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In secondary literature, especially among orientalists, it is a frequent misperception that Ibn Khaldun was a loyal student of Aristotle and the Greek intellectual heritage at large. But Ibn Khaldun was remarkably selective and critical in his approach to the philosophical paradigm and philosophical models, and, in keeping with the general character of the muteakhhirûn period of Islamic thought, did not see any harm in occasionally benefitting certain concepts and models of philosophical accumulation. One of the places where this criticality and selectivity is manifested is his use of Aristotle's famous expression "Man is political by nature." While for Aristotle, this statement reflects a metaphysical and moral conception of the state as a necessary consequence of a human being's essence (nature), Ibn Khaldun interprets this statement solely in the context of sociality and the need for a division of labor to ensure the material existence and security of human beings. Beyond this, Ibn Khaldun does not ascribe a metaphysical and moral meaning and function either to 'umran, which he uses in the sense of sociality, or to the state/mulk, as Aristotle and his Muslim followers such as al-Fârâbî, Ibn Sînâ, and al-Tûsî did. Moreover, Ibn Khaldun criticizes these philosophers for doing so and underlines that the science of 'umran is a different discipline from political philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the late Ming Dynasty, Jesuit missionary Giulio Aleni introduced Western classical psychology to China, with the theory of the sensitive soul being his core focus. Scholars have conducted in-depth analyses of the textual sources, fundamental theories and pivotal influences of Xingxue cushu concerning Aleni's theory of the sensitive soul. Nevertheless, there is a lack of research in academia on the essence of common sense. In Aleni's Xingxue cushu, common sense not only determines the essence of a sensitive soul but also builds a bridge between a sensitive soul and rational soul. Consequently, common sense is a crux in Aleni's soul theory. As far as the purpose is concerned, this article combines macro and micro perspectives, exploring Aleni's argumentation strategy on the concept of common sense. Although Aleni regards common sense as the internal sense of human beings, he starts from the principle of wholeness in Xingxue cushu and regards common sense as the whole of the five external senses, indicating that the principle of wholeness is not contradictory to the principle of internality in the category of common sense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his Middle Commentary on Posterior Analytics, the great Aristotelian Commentator Ibn Rushd defines "knowledge" (scientific knowledge, epistemē, 'ilm) as one of Aristotle's five intellectual virtues and the faculty of reason, akin to the other virtues, in an Aristotelian way. Ibn Rushd defends the teleological argument, rooted in Aristotle's teleological reading of nature, and supports the modal strong epistemic status of this argument, which is part of the concept of knowledge, in his early work (Short Commentary on Metaphysics), middle period work (al-Kashf) and late work (Long Commentary on Metaphysics), all in harmony with each other. Ibn Rushd, constructing the teleological argument based on the definition of knowledge, which fundamentally articulates the necessary or essential qualities inherent in objects in defense of de re modality, takes a step that seems quite radical within the context of the Aristotelian epistemic tradition to which he is affiliated: The teleological argument, strongly associated with the concept of knowledge—one of the five intellectual virtues—is presented as a form of deductive inference accessible not only to philosophers but also to ordinary public. In other words, according to him, the argument is both a philosophical and a religious way. This implies, for instance, that natural theology, typically viewed by Aquinas as an activity reserved for the higher epistemic class with talent and leisure, is seen by Ibn Rushd as a robust epistemic activity accessible to ordinary people. This new element, which can be referred to as common sense natural theology, contends that ordinary public knowledge and philosophers' knowledge differ in details, such as whether it is a simple or complex deductive inference, while remaining the same in terms of their knowledge status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses automation from the point of view of the intersection between Aristotle and Marx. First, it was Aristotle's notion of automatous – self-moving tools – that gave rise to the contemporary concept of automation. Marx's historical materialism is important as it puts the ongoing process of automation into a historical perspective. The development of self-moving machines should free us from the slavery of hard work, yet the legal and political superstructure of capitalism means that the growth of automation produces new forms of precarious wage-slavery. Alasdair MacIntyre's Aristotelian notion of practice is discussed vis-à-vis the Marxian notion of alienated labour. Given the conceptual structure – alienated labour (which prevents us from flourishing) versus non-alienated labour (as essential for human flourishing) – the article poses the question of whether we can apply this in our attempt to assess the ongoing process of automation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a comprehensive review of the rather intricate relationship between contemporary environmental ethics, understood as a philosophical branch, and ancient philosophy. While its primary focus is on Western philosophy, it also includes some brief yet crucial considerations about the influence of Eastern traditions of thought on environmental ethics. Aside from the introduction in the first section, the discussion is organised into three main sections. In the Reception: Ancient philosophy in environmental ethics section, I review the initial reception of ancient philosophy in contemporary environmental ethics. Next, in the Reaction: Environmental ethics in ancient philosophy scholarship section, I examine how the scholarship in AP responded to this early reception. I conclude, in the final section, with some constructive suggestions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the fifth-century comic coinage gnômotupos, which has not otherwise received scholarly attention. Translators of Aristophanes and Aristotle have typically glossed it into English as "maxim-coining" (with equivalents in other languages). This is a sensible inference from a fourth-century use of γνώμη, "maxim", and the verb τύπτειν, "stamping". It also tracks the importance of maxims to Sophistic-era adoption of wisdom-culture and the lore of the Seven Sages. Nevertheless, this typical gloss is incorrect. The term instead emphasizes "idea", as an insight, technique, or view relevant to some matter. "Stamping" (τύπτειν) an idea means coming up with an apt idea and giving it shape and articulacy. In a characteristic use of the adjective, Aristophanes speaks of gnômotupoi andres (Frogs). These are men who are skilled at "fashioning ideas", coming up with their content and their form. My claim is that Aristophanes has captured something crucial about the period we call the Sophistic movement or Greek enlightenment. The formulation, circulation, and competition of ideas is a matter of increasing self-consciousness in Athens. So too are those who formulate, circulate, and compete in them: intellectuals or, as gnômotupoi andres might be translated, "ideas-men." I even contend that those referred to as "sophists", sophistai, may in many ways be understood as gnômotupoi andres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of the Faculty of Divinity of Ankara University / Ankara Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi is the property of Ankara Universitesi Ilahiyat Fakultesi Dergisi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Avicenna in two parts of the book of Al-Shifa (کتاب الشفاء) or The Book of Healing reports the theory of Platonic Ideas or Forms: first account is in the chapter 10 from the second book in the Demonstration Treatise (رسالة البرهان) and second account is in the chapter 2 from the seventh book in the Theology Treatise (رسالة الالهیّات). Both reports have explanations of the theory of Platonic Ideas and then some critiques of the theory. Here we will discuss only Avicenna's description and explanations of the theory of Ideas; what is Avicenna's understanding from Plato's Ideas? At the present essay it is necessary to investigate the range of familiarity that Avicenna has with Platonic Ideas, Aristotle's role in this familiarity and the philosophical functions of the Ideas in Avicenna's understanding and identification of them. First of all, Avicenna thinks that Platonic Ideas are universals and, on this description, he erects other descriptions of their truth. It is vital to know that Avicenna's familiarity with Platonic Forms is essentially mediate; that's by way of Aristotle's works including both descriptions and criticisms of those forms. Review and analysis of Avicenna's texts brings us to the three arguments of Platonists for the existence of Ideas: the argument from the sciences, the one over many arguments and the object of thought argument.

Porphyry's work titled Isagoge is commonly seen as an analysis of Aristotle's Categories, focusing on universal concepts, with the five predicables considered as different types of universals. Often, the same view is ascribed to Aristotle, but in fact, it is an approach arising from a confusion between universal and whole, as well as a confusion between particular and part by Porphyry in the Isagoge. In Categories, Aristotle does not refer to "whole" and "part" as synonyms for "universal" and "particular. Porphyry, however, in some cases distorting this distinction, uses “whole” and “part” to mean “universal” and “particular”. Moreover, they disagree on the essence of the five predicables and their relation to the universal. Aristotle views genes and species as universals and their connection to individuals as universal to particular, but he distinguishes them from the concept of universal and does not believe every universal is a genes or species. Porphyry, on the other hand, reduces genes and species to mere universal conceptions and consider them as synonyms for universal. It appears that there are two approachs in the philosophical tradition that started with Porphyry. These approachs were perpetuated and broadened by later thinkers. Initially, he altered the understanding of whole and part to universal and particular. Furthermore, he reduced genes and species to mere universal.

Some remarks in the Eudemian Ethics and the Nichomachean Ethics indicate that the voluntariness of actions is significantly related to compulsion and ignorance. According to a plausible interpretation, these remarks suggest that if an agent performs an action under compulsion or due to ignorance of some relevant facts, then she does so involuntarily. An objection to this interpretation with regard to compulsion is that an agent can voluntarily do what she is compelled to do. With regard to ignorance, one might object that it is necessary to clarify the proper range of relevant facts when considering whether an action performed out of ignorance is involuntary. In this paper, I develop two principles that align with the view that compulsion and ignorance are sufficient conditions for involuntary actions, while accommodating potential counterexamples and complications.

One of the influential topics in Islamic philosophy is the issue of "active intellect". This term has entered Islamic philosophy from Aristotle's philosophy and some interpreters of Aristotle's works. Islamic philosophers interpreted this issue in the context of their philosophical system and by expanding its concept from the field of natural and industrial (artistic) phenomena to the field of epistemology; they gave it a significant role. These philosophers have presented two types of arguments to prove the active intellect. Some of these arguments are formulated based on the theory of the nine spheres and according to the principle of causality. These arguments attemt to prove efficient causes for the existence of spheres and introduce ultimate causes for their rotational movements. Arguments of the second category also attempt to prove active intellect by relying on principles such as "every event and contingent needs an efficient cause" and "lacking a thing, it is not given to it". In this article, these arguments have been examined and finally, it has been concluded that the arguments of the first category are vulnerable and invalid due to the invalidity of their basis (planetary theory); and the arguments of the second category can only prove non-material and efficient cause or causes, provided that their premises are true, not the active intellect, i.e., the tenth intellect.

Philosophers often rely on sciences of their own time. This is especially true for scientists writing philosophical works. In the case of Ernst Mach, the scientific references are mainly to physics, physiology, evolutionary biology and—in a somewhat different manner—the new discipline of psychology. Like so many authors in the late 19th century, Mach had extreme confidence in the methods of the natural sciences. However, this trait, often called scientism or positivism, can easily be used in polemical accounts that obscure other aspects of Mach's thought. Mach is well-known for both his analysis of sensations and his evolutionary conception of perception and knowledge. The tension between the ambition to clarify the empirical basis of perception on the one hand and the focus on the natural origins of human perception on the other hand is, however, considerable. A comparison of these two perspectives can contribute to an ontological understanding of experience that sheds new light on the much-discussed topic of sense data and at the same time clarifies the difference between experience and observation and the role of experimental science in this context. In some respects, Mach seems closer to William James than to his followers in the Vienna circle. The accusation of idealism made by Lenin in his influential critique of positivism overlooks the implications of this naturalist approach but offers the occasion to dwell on the ontological implications of something that can be called natural historicity. Comparisons with Aristotle, Bacon, Descartes and Kant situate the empiricist theory of perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intuitively right answer to the question 'What am I?' is not 'an incorporeal spirit', but 'a human being'. Aquinas reflects this common-sense view when he says that 'the human is no mere soul, but a compound of soul and body.' And Descartes, despite his notorious dualistic thesis that I am a substance that does not need anything material in order to exist, insists nevertheless that the human mind-body compound is a genuine unity in its own right, not a mere soul making using of a body. This paper argues for the enduring philosophical importance of this notion of our 'compound' nature as human beings, and explores its significance across three principal dimensions - the psychological, the phenomenological, and the moral. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The copula is a linguistic unit that means bond, conjunction, relation, connector of the predicate to the subject in a proposition, and in logic expresssing judgement. In most Indo-European languages the main copula is a verb meaning to be such as to be in English or être in French. In ancient Greek, the language of Aristotle, the word είναι (einai), is the infinitive of the verb εἰμί (eimi), which has the third person singular ἐστί (esti) and is -dir in Turkish. Originally from what is now Kazakhstan, al-Fārābī drew on the work of Aristotle in his own work on logic, which he wrote in Arabic in accordance with the scientific understanding of the period. Although the Arabic, which belongs to the Semitic family of languages, is perfectly capable of combining words, it lacks an explicit copula. However, it was necessary to create one in order to translate Aristotle accurately, so earlier Arabic translators of his work had already proposed the terms ھو (huwa) or الموجو د (mawjūd) which were used in the form of یوجد (yūjad), both derived from الوجو د (wujūd), meaning "being, existing", for an explicit copula. Similarly influenced by Aristotle to feel that to use of copula is necessary for the exposition of logic, there is a need for a use of a copula, al-Fārābī is clearly drawn to yūjad. What brings him to this position is his mutliligualism and his ethnicity. For in addition to his native Turkish language and the Arabic, his knowledge of the Indo-European languages of Sogdian and Fārsī gives him with an understanding of a verb meaning to be that is بودن (būdan) in Fārsī and which is cognate with Aristotle's είναι (einai). The same sense is carried in Turkic languages, not through a verb as such, but rather through a predicate adjective, which in modern Turkish is var, but which also carries a meaning of to be present. With al-Fārābī's ethnic Turkic background, as it is the similarities between "yujad" and the Turkic term "var" that make it so attractive to him. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the influential topics in Islamic philosophy is the issue of "active intellect". This term has entered Islamic philosophy from Aristotle's philosophy and some interpreters of Aristotle's works. Islamic philosophers interpreted this issue in the context of their philosophical system and by expanding its concept from the field of natural and industrial (artistic) phenomena to the field of epistemology; they gave it a significant role. These philosophers have presented two types of arguments to prove the active intellect. Some of these arguments are formulated based on the theory of the nine spheres and according to the principle of causality. These arguments attemt to prove efficient causes for the existence of spheres and introduce ultimate causes for their rotational movements. Arguments of the second category also attempt to prove active intellect by relying on principles such as "every event and contingent needs an efficient cause" and "lacking a thing, it is not given to it". In this article, these arguments have been examined and finally, it has been concluded that the arguments of the first category are vulnerable and invalid due to the invalidity of their basis (planetary theory); and the arguments of the second category can only prove non-material and efficient cause or causes, provided that their premises are true, not the active intellect, i.e., the tenth intellect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I discuss the conditions for the possibility of the existence of time according to Aristotle’s Physics IV, 10-14. For this purpose, I present three thought experiments that help to clarify the nature of time. According to my reading, motion is not a sufficient condition for the existence of time; such condition is, instead, that motion could be measured—even if it is not actually measured. There is time when a movement can be put in a relation of proportion with another movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Aristotle in Poetics, dramatic characterization should show the character's moral choice in the form of action, and good moral choice is the criterion of the tragic character's moral goodness. A good or virtuous action, based on Nicomachean Ethics, is an action free from extremes, that is, an action in which the rule of the middle is observed. The tragic character is morally similar to us because he commits a moral error like us, but he is also superior to us because despite his moral error, he can return to the path of virtuous life. According to Aristotle, action and character in tragedy should be intertwined in such a way that they represent the all-moral nature of human life. Therefore, the ideal character of tragedy is morally, and potentially, good; who tries to realize and actualize his moral goodness during the rational, causal, unified and goal-oriented process of tragic design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel method of portfolio selection is provided with further higher moments, filtering with fundamentals in intelligent computing resources. The Evolutional Portfolio Optimization System (EPOS) evaluates unobtrusive relations from a vast amount of accounting and financial data, excluding hoax and noise, to select the optimal portfolio. The fundamental question of Free Will, limited in investment selection, is answered through a new philosophical approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Music is an element that appears systematically as part of the rhetorical strategy of audiovisual narratives and is, to that extent, a constitutive part of them. Since audiovisual narratives, especially fictional ones, can be considered as poetic works in the Aristotelian sense, it is worth asking about the role that music plays in this poetic condition. In this research article, a theoretical proposal along these lines is put forward that will serve both to explain the role of music in the work of fiction and to analyze it. For the development of this proposal, the basis of the theory is based on the Aristotelian corpus (in particular, Poetics, Politics and Rhetoric), from which music can be understood as an expressive resource linked to the representation and creation of emotion. For this point, it is proposed to develop a theory of emotions, elaborated fundamentally from the studies of M. Nussbaum and M. Scheler, whose contributions connect the emotional processes with the recognition of ethical values. These ethical values, linked to emotions and their corresponding musical expressions, are to serve the purpose of discerning the function that music fulfills in the “letting oneself be followed” of history as a whole, by pointing out the prevailing emotional state or adjusted to the action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ideas y Valores is the property of Universidad Nacional de Colombia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article explores the depiction of time in the works of C. S. Lewis, offering an analysis rooted in a reading of select passages that highlight issues of temporality in Lewis' works. The select passages are from the following books: Mere Christianity; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; The Magician's Nephew; and The Last Battle. The theoretical framework for this article is derived mainly from Aristotle's perennial contribution to rhetoric, adopting his definition of rhetoric as: "The faculty of discovering, in the particular case, the available means of persuasion." Moreover, this paper engages with published readership on Lewis' relationship with rhetoric, as explored by Gary Tandy in The Rhetoric of Certitude, and Don W. King's "The Rhetorical Similarities of C.S. Lewis and Bertrand Russel" among others. This study mainly aims to explore Lewis' employment of Pathos, Ethos, and Logos in his writings, demonstrating how these three modes manifest differently in his nonfiction and fantasy works yet remain equally compelling. Finally, this article aims to show how Lewis utilizes literary techniques that enhance the sense of identification between his voice and that of the reader, in order to increase the receptiveness of his audience toward the following three points which he postulates: Firstly, time has clear boundaries; specifically. This implies that created time, or time on earth is finite. Secondly, time is linear. Namely, it has a continuous and sequential nature, where events follow each other in a straight line, regardless of how it is experienced on a subjective level. And thirdly, time is but a line encompassed by an infinite eternal being, the Creator of time. Meaning that as a finite being, God exists outside of time, and as thus is capable of creating time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Adab Al-Kufa is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Anales del Seminario de Historia de la Filosofía is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Acidic substances were known for thousands of years, and their macroscopic-sensory characteristics were reflected by words in most ancient languages. In the Western canon, the history of the concept of acidity goes back to Ancient Greece. In Greek, the word associated with acidity from its early literary references was ὀξύς ("sharp"), and still in contemporary Greek the words "sour" and "acidic" have the same root. This paper makes a short presentation of the appearance of the abstract concept in the works of Plato and Aristotle and relates it, on one side to the already existing theological-philosophical tradition, starting with Hesiod´s Theogony and on the other, to the then available to the Greeks organoleptic experiences of sourness-vinegar and sour milk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As William Cavanaugh has remarked, the scholarly notion of religion "should often be surrounded by scare quotes. Its flexibility and occasional nebulousness make evaluating its role in conceiving of, effecting, and justifying violence even more difficult. At the same time, it sticks around and remains a vital category of contemporary analysis. What if getting behind the Wars of Religion—the period to which Cavanaugh traces the emergence of his "myth of religious violence"—could plant the seeds for a new paradigm in understanding the relationship between religion and violence? In this article, I analyze the Chronicon of Jean Hocsem, a fourteenth-century canon from Liège. Untranslated into English and rarely written about, Hocsem's text offers an unexpectedly political perspective on this question. Combining insights from Augustine's City of God as well as Aristotle's Politics and basing his ideas on his own experience of nearly constant conflict, Hocsem develops the idea that class antagonisms and human frailty make violence—especially political violence—inevitable. He takes this approach within a polity ruled by a prince-bishop, though one he would not have thought of as "religious". Hocsem's solutions are thus avowedly political. His pessimism about such questions leads to an emphasis on mitigating violence through the institution of proper socio-political structures. This reading of Hocsem and his politicizing of the question of violence opens new possibilities for scholars, further calling into question any easy relationship between the modern categories of "religion" and violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We evolved our past Portfolio Yield Reactive (PYR) model to provide a competitive system with infiltration of categorical information and fundamentals into advanced higher-order moments that support more objective portfolio selection aided by intelligent computing. The system of the PYR model searches for hidden corporate performance prototypes in big data from accounting and financial statements. The PYR model restricts malicious patterns, such as hoaxes, noise, and manipulation, incorporated into a novel optimal portfolio selection method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hermeneutical scholars doubt whether many past authors really existed. They are only a sort of construction built with the passing of time. Indeed, Zeno of Elea, for instance, was real, and historians attempted to establish what he wrote and intended to say. Our most important source for Zeno is Aristotle. Zeno’s paradoxes deeply influenced the latter’s Physics. Is Aristotle’s physics relevant to us? Yes, because philosophical problems are too complex not to be considered in their historical development as well. In reading Zeno and Aristotle, we can see physical problems from a completely different perspective and learn a lot. In other terms, the historical Zeno is disorienting for us. On the other hand, Zeno’s historical legacy is extremely interesting for us. Indeed, we will see how Zeno’s and Aristotle’s reflections on continuum, extension, and movement could contribute to a better understanding of these notions in the contemporary debate.

This paper aims to show how Tristan’s La Mariane represents the queen’s heroization, highlighting the specificity of the treatment of the topic in an Aristotelian tragedy, by comparing it with the aesthetic choices of Hardy and two foreign playwrights, Cary and Calderón. Tristan’s protagonist demonstrates a martyr-like virtue, even if Tristan, unlike Cary, does not draw attention to the discrepancy between her virtue and the times’ social mores, demanding women be silent and obedient. Mariane’s personality changes throughout the action, she triumphs over her desperate pride and anger and entirely places her trust in God before her execution. In Tristan’s tragic frame, Mariane owns her heroic stature to constancy rather than to action. This aligns with the moral demands of her rank as a royal heiress, independently of her status as a wife. On the contrary, in Calderon's work, Marjene acts as a kind companion towards her guilty husband on several occasions. Tristan’s Mariane appears all the more admirable as she stands against two counter-models of corrupted femininity, Salomé and Alexandra, whereas Cary associates the heroic Mariam with the traditionally virtuous woman Graphina. Finally, Tristan avoids drawing a Manichean opposition between Mariane and Herod. His king is the reverse of an Aristotelian hero, his heroic features interlaced with violence. Instead of turning the uxoricide into an involuntary crime, as Calderon does, Tristan insists on the political danger constituted by the queen, going against his historical sources.

The intuitively right answer to the question ‘What am I?’ is not ‘an incorporeal spirit’, but ‘a human being’. Aquinas reflects this common-sense view when he says that ‘the human is no mere soul, but a compound of soul and body.’ And Descartes, despite his notorious dualistic thesis that I am a substance that does not need anything material in order to exist, insists nevertheless that the human mind-body compound is a genuine unity in its own right, not a mere soul making using of a body. This paper argues for the enduring philosophical importance of this notion of our ‘compound’ nature as human beings, and explores its significance across three principal dimensions – the psychological, the phenomenological, and the moral.

This article investigates Machiavelli’s relationship with the treatment of tyranny in scholastic Aristotelianism. More specifically, it analyzes Machiavelli’s omissive analysis of tyranny against the backdrop of the Vernacular translated texts of two Aristotelian thinkers who were present in Machiavelli’s context: Giles of Rome and Marsilius of Padua. It is argued that some pragmatic political themes of Machiavelli’s political thought have interesting antecedents already in previous medieval Aristotelian thinkers.

The paper discusses the conception of philosophy and ethics in Seneca’s Letters, as well as in his other writings, which it sets in the broader context of ancient and modern thought. The introduction outlines the Socratic and Stoic foundations of Seneca’s ethics. The next section focuses on the interpretation of passages from the Letters that remind us that the task of philosophy is to teach human to live an active life. The paper points out that, according to Seneca, philosophy resembles art more than knowledge, and Seneca adapts his language and the examples he uses to this effect. In the next section, the paper returns to delineating the relationship between theoretical and practical thought. The specificity of Seneca’s position becomes visible in the background of Aristotle’s problematization of this relationship. The last section asks how we should approach Seneca’s conception of ethics and philosophy. The analyses outlined above show that Seneca’s Letters fully express an approach to philosophy as an art of living, an approach that modern authors such as Nietzsche and Foucault consider determinative for the whole of ancient philosophy.

The article explores the relationship between two different approaches to happiness and knowledge, that is, the contemplative model and the economistic and instrumental model. Whereas the former equates happiness with the contemplative life, the latter separates happiness from knowledge and subordinates both to what present-day policy-makers call “the economy of well-being.” While biopolitical modernity seems to have rendered the contemplative model obsolete and purposeless, the article suggests reviving the contemplative lifestyle, by putting forward three arguments. First, it contends that we should challenge the economistic and instrumental model, by reaffirming the principle that knowledge and happiness are primarily intrinsic values and ends in themselves. Second, the two models do not necessarily exclude each other and we should strive to combine them. Third, the envisaged integration of the two models requires that we revise them significantly. The elitist and metaphysical character of the traditional contemplative model must be abandoned as it is no longer palatable to modernity. Also, the primacy of economic and instrumental rationality that defines the modern biopolitics of knowledge must be questioned.

The article explores the phenomenon of ancient Greek theater, portraying it as a unique space where an entire cityscape unfolded before the eyes of thousands of spectators. Despite its mesmerizing effect, there's ongoing debate about its educational impact. In the first part of the article, sources are analyzed in which ancient authors argue for or against the notion that the theater, for which Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides composed, and which was occasionally attended by Socrates, could serve as a kind of school for adults and adolescents. Plato's dialogues, featuring Socrates as the central figure, dissect the differences between philosopher, playwright, and sophist wisdom, suggesting that the theater may not have been primarily aimed at enlightening the masses, but rather at showcasing persuasive rhetoric. Aristotle and Aristophanes stress the importance of playwrights acting as guides for citizens, albeit acknowledging that not all possess the wisdom to effectively mentor citizens in civic engagement and personal growth. In the second part, the article analyzes select tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, seen as valuable sources for instructing citizens. These playwrights' works are depicted as poignant reflections of the challenges faced by inhabitants of various cities, with heroes striving to offer guidance to themselves or others. Based on Aristotle's classification of tragic forms, it suggests that protagonists in these tragedies undergo transformative experiences, whether through reversal, discovery, calamity and spectacle. This also opened up wide opportunities for spectators to project what was happening on stage onto themselves and their city, taking guidance from the playwrights and becoming a special kind of disciples.

This historical review on the semantic evolution of human senses and sensors revealed that Aristotle’s list of the five senses sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell is still in use among non-scientific lay persons. It is no surprise that his classification in the work “De Anima” (On the Soul) from 350  BC confuses the sensor “touch” with the now more comprehensively defined somatosensory system and that senses are missing such as the later discovered vestibular system and the musculotendinous proprioception of the position of parts of the body in space. However, it is surprising that in the three most influential ancient cultures, Egypt, Greece, and China—which shaped the history of civilization—the concept prevailed that the heart rather than the brain processes perception, cognition, and emotions. This “cardiocentric view” can be traced back to the “Doctrine of Aristotle,” the “Book of the Dead” in ancient Egypt, and the traditional Chinese medicine of correspondence documented in the book “Huang di Neijing.” In Greek antiquity the philosophers Empedocles, Democritus and Aristotle were proponents of the allocation of the spirit and the soul to the heart connected to the body via the blood vessels. Opponents were the pre-Socratic mathematician Pythagoras, the philosopher Plato, and especially the Greek physician Hippocrates who regarded the brain as the most powerful organ in humans in his work “De Morbo Sacro.” The Greek physician Galen of Pergamon further elaborated on the concept of the brain (“cephalocentric hypothesis”) connected to the body by a network of nerves. The fundamental concepts for understanding functions and disorders of the vestibular system, the perception of self-motion, verticality and balance control were laid by a remarkable group of 19th century scientists including Purkynӗ, Mach, Breuer, Helmholtz, and Crum-Brown. It was also in the 19th century that Bell described a new sense of a reciprocal sensorimotor loop between the brain and the muscles which he called “muscular sense,” later termed “kinaesthesia” by Bastian and defined in 1906 as “proprioception” by Sherrington as “the perception of joint and body movements as well as position of the body or body segments, in space.” Both, the vestibular system and proprioception could be acknowledged as senses six or seven. However, we hesitate to recommend “pain”—which is variously assigned to the somatosensory system or extero-, intero-, visceroception—as a separate sensory system. Pain sensors are often not specific but have multisensory functions. Because of this inconsistent, partly contradictory classification even by experts in the current literature on senses and sensors we consider it justified to recommend a comprehensive reorganization of classification features according to the present state of knowledge with an expansion of the number of senses. Such a project has also to include the frequent task-dependent multisensory interactions for perceptual and sensorimotor achievements, and higher functions or disorders of the visual and vestibular systems as soon as cognition or emotions come into play. This requires a cooperation of sensory physiologists, neuroscientists and experienced physicians involved in the management of patients with sensory and multisensory disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Physics is one of the leading works written by Aristotle on natural philosophy. There are differences in the comments on the Physics because of the way it has been reinterpreted through translations and because of how it relates to certain metaphysical and theological issues. The greatest commentator of Aristotle is undoubtedly Ibn Rushd. The various commentaries that Ibn Rushd wrote on this work influenced the world after him, especially the Latin world. This article discusses Ibn Rushd's commentary method, his style in his commentaries on the Physics, and his short commentary, which has remained in Arabic to this day. It has been stated that the Latin version of Ibn Rushd's long commentary on the Physics and the Hebrew version of the middle commentary have survived to the present day. The short commentary consists of a brief summary of Aristotle's texts, but Ibn Rushd creates a new text by changing the order of the text and ordering it in a different way. He approaches the text with a different interpretation and reading style and includes references to philosophers such as Alexander of Aphrodisias and Themistius on the one hand, and al-Farabi and Ibn Bâcce on the other hand, and includes them in the discussions. However, this attempt at inclusion is made by Ibn Rushd sometimes to clarify problems and sometimes to criticize him for his inaccurate interpretations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the philosophy of Plato and the Platonic Aristotle there are many imperfect things: becoming, infinite multiplicity, indeterminacy, contradiction, ephemerality, chance, blind necessity, accident, mixture, potency, matter, non-being, evil, etc. If there weren’t, the system wouldn’t spin smoothly on its hinges and wouldn’t be able to cope with the epistemic project of telling the real as it is. But there is, on the other hand, a factor of perfection that organizes and subordinates all of this: the primacy of form (eîdos). None of these notions exist in itself, but orbit around some item linked to the semantic field of form: subsistence, unity, identity, determination, teleology, etc. In this way, even if we admit that the first items are as original as the second, there is a hierarchy of axiological character, in an ontological asymmetry of another game of anteriority and posteriority. Arguing against the primacy of form is equivalent to arguing in favor of the primacy of matter. What kind of landscape do we see when we look at reality from the perspective of a pre-Socratic philosophy, now marked not by the sign of insufficiency but, on the contrary, as a full philosophy? What if the second navigation of the Phaedo had to return to the first? What if the philosophy summarized by the Stranger from Athens in Laws 888e4-890a1 deserved not censure, but applause? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the midst of the so-called “biological turn” in the Aristotelian studies, we will follow the hypothesis raised by some commentators that Aristotle’s Poetics shares the structural biological model of his thought, which implies that poetry also has a “natural history”. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to think about comedy according to this paradigm. It will be divided into two main parts: firstly, we will present evidence that corroborates the hypothesis that the Poetics was written with Aristotle’s biology as its structural model and, because of this, should be read against this background. Secondly, we will apply this model of thought to comedy, in order to conjecture what would be the perfect comic art from an Aristotelian perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article is presented as a reading of Aristotle, in particular his Metaphysics. It is not a philosophical or philological commentary. Written by an anthropologist on the basis of Aristotle's propositions, it is a plea for observation of the human being as a substantial unit. It proposes a radical change of scale for social and cultural anthropology, which is accustomed to observing social and cultural facts. By drawing on Aristotelian lexicon (substance, substratum, movement, predicate), the article attempts to clarify some possible points of observation of a human being in his singularity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In The New Religious Intolerance, Martha Nussbaum addresses rising intolerance and fear of difference in contemporary societies. She suggests overcoming these issues through ethical consistency, equality, and the cultivation of sympathetic imagination. Nussbaum views this imaginative engagement as a form of civic friendship essential for societal transformation. However, we argue that her concept of civic friendship is problematic. First, Nussbaum's criteria do not suffice to define friendship. Second, this thin concept of civic friendship is unlikely to achieve the societal transformation Nussbaum envisions. We propose developing a more substantive account of civic friendship. This paper aims to create an Aristotelian account of civic friendship within a capabilitarian framework compatible with contemporary, plural societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]