Article
Магическая лексика в диалогах Платона: φάρµακον и ἐπῳδή
Corpus Platonicum is one of our primary evidence on the history of Greek magic in the classical period and with other sources it gives the knowledge on those who practiced magic-working (magoi, goetes, pharmakeis and epodoi). Plato is well known for his critics of magicians in the Republic and the Laws yet picturing Socrates as a magician and enchanter in other dialogues. I will address this apparent inconsistency by examining pharmakon (drug) and epode (incantation) as two magical terms that we know already from pre-platonic texts, while in the dialogues Plato uses them for depicting a variety of Socratic philosophical practices: in the Charmides Socrates presented as a follower of Thracian medical-magical practitioner, in the Theaetetus he appears as a midwife of the souls, in the Phaedo as a prophet and a servant of Apollo and in the Republic as a lover of poetry who places his own incantation in opposition to poetry’s mimetic charm. As it follows, the magic of Socrates is a counter-magic to the bewitchment and jugglery of a sophistry and mimetic poetry. By enchanting pharmakon with epode Socrates neutralizes the risk of pharmakon being dangerous drug: a model for a method that Socrates is famed for yet expressed in the words of magic.
The paper offers an interpretation of Plato’s dialogue Gorgias in the context of post- Nietzschean political thought (M. Heidegger, L. Strauss, H. Arendt, G. Deleuze, M. Foucault). Each interlocutor of the dialogue claims that his speech is free. Two different political logics are introduced: «geometrical» (as in the conversation between Socrates and Polus) and «erotic» (as in the conversation between Socrates and Kallikles). The philosopher is able to make use of both languages. In the end, it is only Socrates who truly speaks freely, because philosophy doesn’t seek to be loyal to any of these two logics as it only aspires to solve a political collision between freedom and justice.
This article is devoted to conceptual translation of the terms "transcendence" and, connected with the former, "symbol". Difficulties which appear in the translation of those concepts into the language of contemporary culture are due to the fact that the terms are descriptive, not explanatory. This indicates a special type of ontology, that refers to Plato. Symbol, which is at the same time transcendent and immanent, will be analyzed through the examples of Merab Mamardashvili's philosophy and Andrey Tarkovsky's films. Their understanding of symbol is linked to Pavel Florensky's philosophy of art and Pseudo-Dionysius's theology of symbol.
The scope of this paper is to enquire into the nature of the so called ‘Socratic protreptic’. P. Harlich (1889) and K. Gaiser (1959) suggested that the ‘Socratic protreptic’ was a kind of transitional form from sophistic presentations to early Plato’s dialogues. Diogenus Laertius only mentions the protreptics of Antisthenes (VP VI. 2) and Aristippus (VP II. 85), but there are two texts that came to be considered as protreptics as a result оf Gaiser’s Protreptik und Paränese bei Platon: Xenophons’ Memorabilia 4.2 and the Alcibiades of Aeschines. These texts, along with the spurious First Alcibiades, were included into the protreptic corpus by S.R. Slings (1999). We argue that Gaiser’s approach is somewhat problematical, since the influence of Aeschines is not beyond any doubt. In the end, we focus on differences (both in structure and in content) between the ‘Socratic protreptic’ and those texts that were explicitly marked as protreptic in the IV century BC (Euthydemus, Clitiphon), which brings us to the problem of genre-definition.
According to the widely spread opinion among historians of philosophy, Plato makes a philosophical conceptualization of word αἰών, using it in the sense of “eternity” and implying infinity and timelessness. However, a careful analysis of Plato’s cosmological ideas in the context of early usage of αἰών gives a basis for rejection of this traditional point of view. The paper presents an attempt to interpret the concept relying on the most reliable meaning of the word – “Life”, extended to the sense of the fullness of being. Thus, our approach seems not only hermeneutically adequate, but gives a new perspective on the central questions of the Plato’s cosmology.
This volume approaches the 'Socratic question' from a viewpoint that departs radically from mainstream lines of interpretation. The focus is not on the 'formal order' of the Socratics, that is on their subdivision in 'schools' and the 'doctrines' peculiar to each, but on the theoretical issues that these thinkers were able to develop in the fierce struggle among themselves. This collection features the revised versions of the papers presented at 'Socratica III - a conference on Socrates, the Socratics, and the ancient Socratic literature'. This conference is the latest of a series of Socratica symposia, previously held in Senigallia (2005) and Naples (2008), which were devoted to the developments of the research on the complex world serving as a context for Plato and his dialogues. This volume approaches the 'Socratic question' from a viewpoint that departs radically from mainstream lines of interpretation. The focus is not on the 'formal order' of the Socratics, that is on their subdivision in 'schools' and the 'doctrines' peculiar to each, but on the theoretical issues that these thinkers were able to develop in the fierce struggle among themselves. The papers dwell on the dynamic context in which these issues were posed, discussed, and eventually fixed in dogmatic theories within the philosophical and non-philosophical Greek literature of the V and IV centuries B.C. Following topics are examined: 1. the 'intellectual movement' around Socrates, i.e. Aristophanes and Comedy, Isocrates, Antisthenes, Chaerephon, Aeschines, Plato, and Xenophon; 2. the literary context in which the texts of the Socratics are framed; 3. major topics discussed within this movement, and their development within and outside the Socratic circle (apologetics, dialectics, politics, misology, eudaimonia, eusebeia, Eros, enthousiasmos, parrhesia, protreptics, spoudaiogeloion, epistemology and teleology); the reception of these issues in Late Antiquity, from Aristotle up to the Stoic, Neoplatonic and Arab traditions; 4. the state of the art of the 'Socratic question', and reviews of the major publications that appeared on Socrates and the Socratics between 2010 and 2011 (D. Morrison's Companion, L.-A. Dorion's and F. Bevilacqua's editions of the Memorabilia, and V. Gray's works on Xenophon and G. Danzig's book on the apologetic side of the earlier Socratic literature).
The paper deals with the political sense of the dialectical method of Plato. Dialectics is often understood as a pure logical procedure. However the two forms of the dialectical discourse (mentioned in the “Phaedrus”) must be interpreted politically: the first one is a movement of freedom, the second one is a movement of justice. The paper offers a comparison of different conception of dialectics by Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, and Paul Ricoeur.
The description of the elenctic method in the Sophist (230a–e) is often believed to be merely retrospective. However, some parallels with Aristotle’s Sophistical refutations suggest that the dialogue as a whole has a clear elenctic dimension. Having faced an apparent refutation (falsehood paradox), the interlocutors find themselves in an impasse. According to Aristotle, to solve such aporiai one must eliminate ambiguity and homonymy by making distinctions, i.e. recur to the diairesis. The same tactics is applied by the Stranger and Theaetetus.
The article considers the Views of L. N. Tolstoy not only as a representative, but also as a accomplisher of the Enlightenment. A comparison of his philosophy with the ideas of Spinoza and Diderot made it possible to clarify some aspects of the transition to the unique Tolstoy’s religious and philosophical doctrine. The comparison of General and specific features of the three philosophers was subjected to a special analysis. Special attention is paid to the way of thinking, the relation to science and the specifics of the worldview by Tolstoy and Diderot. An important aspect is researched the contradiction between the way of thinking and the way of life of the three philosophers.
Tolstoy's transition from rational perception of life to its religious and existential bases is shown. Tolstoy gradually moves away from the idea of a natural man to the idea of a man, who living the commandments of Christ. Starting from the educational worldview, Tolstoy ended by creation of religious and philosophical doctrine, which were relevant for the 20th century.
This important new book offers the first full-length interpretation of the thought of Martin Heidegger with respect to irony. In a radical reading of Heidegger's major works (from Being and Time through the ‘Rector's Address' and the ‘Letter on Humanism' to ‘The Origin of the Work of Art' and the Spiegel interview), Andrew Haas does not claim that Heidegger is simply being ironic. Rather he argues that Heidegger's writings make such an interpretation possible - perhaps even necessary.
Heidegger begins Being and Time with a quote from Plato, a thinker famous for his insistence upon Socratic irony. The Irony of Heidegger takes seriously the apparently curious decision to introduce the threat of irony even as philosophy begins in earnest to raise the question of the meaning of being. Through a detailed and thorough reading of Heidegger's major texts and the fundamental questions they raise, Haas reveals that one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century can be read with as much irony as earnestness. The Irony of Heidegger attempts to show that the essence of this irony lies in uncertainty, and that the entire project of onto-heno-chrono-phenomenology, therefore needs to be called into question.
The article is concerned with the notions of technology in essays of Ernst and Friedrich Georg Jünger. The special problem of the connection between technology and freedom is discussed in the broader context of the criticism of culture and technocracy discussion in the German intellectual history of the first half of the 20th century.