Статьи. Рубрика в журнале - Schole. Философское антиковедение и классическая традиция
Intimations of Socratic Philosophy. Exploring the Apocryphal Dialogue: On Justice
Scientific article
This essay providers an analysis of the apocryphal “Platonic” dialogue On Justice and develops a unique notion of Socratic philosophy that is present within this ancient example of Sokratikoi Logoi but requires elucidation. It unfolds in three main sections focused on: (1) Dialectic as an example of a “speech-act,” where the use of words “commits” Socrates and his interlocutors to the task of developing an ethical soul in and through reasoned discourse; (2) Socrates’ embrace of a form of ethics termed “practical-and-contextual ethics, as related to eudaimonic ethics, which reveals that unlike “action-based” ethics, Socratic ethics is concerned with ethical behavior within specific and unique contexts and situations, indeed, in great part, the many situations within Socrates finds himself actually guide and direct his ethical behavior - the deliberation concerning the virtuous choices made at the appropriate or right time; and (3) The question concerning how ignorance is related to the ethical choices made in praxis, and it is argued that following Socrates, ethical decisions are indeed possible despite lacking a full and complete knowledge of virtue or the virtues such as courage, temperance, piety, wisdom, or as related to the apocryphal dialogue, “justice.” Ultimately, the analysis seeks to offer the reader an intimation of what an authentic notion of Socratic philosophy might look like despite the Platonic inauthenticity of the source material.
Free
Is it possible to see darkness? Goethe and Aristotle on the role of light and darkness in vision
Scientific article
J.W. Goethe in his Farbenlehre deduced all physical colors from a simple primordial phenomenon that takes place every time light and darkness act through a semi-transparent colorless medium either on our eyes or on the opposite surfaces. This basic rule of Goethe’s color theory was criticized by his contemporary physicists, who argued that darkness could not play an active role in the origin of colors because of being a mere absence of light. The paper demonstrates that this criticism became possible only if one shares the Newtonian view on the nature of light and darkness. Goethe however held a more traditional point of view, which he traced back to Antiquity and Aristotle. In contrast to Newton and his followers, previous scientists considered light not as an immediate cause of colors but as an actually transparent medium that conveyed colors from the visible objects to the organ of sight. For vision to take place, the color must first affect the light, which in its turn, must affect the faculty of vision. Though it is difficult to say what kind of change the light undergoes when some colored object is seen through it, most Aristotle commentators agree that this change must be real and not mere relational. In Aristotle’s physics, however, things that are capable of acting on and being affected by one another are either contraries or consist of contraries. Therefore, to be visible the color must be either dark or to contain darkness. Thus, assuming that Goethe shared the Aristotelian concept of light, we have to conclude that he was not mistaken saying that darkness "acts” upon our eyes or “is seen through” the illuminated semi-transparent medium.
Free
Is lion-headed man orphic Chronos?
Scientific article
This paper discusses the identification of god figure depicted as a man with a lion's head, which has been associated with Aion and equated with Orphic god Chronos. The author challenges the equation of Aion with Orphic Chronos, drawing on evidence from Proclus and Damascius, who both distinguish Aion as a separate entity from Chronos. Additionally, the author presents an attempt to illustrate the Orphic god Chronos based on Damascius' description.
Free
Iunia Rustica: teaching religious practices as a Roman priestess of Cartima
Scientific article
This article explores the role of Iunia Rustica, a Roman priestess from Cartima, in transmitting and teaching religious practices to her local community. As a Roman priestess, Rustica held a position of spiritual authority, extending beyond ritual performance to include the education of community members in religious norms, moral values and ceremonial traditions. Drawing on epigraphic evidence, archaeological findings and historical sources, the study examines the ways in which her role contributed to the continuity of Roman religious and cultural practices in provincial towns. Particular attention is given to the pedagogical dimension of her priesthood, demonstrating that rituals served as structured opportunities for learning and social cohesion, as well as acts of devotion. The article argues that an understanding of Rustica's activities provides valuable insight into the intersection of religion and education in the Roman Empire, demonstrating that priestesses could act as educators, mediators of knowledge and moral guides. By situating Iunia Rustica within the broader framework of Roman provincial religious life, the study emphasizes the significance of female religious authority in shaping local traditions and transmitting cultural knowledge across generations. Ultimately, it sheds light on how ritualized teaching practices reinforced communal identity while preserving the religious heritage of Cartima.
Free
Julian’s Apostates: conversion to paganism in the middle of the fourth century
Scientific article
The article delves into the issue of apostasy among the citizens of the Roman Empire during the brief reign of Julian. It provides an overview of the tactics employed by the emperor to convert his Christian subjects to paganism and evaluates their success across different strata of late Roman society, including the bureaucracy, military, Christian clergy, intellectual elite, and common people. It is concluded that Julian’s efforts at returning the Roman Empire to paganism were far more successful than it has traditionally been thought.
Free
Large meridian instrument of the Samarkand Observatory and related measurements
Scientific article
An analysis of astronomical data from the Zij-i Sultani reveals that the Samarkand Observatory represented the pinnacle of pre-telescopic astronomy. This study shows that Ulugh Beg built the 40-meter meridian instrument primarily to determine the moments of equinoxes and calculate the length of the tropical year. Given the instrument's limitations, its one-arcminute margin of error was an outstanding achievement for its time. The excessive significant figures in some results stem from subsequent calculations rather than direct observational accuracy. Furthermore, the astronomers derived their highly precise sidereal year from tropical year measurements and the then-accepted precession rate of 1° per 70 years. Ultimately, the work of Ulugh Beg and his team demonstrates a rigorous application of geometry and precursors data, with its deviations from modern values remaining well within the rational error bounds of 15th-century science.
Free
Logos и logoi у плотина: их природа и функция
Scientific article
Космос возникает не в результате деятельности творца, но согласно природе. Это возникновение не предполагает мышления или концептуализации, но является результатом действия силы, которая запечатлевает себя в материи. Ум сообщает умопостигаемые формы, которые в нем содержатся, гипостазированной Душе, в которой они превращаются в рациональные формулы (logoi). Затем Душа передает эти рациональные формулы мировой душе, которая порождает одушевленные и неодушевленные сущности, словно по указанию, полученному свыше. Однако, поскольку за порождение ответственна низшая часть мировой души, которая действует по своему разумению, возникшие в результате сущности уступают по качеству своему образцу, что объясняет несовершенство чувственно воспринимаемого космоса и наличие зла, несмотря на присутствующую в нем направляющую силу Промысла.
Free
Magnum miraculum est homo. The phenomenon of man in asclepius sive dialogus hermetis trismegisti
Scientific article
The paper discusses anthropological and eschatological issues in the work of Pseudo-Apuleius entitled Asclepius, sive dialogus Hermetis Trismegisti. In this context, the issue of evil in the moral sense and the question of the sources of evil understood in this way are raised
Free
Scientific article
It could be said with some precision, that in Antiquity the myth of the Argonauts and especially of Medea herself as a personage of this myth, has enjoyed popularity not only in Greece but also outside its territories. The first among the Italic tribes to be introduced to the personage of Medea no doubt were the Etruscans, who were the first to establish intensive contacts with the Greeks from Euboea founding a colony in Cumae, Italy. It is noteworthy that the first image of Medea in the World Art is seen on Etruscan ceramics. The paper gives detailed analyses of Etruscan olpe and other artefacts on which Medea early appears, providing a solid precondition for substantive conclusions. Some new versions of an interpretation expressed in relation to each of the artefacts on the basis of critical analysis of Etruscan archeological material, of classical texts and of previously undertaken modern research, are provided. Images of Medea in Etruscan art confirmed from the Orientalist era to the Hellenization period represent an original, local interpretation of Medea's image. Medea's magical art turned out to be familiar to the Etruscans, who were well known all throughout the Mediterranean for divination and being experts of magic. In contrast to the Greeks, they turned Medea into an object of cult worship, identifying her with the Etruscan sun god Cavatha.
Free
Modulation and the underlying assumptions of the pythagorean ban against eating broad beans
Scientific article
This paper tries to show that the theory of mental models describes deep mental processes that have to be assumed even by frameworks contrary to it. It has been argued that many explanations on certain cognitive activities different from that provided by the theory of mental models cannot ignore theses of this last approach. Those theses are related to the way the human mind interprets linguistic information and makes inferences. The main goal here is to give further evidence in this way by means of an analysis of a part of a fragment, authored by Diogenes Laërtius, about the Pythagorean ban against eating broad beans. The idea is to make it even more evident that any framework trying to account for how that part of the fragment can be understood by a reader needs to accept suppositions that characterize the theory of mental models.
Free
Scientific article
We know that Modus Tollendo Tollens is a difficult rule to apply. We also know that there are circumstances in which people easily use it. One of those circumstances is whenever the conditional premise is an obligation conditional. On the other hand, the Stoic criterion of the conditional, that is, the proposal Chrysippus of Soli gave for the latter logical connective, has been related to Non-Axiomatic Logic and Inheritance Logic. My aim here is to try to show that obligation conditionals can be deemed as deontic inheritance statements in Non-Axiomatic Logic or Inheritance Logic. I will attempt to argue that it is possible to build a deontic inheritance logic with two essential characteristics. First, it respects the Stoic criterion of the conditional. Second, in consistence with the literature, it leads to the conclusion expected by classical logic when the conditional is an obligation.
Free
Music evolution in ancient Greece and the value of music education in pseudo-Plutarch's "De Musica"
Scientific article
A treatise De musica, ascribed to Plutarch (the 2nd c. AD), reflects the music evolution from the beginning of this art in archaic Greece until the early Hellenistic period. Initially, within the spiritual life and the education of the citizens the importance of music education was extremely high. Gradually, during the years, and even since the last part of the 5th c. BC, music, after centuries of dominance, appeared in the spiritual life of the Greeks not as a prevailing feature but as a subsiding one. It was even difficult to maintain its position in the educational system. The participants of the dialogue (the rich host Onesicrates, a musician Lysias and an educated man Soterichus) have been gathered to discuss, investigate and highlight the reasons why this decadence of the role of music has happened, by citing the musicians and recollecting the innovations they brought in the musical practise since the beginning of its history. In the book, apart from the list of musicians and the technical developments they invented, we find information about the views of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle and others about the value that music used to have in ancient Greece. The paideutic and moral value of music was the reason why it played a very important role in the education and the three men adopt the most traditionalistic approach and conclude that the technical improvements made it lost ground in favor of the literary studies.
Free
Neophytos Kausokalybites (1713-1784?) kai to "Kinema ton kollybadon"
Scientific article
Leonidas Bargeliotis (Athens) presents the essay "The Neofit Kafsokalivit (1713-1784?) And the movement of the collovads." As you know, this movement arose among the monks of Mount Athos who stood up for the protection of church customs and against those members of the "brethren" who wanted to earn money by selling their goods on the Saturday market and increasing the number of memorial services paid for by parishioners, agreeing to spend them on Sunday and holiday days. The neophyte was one of the protagonists of this movement, and to evaluate his role, the author of this article (1) gives an outline of the philosophical and theological conflicts of that time, (2) explores the religious rhetoric that accompanies the conviction of the monk Neophyte and his stubborn self-defense, and (3) shows the importance permanent relocations of the Neophyte for wide dissemination of the discussion in the Balkans and beyond.
Free
Neoplatonic Exegesis of Hermaic Chain: Some Reflections
Scientific article
In his exposition of the philosophical history of Neoplatonist School in Athens, Damascius attempts to prove that Isidore's soul was part of the Hermaic chain to which Proclus also belonged. According to Marinus (V. Procl. 28), Proclus had the revelation of this very fact and had learned from a dream that he possessed the soul of the Pythagorean Nicomachus of Gerasa. In the 4th and 6th centuries the expression “pattern of Hermes Logios” is transmitted through the various links of the Neoplatonic chain, Julian (Or. 7.237c), Proclus (in Parm. I.618), Damascius (V. Isid. Fr. 16) and Olympiodorus (in Gorg. 41.10.16–22; in Alc. 190.14–191.2). The formula that Aelius Aristides (Or. III.663) dedicates to the praise of Demosthenes, the best of Greek orators, arises in the context of an opposition between rhetoric and philosophy, and appears transferred and transmuted in the texts of the Neoplatonic schools to a philosophical context that defends an exegetical mode of teaching. Demosthenes, through his admirer Aristides, exerts an influence on Neoplatonism, introducing Hermes as the key piece that strengthens the chain of reason and eloquence. Hermes, the “eloquent” god or “friend of discourses”, transmits divine authority through the word of the exegete: an exceptional philosopher, a model of virtue to strive to rise to.
Free
Numbering, Numbers, and Being: Proclus versus Plotinus
Scientific article
Plotinus’ investigation into numbers has peculiar characteristics that cannot be confused with numbers’ ontological role in late Neoplatonism. However, since, in his inquiry on the nature of Being and numbers, Proclus explicitly calls Plotinus into question, the analysis of such a comparison can contribute to understanding some different speculative assumptions of the two philosophers. With this in mind, I will focus on two issues: the role accorded by Plotinus and Proclus to arithmetic, and the different ontological rank of numbers.
Free
Odysseus and the self-inflicted wound mythical tale and temporality
Scientific article
In our work, we show that Helen's recollection of Odysseus' self-inflicted wound places us in an eternal present, emerging "from" and disappearing "in" the nature of the Homeric hexameter, et retour , to create and recreate semantic spaces that make possible the return of the hero and the heroic action, giving the temporal correlation an unexpected meaning through the past-future / future-past correspondence.
Free
On stoic self-contradictions: vs. in Chrysippus (SVF III, 289)
Scientific article
In this article, I offer an analysis of Chrysippus’ treatment of “injustice” (ἀδικία) in SVF III, 289. First, I show that he espouses two theses: I) Every injustice is an act of harming those who suffer it; II) One who does injustice to others thereby does it to oneself. Then I discuss the two most plausible interpretations of II): a) One who does “conventional” injustice to others, i.e. causes them non-moral harm, thereby does “moralistic” injustice to oneself, i.e. makes oneself morally worse; b) One who does “moralistic” injustice to others thereby does it to oneself. I show that a) is untenable because the Stoics reject the very notion of non-moral harm, and b) fails because they believe that moral harm is basically self-regarding.
Free
On symbolon and synthema in the platonic theology of Proclus
Scientific article
Many recent studies propose that symbolon and synthēma are synonymous in the writings of Proclus. However, his Platonic Theology contains reliable evidence to put this opinion to doubt. The goal of this research is to determine the meaning of both terms from the contexts of their usage, engaging the textual analysis and the following philosophical reconstruction. As distinguished from a symbol, a synthēma has substantial nature, is stable and remains invariable when is discovered at different levels of the ontological hierarchy. In the Platonic Theology, a symbol is often considered in terms of the hierarchic level, where it appears: in the material world, it is corporeal; among numbers, it is ontologically irrelevant, the intelligible realm contains its proper symbols as well. A significant difference between symbolon and synthēma is related to the dialectics of participation: synthēma in an object keeps it on an unparticipated level, while a symbol implies further participation to a symbolic object. Finally, a synthēma is described as “disseminated,” “planted,” or in any other way hidden in the being; while a symbol is “discovered,” or found in the being, therefore synthēma may be considered an inner kernel of what is discovered as a symbol, and a symbol - as an outward expression of a synthēma. Such understanding of these terms agrees with both exegetical and theurgic contexts in Proclus' Platonic Theology.
Free
Scientific article
Before the Greek-Persian wars, the Ionians had tried to engage the Hellenic states of the Balkan Greece in the flaring advance of a group of poleis in Asia Minor against the Persian rule, the Ionic revolt resulted in a large-scale (within the ancient world) conflict between the East and the West and unleashed a half-century’s confrontation between the Hellenes and the Achaemenid Empire. In the complex international situation shaped at the turn of the 5th century BC in the Hellenic world — in its European and Asian parts — strong poleis needed not only military power but also the art of diplomacy to maintain their steadfast stance. In the second half of the 6th century BC the states of the Eastern part of the Aegean Sea frequently tried to involve Spartans in their affairs and exploit their military power in fighting Persians. Herodotus gives accounts of several such attempts: Hdt. 1.82–83; 1.152; 3.46–47 and 54–56; 3.148; 5.49–51 and 97; 6.84. Aware of the ‘enormity’ of the Persian wars in the world history, Herodotus chose a topic of a Homeric scale to be accounted of epically. His historical ad ethnographic text is made up of various myths, yarns, legends, anecdotes and amusing and edifying short stories. The tyrant of Miletus Aristagoras sought to engage the Spartans in the conflict with the Persians by using peculiar bronze tablet (khalkeos pinax), which was an archaic geographic proto-map meant to persuade Cleomenes to set out on a dangerous military march (Hdt. 5.49–50). According to the author of the article, the novella of Aristagoras’ mission in Sparta and the bronze tablet are presented in the Histories as a drama: with dialogues, urgings, attempts made by the protagonist (the tyrant of Miletus) he tried to get King Cleomenes interested and win him over, yet, Aristagoras’ designs failed. The role of Gorgo, the young daughter of the King, in this mini-drama is of great importance: she condemns the cunning petitioner, thereby rescuing her father and Sparta. This must be one of the tales that the Father of History could have heard about the wise Spartan Queen. The moral of the Herodotus’ parable about Aristagoras, Cleomenes, Gorgo and the ‘geographical map’ can be interpreted as follows: beware of the Ionians bringing fake tablets. But in Athens everything turned out differently. There Aristagoras’ mission was successful. Athenians sent the Ionians 20 ships, which, as Herodotus writes in Homer’s language, became “the beginning of the disasters” (arkhe kakov) of all Hellenes and the barbarians (Hdt. 5.97.3) — the beginning of the great conflict between Europe and Asia.
Free
On the meaning of the term symbol in the writings of Plutarch of Chaeronea
Scientific article
Plutarch of Chaeronea was a prominent Middle Platonist, influential both in early Christian Platonism and in pagan Neoplatonic schools. One of the significant markers of this succession is an increasing interest in symbolism and terminological usage of the term symbol. As Plutarch provided almost no explicit theory of symbolism, this research focuses on the contextual word usage in his writings, its analysis and reconstruction of Plutarchian symbolism in the philosophical milieu of his time. Plutarch understands symbol as a two-level entity, which combines an ordinary object or object-related action with a signification of some other entity that is absent, invisible or otherwise imperceptible, so a symbol points to it or acts instead of it. Unlike signs, symbols are ambiguous and may have multiple meanings. Moreover, the polysemanticism of a symbol is considered its strong advantage that reveals the ontological profundity of the symbolized entity. Symbols may appear odd and amazing, thus provoking philosophical inspiration in a person trying to decipher them. Along with single symbols, Plutarch provides examples of integral symbolic systems, among which he mentions human languages. Finally, symbols may be not only passive pointers or reminders but also actors, which influence human decisions and deeds. Plutarch provides a detailed description of the way daemons use symbols as a means to induce mortals to make correct choices. The general pattern of Plutarchian symbolism can be compared with similar conceptions of Clement of Alexandria, Porphyry of Tyre, and Iamblichus of Chalcis.
Free
