Philosophy and Religion in Plato’s Dialogues
Published in Rhizomata
On the So-called Focal Analysis of Friendship in Eudemian Ethics VII.2
Published in Rhizomata
Aristotle is believed to have introduced the focal meaning of friendship in Eudemian Ethics VII.2 and then to have formulated it more generally in Metaphysics Γ.2. Bonitz’s unjustifiable emendation of the text underscores these interpretations. This paper therefore reads the MSS and supposes that the EE passage introduces a wider focal meaning base...
Plato on the Power of Dialectic and the Necessity of Forms
Published in Rhizomata
In the Parmenides Plato claims that by relinquishing Forms one would entirely destroy tên tou dialegesthai dunamin. I argue that this peculiar phrase does not indicate, as often suggested, the power or possibility of all discourse or thought, but the power of dialectic, i. e. the highest science; and that its preservation is, for Plato, a decisive ...
Commensuration and Currency in Plato’s Phaedo
Published in Rhizomata
My aim in this paper is to show that Plato’s Phaedo makes an important contribution to the development of ideas about the commensuration in value of heterogeneous items that is needed for practical reasoning and rational choice. Because the passage I focus on, the so-called ‘right exchange’ passage at 69a-c, has not usually been read this way, I mo...
Anaximander on basic substances and the desiccation of the sea
Published in Rhizomata
This paper deals with the physics of Anaximander and argues that, in his theory, the drying up of the sea cannot be accounted for in terms of the kind of conflict envisaged in his main fragment between the four basic substances: the hot, the cold, the wet and the dry (DK 12B1). In so doing, the paper takes issue with a classic interpretation of Ana...
The Distinction between Chance and Fortune. Arist. Phys. II.6
Published in Rhizomata
With regard to Aristotle’s discussion of chance and fortune in Phys. II.5–6, interpreters maintain that, after having provided a specific definition of fortune, applicable to intentional chance processes, in ch. 5, Aristotle is, in ch. 6, seeking to identify a specific meaning of αὐτόματον, which exclusively applies to strictly natural chance proce...
Sextus Empiricus’ Neo-Pyrrhonism: Skepticism as a Rationally Ordered Experience
Published in Rhizomata
Senses of Being in Plato’s Timaeus
Published in Rhizomata
In this paper I discuss the problem of the meanings of the verb ‘be’ in Plato’s Timaeus. My claim is that, at least in that dialogue, existence emerges as the main and autonomous meaning of the verb ‘be’, contrary to the widespread view first defended in a series of studies by Charles Kahn according to which, in the Greek language and in Plato’s ph...
Gorgias and Plato’s Sophist
Published in Rhizomata
My aim is to investigate the link between Plato’s Sophist and Gorgias’s treatise On What Is Not. This relationship is worth examining because Gorgias’s treatise constitutes an essential, but insufficiently studied stage in the intellectual journey leading from Parmenides to the Sophist. My claims are that 1) Plato’s agenda in the Sophist perfectly ...
The Verb εἰμί and Its Benefits for Parmenides’ Philosophy
Published in Rhizomata
Parmenides believed that he had found the most reliable way of theorizing about ultimate reality. While natural philosophers conceptualized phenomenal differences to explain cosmic change, Parmenides used the least meaningful but most versatile verb in Ancient Greek to engage in a purely intellectual exploration of reality – one that transcended sy...
