Papers by Suzanne M F Stern-Gillet
The Classical Review, 2008
The Lysis is a much trickier dialogue than is often realised. Although it focusses on the nature ... more The Lysis is a much trickier dialogue than is often realised. Although it focusses on the nature of erôs and philia, it is not a dialogue of deμnition. Although it shows Socrates in debate with three consecutive interlocutors, it cannot exactly be described as ‘elenctic’ in nature. Although it arguably identiμes ‘the μrst philon’ with knowledge of the ‘good’, it contains no explicit mention of the Forms. Although it is short, and features Socrates puzzling over an ethical (or semi-ethical) concept, and is devoid of any reference to the Forms, its traditional classiμcation as an ‘early’ Socratic dialogue can be, and has been, questioned. To the task of analysing this di ̧cult dialogue Penner and Rowe have brought great enthusiasm and considerable philosophical expertise. Their enthusiasm for the Lysis is such as to lead them to declare that ‘the treatment of philia in the Lysis is actually in important respects superior to what Aristotle has to say about the subject in his Ethics’ (p. 299). There is little doubt that this claim will strike most students of ancient theories of interpersonal relations as preposterous, just as it did (and still does) this reviewer. Yet it is not a claim that P. and R. toss in lightly or merely to provoke. Coming as it does at the conclusion of a long and intricate chain of arguments, it is obviously intended seriously, and should be given serious attention. No less impressive than the arguments themselves, however, is the manner in which they are articulated. P. and R.’s presentation of Plato’s Lysis does what, to my knowledge, no other book on Plato does: it takes the reader by the hand and shares with him the di ̧culties, puzzlement, irritation and – yes – wonder involved in reading a Socratic dialogue step by step. Engagingly, the two authors do not hesitate to confess their own earlier mis-readings of sections of the dialogue, and to record whatever misgivings either or both may still harbour about individual points at the time of going to press. For all that, the guide to the Lysis that they o¶er is full and μrm, and the reader’s attention is held throughout. No aspect of the dialogue, however seemingly trivial or merely eristic, is passed over, ‘solutions’ to di ̧culties and paradoxes are vigorously argued for, and the ‘failings’ of other interpretations, notably those of R. Robinson (1953) and Vlastos (1969 and 1990), are exposed repeatedly and in detail. Most importantly, the very way in which P. and R. conduct their analysis constitutes an e¶ective demonstration of the fact that a Platonic dialogue is not a series of discrete arguments, as analytic interpreters still too often tend to assume, but a unitary and sustained piece of reasoning which is all of a piece with the literary vehicle in which it is presented. Although they adopt this methodological approach, P. and R. rely mostly on philosophical arguments. To understand Socrates’ intellectualist position in the Lysis and elsewhere, so they claim, requires abandoning the Fregean thesis that meaning
WPROWADZENIE Ogy Sorai (, 1666-1728) był jednym z najwa niejszych mylicieli japo skich okresu Tok... more WPROWADZENIE Ogy Sorai (, 1666-1728) był jednym z najwa niejszych mylicieli japo skich okresu Tokugawa (1601-1868). Wraz ze swymi poprzednikami, Yamag Sok (1622-1685) i It Jinsaiem (1627-1705), miał by współtwórc szkoły staro ytnej nauki (lub: szkoły badania staro ytno ci, jap. kogaku, chi. g xué,) 1. Sam Ogy 2 nazywał swe podej cie kobunjingaku ("badanie terminów [= poj ] staro ytnej kultury", chi. g wénzì xué,). Jego podej cie porównuje si niejednokrotnie do protestanckiego podej cia do Biblii-sola Scriptura. Szukał inspiracji w "Dialogach konfucja skich" (Lúny ,) i w tekstach, na jakie powoływał si sam Konfucjusz 3 , odrzucaj c wszelkie spekulacje i rozwa ania metafizyczne czy etyczne pochodz ce z pó niejszych epok. Przeciwstawiał własne (odtwórcze) podej cie filologiczno-historyczno-kulturoznawcze wraz z wypływajcymi ze wiczeniami moralnymi, aktywnemu i twórczemu uprawianiu filozofii (spekulatywnej), wychodz cej tylko od intuicji zawartych w tekstach neokonfucja skiego "Czteroksi gu" (Sì-sh ,) i reprezentowanej przez ideał "odrodzenia staro ytno ci" (fùg ,) Hána Yù, (768-1 John A. Tucker argumentuje, e przyjmowana do powszechnie na Zachodzie, wywodz ca si od Inoue Tetsujir , koncepcja o istnieniu szkoły kogaku, jest przestarzała i w zasadzie bł dna, dlatego została zarzucona przez wi kszo japo skich badaczy po 1945 r. Zob. J.
The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition, 2017
He lives with his wife, an architect, and their teenage son in a converted eighteenth century far... more He lives with his wife, an architect, and their teenage son in a converted eighteenth century farmhouse in Oslo. I took advantage of a holiday in Norway to visit him with a view to discussing Plotinian matters in general and his own interest in the Enneads in particular. Although informal, the conversation was of such a level of interest that it seemed worth summarising the main points for the benefit of readers of this journal.
Ancient Philosophy, 2019
The interlude in the Theaetetus was a seminal text for Plotinus, who endorsed both Socrates' conc... more The interlude in the Theaetetus was a seminal text for Plotinus, who endorsed both Socrates' conception of the ideal of god-likeness (ὁμοίωσις θεῷ) and his claim that evil would "inevitably haunt mortal nature." (176a7-8) However, in so far as the interlude raised more questions than could be addressed in what would become ten Stephanus pages, Plotinus reinterpreted the Socratic claims and integrated them in the framework of his emanative ontology. The god to whom we are to make ourselves "like" became the hypostasis Intellect and the archetypes of virtue therein; virtue became the state of embodied human souls who activate the traces of the Forms within themselves; and contemplation became the focus of the best life for a human being to lead. As for the claim that evil would forever stalk human nature, which Socrates had left vague and unsupported, it led Plotinus to formulate a highly complex theory of matter as metaphysical evil and indirect source of moral evil. Plotinus' conception of both virtue and vice, it will be argued, is a form of moral realism avant la lettre. **** The digression in the Theaetetus (172c1-177b8) has not always found favour with philosophers. In antiquity the concept of ὁμοίωσις θεῷ, which Socrates there presents as the goal of the moral life, elicited but scant response from Plato's immediate successors in the Academy. It was not until the end of the first century B.C., when Eudorus of Alexandria revived the theme by integrating in it some Pythagorean elements, that the ideal of assimilation to the divine became a point of reference in the ethical discussions of the Platonists. 1 In modern times, it long seemed as if Gilbert Ryle had spoken for most readers of the dialogue when, in 1966, he dismissed the digression as "long and philosophically quite pointless." 2 The flurry of articles published since then has compensated for the neglect from which these particular pages had suffered, and questions pertaining to the tone, content, logic and overall lesson of the digression have now received ōr fair share of philosophical attention. 3 This is as it should be, for the passage has considerable historical and philosophical significance. Considered historically, the ideal of homoiōsis theōi, after a slow start, enjoyed a long 1 A long-neglected figure, Eudorus is the object of a detailed study by John Dillon, The Middle Platonists: 80 B.C. to A.D. 220, pp. 114-135, 2 nd ed. revised (1 st ed. 1977). Cf. also Bonazzi 2007. 2 Ryle (1966:158). 3 The bibliography on the digression has grown very large in the last fifty years. Since my main purpose in this essay is to analyse the digression as a foundational text for Plotinus' ethics, I do not engage with the various interpretations of which it has lately been the object.
The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition, 2018
Plotinus is a welcome addition to the number of introductions to Plotinus that are currently on t... more Plotinus is a welcome addition to the number of introductions to Plotinus that are currently on the Anglo-American market. It fills a gap between O'Meara's user-friendly An
The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition, 2018
Philosophy: Journal Articles (Peer-Reviewed), 2009
The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition, 2010
The Classical Quarterly, 2014
Plato's Hesiod is a neglected topic, scholars having long regarded Plato's Homer as a mor... more Plato's Hesiod is a neglected topic, scholars having long regarded Plato's Homer as a more promising field of inquiry. My aim in this chapter is to demonstrate that this particular bias of scholarly attention, although understandable, is unjustified. Of no other dialogue is this truer than of theIon.
Philosophie antique
La revue Philosophie antique est mise à disposition selon les termes de la Licence Creative Commo... more La revue Philosophie antique est mise à disposition selon les termes de la Licence Creative Commons Attribution-Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale-Pas de Modification 4.0 International.
The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition, Aug 20, 2014
Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium of Ancient Philosophy, 2007
Essays in Honour of Denis O'Brien, 2008
The Philosophical Quarterly, 2008
Phronesis, 2000
The status of beauty in Plotinus' metaphysics is unclear: is it a Form in Intellect, the Inte... more The status of beauty in Plotinus' metaphysics is unclear: is it a Form in Intellect, the Intelligible Principle itself, or the One? Basing themselves on a number of well-known passages in the Enneads, and assuming that Plotinus' Forms are similar in function and status to Plato's, many scholars hold that Plotinus theorized beauty as a determinate entity in Intellect. Such assumptions, it is here argued, lead to difficulties over self-predication, the interpretation of Plotinus's rich and varied aesthetic terminology and, most of all, the puzzling dearth of references, in the whole of the Enneads, to a Form of Beauty. A detailed reading of VI.7.32 and 33 reveals that, in these two crucial passages at least, Plotinus adopts an aesthetic approach to the One and that, far from confining Beauty to Intellect, he equates the One, the Good and the Beautiful. This reading is here supported not only by an analysis of the text but also by a consideration of the semantic differe...
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Papers by Suzanne M F Stern-Gillet