A full account of the philosophy of the Greek and Roman worlds from the last days of Aristotle until 100 BC. Hellenistic philosophy, for long relatively neglected and unappreciated, has over the last decade been the object of a considerable amount of scholarly attention. Now available in paperback, this 1999 volume is a general reference work which pulls the subject together and presents an overview. The History is organised by subject, rather than chronologically or by philosophical school, with sections on (...) logic, epistemology, physics and metaphysics, ethics and politics. It has been written by specialists but is intended to be a source of reference for any student of ancient philosophy, for students of classical antiquity and for students of the philosophy of later periods. Greek and Latin are used sparingly and always translated in the main text. (shrink)

The Cambridge Histories of philosophy, extending from Thales to the seventeenth century, are not a formal series. Nevertheless, they have a distinctive character: authoritative accounts that combine general coverage of a period with the individual contributions of their authors and indicate scholarly controversies. This volume is a worthy continuation of the tradition.

This book provides detailed information about the theories of place and space of the ancient atomists, Plato, Aristotle, Peripatetics, Stoics and others, about ...

El texto aborda uno de los temas de la violencia contemporánea, la violencia política de las mujeres. A partir de los problemas para nombrar la violencia y de los análisis de A. Cavarero sobre el «horrorismo», se centra en dos casos: la muerte de Yoyes y las mujeres bombas suicidas chechenas, mostrando las construcciones sociales y culturales de sexo/género, sus mitos y estereotipos, en cuanto constituyen una de las raíces más profundas y persistentes de la violencia. En definitiva, de lo (...) que se trata es de reflexionar y comprender la vulnerabilidad de la condición humana. (shrink)

El punto de partida de este artículo es que tanto el trabajo de J. Rawls La teoría de la Justicia, como la Teoría Feminista han contribuido enormemente al resurgimiento de la Filosofía Moral y Política. Mi objetivo aquí es mostrar las relaciones existentes entre la Teoría de Rawls y la Teoría Feminista, y particularmente analizar las críticas feministas de "justice as fairness" en el contexto de un estudio más general sobre Teorías contemporáneas de la Justicia y sobre la relación de (...) la Justicia en Teorías Feministas. (shrink)

Our step-signs on the Internet, housed in the large external memory of the Web, rediscover ourselves as narrative beings, but above all they reveal our desire to be narrated. In our Web narrative action, in our “Facebooking” living – that expands to our “tweeting” living, “blogging” or “googling” living –, we are leaving behind us traces of a “story of life”. As Cavarero argues, following Arendtian approaches, we entrust this story of life to another/other, who can tell us. The biographical (...) hope underlying our communicative exchanges via the web, will be studied in an attempt to account for the desire present in the current online narrative proliferation, that is, the desire to be narrated. (shrink)

Lo contrario al decir y los obstáculos del decir son dos acepciones que reúne la contradicción como contra-dicción. Ambas apuntan a dos aspectos de las cosas que no se hacen con palabras y las que se hacen sin ellas. Desde esta dualidad, el texto aborda el fenómeno del silenciamiento de las mujeres y de sus silencios en el marco de la contemporánea filosofía feminista del lenguaje. Con este fin, se analizarán las condiciones pragmáticas en contexto, tomando como referencia el escenario (...) fílmico de Twelve Angry Men, a partir de las herramientas conceptuales de la teoría de los actos de habla. (shrink)

Within this working context, this paper exammes how philosophy is situated within the horizon of circulated knowledge. Using Alain Badiou's discussion about the fate of philosophy after Hegel, this paper highlights three distinct phenomena: the end of philosophy, the linguistic turn, and the suture of philosophy to other disciplines. This paper argues that these three signal a paradigm shift in philosophizing, namely, the shift of orientation from the metaphysical to the finite. After the discussion about contemporary philosophy, this paper argues (...) in the spirit of Badiou that philosophy's current form is incapable of addressing one of the most alarmmg crises in the world today, the crisis of subjectivity. (shrink)

The object of this text is to think about the alleged binarism between the ‘serious’ and ‘non-serious’ uses of language in J. L. Austin. The starting point is an examination of his controversial position against dichotomies, paying particular attention to the central role that verbal humor plays in his writings. Based on this, it will be expounded how humor takes shape in Austin's theoretical / practical project in the way it is used to undo and destabilize dichotomous oppositions, as well (...) as in its exemplary version, thus reinforcing his thesis that all saying is doing. In short, my proposal involves taking Austin's sense of humor seriously. From this perspective, that binarism hatches and a new reading emerges that contributes to clarify the complex interpretation of the Austinian work. (shrink)

This contribution focuses on Aristotle’s account of place as it is developed in Physics 4, 1–5, a difficult text which has proved to be both influential and a source of problems and discussions in the ancient and medieval Aristotelian tradition. The article starts out by briefly positioning this account within the Corpus Aristotelicum, within the later ancient and medieval Aristotelian tradition, and within the tradition of theories of place and space in general. It goes on to examine the argument of (...) Phys. 4, 1–5, showing that proper attention to Aristotle’s dialectical procedure is crucial for a correct understanding and evaluation of the various claims that we find scattered throughout his text. It then zooms in on the most important questions, problems and loose ends with which Aristotle’s theory confronted his commentators : the puzzling arguments for the rejection of the rival conception of place as an independent three-dimensional extension ; the supposed role of Aristotelian places in the explanation of motion; the supposed role of Aristotelian natural places in the explanation of natural motion; the problem of the required immobility of Aristotelian places; and the problem of the emplacement of the heavens. (shrink)

What is Japanese philosophy? This paper will address this question, not by giving a survey of the works of Japanese philosophers or a definition of the subject matter of Japanese philosophy, but by attempting to present how it emerged as a distinct philosophical tradition—by sketching the controversies that gave rise to its formation; the social, intellectual, and historical factors that paved the way to its development; and the revolution of thought which finally gave it the title “Japanese philosophy.” I will (...) argue that Japanese philosophy was born not because Japanese thinkers desperately wanted a philosophy that they could call their own, but because, first and foremost, they were thinking of ways to articulate the ever changing and paradoxical nature of reality. Formed by their religion and informed by the Chinese and Japanese classics, they used the language learned from the West and tried to answer the most fundamental questions of existence. A unique way of philosophizing thus emerged and became a true locus of dialogue between Eastern and Western thought.An Inquiry into the Historical Development of Philosophy in Japan. (shrink)

The starting point of this paper is that both J Rawls's work "A theory of Justice" and feminist theory have contributed greatly to the revival of the moral and political philosophy. My aim here is to show the relationships between Rawls's and feminist theories, and particularly to analyze feminist criticism of "justice as fairness" in the context of a more general study on contemporary theories of justice and on the relevance of justice in feminist theories.

This paper takes off from a growing preoccupation in Western political-social philosophy on the thinkability of the materiality of change, that became most pronounced in Alain Badiou's philosophy of the event. It traces the development of the discourse of radical change tied to a materialist theory of subjectivity beginning from Badiou, down to the strong criticism posed against it by Slavoj Žižek. This is then followed by the discussion of Bruno Bosteels' potent defense of Badiou's philosophy. Finally, the last part (...) takes off from this debate and highlights how this tension in Badiou's philosophy was possible in the first place. Using Adrian Johnston's key insight on pre-evental and post-evental time, this paper argues that Žižek and Bosteels respectively employ pre-evental and post-evental lenses in reading the relation of event to being. Furthermore, these two lenses are themselves the effect of the split readability of the event at the moment of its rupture: the parallax-effect that divides the event into two. This paper asserts that neither of the two is sufficient. Both are fundamental in outlining what sort of sustained disciplines are necessary before and after events take place. (shrink)

Plutarch, at De Stoicorum repugnantiis 1038e–1039a , quotes and briefly discusses a fragment from Chrysippus' On Zeus . This quotation is to some extent paralleled by the scrap, taken from Chrysippus' On the Gods , which immediately follows at SR 1039a . Both quotations are again referred to by Plutarch at De communibus notitiis 1061a . Although the correct constitution of the text is controversial, it is at least clear that the fragment from the On Zeus deals with the fact (...) that not all virtuous acts are ipso facto also praiseworthy. Plutarch characteristically creates a first and more general contradiction between the On Zeus text and other passages in which Chrysippus argued that virtue and vice do not admit of gradations. In addition, he creates a specific contradiction between it and another quotation, this time from the On the Honourable , in which Chrysippus seems to draw the conclusion that the good is praiseworthy. (shrink)

Plutarch, at De Stoicorum repugnantiis 1038e–1039a, quotes and briefly discusses a fragment from Chrysippus' On Zeus. This quotation is to some extent paralleled by the scrap, taken from Chrysippus' On the Gods, which immediately follows at SR 1039a. Both quotations are again referred to by Plutarch at De communibus notitiis 1061a. Although the correct constitution of the text is controversial, it is at least clear that the fragment from the On Zeus deals with the fact that not all virtuous acts (...) are ipso facto also praiseworthy. Plutarch characteristically creates a first and more general contradiction between the On Zeus text and other passages in which Chrysippus argued that virtue and vice do not admit of gradations. In addition, he creates a specific contradiction between it and another quotation, this time from the On the Honourable, in which Chrysippus seems to draw the conclusion that the good is praiseworthy. (shrink)

Paperback. This volume contains a collection of papers on the philosophical and cultural background of Lucretius' De rerum natura. The authors, an international team of specialists, address such general questions as how Lucretius' poem relates to the Epicurean tradition, to other philosophical schools and to contemporary Roman intellectual life. In addition, a number of case studies are presented which discuss the background of particular passages in Lucretius' poem. The book will be of interest to students and scholars in the areas (...) of ancient philosophy, Latin literature and Roman culture. (shrink)

During the past three decades the Utrecht scholar Jaap Mansfeld has built up a formidable reputation in the field of the history of ancient philosophy. This state-of-the-art collection of articles is presented to him by colleagues and friends on his sixtieth birthday.

The two books of Sextus Empiricus' Against the Physicists have not received much attention in their own right, as sustained and methodical specimens of sceptical philosophy. This volume redresses the balance by offering a series of in-depth studies on them, focusing in particular on their overall argumentative structure and on the various ways in which their formal features relate to their contents, showing how Sextus' procedures vary from one section to the other, and throwing new light on the way he (...) was using his sources. It follows Sextus' own division of these two books into nine successive topics, namely god, cause, wholes and parts, body, place, motion, time, number, coming-to-be and passing-away. These nine chapters are preceded by an introduction which discusses a number of general features of Sextus' scepticism and links the conclusions of this volume to some recent discussions on the scope of ancient scepticism. (shrink)