery of its various forms depicting Being-in-the-World. Second, the idea of truth does not only involve a substance for language and thought but also exposure to factual materials. Lastly, Aletheia simultaneously reveals and hides planned occasions, constantly discussing that the truth is always a becoming process, a series of returning existence. Every discussion of truth in murder under criminal law has the tendency to create another intricate philosophical issue. The three exceptional principles of truth, namely, correspondence, coherence, and pragmatic theories, are deemed to be inadequate in resolving the questions on proof of facts, as mentioned, due to the issue of existence. The theory of Heidegger suggests that we must rely on the ancient Greek concept of ‘unconcealment.’ Upon this validation, this paper applies critical assessment to reveal the concept of truth, seeking justice based on proof of facts involving the crime perpetration of murder constituting Heidegger’s opinions and judicial decisions. Heidegger’s truth is designed to Dasein (existence) as for being. The philosopher believes in the existence of truth due to exposure to its existence; hence, the Australian Legal System serves as the common ground in formulating laws based on legal theories as a legislative framework pre-emptive to constitutional law towards application of its legal practice and regulatory policies to be in harmony set for amendments of constitutional gaps in terms of applying the critical assessment of Heidegger to other comparative laws based on political agendas for monetary success.

Somatic multiplicities: The microbiome-gut-brain axis and the neurobiologized educational subject

Therapeutic translations of the microbiome-gut-brain (MGB) axis are reconstructing the educational subject in a manner amenable to Foucauldian analysis. Yet, at the same time, under the sway of MGB research social scientists are taking a biosocial turn that threatens the integrity of Foucault’s historicizing philosophical project. Meeting that challenge head-on, this article argues that the MGB axis augments the neurobiological constitution of the educational subject by means of a dietetic mode of subjectivation. Absent a pedagogical element, there is a hollowness to critical academics’ claims that holobiontic self-conceptions springing from the axis can elicit a resistant subjectivity. Though wild pedagogies might inform a resistant tactics of the self, contemporary self-technologies are – as Foucault has taught us – a pale shadow of the ancient Greek conception of dietetics as an holistic, embodied and ensouled practice. At the intersection between the disciplinary apparatuses of criminology and education, therefore, the MGB-driven biosocial turn unambiguously reinforces the social control function of schooling.

The French aorist in sixteenth-century grammar, or how to make the best of a bad Greek concept

ABSTRACT In this paper, I argue that sixteenth-century French grammarians subtly adapted the Greek concept of aorist to their native language in order to fill a gap left by past tense descriptions in Latin grammar. In this French aorist concept, they amalgamated features today associated with tense and aspect. I start out by recalling the origin of the aorist concept in Greek antiquity, Byzantium, and the Italian Renaissance. Then I look at French grammarians’ dealings with their past tense system, and especially how they inserted the aorist into it. I focus on the French grammatical tradition up to Henri Estienne’s well-known Traicté de la conformité du language françois auec le grec (1565). My main conclusion is that French grammarians made the best of a bad Greek concept, primarily out of a descriptive need, and only secondarily in order to give a Hellenic aura to French, even though the latter was fashionable in sixteenth-century France. As such, these grammarians developed a new language-particular concept rather than merely transposing the Greek concept to the French context.

Zodiacs and monuments: An early pictorial “horoscope” from Egypt

A pictorial horoscope in a late Ptolemaic papyrus ( P.Kramer 17) may be assigned more precisely to late 56 or early 55 BC based on the preserved astronomical data, making it the earliest such representation from Egypt. Instead of a copy for presentation to a client, the papyrus is rather a draft for the depiction of a zodiac, probably in a funerary monument, where it would have represented the planetary positions at the time of birth of the person commemorated. The central pictorial element can be identified as a dog, and contextualized in a complex tradition of Egyptian and Greek concepts and iconography related to Sirius-Sothis, and the beginning of the new year.

SPEAKING OBJECTS AND THE EARLY GREEK CONCEPTION OF WRITING

AbstractOne of the most remarkable features of the language of early Greek writing is a pervasive rhetorical strategy which consists in personifying objects for the purpose of identifying humans closely associated with them. Such ‘speaking objects’ have no Semitic parallel; how, then, is their conventional status in the Archaic Age to be explained? This article first considers the formulaic language of speaking objects, which is no straightforward transcription of speech, and seeks to explain where it comes from. It then turns to the question of why writers employed the curious strategy of personification by setting it in the broader context of early Greek writing and literature. Variously analogous to herms, slaves and skytalai, speaking objects are shown to have been conceived as messengers acting on behalf of their senders by not speaking in their name.

Tyranny in Tragedy

Abstract The meaning of the word tyrannos in Greek tragedy is much debated. Some have assumed that the word is always a neutral term signifying ‘ruler’ alone. Others argue for competing ideologies regarding tyranny: the result of an evolution in thinking on autocracy. This article challenges both of these assumptions. The negative meaning of tyrannos is always latent in tragedy, even where the word is used objectively and not as a term of abuse. Tyrannos does not simply indicate a powerful individual but implies absolute power, fortune and wealth. This absolute power leads to ruin and tyrannical vice. Tyrannos signifies not a bad or illegitimate ruler, but rather one with the potential to develop such characteristics. It is the tyrant who evolves, whereas Greek conceptions of tyranny remain largely unchanged from at least the time of Aeschylus to that of Aristotle.

The Validity Measurement of Murder using Model Penal Code of Statutory Codes and Common Law Jurisdiction based on Heidegger’s Theory of Truth

Purpose: Heidegger’s philosophy of truth is a critical revelation concerning criminalization. The idea of truth has been a long series of debates among scholastic artworks since the idea of man’s interactions cannot be extrapolated to knowledge-seeking existence. Hence, evidence law, pertaining to types of killings, such as degrees of murder, with depraved heart killings of another, based on statutory codes and murder from common law jurisdiction, have elements for evaluation of its severity of criminal offense subject to punishment based on Model Penal Code. Although centuries have passed, erudite articulation of these issues led to development of questions, like ‘what are the elements of murder crucial for unlawful perpetration?’, ‘what are the arguments concerning exact copy of legal instruments?’ or ‘what must be the facts needed to make it essential for validity of measurement concerning crime perpetration of murder?’, for tools of becoming.
 Methodology: This article asserts that when the concept of truth, known as Aletheia (disclosure), is applied to criminal law, there must be three repercussions for this truth characterization. First, Aletheia is not restricted to propositions resulting to discovery of its various forms depicting Being-in-the-World. Second, the idea of truth does not only involve a substance for language and thought, but also exposure of factual materials. Lastly, Aletheia simultaneously reveals, and hides planned occasions constantly discussing that the truth is always a becoming process, a series of returning existence.
 Findings: Every discussion of truth in murder, under criminal law, has the tendency to create another intricate philosophical issue. The three exceptional principles of truth, namely, correspondence, coherence, and pragmatic theories, are deemed to be inadequate in resolving the questions on proof of facts as mentioned due to issue of existence.
 Recommendation: The theory of Heidegger suggests that we must rely on ancient Greek concept of ‘unconcealment.’ Upon this validation, this paper applies critical assessment to reveal the concept of truth, seeking justice based on proof of facts involving crime perpetration of murder constituting Heidegger’s opinions and judicial decisions. Heidegger’s truth is designed to Dasein (existence) as for being. The philosopher believes in the existence of truth due to exposure of its existence, hence, the Australian Legal System serves as the common ground in formulating laws based on legal theories as legislative framework pre-emptive to constitutional law towards application of its legal practice and regulatory policies to be in harmony set for amendments of constitutional gaps in terms of applying the critical assessment of Heidegger to other comparative laws based on political agendas for monetary success.

The Concept of a Holistic Development Constitution in Light of Plato’s Theory of Gradual State Decline

Today, society faces a number of challenges driven by excessive consumption and extreme proliferation of utilitarian and radical individualistic ideals. This study is focused on searching for new constitutional models that would mitigate social and environmental risks of the consumerist era. To this end, the author has conducted a comprehensive review of relevant Ancient Greek concepts. In the 5th and 4th centuries BC, Greece put forward the first abstract notions of the ideal and material realms, as well as of individualism and collectivism. Particular attention is given to Plato’s theory of inevitable constitutional decline, its causes and potential solutions. Re-examining the classical holistic methodology — where the whole is larger than the sum of its parts — now seems as essential as ever before. Although such an approach is foreign to contemporary world steeped in division and individual’s alienation from nature, society and other individuals, classical holistic principles remain quite relevant, as they are largely aligned with the 20th century notion of sustainable development, which sees economic, social and environmental challenges as intrinsically linked, without dividing them into separate realms. Due to this perspective, the author has been able to come up with a general normative framework that also takes the fields of ethic and aesthetic — separate, but linked by a complex interrelation system — into account.

Is there happiness in money? An attitudinal study of native Lithuanian speakers

The paper considers the different notions of happiness known since antiquity, such as the Greek concepts of harmonia, eudaimonia, makarioi, and hēdonē, and explores the factors of happiness. The aim of this research is to form a more complete understanding of Lithuanian speakers and their attitude(s) towards happiness. The research surveyed 210 Lithuanian speakers aged 15 to 35 who were residing in Lithuania, France, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The analysis shows that today people’s individualism reveals itself through gender differences. The list of factors determining happiness is shorter for men than it is for women, and men have one distinctive factor for happiness – friends. The respondents of both genders valued health, family and love the highest, however, the other factors for happiness reveal gender differences. Women need several happiness-determining factors at the same time, which conforms to the psychological nature of women as gatherers, whereas men create their happiness in a more specific, more focused and less scattered way.

:Untangling Blackness in Greek Antiquity

:<i>Untangling Blackness in Greek Antiquity</i>

Концепт «res publica» и его рецепция в византийском праве: транслитерации

The problem of reception of the concept “res publica” is complex and multifaceted. It has been thoroughly studied in relation to the period of the Middle Ages. The task of the author is to demonstrate, that the possibilities of applying the information approach to the field of cognitive surveying to reveal the content of receptions and LatinGreek transliterations of the concept “res publica” with the help of the Expert System “Byzantine Law and Acts”. The comparisons of Greek translations and compilations with their Latin prototypes of Byzantine law prove: their compilations did not necessarily follow their prototypes in conveying the notion of “res publica”. It, as a rule, was replaced by other Greek concepts and word-combinations. For them, as well as their Latin prototypes, a certain semantic ambiguity is evident. Accordingly, the mediaeval Byzantine jurists felt the need to use the direct reception of the Latin concept “res publica”, in particular “rei publicae causa”. It served as the subject of attention and professional lawyers used this concept to interpret and explain the content of the sources of medieval Byzantine law. Noticeable discrepancies in the recording forms of the identified receptions and Greek transliterations of the concept “res publica” are probably due to individual characteristics of Medieval Byzantine lawyers and their professional qualifications. The direct borrowings of the concept “res publica causa” or its transliterations, revealed in medieval Byzantine law monuments, were purely terminological in most cases. It, if it is admissible, may be considered as a kind of cultural phenomenon.