PAPER PROJECTSPLATO ON LEARNING TO BE GOOD
In this paper, I argue that the ethical typoi in Republic II-III are unified by their praiseworthiness and beauty, offering a new account of how early ethical education in the Republic molds the young. First, I argue that praise directed towards good actions motivates the spirited part of the soul to perform those actions, and that the material rewards accompanying such praise also shapes the motivational profile of the soul’s appetitive part. Second, I argue that beauty is a transpartite object of desire, such that the depiction of good actions and actors as beautiful molds the desiderative habits of all three parts of the soul to desire good things. Unlike praise, beauty is also non-accidentally connected to what is truly good, helping ensure that the young learn to desire goods that are truly, rather than merely apparently, good. Carefully attending to the way praise and beauty cooperate in Plato’s theory also allows us to identify a further role of the first stage of character formation, one previously unnoticed by commentators: early ethical education in the Republic aims to inculcate habits of value, training the young to desire maximally-desirable things by habituating us to value the right kinds of value. By ‘right kinds of value,’ I have in mind the particular form of goodness paradigmatically instantiated by the Form of the Good, namely, absolute goodness. Absolute goodness is marked by two distinct features: it is both a final good and an intrinsic or non-relational good. Absolutely good things are not valued for the sake of any further good, and their value is not dependent on their relationship to any agent, circumstance, or context of evaluation—it depends only on features internal to the objects themselves. A bifurcated account of the roles of praise and beauty in ethical formation thus emerges. On the one hand, praise and beauty shape the non-rational parts of the soul by habituating them to desire things that are in fact final and intrinsic goods, even though they may not desire them as final and intrinsic goods. On the other, they also form the rational part of the soul by giving it a nascent grasp of what it is for something to be finally and intrinsically good, providing conceptual beginnings whose subsequent clarification through philosophical reflection will enable the philosopher to grasp the paradigm of absolute goodness, the Form of the Good itself. Aristotle’s Typological Method: On the First Stages of Aristotelian Inquiry
At key moments in his ethics, metaphysics, and psychology, Aristotle describes the philosophical accounts he offers as typoi. Both in antiquity and in recent secondary literature, commentators have consistently misunderstood this description, seeing it as either of no philosophical relevance, or as a way of indicating that the account is incorrect, essentially incomplete, or merely schematic. In this paper, I argue that previous interpretations fail to capture what Aristotle intends to convey with the language of typoi. Drawing on Aristotle’s brief but important methodological discussions in Nicomachean Ethics I.7 and Physics I.1, and in particular the metaphorical reference to the practice of tracing out an inscription on stone prior to inscribing it at EN I.7, I argue that establishing typoi involves i) marking out the precise ‘space’ in the conceptual domain where the object of investigation is to be found and ii) identifying the primary elements of that object’s essential account, which then iii) guides subsequent investigation to clarify the nature of those primary elements. Properly appreciating Aristotle’s typological method promises new insights into the specific accounts Aristotle describes as typoi as well as his general understanding of the structure of philosophical inquiry. the value question in ancient metaphysics
This paper has two goals: first, to show that and how the ancient Greek philosophical tradition makes use of a distinct class of axiological arguments (that is, inferential structures involving judgements of value) in metaphysical contexts; second, to discuss what kind of value is able to play this role in metaphysical arguments and why the ancients think they are able to use value in this way when reasoning about the divine. The first, descriptive part of my paper provides the first systematic study of axiological arguments in ancient metaphysics, with a particular focus on discussions in Plato, Aristotle, and Theophrastus. When reasoning about metaphysical first principles, I argue that Greek philosophers offer three distinct species of axiological arguments:
To show that all three forms of reasoning are regularly employed in ancient metaphysics, I consider three key case studies: Theophrastus’ use of value in his Metaphysics; the role of value in Aristotle’s arguments about the divine in Metaphysics Lambda and De Anima III; and the role value plays in Plato’s opening discussion of the demiurge’s creative activity in the Timaeus. Once this descriptive taxonomy of axiological arguments is established, I proceed to consider what kind of value is at play in such arguments. I argue that in metaphysical contexts, the ancients must be conceiving of value as absolute or intrinsic, with the non-relational quality of the value in question recognized even in the terminology employed in such arguments. This is important insofar as many interpreters of Plato and Aristotle have argued that both philosophers conceive of value as necessarily relational—a claim contradicted by the metaphysical uses to which value is put. Finally, my paper concludes by speculatively considering why the ancients think they can use value in these ways when engaged in metaphysics. I consider three possible suggestions: that the superlative value of first principles is a primitive metaphysical commitment adopted without further justification; that the value terms employed in metaphysics can by universally reduced to non-valuative concepts through philosophical analysis; finally, that the value of first principles is supported by the principle of causal synonymy, which holds that some effect with property F must be caused by something that is at least as F. Et cum sit unus, pluribus nominibus cietur: Apuleius’ Latin Additions to Greek Theology
By modern standards of translation, Apuleius’ De Mundo (DM) would seem a failure. Even before we attend to those passages of the Greek original that Apuleius simply fails to translate, the way in which the work expands, contracts, and alters its Vorlage in significant and surprising ways would surely count as professional malpractice in the eyes of contemporary translators. Indeed, Apuleius’ liberal adaptation—or, as some scholars would have it, unintentional misunderstanding—of his source material has often been used to argue against the work’s authenticity: how could a philosopher as fluent in Greek as he is in Latin (Apol. 4.1) have made such gross errors of translation? Assuming the DM to be authentically Apuleian, we are thus confronting with a question: why does Apuleius adapt his Greek Vorlage as he does? And more generally. why does Apuleius engage in the work of Latin translation in the first place? After all, many of Apuleius’ educated contemporaries would have been able enough to read texts like the Περὶ κόσμου or the Phaedo—and Apuleius spends much of his Apologia sneering at the boorishness of his accusers precisely because of their inability to read Greek fluently. With such evident disdain for the greekless, why should Apuleius spend his time working to make these texts more accessible to a Latin audience? To answer this question, I first outline some of the key idiosyncratic features of Apuleius translations, and then show how none of the current explanations for Apuleius’ project of Latinizing translations can adequately account for these features. I then argue that Apuleius, prompted by the challenge trying to describe the essentially-ineffable nature of the gods, turns to Latin in order to provide new conceptual resources with which to attempt a fuller articulation of this nature, resources provisioned through careful attention both to the etymologies of divine names and to other Roman religious and cultural traditions. This will then raise two further questions: why does Apuleius think careful attention to linguistic evidence will give us any reliable grasp on the actual nature of the gods? And why does Apuleius think that translation is the best way to carry out this kind of linguistic investigation? Answering this questions will reveal the centrality of common conceptions (koinai ennoiai) to Apuleius' practice of translation. I suggest that Apuleius views translation as a sort of philosophical exercise that compels the translator to pay attention to the ideas that lie behind her words, and by attending to them, to also attend to the common conceptions that structure human thought. Value, Uniqueness, and God-Given Functions: On the Possible Influences of Archytas’ On Wisdom
Monte Johnson (2008) has argued that, pace the scholarly consensus most recently defended by Huffman (2005), we have no compelling reason to doubt the authenticity of the five fragments of On Wisdom attributed to Archytas and preserved in Iamblichus’ Protrepticus. To my knowledge, there has never been a study of the five fragments considered as parts of a single text, nor any attempt to understand their potential influence on Aristotle’s philosophy in the Protrepticus and elsewhere. This paper considers what we might learn about Archytas and Aristotle’s Protrepticus if we take the possibility of these fragments’ authenticity seriously. In particular, I focus on Archytas’ argument from the teleology of our physical organs to the function of the whole human being, relying on the claim that humans were created by the god to acquire wisdom—a claim Aristotle echoes and attributes directly to Pythagoras in our Protrepticus fragments. I note how Archytas’ argument identifies objects’ functions with the most valuable activity those objects can perform, and suggest (pointing to parallels in the Timaeus) that this might represent a distinct ‘Pythagorean’ mode of argument. I then show how Aristotle makes use of the same mode of function argument in our preserved fragments of the Protrepticus, and compare this mode with the different form of function argument found in the Nicomachean Ethics (EN). The paper closes by considering two distinct sets of questions. First, why did Aristotle shift, between the Protrepticus and the EN, from a value-based function argument to one turning on the idion nature of various activities? And why, if he ultimately rejected the value-based approach, do we still find echoes of it in the EN? Second, might Aristotle’s initial attempt at a function argument in the Protrepticus have, in its use of value in identifying the human function, have been directly informed by his reading of Archytas? Justin Martyr on Godlikeness and the Value of (Practical) Rationality
Philosophers of the late Hellenistic and early Imperial period repeatedly describe the best human life as godlike. But what makes a life godlike? Those philosophers now called Middle Platonists generally give evaluative priority to theoretical excellence: when determining whether a life qualifies as godlike, these Platonists think we must look primarily at one’s theoretical activity. On the other hand, Stoics give evaluative priority to the practical, determining godlikeness primarily by reference to practical virtue. Of course, these positions require further nuancing: as scholars have argued, Middle Platonists like Alcinous still think practical excellence has an important place in the best life, and Stoics likewise often make room for the theoretical. There is, nevertheless, a key difference in evaluative priority. Where do we first look when determining whether a given life is best and therefore godlike? To one’s practical achievements, or theoretical? At this most general level, we see a clear division along school lines between the Platonists and the Stoics, and this evaluative distinction points to a key difference in how these schools conceive of the location of value in human lives. Though practical virtue may even prove a necessary component in the Middle Platonic conception of the best life, Platonists still think the value of that life is located primarily or exclusively in its theoretical activity. Against this backdrop, I want to consider one early Christian philosopher’s understanding of the evaluative criteria for godlikeness. At two points in his extant work, Justin Martyr briefly discusses how to determine whether a person qualifies as godlike, and in both texts, Justin focuses exclusively on practical excellence. To determine whether someone is godlike, we must look to his practical activities and determine whether he has lived virtuously, for we become worthy of God’s presence through our works. This presents a puzzle: Justin identifies himself as a Platonist-turned-Christian, and scholars have often seen him as one of the earliest representatives of a nascent Christian Platonism. Justin’s self-presentation and the Platonic spirit of much of his work give us reason prima facie to expect theoretical accomplishments to play a central role in his conception of godlikeness—yet his explicit statements seem to articulate the exact opposite idea. How do we explain this? In this paper, I contend that Justin makes a novel contribution to contemporary debates between Stoics and Platonists by articulating a recognizably Platonic position that has been clarified and adapted in the light of other, Christian theoretical commitments. Because Justin identifies reason (logos) with Christ, he views rationality as the most valuable of human possessions and consequently locates the value of our lives in its active expression in both theoretical and practical contexts. When Justin’s commitment to the superlative value of reason is connected to other Christian commitments about the nature of Christ, God’s creative activity, and the limits of human knowledge, he comes to believe that practical and not theoretical activity should have evaluative priority when determining the godlikeness of a given life. Justin thus thinks that Middle Platonists are right to find value in theoretical activity, but wrong to conclude that value is located exclusively or primarily in the realm of the theoretical—because they have failed to recognize that what they really value is the exercise of reason itself. My paper begins by excavating Justin’s general theory of action from scattered remarks in his extant work. I then show how Justin’s action theory allows him to view virtuous practical activity as godlike for two distinct reasons: such activity is expressive of our rationality, which stands in a value-conferring relationship to Christ as the perfect form of reason; and it is mimetic of God’s own creative activity, which takes place by way of divine reason. Next, I consider why Justin gives evaluative priority to the practical when the divinity of rationality might lead one to expect that theoretical excellence would be of greater evaluative importance, arguing that Justin’s commitment to the ultimate unknowability of God leads him to prioritize the practical. I close by considering one of the key lessons we can learn from Justin’s rationality-centered account of human excellence: the value of godlikeness stems not from mere assimilation to the divine along any axis of similarity whatsoever. Rather, value flows from our imitation of what is best in the universe (the divine) by way of what is best in us (reason in both its practical and theoretical employments), and we must be careful to consider both the human and divine dimensions of the relation of godlikeness whenever we attempt to analyze accounts of godlikeness in other authors. Nous by Any Other Name: Recovering a Noetic Faculty in Epicurus
This paper began with a challenge from David Konstan: David once claimed in an email that he could find no theory of nous (intellect) in Epicurus, and more importantly, he had come to think that Epicurus did not form part of the intellectual lineage of the concept of nous that runs from Plato to the Renaissance. Surveying instances of the term nous in Epicurus only seems to confirm David's claim -- though Epicurus is willing to use noein verbal vocabulary and substantive nouns like noêsis derived therefrom, he never seems to use the term nous except in ossified phrases (a fact already noticed by Whittaker in 1920s). I begin my response to David's challenge with a methodological preamble discussing how Epicurus would think we should go about figuring out what nous is? I argue Epicurus thinks we should investigate ideas like nous through conceptual triangulation -- bringing to bear a multiplicity of concepts or names or properties, which together will form the essential bundle that makes up the subject of investigation. Next, I consider what sorts of concepts or names or properties we should be looking for when looking for a concept of nous in Epicurus. In other words, what are the things such that, if we find them in Epicurus, we can say we’ve found his idea of nous? Having this methodological background in hand, I then turn to look at three of the Epicurean concepts I think most relevant to such an investigation: kata meros epibolê, athroa epibolê; and kuriôtata epibolê. By carefully attending to how Epicurus uses these ideas in the Letter to Herodotus, I show how they fulfill all the functional roles we, from a Platonic-Aristotelian perspective, would expect nous as an intellectual achievement to fulfill. Finally, I close by briefly suggesting that this uniquely-Epicurean, triangulated conception of nous forms an underappreciated part of the conceptual lineage of nous through its appropriation by later neo-Platonic philosophers. Wisdom and Vision: Re-Viewing an Overlooked Analogy in Protrepticus X
This paper offers a new reading of the relationship between theoretical excellence and practical success in the extant fragments of Aristotle’s Protrepticus, with the hope that the position I identify in Aristotle’s exoteric work will prompt a revaluation of the relationship between theoretical wisdom and practical excellence in Aristotle’s exoteric corpus. My new reading seeks to chart a course between two distinct hazards that routinely mislead contemporary discussions of the distinction between the practical and the theoretical in Aristotle. On the one hand, much modern Aristotelean scholarship has consistently sought to quarantine the theoretical from the practical. This is our Scylla. On the other hand, some recent commentators have tried to argue that ethics should be understood as a theoretical science like any other, or at the very least that ethics both presupposes a grasp of other theoretical disciplines like biology and psychology and itself exhibits important theoretical features like the syllogistic deduction of explanatory middle terms and the dialectical determination of first principles. This is our Charybdis. I think Aristotle wants to avoid both the radical separation of the theoretical from the practical and the mere reduction of ethics to a theoretical science, though this leaves but a narrow strait to sail: we need to find a way to vindicate practical excellence’s independence while nonetheless preserving the intuition that practical success should in some way presuppose theoretical excellence. In this paper, I begin tackling the general problem of the relationship between theoretical and practical excellence by turning to the particular problem of the relationship between wisdom’s practical and theoretical roles in the Protrepticus, Aristotle’s exoteric exhortation to philosophy. In the second half of Protrepticus X, Aristotle claims that wisdom’s role in practical success is analogous to vision’s role in locomotion. I argue that wisdom is essentially independent from practical activity, like sight from locomotion, but that human practical excellence also presupposes wisdom (as animal locomotion presupposes sight), such that wisdom is hypothetically necessary for—but only accidentally involved in—practical excellence. This apparently paradoxical conclusion, with wisdom being only accidentally involved in practical excellence but also necessarily connected thereto, is made possible by the unique explanatory structure of hypothetical necessity. To justify this conclusion, I first present an interpretation of the teleology of sight and its relation to locomotion in Aristotle’s psychology, and then apply this interpretation to the analogy of wisdom and vision in the Protrepticus. Importantly, my project is one of dynamic interpretation. Just as clarifying the relationship of vision to locomotion will allow us to get clearer on the connection of theoretical wisdom to practical success, the analogy between wisdom and vision also generates certain interpretive desiderata for our understanding of sight’s relation to locomotion: we cannot posit a relationship between vision and locomotion that would be unacceptable to have obtain between wisdom and practical success. My argument thus makes two contributions to current debates. I present a new way of understanding the teleological relationship between vision and locomotion discussed in De Anima III.12-13 and De Sensu 1. In tandem, I sketch a new understanding of wisdom’s practical role in the Protrepticus, one that I hope in future work to show also applies to wisdom’s employment in the realm of the practical in Aristotle’s ethical treatises. Literature and Love: Hopkins’ Instressed Inscape and the Loving Author
This paper investigates the role of literature in the stages of our ethical life, arguing that engagement with literature plays a central role in the development of the sort of universal love (or caritas) the inculcation of which I posit as one of the primary aims of ethical development. First, I argue that literature provides us with the conceptual resources and habits of attention that are necessary preconditions for caritas, drawing inspiration from relevant work by Murdoch and Nussbaum. Second, I use Gerard Manley Hopkins' concepts of instress and inscape to argue that proper engagement with literature is also a sufficient condition for the development of such ethical love. I argue that the nuanced understanding and richly-attuned attention to the particularities of individuals developed by engaging with literature allows us to grasp the essential particularity or inscape of characters within literary works. This recognition inevitably prompts a movement of instress, whereby the reader comes to recognize that these characters were loved into being by the author of the work, and the recognition of the author’s loving creative act in turn generates a feeling of love within the reader. The relational structure by which love is generated for a literary character through engagement with the literary work, I ultimately suggest, makes possible the development of caritas in one’s lived relations with other human beings. Literature is, ultimately, an essential element in our ethical development. Plato's View From Nowhere: Holiness in the Theaetetus' Digression
This paper offers an interpretation of the place of the virtue of holiness in Plato's Godlikeness Formula in the Theaetetus' digression ("a man should make all haste to escape from earth to heaven; and escape means becoming as like God as possible; and a man becomes like God when he becomes just and holy, with understanding"). Beginning from the assumption that the digression is a unified text that aims to develop a single line of thought, I try to connect Plato's discussion of the View From Above and his comparison of the philosopher and lawyer in the first part of the digression to his discussion of divine justice in the second part. To do so, I argue that Plato conceives of holiness (at least in part) as seeing the world as the gods see it, ‘from above;' that this godlike perspective is one of the intellectual virtues proper to the philosopher; and that seeing the world from a god’s-eye view is a necessary part of/condition for justice. I argue that, pace many other interpretations of the digression, it is not merely the case that the philosopher's View From Above leads him to value particular objects differently, with a shift in his evaluative profile following (in some vague but intuitive way) on a shift in his perspective. Rather, I think we see Plato’s description of the View From Above turning on a fundamental shift in the kinds of facts and reasons the philosopher deals with: the philosopher moves beyond the grasp of particular facts and reasons to acquire knowledge of universal facts and reasons, and the intellectual virtue of the philosopher lies in attending exclusively to universal facts and reasons. This grasp of non-particular facts and reasons is, in practical contexts, a grasp of agent-neutral reasons and non-relative values—the View From Above is thus, I suggest, the rough Platonic equivalent of Nagel's View From Nowhere. I then show how Plato thinks the View From Above is a necessary part of justice, arguing that in the Laws Plato believes the answer to any What To Do? question will always make reference only to what is best for ‘the All.’ When Plato writes of what is good for ‘the All,’ I contend (in line with recent commentators like Bobonich 2022) that he must have in mind a good that is non-agent-relative, because it will be the same good for every human being, and its goodness is true independent of the relative goods of any given particular human being. So, when Socrates asks ‘What Should I Do?’, the answer is ‘do what is best for the All’—as it is for every other human being. The reason 'everyone should act for the sake of the best condition of the universe' is universally-available, and its internal logical structure avoids any reference to particular agents. This allows us to see how the philosopher's View From Above leads him to assimilate himself to the perfect justice of the divine: because the philosopher only sees universal facts, he only grasps non-relative reasons for action; and acting on non-relative reasons for action is how both the gods and the perfectly just person is said to act in Laws X. My paper thus presents a radical re-reading of the key lessons of Socrates' digression in the Theaetetus, one prompting a re-consideration of Plato's ethical perspective at the beginning of his so-called 'Late' period, prior to the composition of the Laws. If the hallmark of contemporary consequentialism is the belief that only agent-neutral reasons and values are of ethical relevance, then I think Plato in the Theaetetus qualifies as a consequentialist—and the digression offers an intriguing (and hitherto entirely underappreciated) way of understanding why Plato endorses this theoretical stance. Confronting the Daoist Challenge: A McDowellian Elaboration of Mencius’ Ethical Naturalism
In this paper, I have two aims: to show how McDowell’s account of second nature can help Confucian virtue ethics respond to naturalist critiques of cultivated virtues, and to suggest how the role of ritual (lǐ 禮) in Mencius is analogous to the role of Bildung in McDowell’s own theory. I proceed in three steps. First, I provide a rough outline of Mencius’ account of the natural origins of virtue, showing how Mencius thinks our natural potentials require both socially-structured cultivation and reflective examination and endorsement for their proper actualization. Then, I put forward what I call the Daoist Challenge: that Confucian virtues, because they are a social imposition on our antecedent nature, are unnatural and therefore ought to be rejected. Finally, I show how McDowell’s neo-Aristotelean theory can help the Confucian to respond to this critique. I argue that an account of second nature actualized by way of socially-structured cultivation provides the theoretical resources necessary to naturalize the virtues, and that such resources are already to be found in pre-Qin Confucianism. In the process, I hope to demonstrate the value of comparative philosophy as a method of dynamic elucidation. McDowell’s theory of second nature will help to clarify the Confucian response to the Daoist challenge, a response that is already present, if implicitly, within the Confucian tradition itself – just as the Confucian framework can help provide new resources for elaborating the notion of Bildung that, while central, remains underexplored in McDowell’s own work. PLATO’S TYPOLOGICAL METHOD OF INQUIRY
This paper uses passages in the Philebus and Cratylus to argue that scholars have overlooked a key dimension of Plato’s philosophical methodology that is consistently marked by Plato’s use of the language of typoi. Beginning from Socrates’ etymology of a thing named (onomaston) in the Cratylus as a being (on) for which one searches (masma, 421a5-b1), I argue for a new reading of two key passages describing name-giving in the dialogue (393d1-e8, 432d11-433a6). In these passages, Socrates sketches a two-part process for giving names. First, a name-giver must ensure a name refers to an object by identifying the letters of that object’s typos; then, she must determine whether the name does a fine (kalôs) job referring to the object by determining whether it has all the letters appropriate to it beyond those that form part of its typos. Led astray by traditional translations of typos as a ‘rough sketch’ or ‘outline,’ previous commentators have failed to appreciate the methodological importance of these passages. On the deflationary reading, Socrates is merely claiming that a “sloppy name” can still refer to an object (Barney 2001), thus establishing a “weak” and “vague” condition that a name must at least bear “a faint and very generic resemblance” to the object named (Ademollo 2011). I reject this deflationary reading. Instead, anchoring my discussion in Socrates’ repeated claim that a typos must make clear the physis, dynamis, and ousia of the object in question, I argue that establishing a theoretical typos requires the investigator to identify the key conceptual elements in the definitional account of the object of inquiry. Further clarificatory work will subsequently be required in order to perfect that account, just as further letters must be added for a name to be finely given. I then turn to the end of the Philebus, connecting these methodological passages in the Cratylus with Socrates’ description of his investigation with Protarchus (61a1-b6). Socrates claims that they have established a typos and hodos of the good insofar as they now know ‘where’ the good is to be found. Taken together, I argue these texts provide us with an outline of Plato’s typological method: inquiry begins by identifying where in the domain of inquiry an object of investigation is to be found, proceeds by determining the primary elements of that object’s essential account, and this typos is then used to guide subsequent inquiry to fully clarify and articulate those elements and their interrelationships. This paper thus aims to identify a distinct tool in Plato’s methodological toolbox—one that has been previously overlooked by commentators, but that nonetheless plays a crucial role in structuring the first stages of philosophical investigation. The paper concludes by briefly pointing to other places in the Protagoras, Charmides, and Republic where typoi play an analogous role in Plato’s method of inquiry, and considers how this typological method relates to other tools (such as collection and division) that have previously been the focus of discussions of Plato’s philosophical methods. Note: Drafts for the above papers are available on request -- just send me an email! BOOK PROJECTSMy first book project (An Outline of Outlines from Plato to the Patristics) will expand my dissertation into the first book-length treatment of typoi in antiquity. Drawing on my dissertation to first establish the importance of typoi for Plato and Aristotle, I aim to explore how the concept is transformed by later philosophers. I plan chapters on: the Stoics (where typoi and horoi represent a first, provisional stage in definitional investigation); Epicurus (for whom typoi provide general anchor points that guide one’s subsequent inquiry, an idea discussed in "Nous by Any Other Name" below); Philo (who uses typos-language to describe ideas in the mind of God used in the creation of the cosmos); Plotinus (where typoi play a crucial but underexplored role in the movement from sense perception to the recollection of intelligible objects); and Patristic philosophy (when typoi emerge as a tool of scriptural exegesis, with compelling epistemological implications). My other current book project (A Source Book of Early Christian Philosophy: Paul to Nicaea) is to produce a source book of new translations of early Christian texts, from Paul in the first century to Origen in the third, accompanied by philosophical commentary. Although it is increasingly recognised by historians of philosophy that the Christian writers of the first three centuries were engaged with existing traditions of Greek philosophy and can appropriately be described as philosophers, Christian thought is still rarely considered by scholars of ancient philosophy. One important reason for this is that access to the relevant texts is surprisingly difficult for scholars working in Classics and Philosophy departments: existing translations are almost universally adapted to the very different agendas of theologians and Church historians, and are often very antiquated too; no comprehensive survey exists to show how these texts can be read in dialogue with the thematic interests of non-Christian Greek and Roman philosophers contemporary with them. My source book thus aims to open a new frontier for current scholarship on the history of philosophy, while also representing an exciting opportunity to promote interdisciplinary work with theology. DISSERTATIONAn Outline of Outlines: Typological Reasoning in Plato and AristotleMy dissertation represents the first systematic study of the idea of an 'outline' (τύπος/typos) in Plato and Aristotle. Pushing back against the general consensus that Plato and Aristotle use typos vocabulary in a non-technical manner to indicate a 'rough sketch,' I argue that language of typoi in both authors is consistently connected to a common conceptual structure. A typos: 1) marks out the object of inquiry within a larger domain of candidate objects and 2) identifies the primary elements of the essential definition of this object, 3) with the elements included in the outline subsequently requiring further clarification and articulation in order to produce a perfected account of the essence of that object. In Chapter I, I identify the key questions that arise when we consider various occurrences of the term in Plato and Aristotle together, with these questions serving to orient the dissertation as a whole. In Chapter II, I develop my understanding of the shared conceptual structure indicated by the language of typoi through a close reading of Nicomachean Ethics I.7. I argue that Aristotle's use of the term in the chapter must be understood in light of an epigraphic metaphor, show how his use conforms to Plato's own employment of the term, and suggest how the conceptual framework identified through the language of typoi fits into Aristotle's more general understanding of the structure of philosophical inquiry. Chapter III aims to confirm my claim that a typos includes the primary elements of an essential definition by showing how Plato uses the terminology in the Cratylus to indicate precisely those primary essential elements. Chapter IV turns to the Republic, showing how the tripartite common structure associated with the language of typoi in contexts of theoretical inquiry is also employed by Plato in practical contexts to indicate the structure of early character formation. Finally, Chapter V points forward to future avenues of research, suggesting how patterns of typological reasoning identified in my study of Plato and Aristotle are appropriated and transformed in the subsequent history of ancient philosophy. |