Mud = Water + Dirt ?
Michael Zeleny
analysis in the history of philosophy was Socrates' definition of mud
as water mixed with dirt. As a rank novice in Greek, I am failing to
find anything of this sort in Plato. The closest I have been able to
get through LSJ and Perseus is Aeschylus' Agamemnon, 495 alluding to
dust as "κάσις πηλοῦ ξύνουρος".
I would be very grateful for any references.
cordially, -- Michael Zel...@post.harvard.edu
http://www.livejournal.com/users/larvatus/
7576 Willow Glen Road, Hollywood, California 90046
vox:323.876.8234 fax:323.876.8054 cell:323.363.1860
All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed.
No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. -- Samuel Beckett
Ed Cryer
"Michael Zeleny" <larv...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1113856236....@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Try "Theaetetus".
http://tinyurl.com/exoz8
Ed
John W. Kennedy
> Donald Davidson is said to have claimed that the only successful
> analysis in the history of philosophy was Socrates' definition of mud
> as water mixed with dirt. As a rank novice in Greek, I am failing to
> find anything of this sort in Plato. The closest I have been able to
> get through LSJ and Perseus is Aeschylus' Agamemnon, 495 alluding to
> dust as "κάσις πηλοῦ ξύνουρος".
>
> I would be very grateful for any references.
I don't have a reference, but don't forget that Plato isn't all of
Socrates. There's also Xenophon.
--
John W. Kennedy
Read the remains of Shakespeare's lost play, now annotated!
http://pws.prserv.net/jwkennedy/Double%20Falshood/index.html
Ned Latham
> Michael Zeleny wrote:
> >
> > Donald Davidson is said to have claimed that the only successful
> > analysis in the history of philosophy was Socrates' definition of mud
> > as water mixed with dirt. As a rank novice in Greek, I am failing to
> > find anything of this sort in Plato.
>
>
> I don't have a reference, but don't forget that Plato isn't all of
> Socrates. There's also Xenophon.
And Aristophanes.
But perhaps there's a confusion over quotes. See Herodotos 4:28,
describing Skythia: "for eight months of the year the cold is
intolerable; the ground is frozen iron-hard, so that to turn earth
into mud requires not water but fire".
Ned
--
True Blue FAQ: <425BB6...@arthur.valhalla.oz>
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Thomas Bushnell, BSG
> Michael Zeleny wrote:
>> Donald Davidson is said to have claimed that the only successful
>> analysis in the history of philosophy was Socrates' definition of mud
>> as water mixed with dirt. As a rank novice in Greek, I am failing to
>> find anything of this sort in Plato. The closest I have been able to
>> get through LSJ and Perseus is Aeschylus' Agamemnon, 495 alluding to
>> dust as "κάσις πηλοῦ ξύνουρος".
>> I would be very grateful for any references.
>
> I don't have a reference, but don't forget that Plato isn't all of
> Socrates. There's also Xenophon.
It's extremely unlikely that a philosopher would cite Xenophon as a
reliable source. Among philosopher's, Xenophon's and Aristophanes'
depictions of Socrates are usually regarded with scorn.
(It's also the case that philosophers can mis-remember a quote.
Kierkegaard says that according to Augustine "all the virtues of pagan
Rome were but glittering vices", but Augustine never said that. The
sentiment is his, but the quote is not.)
Thomas
Thomas Bushnell, BSG
> But perhaps there's a confusion over quotes. See Herodotos 4:28,
> describing Skythia: "for eight months of the year the cold is
> intolerable; the ground is frozen iron-hard, so that to turn earth
> into mud requires not water but fire".
That can't be it; that's not an analysis, on two scores. It doesn't
identify the concept of mud in terms of component concepts, and if it
were accurate, than the analysis "mud = water + dirt" would be
incorrect because Skythian mud wouldn't fit.
Thomas
Michael Zeleny
The passage in question is referenced in the LSJ under πηλός A.2.
I agree that it is not an analysis in terms of component concepts, and
it would be anachronistic to expect anything like that from Herodotus.
But I cannot accept the implication that Scythian mud somehow differs
in composition from the Hellenic kind. Rather, the claim seems to be
that the Scythian ground, permeated with water of the Pontus Euxinus,
follows the patterns of the said sea by freezing into ice for eight
months out of the year, requiring the heat of the fire for melting it
into the emulsion of soil that is mud.
Lewis Mammel
Ed Cryer wrote:
>
> Try "Theaetetus".
Seems to fill the bill:
haploun eipein hoti gê hugrôi phuratheisa pêlos an eiê
simple - say - anyone - earth - water - mixed - clay - haply - is
rendered by cornford as "the simple and ordinary thing to say is
that clay is earth mixed with moisture"
Of course, it's a philosophically horrible sentiment. Socrates
says it would be absurd to answer the query, "what is clay?" with
the response, "Potter's clay, and ovenmaker's clay and brickmakers
clay", then makes the above remark, adding, "never mind whose
clay it may be."
But obviously, all these kinds of clay are very likely different,
and it's not just any earth that can be mixed with water to make
clay. So Plato is demonstrating himself to be the great albatross
around the neck of Greek science that he was.
Consider the passage from Timaeus:
In the first place, we see that what we just now called water,
by condensation, I suppose, becomes stone and earth; and this
same element, when melted and dispersed, passes into vapour
and air. Air, again, when inflamed, becomes fire; and again
fire, when condensed and extinguished, passes once more into
the form of air; and once more, air, when collected and condensed,
produces cloud and mist; and from these, when still more compressed,
comes flowing water, and from water comes earth and stones once more;
and thus generation appears to be transmitted from one to the other
in a circle.
An astute critique of the inadequacy of the "four elements" perhaps,
but a morass of confusion from which science only begin to free itself
with Dalton and Boyle.
Lew Mammel
larvatus
> "Michael Zeleny" <larv...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Donald Davidson is said to have claimed that the only successful
>> analysis in the history of philosophy was Socrates' definition of
>> mud as water mixed with dirt. As a rank novice in Greek, I am
>> failing to find anything of this sort in Plato. The closest I have
>> been able to get through LSJ and Perseus is Aeschylus' Agamemnon,
>> 495 alluding to dust as "κάσις πηλοῦ ξύνουρος".
>>
>> I would be very grateful for any references.
> Try "Theaetetus" [147c].
> http://tinyurl.com/exoz8
Thank you. The LSJ references Theaetetus 147a under πηλός A. I
should have known to read ahead. This brings up followup questions:
1. The context calls for Socrates' analysis to apply to clay as used
for making earthenware and bricks, whence the analysis appears to
depart from Davidson's epitome of success. Are there any other
examples?
2. How does this definition agree with πηλὸς at Parmenides 130c?
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plat.+Parm.+130c
Michael Zeleny
> Ed Cryer wrote:
> > Try "Theaetetus".
> Seems to fill the bill:
>
> haploun eipein hoti gê hugrôi phuratheisa pêlos an eiê
>
> simple - say - anyone - earth - water - mixed - clay - haply - is
>
> rendered by cornford as "the simple and ordinary thing to say is
> that clay is earth mixed with moisture"
>
> Of course, it's a philosophically horrible sentiment. Socrates
> says it would be absurd to answer the query, "what is clay?" with
> the response, "Potter's clay, and ovenmaker's clay and brickmakers
> clay", then makes the above remark, adding, "never mind whose
> clay it may be."
>
> But obviously, all these kinds of clay are very likely different,
> and it's not just any earth that can be mixed with water to make
> clay. So Plato is demonstrating himself to be the great albatross
> around the neck of Greek science that he was.
By the same token, Aristotle demonstrates himself to be the great
albatross around the neck of mathematics through supplanting the
philosophical horror of Plato's sentiment with his earthbound
alternative, the account of definition (ὅρος). Recall that the
terms of an Aristotelian definition are the genus (γένος), or
what is predicated in what a thing is of a number of things that
exhibit differences in kind, the differentia (διαφορά). (Topics
I.5, 101b39, 102a31-2.) A proprium (ἴδιον) is something that does
not indicate the essence of a thing, but belongs to that thing alone,
and is predicated convertibly of it, as laughter, featherless
bipedality, or the ability to learn grammar are of man. (Topics I.5,
102a18-19.) Moving along, an accident (συμβεβηκός) belongs
to the thing contingently, in spite of being none of the foregoing, as
being seated belongs to a seated man. Thus an accident attaches to
something and can be truly asserted, but neither of necessity nor
usually; it is that, which is neither always or for the most part.
(Metaphysics V.30, 1025a14-15; VI.2, 1026b32.) While a accident may
become a temporary or relative proprium, it cannot qualify as a
proprium absolutely. Thus being seated is an accident, but will be a
temporary proprium, whenever a man is the only person sitting, while if
he is not the only one sitting, it is still a proprium relatively to
those who are not sitting. (Topics I.5, 102b22-24.)
The mathematical adequacy of this account breaks down when Aristotle
notes that there exists another sort of accident, namely that, which
attaches to each thing in virtue of itself but is not in its substance,
as having its angles equal to two right angles attaches to the
triangle. (Metaphysics V.30, 1025a30-33.) Only this sort of accident
may be eternal, and it appears to correspond to that, which elsewhere
is called a proprium. Thus a non-Platonic philosophy of mathematics
depends upon explaining the sense whereby the Euclidean triangle has
its angles equal to two right angles by accident.
Ed Cryer
"Thomas Bushnell, BSG" <tb+u...@becket.net> wrote in message
news:87k6mzv...@becket.becket.net...
I find Aristophanes' depiction of Socrates in "The Clouds" a very
recognisable portrait in the great western style. It's a caricature of "the
intellectual". You find it still with us in, say, caricatures of Einstein or
Bertrand Russell. To the vast majority of mankind the type of passionate
devotion to philosophy, science, understanding etc. is rather alien, and
they tend to belittle it and mock it. There's a comment on the back cover of
a book of Friedrich Nietzsche (I think by Walter Kaufmann) that "Nietzsche
lived with his ideas the way that most people live with their children".
Whether or not Aristophanes could see beyond the caricature, I should think
yes. He was a professional laughter-maker. Just look at the way he sent up
tragic poets in "The Frogs", or Athenian jurors in "The Wasps".
Plato's depiction of Socrates is by a great philosopher; idealised,
interested in the philosophy, capable of seeing it and discussing it.
Xenophon was no philosopher; not at all; a very capable military man, not
averse to plundering a farmstead should the need arise for money. Devout,
ice cool mentality, practical; no philosopher. His depiction of Socrates
contains hardly any philosophy.
A former teacher of mine, trying to explain the difference in the Plato/
Xenophon portraits, told me that S probably talked up to Plato but down to
Xenophon. Hence they saw different characteristics; that quite apart from
personal preoccupations which tend to colour what we see in others.
Ed
o8TY
news:1113885499....@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
>> Donald Davidson is said to have claimed that the only successful
>> analysis in the history of philosophy was Socrates' definition of
>> mud as water mixed with dirt. As a rank novice in Greek, I am
>> failing to find anything of this sort in Plato. The closest I have
>> been able to get through LSJ and Perseus is Aeschylus' Agamemnon,
>> 495 alluding to dust as "????? ????? ????????".
>>
>> I would be very grateful for any references.
> Try "Theaetetus" [147c].
> http://tinyurl.com/exoz8
Thank you. The LSJ references Theaetetus 147a under ????? A. I
should have known to read ahead. This brings up followup questions:
1. The context calls for Socrates' analysis to apply to clay as used
for making earthenware and bricks, whence the analysis appears to
depart from Davidson's epitome of success. Are there any other
examples?
2. How does this definition agree with ????? at Parmenides 130c?
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plat.+Parm.+130c
cordially, -- Michael Zel...@post.harvard.edu
http://www.livejournal.com/users/larvatus/
7576 Willow Glen Road, Hollywood, California 90046
vox:323.876.8234 fax:323.876.8054 cell:323.363.1860
All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed.
No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. -- Samuel Beckett
[130c] "And is there an abstract idea of man, apart from us and all others
such as we are, or of fire or water?"
"I have often," he replied, "been very much troubled, Parmenides, to decide
whether there are ideas of such things, or not."
"And are you undecided about certain other things, which you might think
rather ridiculous, such as hair, mud, dirt, or anything else particularly
vile and worthless? Would you say that there is an idea of each of these
distinct and different from the things
And speaking of such vile things, Ovid reports an ancient legend from
Corinth where, in the beginning, mortals were created from fungi, nourished
by the rain. [7.390] Sorry I don't have the Latin at hand.
With other Greek creation stories referring to a particular mud as the
formulative matter, it would be interesting to discover whether the Latin
word pileus for the cap of a fungus has an origin in the Greek pelos.
marko_...@hotmail.com
More generally, aspects of the ancient Greek way of thinking
held back intellectual progress in the West. _Art and Geometry:
A Study in Space Intuitions_ by William Ivins is a classic
study of this. He argued that the Greek misunderstanding of
the laws of perspective explains the static quality of their
art, and it was only with the Renaissance - Alberti, Dürer and
others - that these misunderstandings were corrected. His
study is interesting in that Ivins doesn't just deal with how
these changes affected art and scuplture, but goes on to link
it up with science and mathematics. It's a short step from
the laws of perspective to projective geometry (Kepler,
Desargues, etc). Ivins called this shift the move from the Greek
"tactile" world-view to the modern "visual" world-view.
Michael Zeleny
> "Thomas Bushnell, BSG" <tb+use...@becket.net> wrote:
>>>> Donald Davidson is said to have claimed that the only successful
>>>> analysis in the history of philosophy was Socrates' definition
>>>> of mud as water mixed with dirt. As a rank novice in Greek, I
>>>> am failing to find anything of this sort in Plato. The closest
>>>> I have been able to get through LSJ and Perseus is Aeschylus'
>>>> Agamemnon, 495 alluding to dust as "κάσις πηλοῦ
ξύνουρος".
>>>> I would be very grateful for any references.
>>> I don't have a reference, but don't forget that Plato isn't all
>>> of Socrates. There's also Xenophon.
>> It's extremely unlikely that a philosopher would cite Xenophon
>> as a reliable source. Among philosopher's, Xenophon's and
>> Aristophanes' depictions of Socrates are usually regarded with
>> scorn.
>>
>> (It's also the case that philosophers can mis-remember a quote.
>> Kierkegaard says that according to Augustine "all the virtues
>> of pagan Rome were but glittering vices", but Augustine never
>> said that. The sentiment is his, but the quote is not.)
> I find Aristophanes' depiction of Socrates in "The Clouds" a
> very recognisable portrait in the great western style. It's a
> caricature of "the intellectual". You find it still with us in,
> say, caricatures of Einstein or Bertrand Russell. To the vast
> majority of mankind the type of passionate devotion to philosophy,
> science, understanding etc. is rather alien, and they tend to
> belittle it and mock it. There's a comment on the back cover of
> a book of Friedrich Nietzsche (I think by Walter Kaufmann) that
> "Nietzsche lived with his ideas the way that most people live
> with their children". Whether or not Aristophanes could see
> beyond the caricature, I should think yes. He was a professional
> laughter-maker. Just look at the way he sent up tragic poets in
> "The Frogs", or Athenian jurors in "The Wasps".
> Plato's depiction of Socrates is by a great philosopher; idealised,
> interested in the philosophy, capable of seeing it and discussing
> it. Xenophon was no philosopher; not at all; a very capable military
> man, not averse to plundering a farmstead should the need arise for
> money. Devout, ice cool mentality, practical; no philosopher. His
> depiction of Socrates contains hardly any philosophy.
> A former teacher of mine, trying to explain the difference in the
> Plato/ Xenophon portraits, told me that S probably talked up to Plato
> but down to Xenophon. Hence they saw different characteristics; that
> quite apart from personal preoccupations which tend to colour what
> we see in others.
By engaging the gist of their character, Plato's antagonists are a lot
harder on philosophers than Aristophanes. At Gorgias 485a-c, Callicles
avers having much the same feeling towards students af philosophy as
towards those who lisp or play tricks (ψελλιζόμενον
καὶ παῖζον). These traits are appropriate in a child, but
whenever he finds them manifested in a grown man, they strike him as
something ridiculous and unmanly and deserving a whipping. Whereas the
first trait that Diogenes Laertius reports his life of Aristotle, is
his lisping voice (τραυλὸς τὴν φωνήν).
For most of the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle manfully maintains that
the ideally good life is the life of practical wisdom and social
virtues, as opposed to their theoretical variety. (See e.g. EN,
1105b5-18.) Then in Book X (1177a15 ff.) Aristotle falls into lisping
by arguing that happiness is to be found in a life of theoretical
contemplation.
Make of it what you will.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plat.+Gorg.+485c
http://www.mikrosapoplous.gr/dl/dl05.html#aristotelis
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Aristot.+Nic.+Eth.+1105b+1
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Aristot.+Nic.+Eth.+1177a+1
Thomas Bushnell, BSG
> I find Aristophanes' depiction of Socrates in "The Clouds" a very
> recognisable portrait in the great western style. It's a caricature of "the
> intellectual". You find it still with us in, say, caricatures of Einstein or
> Bertrand Russell.
Yes. But it doesn't tell us much of anything about Socrates'
philosophical views. Anyone who looks to Aristophanes or Xenophon to
figure out Socrates' philosophical views is making a mistake. This
doesn't make Aristophanes or Xenophon useless; it just makes them poor
sources for Socrates' philosophy. The former, because he didn't much
care about the philosophy, and the latter because he didn't much
understand it.
This doesn't make Plato perfectly reliable either, but I'm not saying
he was.
Thomas Bushnell, BSG
> For most of the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle manfully maintains that
> the ideally good life is the life of practical wisdom and social
> virtues, as opposed to their theoretical variety. (See e.g. EN,
> 1105b5-18.) Then in Book X (1177a15 ff.) Aristotle falls into lisping
> by arguing that happiness is to be found in a life of theoretical
> contemplation.
Lisping? Manfully? Are you just reporting Diogenes, or are you
deciding to invoke the homophobic stereotypes yourself?
Thomas Bushnell, BSG
> Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
>> n...@arthur.valhalla.oz (Ned Latham) writes:
>
>> > But perhaps there's a confusion over quotes. See Herodotos 4:28,
>> > describing Skythia: "for eight months of the year the cold is
>> > intolerable; the ground is frozen iron-hard, so that to turn earth
>> > into mud requires not water but fire".
>
>> That can't be it; that's not an analysis, on two scores. It doesn't
>> identify the concept of mud in terms of component concepts, and if it
>> were accurate, than the analysis "mud = water + dirt" would be
>> incorrect because Skythian mud wouldn't fit.
>
> The passage in question is referenced in the LSJ under πηλός A.2.
> I agree that it is not an analysis in terms of component concepts, and
> it would be anachronistic to expect anything like that from Herodotus.
> But I cannot accept the implication that Scythian mud somehow differs
> in composition from the Hellenic kind. Rather, the claim seems to be
> that the Scythian ground, permeated with water of the Pontus Euxinus,
> follows the patterns of the said sea by freezing into ice for eight
> months out of the year, requiring the heat of the fire for melting it
> into the emulsion of soil that is mud.
Um, of course that's what the claim is. My point is that if Davidson
is referring to this passage of Herodotos, it would hardly warrant him
saying that this was "the only successful analysis in history",
(because it's not an analysis, and if it is, it's a bad one).
Thomas Bushnell, BSG
> 1. The context calls for Socrates' analysis to apply to clay as used
> for making earthenware and bricks, whence the analysis appears to
> depart from Davidson's epitome of success. Are there any other
> examples?
Davidson's real view is that analysis of this sort is never
successful. I don't think he would be threatened by saying that it
turns out that Socrates' analysis of mud in the Thetaetus is bad.
He's not a specialist in ancient philosophy anyway; he's not so much
making a claim about Socrates.
Ed Cryer
"Michael Zeleny" <larv...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1113932286.8...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
*******************
Are you familiar with Raphael's painting "The School of Athens"?
http://www.hull.ac.uk/philosophy/images/athenslarge.jpg
There's no mistaking Plato and Aristotle; nor Socrates and Diogenes the
Cynic. But I needed a guide for the others. I forget where on the Net I
found one now.
I'm not so sure that Aristotle claims that happiness can be found purely in
philosophical contemplation. I believe he says that it is the highest good.
But the rest of the Nicomachean Ethics explain in great detail the value of
friendship etc. All very gentlemanly values in his scale of the golden mean,
where excesses in either direction are to be avoided.
Ed
msmo...@netdirect.net
Tuesday, the 19th of April, 2005
Lew:
But obviously, all these kinds of clay are
very likely different, and it's not just any
earth that can be mixed with water to make
clay. So Plato is demonstrating himself to
be the great albatross around the neck of
Greek science that he was.
I think that's really uncalled-for. I mean,
the albatross thing is dependent upon people
reading Plato in a slavish, unthinking way, as
though his pronouncements were sacred scripture
not to be questioned for a thousand years.
I just don't see that that is Plato's fault. Nor,
for that matter, do I see that Plato epitomizes "Greek
science" in any meaningful way. There's just too much
of that science in Plato's wake. Aristotle was
Plato's student and a genius in his own right, and
certainly took a whopping large step in the direction
of the empirical, and demonstrated that method by
means of research in biology. Aristarchus, the
ancient Copernicus, was a student twice removed from
Aristotle, and there's Eratosthenes with his measurement
of the earth's circumference. But, Archimedes is the
summit of Greek science and Archimedes comes a century
after Plato---i.e., Plato's influence doesn't seem to
be baleful enough (scientifically speaking) within Greek
science to prevent the emergence of the greatest
physicist before Galileo.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
msmo...@netdirect.net
Tuesday, the 19h of April, 2005
Marko:
More generally, aspects of the ancient
Greek way of thinking held back intellectual
progress in the West. _Art and Geometry: A Study
in Space Intuitions_ by William Ivins is a classic
study of this. [...]
I really think this is a silly generalization
from the case considered. I mean, first off,
we don't have the most celebrated works of Greek
painting. They haven't survived. So, there's a real
problem with dismissing them as lacking in
perspective. Second, given the tactile *and*
visual detail on the Elgin marbles, say, it's
hard for me to imagine that there has been any progress
at all in the art of sculpture. Moreover, that
Greek art was a *huge advance* in 3-dimensionality
over is Egyptian school, where the quite beautiful
Egyptian sculpure is nevertheless meant to be
viewed face-on, not in the round.
But, anyway, I guess the thing that bothers me here is
the assertion that "a way of thinking" holds back some
progress that otherwise might be being made, as though the
progress were the natural condition that a bad "way of thinking"
is preventing from taking place. Seems to me there's nothing
whatsoever about one "way of thinking" that prevents human
beings---even the same human being---holding another
"way of thinking" at the same time. There's no reason the
same painter can't paint in a classical style with realistic
perspective and turn right around and paint something
cubist.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Ned Latham
> Ned Latham writes:
> >
> > But perhaps there's a confusion over quotes. See Herodotos 4:28,
> > describing Skythia: "for eight months of the year the cold is
> > intolerable; the ground is frozen iron-hard, so that to turn earth
> > into mud requires not water but fire".
>
> That can't be it;
"That" (a confusion over quotes) could very much be it. People have
a strange and incomprehensible talent for confusing matters, as you
demonstrated by responding to my example rather than to my proposition.
----snip----
Ned
--
True Blue FAQ: <426512...@arthur.valhalla.oz>
Thomas Bushnell, BSG
> "Thomas Bushnell, BSG" wrote in <87fyxnv...@becket.becket.net>:
>> Ned Latham writes:
>> >
>> > But perhaps there's a confusion over quotes. See Herodotos 4:28,
>> > describing Skythia: "for eight months of the year the cold is
>> > intolerable; the ground is frozen iron-hard, so that to turn earth
>> > into mud requires not water but fire".
>>
>> That can't be it;
>
> "That" (a confusion over quotes) could very much be it. People have
> a strange and incomprehensible talent for confusing matters, as you
> demonstrated by responding to my example rather than to my proposition.
I'm sorry, what I mean is that Davidson could not have been referring
to the Herodotus quote and knowing what it said (and mistakenly
attributing it to Socrates), because it doesn't match what he says
about "Socrates".
It's possible that he both misremembered Herodotus *and* misattributed
it. But then I think that actually he was referring to Augustine's
description of Stoic and Epicurean virtue in City Of God, and he got
the source, the quote, the idea, and the use of it all completely
wrong. :)
Thomas
Lewis Mammel
msmo...@netdirect.net wrote:
>
> Tuesday, the 19th of April, 2005
>
> Lew:
> But obviously, all these kinds of clay are
> very likely different, and it's not just any
> earth that can be mixed with water to make
> clay. So Plato is demonstrating himself to
> be the great albatross around the neck of
> Greek science that he was.
>
> I think that's really uncalled-for.
Yeah, I just got to feeling a little angry at him for
his brush-off of the artisan class. I'm thinking
Cyril Stanley Smith here, I guess.
Actually, I think 20th century science regained a Platonic cast.
The periodic table is an answer to "what is matter" akin to
the answer to "what is clay?" disparaged by Socrates: Matter
is Hydrogen matter, Helium matter, etc. but them atomic theory
accounted for these empirical categories in terms of abstract
properties of spherical symmetry, reminiscent, as I was once
pleased to point out, of the suggestion in Timaeus that matter
was formed from geometric shapes.
Lew Mammel, Jr.
Michael Zeleny
As indicated elsewhere, I am reporting Callicles as reported by Plato,
the notorious homophobe of Laws 636c and 841d. Come to think of it,
your ladylike sentiments would be best spent at the homophobic
stereotypes of Aristotle assimilating buggery to eating dirt and
pulling out one's own hair.
Michael Zeleny
Next time someone tells you a joke, make sure to get yourself tickled.
Michael Zeleny
Davidson's dissertation was on Plato's Philebus.
Michael Zeleny
> msmo...@netdirect.net wrote:
>>> But obviously, all these kinds of clay are
>>> very likely different, and it's not just any
>>> earth that can be mixed with water to make
>>> clay. So Plato is demonstrating himself to
>>> be the great albatross around the neck of
>>> Greek science that he was.
>> I think that's really uncalled-for.
> Yeah, I just got to feeling a little angry at him for
> his brush-off of the artisan class. I'm thinking
> Cyril Stanley Smith here, I guess.
But life is doing things (πρᾶξις), not making things
(ποίησις); hence the slave (δοῦλος) is an assistant [to
his master (δεσπότης)] in the class of instruments of action.
- Aristotle, Politics 1254a
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Aristot.+Pol.+1.1254a
> Actually, I think 20th century science regained a Platonic cast.
> The periodic table is an answer t"what is matter" akin to
> the answer to "what is clay?" disparaged by Socrates: Matter
> is Hydrogen matter, Helium matter, etc. but them atomic theory
> accounted for these empirical categories in terms of abstract
> properties of spherical symmetry, reminiscent, as I was once
> pleased to point out, of the suggestion in Timaeus that matter
> was formed from geometric shapes.
Well said.
Michael Zeleny
> n...@arthur.valhalla.oz (Ned Latham) writes:
>>> Ned Latham writes:
>>>> But perhaps there's a confusion over quotes. See Herodotos 4:28,
>>>> describing Skythia: "for eight months of the year the cold is
>>>> intolerable; the ground is frozen iron-hard, so that to turn earth
>>>> into mud requires not water but fire".
>>> That can't be it;
>> "That" (a confusion over quotes) could very much be it. People
>> have a strange and incomprehensible talent for confusing matters,
>> as you demonstrated by responding to my example rather than to my
>> proposition.
> I'm sorry, what I mean is that Davidson could not have been referring
> to the Herodotus quote and knowing what it said (and mistakenly
> attributing it to Socrates), because it doesn't match what he says
> about "Socrates".
As Ed Cryer has pointed out, Davidson's allusion is to Theaetetus 147c.
As an interpretive matter, it helps to assume that your subject is much
smarter than you.
> It's possible that he both misremembered Herodotus *and*
> misattributed it. But then I think that actually he was referring
> to Augustine's description of Stoic and Epicurean virtue in City Of
> God, and he got the source, the quote, the idea, and the use of it
> all completely wrong. :)
To extend my earlier suggestion, next time you tell a joke, make sure
that someone is on hand to tickle your audience.
Michael Zeleny
> "Michael Zeleny" <larv...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> By engaging the gist of their character, Plato's antagonists are
>> a lot harder on philosophers than Aristophanes. At Gorgias 485a-c,
>> Callicles avers having much the same feeling towards students of
>> philosophy astowards those who lisp or play tricks
>> (ψελλιζόμενον καὶ παῖζον).
>> These traits are appropriate in a child, but whenever he finds
>> them manifested in a grown man, they strike him as something
>> ridiculous and unmanly and deserving a whipping. Whereas the
>> first trait that Diogenes Laertius reports his life of Aristotle,
>> is his lisping voice (τραυλὸς τὴν φωνήν).
>>
>> For most of the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle manfully maintains that
>> the ideally good life is the life of practical wisdom and social
>> virtues, as opposed to their theoretical variety. (See e.g. EN,
>> 1105b5-18.) Then in Book X (1177a15 ff.) Aristotle falls into
>> lisping by arguing that happiness is to be found in a life of
>> theoretical contemplation.
>>
>> Make of it what you will.
>>
>> http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plat.+Gorg.+485c
>> http://www.mikrosapoplous.gr/dl/dl05.html#aristotelis
>>
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Aristot.+Nic.+Eth.+1105b+1
>>
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Aristot.+Nic.+Eth.+1177a+1
> Are you familiar with Raphael's painting "The School of Athens"?
> http://www.hull.ac.uk/philosophy/images/athenslarge.jpg
>
> There's no mistaking Plato and Aristotle; nor Socrates and Diogenes
> the Cynic. But I needed a guide for the others. I forget where on the
> Net I found one now.
http://hypo.ge-dip.etat-ge.ch/www/athena/raphael/raf_ath4.html
> I'm not so sure that Aristotle claims that happiness can be found
> purely in philosophical contemplation. I believe he says that it is
> the highest good. But the rest of the Nicomachean Ethics explain in
> great detail the value of friendship etc. All very gentlemanly values
> in his scale of the golden mean, where excesses in either direction
> are to be avoided.
I am sure that Aristotle does not claim anywhere that happiness can be
found "purely" in philosophical contemplation. It remains that the
Nicomachean Ethics, howsoever arranged posthumously by its author's
son, culminates with the claim that happiness consists the activity of
contemplation. The challenge is to make sense of this claim, e.g. in
connection with Aristotle's account of magnanimity as related to
Socrates.
marko_...@hotmail.com
Michael Zeleny wrote:
> For most of the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle manfully maintains that
> the ideally good life is the life of practical wisdom and social
> virtues, as opposed to their theoretical variety. (See e.g. EN,
> 1105b5-18.) Then in Book X (1177a15 ff.) Aristotle falls into lisping
> by arguing that happiness is to be found in a life of theoretical
> contemplation.
>
> Make of it what you will.
At one point the Romans tried to ban philosophy by law
(Lex Fannia) because it is an umanly pursuit.
Michael Zeleny
ἀγεωμέτρητος μηδεὶς εἰσίτω
To repeat myself, Aristotle makes no scientific advance from Plato.
You, of all people, ought to understand it all the way down. Einstein
has demonstrated that the fit of geometry to the world is an empirical
matter. In this connection, Aristotle's account of definition
(ὅρος) is especially deficient in identifying the sort of accident
(συμβεβηκός) that attaches to each thing in virtue of itself
but is not in its substance, as having its angles equal to two right
angles attaches to the triangle. (Metaphysics V.30, 1025a30-33.) This
sort of accident alone may be eternal. I cannot see how the curvature
of space defining the sum of angles in a triangle can be analyzed as
any kind of accident.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Aristot.+Met.+5.1025a
marko_...@hotmail.com
Well, a "way of thinking" is nothing more than a habit,
but as anyone who has tried to stop smoking can tell you,
it's not always easy to change your habits. I do think
the ancient Greek way of thinking was in many ways much
more alien than the linguistic evidence may at first
suggest. These were an ancient people living in small
city states and with many institutions, beliefs and
superstitions we would find deeply strange to try to live
with. Fustel de Coulanges's book _La Cité Antique_ was one
of the first attempts to move beyond the naive categories
of ancient history which assume that nothing fundamental
has changed in mentality since ancient Greece and Rome.
Fustel's early social psychological examination of life in
the ancient city states tried to go beyond that. I'm not
claiming we can ever know how it would have really been
like to have lived back then, how they thought and so on.
But because we have inherited so much from the Greeks,
they seem to be closer to us than they really are. On top
of that, there is the very popular myth of Greek
superiority in culture over all other nations and peoples
in human history, and that somehow this superiority was
magically transmitted over the gulf of the Dark Ages to
Renaissance Europe. This is strong in writers like Leo
Strauss, but Martin Heidegger also worshipped at the altar
of Greek cultural superiority. In RAB, Zeleny and smw
seem to have accepted this myth. Samir Amin's _Eurocentrism_
is one book that tries to unpack the myth and show how
the idea that the West is a direct descendant of ancient
Greece is an illusion.
Michael Zeleny
Thank you for this reminder. However, the Lex Fannia, as enacted in 161
B.C.E., was a sumptuary law that regulated the cost of entertainment.
The contemporaneous expulsion of philosophers and rhetoricians from
Rome by the praetor M. Pomponius under senate instructions was an
independent event that recapitulated the expulsion of two Epicurean
philosophers Alcaeus and Philiscus twelve years earlier.
http://www.attalus.org/bc2/year173.html
http://www.attalus.org/bc2/year161.html
cordially, -- Michael Zel...@post.harvard.edu
http://www.livejournal.com/users/larvatus/
7576 Willow Glen Road, Hollywood, California 90046
vox:323.876.8234 fax:323.876.8054 cell:323.363.1860
All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed.
No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. -- Samuel Beckett
marko_...@hotmail.com
Michael Zeleny wrote:
> ἀγεωμέτρητος μηδεὶς εἰσίτω
>
> To repeat myself, Aristotle makes no scientific advance from Plato.
> You, of all people, ought to understand it all the way down. Einstein
> has demonstrated that the fit of geometry to the world is an
empirical
> matter. In this connection, Aristotle's account of definition
> (ὅρος) is especially deficient in identifying the sort of
accident
> (συμβεβηκός) that attaches to each thing in virtue of
itself
> but is not in its substance, as having its angles equal to two right
> angles attaches to the triangle. (Metaphysics V.30, 1025a30-33.) This
> sort of accident alone may be eternal. I cannot see how the curvature
> of space defining the sum of angles in a triangle can be analyzed as
> any kind of accident.
But in many ways Aristotle's account of definition is
better in this case since the angles of a triangle don't
always add up to 180 degrees. In spherical geometry, they
add up to more than 180 degrees, and in hyperbolic
geometry to less. Your attempt to portray Plato's position
as somehow absolutely superior to Aristotle is
nothing more than an assertion of your own Platonist
dogma and prejudice.
Michael Zeleny
> msmo...@netdirect.net wrote:
The descent of Western culture from the Greeks and the Jews has
instilled an acute sense of inferiority in less distinguished peoples.
Michael S. Morris
Wednesday, the 20th of April, 2005
Mikhail:
For most of the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle manfully maintains that
the ideally good life is the life of practical wisdom and social
virtues, as opposed to their theoretical variety. (See e.g. EN,
1105b5-18.) Then in Book X (1177a15 ff.) Aristotle falls into lisping
by arguing that happiness is to be found in a life of theoretical
contemplation.
Make of it what you will.
Yep. I think he, or the text we have received, is simply
unclear on that point. I once sat in on a seminar devoted
to the _Politics_, which also included a prequel reading
of the NE (this was conducted by Fred Miller on a visit to
the University of Waterloo in the early 1990's, and when he
was finishing his _Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle's
Politics_). I gleaned therefrom that this schism in Aristotle
in identifying the highest good for the individual (in particular,
what he says on friendship versus the contemplative life) is
well known and argued in Aristotelian circles. I also
gleaned that it becomes mirrored in the Politics over the
question of political engagement of the individual in the
state.
It also seems to me that the basic split is there in
Plato already. That is, Plato, I think emphasizes the
*examined life*, and, like in the Raphael painting, is
always pointing heavenward. And, of course, that is
picked up strongly by St. Paul. I just got through
performing the great motet "Jesu, meine freude",
the middle movement of which quotes from Romans:
"Ihr aber seid nicht fleischlich, sondern geistlich."
And yet, of course, Plato's protagonist, Socrates,
is married with children, teaches in the street,
serves his city honourably as a soldier, goes to drinking
parties with his friends, and is politically engaged
among the "ruling elite" of Athens.
Personally, I do not know. It seems to me that both
the exercise of mindfulness, perhaps aided by withdrawal
from the ephemeral demands of social life, is a thing
devoutly to be wished. On the other hand, family and
friends strike me as the highest goods this life has to
offer. And I certainly feel a republican duty towards
my country.
Maybe one of the things I like particularly about Aristotle
is that he seems to not let love of theory, or of the
symmetrical and perfect completion of theory, override the
common-sense complexity of the human condition.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Michael S. Morris
Wednesday, the 20th of April, 2005
Lew:
But obviously, all these kinds of clay are
very likely different, and it's not just any
earth that can be mixed with water to make
clay. So Plato is demonstrating himself to
be the great albatross around the neck of
Greek science that he was.
I said:
I think that's really uncalled-for. I mean,
the albatross thing is dependent upon people
reading Plato in a slavish, unthinking way, as
though his pronouncements were sacred scripture
not to be questioned for a thousand years.
I just don't see that that is Plato's fault. Nor,
for that matter, do I see that Plato epitomizes "Greek
science" in any meaningful way. There's just too much
of that science in Plato's wake. Aristotle was
Plato's student and a genius in his own right, and
certainly took a whopping large step in the direction
of the empirical, and demonstrated that method by
means of research in biology. Aristarchus, the
ancient Copernicus, was a student twice removed from
Aristotle, and there's Eratosthenes with his measurement
of the earth's circumference. But, Archimedes is the
summit of Greek science and Archimedes comes a century
after Plato---i.e., Plato's influence doesn't seem to
be baleful enough (scientifically speaking) within Greek
science to prevent the emergence of the greatest
physicist before Galileo.
Mikhail:
ἀγεωμέτρητος μηδεὶς εἰσίτω
Yes. But what we moderns call science and Plato's geometry
(and mine) are two distinct things. Which, by the way, is I
think more than half of Plato's point all through the dialogues.
Geometry points the way to the possibility of Truth, of
Beauty, of the Good, of a world that is graspable by
the human mind and which is beyond the material. So that
stricture over the entrance to the academy is saying that
if you don't know geometry, then do not presume to
enter into philosophy. You won't be able to
discuss the existence of God or the immortality of the
soul, for example, because your mind will be too limited
by your own materialism even to understand the possibility
---the possibility that geometry shows us---that we are
not merely flesh.
Mikhail:
To repeat myself, Aristotle makes no scientific
advance from Plato.
Oh, but I think he most certainly does make all
kinds of scientific advance from Plato. He practically
invents science in opposition to Plato.
The thing you seem to me to fail to appreciate is how
very easy it is for very clever people to theorize
off into total nonsense. I've seen this in physics over
and over again. Especially in astrophysics, where some
observation of some new curious phenomenon leads to a dozen
papers being published offering a dozen disparate
theoretical models for what is going on, and then
future observations winnow and delete all but one of those
explanations (or even that one, too). Science is *not*
geometry, is the point. In fact, insofar as it is
geometry---a constructed tower of reason---it isn't
science, since the distinguishing characteristic of
science is the judgment of the theoretical by
empirical observation. There are two parts to science: theory
and experiment, and either one without the other ain't fully
science.
I see Plato as sounding the *theory* note, and
Aristotle as countering that, by way of antithesis,
with empirical observation. One cannot get science,
or anything approaching it, out of Plato alone.
Anymore than one can use the Bible for a geology
or biology textbook. It's simply not what it is.
Mikhail:
You, of all people, ought to understand it all the way down. Einstein
has demonstrated that the fit of geometry to the world is an empirical
matter.
But, Einstein's formulation is incomplete (we know this),
and whether any geometrical fit remains valid all the
way down is, and must be, a question that will have to
be empirically determined. It's like Kepler and
trying to fit the orbits of the planets to the Pythagorean
solids. That theoretical impulse is the thing that makes
the scientific chariot fly, so I'm the last person to
disparage Kepler for having started out with the wrong idea.
Wrong ideas are great, I think. But, ultimately, to do
*science* he's got jettison Pythagorean solids when
confronted the empirical fact that they don't work.
So he's got to actually go and look in to Tycho Brahe's
data and *see* if his theoretical formulation were
correct.
Mikhail:
In this connection, Aristotle's account of definition
(ὅρος) is especially deficient in identifying the sort of accident
(συμβεβηκός) that attaches to each thing in virtue of itself
but is not in its substance, as having its angles equal to two right
angles attaches to the triangle. (Metaphysics V.30, 1025a30-33.) This
sort of accident alone may be eternal. I cannot see how the curvature
of space defining the sum of angles in a triangle can be analyzed as
any kind of accident.
I certainly agree that it is not an accident. I also simply
think of triangles and geometry as distinct from science. So,
to me, it is simply obvious that "triangle" has an (Platonic)
existence as an object of contemplation of mind, with properties and
truths about it, once we have defined carefully (including postulated)
what it is we are talking about. And that is independent of whether
there are any real empirical triangles at all.
However, I think it is much, much too premature to judge
whether the physical world we inhabit is geometrical
at bottom or no. (By the way: I don't know how familiar
you are with the maths, but I've certainly encountered in
maths courses on homology and cohomology the analysis of
the topology of manifolds by laying down of "simplicial
complexes" upon them. I have also encountered some
quantum gravity researchers taking baby steps in
trying to formulate such a theory, basically using
simplices as a way of enumerating the sum over all possible
paths---in this case spacetime manifolds---inherent in the
Feynman path integral. For "simplices", read "triangles",
and for "simplicial complex" read "manifold tiled by triangles".
That is, it actually *could be* triangles at bottom.)
But, anyway, I'm happy with your criticism of Aristotle
on this point, but in terms of what I see as science,
I see in the collecting of specimens for the basis
for his Natural History as *exactly* the empirical
corrective to Plato's theoretical impulse. You see the
same impulse in his collection of constitutions of the
various city-states of Greece. Plato maybe having gotten
some theoretical point right---such as it turning out to be
triangles after all---is simply irrelevant. Because
serendipitous. It doesn't make it into science. Science is
simply not the correct formulation of some theory, but
the process by which theories are formulated and offered up
to empirical falsification, and I can't see Plato ever
once engaging in that.
That's what's so scientific to me about Archimedes as well.
He wasn't just an armchair theorist who was doing pure maths
that happened to get some startling things correct, but he
measured density by submerging weighed objects in water, and
he built mirrors for focusing the sun's rays on ships, etc..
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Ed Cryer
I am sure that Aristotle does not claim anywhere that happiness can be
found "purely" in philosophical contemplation. It remains that the
Nicomachean Ethics, howsoever arranged posthumously by its author's
son, culminates with the claim that happiness consists the activity of
contemplation. The challenge is to make sense of this claim, e.g. in
connection with Aristotle's account of magnanimity as related to
Socrates.
*************
The saying μηδὲν ἄγαν (nothing in excess) was very characteristic of ancient
Greek thought. As also was γνῶθι σεαυτόν (know thyself). In fact these were
carved on the wall of the Temple of Pythian Apollo in Delphi, together with
other pieces of pragmatic advice such as "don't take a wooden drachma".
Athenian tragedy is full of examples of ὕβρις (outrage) whereby mere mortals
attempt to rival the gods and end up being cast down. You can often end up a
loser by a kind of mental blindness (in denial) like Oedipus (which
Aristotle quotes more than any other play in his "Poetics"). The bubble of
arrogance that often warps the full-roundedness of human psyche is
undesirable.
It wasn't Christianity that invented humility. It was there in Greek
thought.
The Gods humble those who try to climb too high.
Ed
Arindam Banerjee
No, they humble those who challenge them, as opposed to emulating
them. Eg, Arachne the spider-woman.
> Ed
Paul McKenna
"Arindam Banerjee" <adda...@bigpond.com> wrote in message
news:890e65ea.05042...@posting.google.com...
Rather dangerous, is it not, to try to disprove Ed's comment with one
example? By way of continuity I'll suggest Antigone as an example of someone
who fell foul of the gods without challenging them. It wasn't necessary to
challenge the gods or their powers to be 'humbled' by them.
Paul McK
Michael Zeleny
> "Michael Zeleny" <larv...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I am sure that Aristotle does not claim anywhere that happiness
>> can be found "purely" in philosophical contemplation. It remains
>> that the Nicomachean Ethics, howsoever arranged posthumously by
>> its author's son, culminates with the claim that happiness
>> consists the activity of contemplation. The challenge is to make
>> sense of this claim, e.g. in connection with Aristotle's account
>> of magnanimity as related to Socrates.
> The saying μηδὲν ἄγαν (nothing in excess) was very
> characteristic of ancient Greek thought. As also was
> γνῶθι σεαυτόν (know thyself). In fact these were
> carved on the wall of the Temple of Pythian Apollo
> in Delphi, together with other pieces of pragmatic
> advice such as "don't take a wooden drachma".
>
> Athenian tragedy is full of examples of ὕβρις (outrage)
> whereby mere mortals attempt to rival the gods and end
> up being cast down. You can often end up a loser by
> a kind of mental blindness (in denial) like Oedipus
> (which Aristotle quotes more than any other play in his
> "Poetics"). The bubble of arrogance that often warps
> the full-roundedness of human psyche is undesirable.
> It wasn't Christianity that invented humility. It was
> there in Greek thought.
>
> The Gods humble those who try to climb too high.
I cannot connect the Christian understanding of humility with the Greek
expectations of comeuppance to hubris. Humility stands uneasy among the
virtues or excellence. Thomas Aquinas acknowledged this fact by posing
the question of whether humility is a virtue, Summa Theologica II-II
161, 1. When Aquinas answers his question by fashioning humility into a
preeminent ethical virtue, he departs from Aristotle, his acknowledged
master, through undercutting the stature of Socrates as his paradigm of
magnanimity. In doing so, he purports to employ rational persuasion.
Aquinas regards humility as a virtue because it disposes desire or
appetite to be guided by the rule of reason. Reason is the faculty that
directs human beings to realize that they are not God, that they are
subordinate to God and subject to the divine rule or measure, ST II-II
162, 5, c. Nothing of the sort is available to persuade the mortals
attempting to rival the gods that they would only end up being cast
down. Where the Greeks remain content to retail a fable (μῦθος),
the Christian theologist aims to deliver an actual account
(λόγος).
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/316100.htm
http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/sth3155.html
Beyond this distinction, I believe that it is inconceivable for
Aristotle, let alone for Socrates, to follow Aquinas by motivating the
sublation of his pride by his love of God. Correct me if I am wrong,
but the Greek worship of Olympic deities does not appear to partake of
such mawkish sentiments.
Michael Zeleny
Your example bears out my point. In falling under a lawlike regularity,
the curvature of space responsible for these variations is in no sense
attributable to an accident.
Michael Zeleny
I am happy to see you connect theoretical reasoning with aesthetic and
ethical considerations. The ultimate failure of Aristotelianism as a
philosophy of science is die to its inadequacy for mathematical
foundations that invoke and encompass all three forms of reasoning.
"And wise men tell us, Callicles, that heaven and earth and gods and
men are held together by communion and friendship, by orderliness,
temperance, and justice; and that is the reason, my friend, why they
call the whole of this world by the name of order (κόσμος), not
of disorder (ἀκοσμία) or dissoluteness (ἀκολασία).
Now you, as it seems to me, do not give proper attention to this, for
all your cleverness, but have failed to observe the great power of
geometrical equality amongst both gods and men: you hold that
self-advantage is what one ought to practice, because you neglect
geometry (γεωμετρίας γὰρ ἀμελεῖς)."
-- Gorgias, 508a-b translated by W.R.M. Lamb
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plat.+Gorg.+508a
And so he did. But replacing the Pythagorean solids with conic sections
in no way diluted the geometrical content of Kepler's innovation.
> Mikhail:
> In this connection, Aristotle's account of definition
> (ὅρος) is especially deficient in identifying the sort
> of accident(συμβεβηκός) that attaches to each thing
I don't see where you might find the evidence to suggest that the
physical world is anything but geometrical all the way down, in the
sense relevant to Plato, of being fit to be described by mathematical
theories whose deductions are determined by reason and whose parameters
are constrained by experience.
> But, anyway, I'm happy with your criticism of Aristotle
> on this point, but in terms of what I see as science,
> I see in the collecting of specimens for the basis
> for his Natural History as *exactly* the empirical
> corrective to Plato's theoretical impulse. You see the
> same impulse in his collection of constitutions of the
> various city-states of Greece. Plato maybe having gotten
> some theoretical point right---such as it turning out to be
> triangles after all---is simply irrelevant. Because
> serendipitous. It doesn't make it into science. Science is
> simply not the correct formulation of some theory, but
> the process by which theories are formulated and offered up
> to empirical falsification, and I can't see Plato ever
> once engaging in that.
>
> That's what's so scientific to me about Archimedes as well.
> He wasn't just an armchair theorist who was doing pure maths
> that happened to get some startling things correct, but he
> measured density by submerging weighed objects in water, and
> he built mirrors for focusing the sun's rays on ships, etc..
It is helpful to focus on what Plato and Aristotle both get right
before ruling on the points that they seem to get wrong. As the later
Academy interpreted Aristotle, his empirical focus is not a corrective,
but a complement to Plato's geometrical equality, whereas the contrary
relation obtains in the converse direction. Consider in this regard
Aristotle's account of natural slavery in Politics I.4-8.
Michael Zeleny
Yes, this inconsistency in the Nicomachean Ethics has not gone
unobserved among Aristotelians. Thus I suspect that Theophrastus'
vituperative portrayal of the Eiron in the Characters is meant as a
corrective to the encomium to Socrates to which Aristotle's account of
magnanimity adds up. In calling for an exogenous standard of goodness,
this issue is not amenable to adjudication within the bounds of the
blend of naturalist teleology and behaviorist sentimentality that is
Aristotelian virtue ethics.
Ned Latham
> Ned Latham writes:
> > "Thomas Bushnell, BSG" wrote:
> > > Ned Latham writes:
> > > >
> > > > But perhaps there's a confusion over quotes. See Herodotos 4:28,
> > > > describing Skythia: "for eight months of the year the cold is
> > > > intolerable; the ground is frozen iron-hard, so that to turn earth
> > > > into mud requires not water but fire".
> > >
> > > That can't be it;
> >
> > "That" (a confusion over quotes) could very much be it. People have
> > a strange and incomprehensible talent for confusing matters, as you
> > demonstrated by responding to my example rather than to my proposition.
>
> I'm sorry, what I mean is that Davidson could not have been referring
> to the Herodotus quote and knowing what it said (and mistakenly
> attributing it to Socrates), because it doesn't match what he says
> about "Socrates".
>
> It's possible that he both misremembered Herodotus *and* misattributed
> it.
That's what I was thinking.
> But then I think that actually he was referring to Augustine's
> description of Stoic and Epicurean virtue in City Of God, and he got
> the source, the quote, the idea, and the use of it all completely
> wrong. :)
LOL
Ed Cryer
"Paul McKenna" <pau...@SPOLIATORauctor.fsnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:d46mi5$ids$1...@news7.svr.pol.co.uk...
the simple commandment "Pay the Gods their dues". Sophocles' beautiful play
"Antigone" could almost be taken as an essay on "Render unto Caesar those
things that are Caesar's; and unto God those things that are his". This
Greek Caesar is usually some city-state τύραννος, often usurping or denying
divine rights and dues.
While Sophocles is exquisitely beautiful in his tragedy, Euripides is highly
rational. He also, in the few surviving of his plays that we have, liked
depicting on stage some sexually repressed character being torn apart.
Hippolytus worshipping Artemis and refusing Aphrodite; Pentheus the control
freak denying Dionysus in his psychic makeup.
It's quite easy to replace Olympus with "subconscious", and transfer the
whole lot to within the human mind.
Friedrich Nietzsche in "The Birth of Tragedy" detected two opposing forces
in Greek drama. He called them the "Dionysian" and the "Apollinian". And
that some years before Freud hit on "ego" and "id".
Again it's easy to say of the ancient Greeks that they were more psychically
whole than us moderns, and that the average Greek had a better integrated
personality than we do; one not divided by the subsequent impositions and
restrictions of Christian morality.
Ed
Ed Cryer
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/316100.htm
http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/sth3155.html
*************************
I beware of Christian morality like the plague. I find it a quagmire of
guilt and repression, and I prefer to keep out.
I believe a great deal of the early Christian asceticism owes more to Greek
thinking than Judaeic; specifically Cynicism.
In The Acts of The Apostles St. Paul appears to have gone from synagogue to
synagogue in Asia Minor and Europe, being thrown out of one after the other.
I can well believe that when they showed him the door they would have said
"Get out, Greek!".
Most Greek philosophical schools (including Stoicism, Cynicism, Scepticism
and (I believe) even Epicureanism) acknowledged Socrates as their founding
father. They homed in on different aspects of his life-style and teachings.
The Cynics saw that bare-footed, wearing a simple ragged cloak, wandering
about Athens like a gad-fly, figure as the true Socrates. Sort of casting
society's failings back in its face.
Now, it's very remarkable that Socrates and Gautama were almost
contemporaries. I've talked to Buddhists who say things like "Oh, Plato
misunderstood Buddhism", the assumption being, I think, that there was some
kind of interchange of ideas between Greece and India.
Well, I don't know about this; maybe talk around campfires on trade-routes,
and this passed on and rendered vague.
Perhaps.
Ed
marko_...@hotmail.com
The ancient Greeks had their intellectual strenghts as well
as their limitations. They failed to develop a proper inductive
method for science, and lacked algebraic symbolism, which
limited their geometry. Ivins comments on some aspects of
this in ART & GEOMETRY (pp. 54f):
"I have met no more pregnant single sentences for an understanding
of the causes which led to the the cul de sac in which Greek
geometry, and perhaps Greek thought in general, eventually
would up, than the following two. The first occurs in Heath's
account of Antiphon's attempt to square the circle by a
primitive method of exhaustion. 'Aristotle roundly said that
this was a fallacy which it was not even necessary for a
geometer to trouble to refute, since an expert in any science
is not called uipon to refute all fallacies, but only those
which are false deductions from the admitted principles of
the science; if the fallacy is based on anything which is in
contradiction to any of these principles, it may at once be
ignored. (Arist. Phys. I.2, 185a, 14-17). The other sentence
is that in which F.A. Lange, speaking of Aristotle's 'inductive
mounting from facts to principles,' remarks, 'At the most,
what he does is to adduce a few isolated facts, and immediately
spring from these to the most universal principles, to which
he thenceforward dogmatically adheres in a purely deductive
treatment.' To the extent that Aristotle can be taken as
representative of the Greek mind at work, these two sentences
explain a great deal of what happened.
"The basic postulates of Greek geometry were the tactile-
muscular ones of congruence and parallelism. They not only
made that geometry possible but set the limits beyond which
it could not go. For practical purposes these limits were
reached by Archimedes and Apollonius. Much the same thing
happened in philosophy. ... At the end, Greek thought, following
its own nature and methods, wound up hopeless in a blind
alley of its own making.
"The men of the 'great period' when they created the glory
that was Greece fashioned it in such a way that it was not
only short but immediately and necessarily followed by ages
of exhaustion and sterility. This should not be forgotten
in any account of the Greek accomplishment."
Ed Cryer
<marko_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1114107870.7...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
*******************************
This opinion contains gross generalisations that are untrue as well as
uncharitable.
Various ancient Greeks concluded that the earth was round, that it circled
the sun, and one even worked out the circumference of the earth quite
accurately.
Others had a firm conviction that nature operated without divine
intervention; on principles that could be discovered.
Others invented steam engines and various mechanical devices.
When it comes to other geometries than Euclidean, or other cosmological
views than the Newtonian mechanistic one, look back no further than Kant's
1781 Critique of Pure Reason. And then try talking about the "cul-de-sac of
Greek thought".
The modern scientific revolution and the triumph of empiricism are very,
very recent in world history.
Ed
marko_...@hotmail.com
No one disputes these well-known historical facts. The disagreement
is over the interpretation of that history. You didn't address
Ivins's point about the inherent limitations of the ancient Greek
deductive method.
> When it comes to other geometries than Euclidean, or other
cosmological
> views than the Newtonian mechanistic one, look back no further than
> Kant's 1781 Critique of Pure Reason. And then try talking about the
> "cul-de-sac of Greek thought".
Well, Kant may be best known for his metaphysical writings, but he
started out as a serious scientist. He suggested, for example, that
the Milky Way is an optical effect caused by our location inside
a large disk of stars, and that other nebulas are other galaxies.
As for non-Euclidean geometry, the independence of Euclid's fifth
postulate from the other four was discovered by Gauss in 1817, but
as you correctly suggest, Kant's metaphysics told him Euclidean
geometry is a necessity of thought, so Gauss didn't publish his
discoveries.
marko_...@hotmail.com
No one disputes these well-known historical facts. The disagreement
is over the interpretation of that history. You didn't address
Ivins's point about the inherent limitations of the ancient Greek
deductive method.
> When it comes to other geometries than Euclidean, or other
cosmological
> views than the Newtonian mechanistic one, look back no further than
> Kant's 1781 Critique of Pure Reason. And then try talking about the
> "cul-de-sac of Greek thought".
Well, Kant may be best known for his metaphysical writings, but he
started out as a serious scientist. He suggested, for example, that
the Milky Way is an optical effect caused by our location inside
a large disk of stars, and that other nebulas are other galaxies.
As for non-Euclidean geometry, the independence of Euclid's fifth
postulate from the other four was discovered by Gauss in 1817, but
as you correctly suggest, Kant's metaphysics told him Euclidean
geometry is a necessity of thought, so Gauss didn't publish his
discoveries.
> The modern scientific revolution and the triumph of empiricism
marko_...@hotmail.com
Michael S. Morris wrote:
>(By the way: I don't know how familiar
> you are with the maths, but I've certainly encountered in
> maths courses on homology and cohomology the analysis of
> the topology of manifolds by laying down of "simplicial
> complexes" upon them. I have also encountered some
> quantum gravity researchers taking baby steps in
> trying to formulate such a theory, basically using
> simplices as a way of enumerating the sum over all possible
> paths---in this case spacetime manifolds---inherent in the
> Feynman path integral. For "simplices", read "triangles",
> and for "simplicial complex" read "manifold tiled by triangles".
> That is, it actually *could be* triangles at bottom.)
It would be absurdly Platonistic to assume that because
one could analyze spacetime manifolds in physical theory
through the method of triangulation used in algebraic
topology, that the "triangles" (a very special kind of
"triangle" no?) really exist. The triangles are just a
technical combinatorial trick to allow homology to work,
to narrow down the class of spaces (to topological polyhedra).
Assuming that the triangles are really there would just
what John Horgan called "ironic science" in his book
THE END OF SCIENCE. Could you ever hope to observe the
triangles? I don't think so. So then it's just like with
string theories - postulating weird fantastical unobservable
objects to try to unify physics. I seem to recall, however,
that your attitude towards superstring theory was more sober
and skeptical. Have you had a change of heart since then and
now wish to embrance the weird and wonderful fantasies of
"ironic science" as a description of the real? Your background
is in general relativity theory, so I'd just observe that this
sort of thing is hardly what Einstein would have done. He had
a much more sober and realistic approach to doing physics.
Michael Zeleny
"To those who object to the introduction of abstract entities at all I
would say that I believe there are more important criteria by which a
theory should be judged. The extreme demand for a simple prohibition
of abstract entities under all circumstances perhaps arises from a
desire to maintain the connection between theory and observation. But
the preference of (say) *seeing* over *understanding* as a method of
observation seems to me capricious. For just as an opaque body may be
seen, so a concept may be understood or grasped. And the
parallel between the two cases is indeed rather close. In both cases
the observation is not direct but through intermediaries---light, lens
of eye or optical instrument, and retina in the case of visible body,
linguistic expressions in the case of the concept. And in both cases
there are or may be tenable theories according to which the entity in
question, opaque body or concept, is not assumed, but only those things
which would otherwise be called its effects."
-- Alonzo Church, The Need for Abstract Entities in Semantic Analysis,
July 1951
http://www.ditext.com/church/nae.html
http://www.math.ucla.edu/~asl/bsl/0402/0402-001.ps
Lewis Mammel
Michael Zeleny wrote:
> And so he did. But replacing the Pythagorean solids with conic sections
> in no way diluted the geometrical content of Kepler's innovation.
This is a gloss. His Pythagorean scheme was absolutist and mystical,
where the use of conic sections ( ellipses ) was empirical and analytical.
So the "geometrical content" was certainly "diluted", or perhaps "demoted",
from the absolute ruling principle to a tool or an aspect of the problem.
Lew Mammel, Jr.
Lewis Mammel
Michael Zeleny wrote:
> To repeat myself, Aristotle makes no scientific advance from Plato.
> You, of all people, ought to understand it all the way down. Einstein
> has demonstrated that the fit of geometry to the world is an empirical
> matter. In this connection, Aristotle's account of definition
> (ὅρος) is especially deficient in identifying the sort of accident
> (συμβεβηκός) that attaches to each thing in virtue of itself
> but is not in its substance, as having its angles equal to two right
> angles attaches to the triangle. (Metaphysics V.30, 1025a30-33.) This
> sort of accident alone may be eternal. I cannot see how the curvature
> of space defining the sum of angles in a triangle can be analyzed as
> any kind of accident.
Doesn't Aristotle, as you describe him here, stand in accord
with the synthetic a priori ? "Just as little is any fundamental
proposition of geometry analytic."
Lew Mammel, Jr.
Lewis Mammel
marko_...@hotmail.com wrote:
[ To Ed Cryer ]
> No one disputes these well-known historical facts. The disagreement
> is over the interpretation of that history. You didn't address
> Ivins's point about the inherent limitations of the ancient Greek
> deductive method.
Well, an observation such as "The basic postulates of Greek geometry
were the tactile-muscular ones of congruence and parallelism."
amounts to simple bigotry. I don't see how anyone who surveyed
Archimedes' derivation of the surface and volume of a sphere
could entertain the idea that he was thigmotactic. More likely,
one would deem him a creature of the empyreal realm.
"... But now it will be possible for those who have
the capacity to examine these discoveries of mine."
Archimedes, On the Sphere and Cylinder
Arindam Banerjee
> "Paul McKenna" <pau...@SPOLIATORauctor.fsnet.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:d46mi5$ids$1...@news7.svr.pol.co.uk...
> >
> > "Arindam Banerjee" <adda...@bigpond.com> wrote in message
> > news:890e65ea.05042...@posting.google.com...
> > >> The Gods humble those who try to climb too high.
> > >
> > > No, they humble those who challenge them, as opposed to emulating
> > > them. Eg, Arachne the spider-woman.
> > >
> > >>Ed
> >
> > Rather dangerous, is it not, to try to disprove Ed's comment with one
> > example? By way of continuity I'll suggest Antigone as an example of
> someone
> > who fell foul of the gods without challenging them. It wasn't necessary to
> > challenge the gods or their powers to be 'humbled' by them.
> >
> > Paul McK
> >
> It seems to me that a vast part of ancient Greek tragedy is premised upon
> the simple commandment "Pay the Gods their dues". Sophocles' beautiful play
> "Antigone" could almost be taken as an essay on "Render unto Caesar those
> things that are Caesar's; and unto God those things that are his".
I do not see how. "Antigone" is about the defiance and heroism of
Antigone - a woman. To deny that, and to impute some abstract blah,
is to deny the heroism of the female. And that appears to me as a
simple and transparent mcp trick, carried down by generations of
dominant misogynist males.
This
> Greek Caesar is usually some city-state Ï„á½»Ï Î±Î½Î½Î¿Ï‚, often usurping or denying
> divine rights and dues.
The Roman Julius Ceasar never forgot his divine duties.
>
> While Sophocles is exquisitely beautiful in his tragedy, Euripides is highly
> rational. He also, in the few surviving of his plays that we have, liked
> depicting on stage some sexually repressed character being torn apart.
> Hippolytus worshipping Artemis and refusing Aphrodite; Pentheus the control
> freak denying Dionysus in his psychic makeup.
>
> It's quite easy to replace Olympus with "subconscious", and transfer the
> whole lot to within the human mind.
The whole lot is always within the human mind, but one need not care
too much for any Freudian blah.
>
> Friedrich Nietzsche in "The Birth of Tragedy" detected two opposing forces
> in Greek drama. He called them the "Dionysian" and the "Apollinian". And
> that some years before Freud hit on "ego" and "id".
A shallow, useless viewpoint. It distracts and confuses. The
conflict between Hector and Achilles is the conflict between two
entirely different kinds of heroes - the kindly socialistic and the
selfishly individualistic. The latter wins, in one-to-one battle, as
he is dedicated to excellence. But that - excellence in battle - does
not help him in the social sense, so Achilles can not win the lady he
loves. So he asks his friends (Ulysses) to sacrifice her on his
grave.
> Again it's easy to say of the ancient Greeks that they were more psychically
> whole than us moderns, and that the average Greek had a better integrated
> personality than we do;
Not that the above amounts to any real praise for the ancient Greeks.
one not divided by the subsequent impositions and
> restrictions of Christian morality.
What Christian morality, the early Christians tore the beautiful
mathematician Hypatia, the last of the Platonists, to little pieces
with the utmost cruelty.
> Ed
marko_...@hotmail.com
"From the theorem that a sphere is four times as great as the
cone with a great circle of the sphere as base and with height
equal to the radius of the sphere I conceived the notion that
the surface of any sphere is four times as great as a great
circle in it; for, judging from the fact that any circle is
equal to a triangle with base equal to the circumference and
height equal to the radius of the circle, I apprehended that,
in like manner, any sphere is equal to a cone with base equal
to the surface of the sphere and height equal to the radius."
Archimedes, The Method
How does the above method take us from the mundane
lebenswelt of tactile three-dimensional geometry
and into the realm of the Sublime?
Michael S. Morris
Friday, the 22nd of April, 2005
Lew:
Well, an observation such as "The basic postulates
of Greek geometry were the tactile-muscular ones of
congruence and parallelism." amounts to simple bigotry.
I might be kinder by calling it a sweeping generalization
of some aspect (some aspect, that is, that may really be there)
that Ivins is picking up on and using so as to frame a
thesis for a book, into which he is going to shovel that
evidence which supports his thesis, and ignore the rest.
I've done the exercise in my "Great Books" reading over
the years of reading Heath's _History of Greek Mathematics_
plus his translations (really they are translations plus extensive
apparata critica and commentary) of Euclid, Aristarchus, Apollonius of
Perga, and Archimedes. My experience of that is: Wow!
Even Euclid, who is the most "elementary" of these, isn't
an easy read, and goes far beyond what I would have guessed.
And my sense from that is not that *their* geometric way of thinking
is a limitation, but that *my* algebraic way of thinking
is a limitation to me. That is, until I can translate their
geometry into my algebra, I don't feel I understand what they
are doing, so I end up marveling in fact that they were able
to do what they did---to think how they thought---without
the algebra as a crutch.
It's been years since I did that reading, but, also I seem to
recall a great deal of Aristarchus being consumed with the projective
geometry of earth-moon-sun and various shadows created thereby.
That's not exactly "perspective in drawing", but it strikes me
that the math of it is basically the same.
Moreover, among supplemental materials I read up against
classical Greek literature was Michael Grant's
_The Classical Greeks_. I finally don't care for Grant's
writing, but this volume is a sequence of maybe 5-page
mini-biographies in rough chronological order of major
Greek historical figures. I would especially direct Marko's
attention to Grant's chapters on Polygnotus and on
Zeuxis and Parrhasius. The salient points I would cull
from those chapters are that the Greeks considered *painting*
to be one of their highest art forms, they celebrated these
painters, and none of their work survives. Moreover, there
is strong evidence that the latter two painters were inventing
perspective in art (evidence from written testimony about these
painters and the "realism" of their art, as well evidence from
the way vase-painting changed in their wake).
I love "thigmotactic", Lew, and am envious of your usage.
The aspect of Marko's Ivins' thesis that resonates with me
is in Greek sculpture. I don't know what it does to others,
but to me it viscerally makes want to run my hands over it, to feel
those muscles, or the veins on the horses in the Elgin marbles,
or the buns of the Rubensesque flute-girl I'm thinking of
(I often think of---ahh, looked her up, she's on the "Ludovisi
throne" in Rome and is in plate 46 of John Boardman's _Greek Sculpture:
The Classical Period_---her back leg that is crossed over to the
front is wrong, meaning it wouldn't connect up with her hip in
the right place---but, heck, I think the "perspective" attempted
in Michelangelo's "Pieta" looks wrong, too, Mary's hands stick
out as just too big---the rest of her is lovely and quite
apparently tactile---here she is online:
<http://www.usask.ca/antiquities/Collection/Ludovisi_Throne.html>
she's the second picture down, the "hetaera"). Of course, I
get much the same visceral impulse from Henry Moore, so I'm not
sure what generalizations about the thigmotacticity
of this or that civilization could really be supported
even without the abundant counterexamples.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Michael S. Morris
Friday, the 22nd of April, 2005
Marko:
"From the theorem that a sphere is four times as great as the
cone with a great circle of the sphere as base and with height
equal to the radius of the sphere I conceived the notion that
the surface of any sphere is four times as great as a great
circle in it; for, judging from the fact that any circle is
equal to a triangle with base equal to the circumference and
height equal to the radius of the circle, I apprehended that,
in like manner, any sphere is equal to a cone with base equal
to the surface of the sphere and height equal to the radius."
Archimedes, The Method
How does the above method take us from the mundane
lebenswelt of tactile three-dimensional geometry
and into the realm of the Sublime?
It strikes me as pretty amazing. He's saying that
he knows that (from a previous theorem) the volume
of a sphere = 4*volume of cone with
base equal to an equatorial disc and height equal to
radius of the sphere. So, I would think that as
volume of cone=1/3*base*height=1/3* pi*r^2*r=
1/3*pi*r^3. Volume of sphere=4/3*p1*r^3. Check.
(And I could go back to setting up the volume integrals
and getting those formulas by integrating volume over
the shapes.)
Now, the notion that "sphere is 4 times as great as
any circle in it" is the result he telling us in this
paragraph how he arrived at. He means, in
slightly more modern parlance, that the surface
area of the sphere is equal to 4 times the area
of a great circle of the sphere. Which I can *see* in
an algebraic Augenblick, sure. That is, I can translate my
knowledge of the area of circle=pi*r^2 and the
surface area of a sphere=4*pi*r^2 and go check, the
sphere is 4 times greater than the circle. But, it is
utterly alien to me---to the way I have been trained to
think---to *see* this geometrically, whereas Archimedes
seems to be seeing this without benefit of the algebra.
OK, so go on, since he's telling us the way in which he
has realized the relationship between the surface area of a sphere
to area of circle. He says a circle is equal to a triangle
with base the circumference and height the radius. OK,
again I can translate this into algebra. That is, he means the
area of said triangle is equal to the area of the circle.
So the circle's area is pi*r^2. And the triangle is
1/2*base*height, where base =pi*diameter of circle=pi*r/2
and height=r. So, again, check, I understand that.
It is a method of "squaring the circle", basically, where
he is imagining converting the circle's area into an equivalent
rectilineal figure's area, namely the area of a triangle.
Then, he says, "in like manner I apprehended". That is, he's telling
us how he thought about it. And he says that the sphere is
just equal to the cone he specifies in the analogous way that
the circle is equal to the triangle. He means, in modern language,
that the volume of the sphere is equal to the volume of the cone
specified (specified as having the base equal to the surface
area of the sphere and height equal to the radius of the sphere).
In other words, he is imagining that the cone is just a triangle
revolved azimuthally *in the same way* that the sphere is just
the circle revolved azimuthally, and as the area of the constructed
triangle is equal to the area of the circle, then the volume of the
constructed cone will be equal to the volume of the sphere.
He's accomplishing what I would do by volume integration without
ever really having to resort to the integration.
So, then, we have to think back to what he was deriving in
the first place. He has that the volume of a sphere is
equal to the volume of a cone with height equal to the
radius of the sphere and base equal in area to the surface
area of the sphere. He also has the theorem (previously shown
but unproven in this paragraph) that the volume of
the sphere is equal to four times the volume of a cone
whose height is the radius of the sphere and whose base is
an equatorial circle. So, what he's doing is equating those
two and concluding that the surface area of the sphere
is equal to four times the surface area of the circle.
It's like there are these integrals involving pi he can't do,
but he *can* express one of them in terms of another, and he is
exploiting that for all it is worth. To me, there is
an incredible compression of thought in that one
lone paragraph, and I marvel that *I don't think like
he thinks*. Moreover, as a physicist, I *know this to be
a general failing of mine*. That is, I have marveled the
most at the feet of those teachers I have had who think
the most physically, or geometrically if the physics comes
down to geometry, and who only resort to algebra at the
last, after they *already know* what to expect the answer
to be. I know that I normally *think* algebraically, and
*I know* that, though algebra is a wonderful tool, it is
also a mental crutch and often leads me to "the answer",
except often in a form not the simplest or most revealing
of the physics.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
marko_...@hotmail.com
Okay, thanks for the recommendation. I've read Grant's book
GLADIATORS: THE BLOODY TRUTH and while it was informative,
I enjoyed Daniel Mannix's classic THE WAY OF THE GLADIATOR
much more.
> The salient points I would cull
> from those chapters are that the Greeks considered *painting*
> to be one of their highest art forms, they celebrated these
> painters, and none of their work survives. Moreover, there
> is strong evidence that the latter two painters were inventing
> perspective in art (evidence from written testimony about these
> painters and the "realism" of their art, as well evidence from
> the way vase-painting changed in their wake).
>
> I love "thigmotactic", Lew, and am envious of your usage.
>
> The aspect of Marko's Ivins' thesis that resonates with me
> is in Greek sculpture. I don't know what it does to others,
> but to me it viscerally makes want to run my hands over it, to feel
> those muscles, or the veins on the horses in the Elgin marbles,
At the Egyptian Museum in Cairo the tour guide stops to ask
the visitors if they want to feel the ankle muscles on one
statue that portrays a seated Pharaoh. The muscles are
rendered in a very realistic fashion so you feel the details
of the tendons and so on.
> or the buns of the Rubensesque flute-girl I'm thinking of
> (I often think of---ahh, looked her up, she's on the "Ludovisi
> throne" in Rome and is in plate 46 of John Boardman's _Greek
Sculpture:
> The Classical Period_---her back leg that is crossed over to the
> front is wrong, meaning it wouldn't connect up with her hip in
> the right place---but, heck, I think the "perspective" attempted
> in Michelangelo's "Pieta" looks wrong, too, Mary's hands stick
> out as just too big---the rest of her is lovely and quite
> apparently tactile---here she is online:
> <http://www.usask.ca/antiquities/Collection/Ludovisi_Throne.html>
> she's the second picture down, the "hetaera"). Of course, I
> get much the same visceral impulse from Henry Moore, so I'm not
> sure what generalizations about the thigmotacticity
> of this or that civilization could really be supported
> even without the abundant counterexamples.
I know a minor British artist who once spent the weekend
at Henry Moore's huge loft and saw him work. His father was also
a painter and knew Henry Moore. While I'm on the subject of
personal relations to artists, I had this interesting
conversation with my brother's French Canadian wife at
Easter dinner. I asked her about her brother who works at
Christie's in Paris, so she asks "Do you mean my brother
or brother-in-law? they've *both* worked there" which was
kinda funny. Anyway, it turns out her brother-in-law is the
grandson of a fairly well known French artist, Anthoni Clavé,
who is in his 80s now but still paints. Clavé knew Picasso,
Chagall and the other greats personally. There is a foundation
named after him now, and his grandson had the royal road into
the art world. At one point his job was just to travel around
the world, look at art and advise Christie's on it. Clavé's
most recent work is what I'd call conceptual abstract, not
my favourite style and you don't appreciate it until you've
spent some time looking at it. It was a funny conversation
because I told my brother's wife maybe I could find another
buyer for Clavé's art. I had just had dinner with with a lady
who owns a company that sells air moisturizers, and she was
very proud of the fact that their air moisturizers are
installed in the Louvre in Paris in the room where the Mona
Lisa is displayed. I thought that was just a great story.
Lewis Mammel
In the first place, what is "tactile" about 3d geometry?
It's concepts derive from visual, not tactile apprehension.
You can get a "feeling" for a sphere by handling a ball,
since you can put your hand all the way around one, but
I don't think this inspires any particular geometric method.
Also, Archimedes "Method" was based on center of gravity, which
he exploited to derive the spherical volume formula that he refers
to in your quote. I don't think he regarded this method as
rigorous, though.
I'm looking at the Loeb Greek Mathematics II, which contains
Archimedes proof of the spherical volume and surface formulas.
It follows the plan of what we learned as "delta-epsilon" proofs,
or actually the "N-epsilon" variant. He forms an inscribed and
similar circumscribed figure, such that they give lower and
upper bounds to the volume and area of the cube, and such that
their volumes and areas can be made arbitrarily close to each
other. He derives an exact ( geometrical ) expression for them
and shows that the volume and surface of the sphere must have
the limiting values of the figures by reductio ad absurdum
of the assumption that they are either greater or less than
these limiting values.
The crucial lemma is the derivation of the exact formula
( the book only gives the the area. ) This is found from
the sum of the frustums of cones, all having the same
height. The theorem proves the total area is proportional
to the product of a diameter and a secant of the inscribed
or circumscribed polygon which is "off by one", i.e. drawn
from one end of the diameter to a vertex one removed from
the other end.
I say that this theorem, or really his use of it, is sublime.
The editor uses "majestic" -
In the case of the surface, the whole series of propositions
is reproduced so that the reader may follow in detail the
majestic chain of reasoning by which Archimedes, starting
from seemingly remote premises, reaches the desired conclusion.
Well, that leaves the question of the limitations of his
geometrical methods. Why didn't he just do what we do if
he was so smart? What held him back? This is really a "whig"
question. As Mike says, one feels oneself in the presence
of a superior mind, not a limited mind, in following his
developments. Khayyam et al. felt this way too, BTW.
But still, one can't help wondering what "held him back" from
e.g. place notation. The Loeb Gk. Math II also has his development
of his large number notation, which is essentially a place system
in the base "myriad myriad", which is already a base 10 construct.
The large base certainly holds him back from a notation based
on it, but why not "eight digit digits" ? Also, he counts, in
effect, by tens, then by hundreds, then by thousands, and so on,
but never expresses the idea that all the intervening numbers
can be designated. So, he just didn't have the idea for a place
system with a zero. I don't think we can say there was any
particular thing holding him back from it. I think it shows
what a unique development it was, that Archimedes could have come
so apparently close to it, and miss it.
Lew Mammel, Jr.
Lewis Mammel
"Michael S. Morris" wrote:
> I love "thigmotactic", Lew, and am envious of your usage.
Been sittin' on it since '98 . cf. Google groups [ mammel thigmotaxis ]
Michael Zeleny
I would be more concerned to have my definitions of geometry in the
physical space stand in accord with Einstein than with Kant. But the
real problem here seems to be the want of means to distinguish eternal
accidents from propria. I have seen good work interpreting Aristotelian
substances in relation to living matter. I cannot see it arising in
connection with the periodic table, where, as you rightly suggest, we
are getting back to Plato's oracular reasoning in the Timaeus. Least of
all can I see its application to mathematics. What are the numerical
accidents of a natural number? Does its unique factorization qualify as
such?
Aristotelianism is an infantile affliction of science. The moment you
realize that sensory experience cannot suffice to determine theoretical
understanding, you return to Plato.
Lewis Mammel
Michael Zeleny wrote:
>
> Lewis Mammel wrote:
> > Doesn't Aristotle, as you describe him here, stand in accord
> > with the synthetic a priori ? "Just as little is any fundamental
> > proposition of geometry analytic."
>
> I would be more concerned to have my definitions of geometry in the
> physical space stand in accord with Einstein than with Kant.
The point of nonEuclidean geometries is simply that proposition 32
does not inhere in the simple concept of a triangle, but is a
consequence of the properties of Euclidean space. Aristotle is
simply trying to distinguish the necessary truth of the proposition
from mere tautology.
> But the
> real problem here seems to be the want of means to distinguish eternal
> accidents from propria. I have seen good work interpreting Aristotelian
> substances in relation to living matter. I cannot see it arising in
> connection with the periodic table, where, as you rightly suggest, we
> are getting back to Plato's oracular reasoning in the Timaeus.
Well, how about issues such as the valence state of copper? Is this
natural science, or mathematics?
> Least of
> all can I see its application to mathematics. What are the numerical
> accidents of a natural number? Does its unique factorization qualify as
> such?
Certainly one is tempted to say yes. 2^25 = 33554432
What are the chances!
> Aristotelianism is an infantile affliction of science. The moment you
> realize that sensory experience cannot suffice to determine theoretical
> understanding, you return to Plato.
You're a fanatic! A fanatic! Here's two reasons I appreciate
Aristotle, besides bees. His discussion of motion, which I claim
continues to hold up as our scientific paradigm, and his
discussion of the now, which acknowledges a profound and
vexing difficulty which is utterly shut out of modern science.
Lew Mammel, Jr.
Thomas Bushnell, BSG
> Aristotelianism is an infantile affliction of science. The moment you
> realize that sensory experience cannot suffice to determine theoretical
> understanding, you return to Plato.
It's not clear that these are the only two options on the table.
Aristotle was perfectly convinced of the need to do more than consult
and catalogue sense experience, though he was only at the very
beginning steps of making that program a success. It is very easy to
see Ptolemaic astronomy--a great success--as a clear working out of
the Aristotelian program, and very hard for me to see it as any kind
of Platonism.
Charles Darwin said that Aristotle was the greatest biologist before
Linnaeus, and this was no mean praise. Of course Aristotle made
mistakes in his biology (but then, so did Linnaeus and Darwin; some of
Linnaeus' mistakes are whoppers every bit as stunning as Aristotle's),
but Darwin would seem to have been competent to make such a judgment.
By contrast, Plato's biology is, well, nonexistent.
This is not a criticism of Plato, who has his own strengths indeed,
often ones which Aristotle misses. The best philosophy of science,
I suspect, is not going to be had by simply trying to follow in the
footsteps of either.
Thomas
Michael Zeleny
> "Michael Zeleny" <larv...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I beware of Christian morality like the plague. I find it
> a quagmire of guilt and repression, and I prefer to keep out.
I used to feel the same way until I considered the alternative.
Besides, as Nietzsche pointed out, Christianity is Platonism for the
masses.
> I believe a great deal of the early Christian asceticism owes
> more to Greek thinking than Judaeic; specifically Cynicism.
I cannot make out this lineage. Consider the Cynic doctrine of
happiness coming from self-sufficiency (αὐταρκεσία), as it
is illustrated by the tale of Diogenes seen masturbating
(χειρουργῶν) in the marketplace. While this practice failed
to get the Dog denounced for peccatus immundus (Aquinas, ST 2a2ae,
question 154), let alone indicted for crimina carnis contra naturam
(Kant, Die Metaphysik der Sitten, § 24), it earned him the Athenian
soubriquet of a dirty old man. Whereupon Diogenes replied that if he
could stop his hunger-pangs by rubbing his stomach (καὶ τὴν
κοιλίαν ἦν παρατρίψαντα μὴ πεινῆν),
he would do that too (Diogenes Laertius, Vitae Philosophorum, VI.46). I
reckon that this chreia suffices to demonstrate the difference between
Christian morality classical and modern, and Greek asceticism.
http://www.mikrosapoplous.gr/dl/dl06.html
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/315411.htm
http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/sth3146.html
http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Kant0142/PhilosophyOfLaw/HTMLs/0139_Pt03_Right1.html#hd_lf139.head.075
http://www.geocities.com/nythamar/RL.html
> In The Acts of The Apostles St. Paul appears to have gone from
> synagogue to synagogue in Asia Minor and Europe, being thrown out
> of one after the other. I can well believe that when they showed
> him the door they would have said "Get out, Greek!".
They will have denounced him as an apikorus, a designation that dates
back at least to the Mishnaic times. See the Pirkei Avos 2.19, where R.
Elazar is quoted as having urged his students to know how to respond to
an apikorus. Thanks to this denunciation, we have been spared life
under dhimmitude.
http://www.torah.org/learning/pirkei-avos/chapter2-19.html
http://www.dhimmitude.org/
> Most Greek philosophical schools (including Stoicism, Cynicism,
> Scepticism and (I believe) even Epicureanism) acknowledged Socrates
> as their founding father. They homed in on different aspects of his
> life-style and teachings. The Cynics saw that bare-footed, wearing
> a simple ragged cloak, wandering about Athens like a gad-fly, figure
> as the true Socrates. Sort of casting society's failings back in its
> face.
Don't forget the Megarians linking the Cynics to the Stoa.
> Now, it's very remarkable that Socrates and Gautama were almost
> contemporaries. I've talked to Buddhists who say things like "Oh,
> Plato misunderstood Buddhism", the assumption being, I think,
> that there was some kind of interchange of ideas between Greece
> and India.
> Well, I don't know about this; maybe talk around campfires on
> trade-routes, and this passed on and rendered vague.
> Perhaps.
I don't get a lot of use out of this hypothesis. What strikes me in the
Socratic legacy is at once more introspective and more arrogant than
anything I see in Buddhism. We have a great deal of evidence of fine
philosophical arguments formulated before Socrates. His contribution
was to make argumentation inseparable from interpretation. This link is
well manifested not only in the theoretical reasoning captured in the
Theaetetus, but in the forensic deficiency of his apology, in his
evasion of the charges that his teaching contributed to the treachery
of Alcibiades and the tyranny of Critias. Christians tell us that Jesus
sacrificed himself for our sins. Would that philosophers could tell us
the reasons for Socrates sacrificing himself through his suicide by
jury.
ταῦτ' ἔστιν ὑμῖν, ὦ ἄνδρες
Ἀθηναῖοι, τἀληθῆ, καὶ ὑμᾶς οὔτε
μέγα οὔτε μικρὸν ἀποκρυψάμενος ἐγὼ
λέγω οὐδ' ὑποστειλάμενος.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plat.+Apol.+24a
marko_...@hotmail.com
> The crucial lemma is the derivation of the exact formula
> ( the book only gives the the area. ) This is found from
> the sum of the frustums of cones, all having the same
> height. The theorem proves the total area is proportional
> to the product of a diameter and a secant of the inscribed
> or circumscribed polygon which is "off by one", i.e. drawn
> from one end of the diameter to a vertex one removed from
> the other end.
The calculation of the volume of the sphere involves
solid rhombi as Heath notes in his history. But the
basic method is the same, as Archimedes constructs
inscribed and circumscribed figures and then compresses
them into coalescence with the curvilinear figure to be measured. I
actually think the proofs have a sort of
tactile aspect to them, as they involve three-dimensional figures one
could conceivably build in real life, and
then the process of compressing them around the
curvilinear figure.
> I say that this theorem, or really his use of it, is sublime.
> The editor uses "majestic" -
>
> In the case of the surface, the whole series of propositions
> is reproduced so that the reader may follow in detail the
> majestic chain of reasoning by which Archimedes, starting
> from seemingly remote premises, reaches the desired
> conclusion.
Heath doesn't use any adjectives to describe these proofs,
but are they really necessary? Obviously, Archimedes was
one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. I don't
see how that is in contradiction with noting the limits
imposed upon him by the concepts and methods available
at the time.
Ed Cryer
[57a] αὐτός, ὦ Φαίδων, παρεγένου Σωκράτει ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ᾗ τὸ φάρμακον
ἔπιεν ἐν τῷ δεσμωτηρίῳ, ἢ ἄλλου του ἤκουσας;
Φαίδων
αὐτός, ὦ Ἐχέκρατες.
Ἐχεκράτης
τί οὖν δή ἐστιν ἅττα εἶπεν ὁ ἀνὴρ πρὸ τοῦ θανάτου; καὶ πῶς ἐτελεύτα; ἡδέως
γὰρ ἂν ἐγὼ ἀκούσαιμι.
Beware of the Christian Church! Enemies of learning! I won't tell you about
Gallileo. Bertold Brecht did that well enough. Nor about the fact that the
poems of Catullus survive from one manuscript; stuffed into an old wine jar
and dug up ten centuries later.
Nor will I mention the fact that educated people such as you and I take the
Tree of Knowledge as meaning carnal knowledge, whereas the hoi polloi of the
early Church appear to have taken it to refer to anything beyond the ken of
a slave. No, I'll tell you about the Archimedes palimpsest.
A palimpsest is a book in which the original text has been wiped and
scrubbed, and new stuff written over it. Take a look at the survival of
Archimedes, here;
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/archimedes/palimpsest.html
The scribes in the Islamic world preserved so much that would have been lost
for all time if we had had to depend on Christian scribes.
We have all of Plato, most of Aristotle, but nothing of, say, Epicurus
(known to have written over 100 books), nothing of Democritus (It is
recorded that Plato once told a friend "I would like to burn all the books
of Democritus; but I suppose they are too widely spred by now), and lots
more have gone.
Ed
annika
Ed Cryer wrote:
>
>
> Beware of the Christian Church! Enemies of learning! I won't tell you about
> Gallileo. Bertold Brecht did
Bertolt. Galileo. Just in case someone's going to google.
Michael Zeleny
> "Michael Zeleny" <larv...@gmail.com> writes:
> > Aristotelianism is an infantile affliction of science. The moment
> > you realize that sensory experience cannot suffice to determine
> > theoretical understanding, you return to Plato.
> It's not clear that these are the only two options on the table.
> Aristotle was perfectly convinced of the need to do more than
> consult and catalogue sense experience, though he was only at
> the very beginning steps of making that program a success. It
> is very easy to see Ptolemaic astronomy--a great success--as a
> clear working out of the Aristotelian program, and very hard for
> me to see it as any kind of Platonism.
Follow through your example. Kepler forsook Copernican epicycles in
favor of conic sections for exemplary Pythagorean reasons.
> Charles Darwin said that Aristotle was the greatest biologist
> before Linnaeus, and this was no mean praise. Of course Aristotle
> made mistakes in his biology (but then, so did Linnaeus and Darwin;
> some of Linnaeus' mistakes are whoppers every bit as stunning as
> Aristotle's), but Darwin would seem to have been competent to make
> such a judgment. By contrast, Plato's biology is, well, nonexistent.
>
> This is not a criticism of Plato, who has his own strengths indeed,
> often ones which Aristotle misses. The best philosophy of science,
> I suspect, is not going to be had by simply trying to follow in the
> footsteps of either.
I see no conflict between your example and my prognosis. Mathematical
understanding of biology remains in its infancy. As to philosophy of
science outside of the footsteps of Plato and Aristotle, my reading of
its history and outlook for its prospects agrees with Whitehead. Still,
in its appetite for novelty, the world awaits your groundbreaking
contribution.
Michael Zeleny
I see more Pythagoreanism in the harmonic law.
Michael Zeleny
> Michael Zeleny wrote:
> > Lewis Mammel wrote:
> > > Doesn't Aristotle, as you describe him here, stand in accord
> > > with the synthetic a priori ? "Just as little is any fundamental
> > > proposition of geometry analytic."
> > I would be more concerned to have my definitions of geometry in
> > the physical space stand in accord with Einstein than with Kant.
> The point of nonEuclidean geometries is simply that proposition 32
> does not inhere in the simple concept of a triangle, but is a
> consequence of the properties of Euclidean space. Aristotle is
> simply trying to distinguish the necessary truth of the proposition
> from mere tautology.
The principle of sufficient reason implies that every event takes place
of necessity. Conversely, any imputation of contingency depends on
irrationalism. Howsoever this outcome may agree with the Copenhagen
interpretation of QM, it makes for inadequate inderstanding of
mathematics.
> > But the real problem here seems to be the want of means to
> > distinguish eternal accidents from propria. I have seen good work
> > interpreting Aristotelian substances in relation to living matter.
> > I cannot see it arising in connection with the periodic table,
> > where, as you rightly suggest, we are getting back to Plato's
> > oracular reasoning in the Timaeus.
> Well, how about issues such as the valence state of copper? Is this
> natural science, or mathematics?
It is natural science on its way to mathematics. That is how I
understood your suggestion in the first place. Perhaps you meant to
convey something else.
> > Least of all can I see its
> > application to mathematics. What are the numerical accidents of
> > a natural number? Does its unique factorization qualify as such?
> Certainly one is tempted to say yes. 2^25 = 33554432
> What are the chances!
Descartes has a theory of eternal truths freely created by God. Kit
Fine has a logic of essences that construes necessity in terms of truth
holding in virtue of the essential nature of the universe. Maybe you
can make them work with your intuitions.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-modal/
> > Aristotelianism is an infantile affliction of science. The moment
> > you realize that sensory experience cannot suffice to determine
> > theoretical understanding, you return to Plato.
> You're a fanatic! A fanatic! Here's two reasons I appreciate
> Aristotle, besides bees. His discussion of motion, which I claim
> continues to hold up as our scientific paradigm, and his
> discussion of the now, which acknowledges a profound and
> vexing difficulty which is utterly shut out of modern science.
Please elaborate.
marko_...@hotmail.com
So because Christian Europe nearly destroyed the intellectual
heritage of ancient Greece, therefore Christian Europe is the
direct intellectual heir of Greek learning, and shares the
absolute superiority of Greek culture? This must be Aristotelian/
Christian logic at work! Other cultures that may have been deeply
influenced by the ancient Greeks, such as Islamic culture, are
dismissed as a side show, and are outside the mainstream of
Civilization. Never mind that they played a more important role
in preserving the works and tradition of the ancient Greece, and
in fact also contributed essential ethical elements of their own
that went into the composition of Renaissance humanism
(see Samir Amin's _Eurocentrism_ on this). The barbarism of
Europe is politely ignored, while other cultures that temperered
that barbarism are reduced to barbarians.
Michael Zeleny
No one other than you obsesses over arrogating the direct intellectual
heritage of Greek learning. Islamic societies required no Eurocentric
assistance for disqualifying themselves from cultural participation in
the Greek legacy of political freedom, constitutional democracy, and
disinterested pursuit of truth. Unlike the Elgin marbles, these assets
remain open to all takers.
Lewis Mammel
Michael Zeleny wrote:
>
> Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> > "Michael Zeleny" <larv...@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > > Aristotelianism is an infantile affliction of science. The moment
> > > you realize that sensory experience cannot suffice to determine
> > > theoretical understanding, you return to Plato.
>
> > It's not clear that these are the only two options on the table.
> > Aristotle was perfectly convinced of the need to do more than
> > consult and catalogue sense experience, though he was only at
> > the very beginning steps of making that program a success. It
> > is very easy to see Ptolemaic astronomy--a great success--as a
> > clear working out of the Aristotelian program, and very hard for
> > me to see it as any kind of Platonism.
>
> Follow through your example. Kepler forsook Copernican epicycles in
> favor of conic sections for exemplary Pythagorean reasons.
It [ astronomy ] can easily do without the useless furniture
of fictitious circles and spheres. But there is such great
need of imagining the true figures, in which the routes
of the planets are arranged, that we are impoverishing Astronomy
and that the big job to be worked on by the true astronomer
is to demonstrate from observation what figures the planetary
orbits possess; ...
Kepler, Epitome of Copernican Astronomy
Also cf. the section, Conquest of Mars, in Stephenson's book,
Kepler's Physical Astronomy. Kepler adopted the ellipse because
it afforded him success in his tortuous efforts to explain
the heliocentric motion of Mars.
Lew Mammel, Jr.
Lewis Mammel
Michael Zeleny wrote:
>
> Lewis Mammel wrote:
> > Well, how about issues such as the valence state of copper? Is this
> > natural science, or mathematics?
>
> It is natural science on its way to mathematics. That is how I
> understood your suggestion in the first place. Perhaps you meant to
> convey something else.
No, you read me right, but there's a limit to everything. The
overall structure of the periodic table is dictated by "quantum
kinematics" which is explicated by the mathematical symmetry
I cited. However, there is still a dynamic content! This is
expressed mathematically also, but as differential equations, and
the solutions don't seem to carry the same Platonic significance
as the rules for succession of orbitals which arise from simple
considerations.
In fact, these equations have to be understood as a semi-classical
approximation ( motion in a Coulomb potential ) to the deeper
model of QED, which gives a quantum account of the Coulomb interaction.
The atom then becomes for us not a Platonic Quantum Reality, but
an emergent classical system, susceptible to the accidents of the world.
> > > Aristotelianism is an infantile affliction of science. The moment
> > > you realize that sensory experience cannot suffice to determine
> > > theoretical understanding, you return to Plato.
>
> > You're a fanatic! A fanatic! Here's two reasons I appreciate
> > Aristotle, besides bees. His discussion of motion, which I claim
> > continues to hold up as our scientific paradigm, and his
> > discussion of the now, which acknowledges a profound and
> > vexing difficulty which is utterly shut out of modern science.
>
> Please elaborate.
As to motion, I got the idea from Galileo's axiomatic approach
in Day Three of Two New Sciences, which struck me as being
consonant with Physics VII.4 .
Regarding "the now". I refer to Physics IV.11, of course. This
subject is never treated by modern science, because what would
be the point? There seems to be nothing to quantify or measure.
Still, "the now" lurks in "the measurement problem" and it is
the defining feature of our subjective existence, so if science
presumes ever to give an account of mind, it must grapple
with "the now".
Lew Mammel, Jr.
Jill Kopis
> the ideally good life is the life of practical wisdom and social
> virtues, as opposed to their theoretical variety. (See e.g. EN,
> 1105b5-18.) Then in Book X (1177a15 ff.) Aristotle falls into lisping
> by arguing that happiness is to be found in a life of theoretical
> contemplation.
This doesn't seem quite right. The bios theoretikos is on the agenda
right from the start is a possible candidate for eudaimonia, at 1096a5,
and Book I ends with a fairly clear statement that the virtues of
character belong to a lower part of the soul than the intellectual
virtues, viz. the part of the soul which is not rational in the
governing sense but is capable of being persuaded by reason; it's
already clear at this point that the intellectual virtues have a higher
status than those of character can.
And when we reach the account of the intellectual virtues in Book VI,
we find the entire second half aimed at firmly establishing the
superiority of (theoretical) sophia over (practical) phronesis. See
1141a21: "It is absurd for anyone to believe that politike or phronesis
is the most serious kind of knowledge, if the human being is not the
highest thing in the cosmos." Or 1141b4, where Aristotle tells us that
it is sophia which is directed to "the most honorable things" (ta
timiotata). Or even more clearly at the end of VI, at 1145a6 ff, where
we're told that saying that phronesis rules sophia would be like saying
that politics rules over the gods, since the laws give orders
concerning all matters in the politeia.
So the possibility of the superiority of the theoretical life is
suggested as early as book I and this superiority comes out clearly
just as soon as Aristotle wraps up his account of the ethical virtues
and turns to the virtues of thinking in Book VI. You make it sound
like the priority of the theoretical life suddenly comes out of nowhere
in Book X. We could even make a joke about "manfully" maintaining the
superiority of the ethical life, since the the argument that Aristotle
rejects at 1177b30 ff. could be phrased as "men should think the
thoughts of men and not attempt to think the thoughts of gods" i.e.
"man should act manfully, and not godfully." But for Aristotle the
final (and decisive) basis for the priority of the theoretical life
over the practical is that, insofar as intellect is something divine in
us, we should live not as merely human beings, but as much as possible
according to that which is divine in us.
>Thus I suspect that Theophrastus' vituperative portrayal of the Eiron
>in the Characters is meant as a corrective to the encomium to Socrates
>to which Aristotle's account of magnanimity adds up.
Am I misunderstanding you as saying that Aristotle's characterization
of greatness of soul can be read as a praise of Socrates? Surely that
can only be half-right. For example, the great-souled person is
concerned about honors, maintains his sense of superiority, does not
ask others for help, acts differently to those of different stations in
life (he behaves ironically to his inferiors), likes to possess many
beautiful but useless things, and most tellingly, is not much given to
wonder, since nothing is great to him. Socrates, by contrast, although
he shares a number of traits with the great-souled man, is perpetually
given to wonder (as the beginning of philosophy), has no use for
useless possessions (or useful ones for that matter), behaves
ironically to everyone high or low, is completely unconcerned about
honors in any normal manner, and is garrulous and rather shameless when
it comes to his logoi. It seems to me that Socrates' way of life would
offend the dignity of the great-souled person, as he did in fact
perpetually offend the dignity of the Athenian kaloi k'agathoi (e.g.
Anytus and Callicles).
`jill
marko_...@hotmail.com
An example of that reduction to the status of barbarians:
"Not to mention the Muslim sphincter ani distended by
lifelong practice of religious submission."
-- Michael Zeleny
> No one other than you obsesses over arrogating the direct
> intellectual heritage of Greek learning.
"The descent of Western culture from the Greeks and the
Jews has instilled an acute sense of inferiority in
less distinguished peoples."
-- Michael Zeleny
> Islamic societies required no Eurocentric assistance for
> disqualifying themselves from cultural participation in
> the Greek legacy of political freedom, constitutional
> democracy, and disinterested pursuit of truth.
Yeah, Greek culture was spread around the world volutarily
"to all takers" by that dedicated democrat Alexander the Great.
And a bit later on the dedication to political freedom of
the Greco-Syrian Seleucids was greatly appreciated by Jews
like Judas.
Michael Zeleny
Islam defines itself as a religion of submission. In the present
context, Aristotle's imputation of homosexual preferences (EN 1148b15)
to the remote barbarians (EN 1149a11), is borne out by the Koranic
promise of submissive slave boys like hidden pearls, attending to the
faithful (At-Tur, 52:54). Or, as Thomas Sherley described the Turks,
"For their Sodommerye they use it soe publiquely and impudentlye as an
honest Christian woulde shame to companye his wyffe as they do with
their buggeringe boys". T.E. Lawrence would understand.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,600791,00.html
> > No one other than you obsesses over arrogating the direct
> > intellectual heritage of Greek learning.
> "The descent of Western culture from the Greeks and the
> Jews has instilled an acute sense of inferiority in
> less distinguished peoples."
> -- Michael Zeleny
The key term is descent. One hears of Western values instituted by the
Greeks and the Jews, partaken at will by Ugric and Turkic peoples.
> > Islamic societies required no Eurocentric assistance for
> > disqualifying themselves from cultural participation in
> > the Greek legacy of political freedom, constitutional
> > democracy, and disinterested pursuit of truth.
> Yeah, Greek culture was spread around the world volutarily
> "to all takers" by that dedicated democrat Alexander the Great.
> And a bit later on the dedication to political freedom of
> the Greco-Syrian Seleucids was greatly appreciated by Jews
> like Judas.
Like Hellenism, Islam enjoyed its ascendance through conquest. Both
cultures bequeathed positive contributions to their vassals. Present
developments witness humanitarian values well imparted at the point of
a sword. Traditionally, Alexander is the only non-Biblical name given
by the Jews to their offspring. In the future, we may see innumerable
Moslem families naming their sons George W.
> > Unlike the Elgin marbles, these assets
> > remain open to all takers.
cordially, -- Michael Zel...@post.harvard.edu
Michael Zeleny
> > For most of the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle manfully maintains
> > that the ideally good life is the life of practical wisdom and
> > social virtues, as opposed to their theoretical variety. (See
> > e.g. EN, 1105b5-18.) Then in Book X (1177a15 ff.) Aristotle
> > falls into lisping by arguing that happiness is to be found in
> > a life of theoretical contemplation.
> This doesn't seem quite right. The bios theoretikos is on the
> agenda right from the start is a possible candidate for eudaimonia,
> at 1096a5,and Book I ends with a fairly clear statement that the
Thank you for your thoughtful contribution. I have qualified my
portrayal of Aristotle manfully maintaining that the ideally good life
is the life of practical wisdom and social virtues, as opposed to their
theoretical variety, to gloss over the ostensible counterexamples that
you bring forth. I agree that his prescription for finding happiness in
a life of theoretical contemplation is anticipated at many earlier
places. However, it remains that this conclusion stands at odds with
his identification of the pathway to justice and temperance through
doing rather than discussing them. Even his discussion of the
intellectual virtues focuses on phronesis: "it is held to be the mark
of a prudent man (φρόνιμος) to be able to deliberate well
(καλῶς βουλεύσασθαι) about what is good and
advantageous for himself, not in some one department, for instance what
is good for his health or strength, but what is advantageous as a means
to the good life in general." (EN 1140a26-28) It could be that the
social virtues are mere means towards contemplation, and so are,
somewhat like external goods, not themselves the happy life, but rather
pre-conditions for the happy life. But this cannot explain the value
that Aristotle finds in courage and magnanimity. Neither can it dismiss
the conflict between these social virtues and a life of contemplation,
let alone prescribe their application to its betterment.
> > Thus I suspect that Theophrastus' vituperative portrayal of the
> > Eiron in the Characters is meant as a corrective to the encomium
> > to Socrates to which Aristotle's account of magnanimity adds up.
> Am I misunderstanding you as saying that Aristotle's characterization
> of greatness of soul can be read as a praise of Socrates? Surely that
> can only be half-right. For example, the great-souled person is
> concerned about honors, maintains his sense of superiority, does not
> ask others for help, acts differently to those of different stations
> in life (he behaves ironically to his inferiors), likes to possess
> many beautiful but useless things, and most tellingly, is not much
> given to wonder, since nothing is great to him. Socrates, by
> contrast, although he shares a number of traits with the great-souled
> man, is perpetually given to wonder (as the beginning of philosophy),
> has no use for useless possessions (or useful ones for that matter),
> behaves ironically to everyone high or low, is completely unconcerned
> about honors in any normal manner, and is garrulous and rather
> shameless when it comes to his logoi. It seems to me that Socrates'
> way of life would offend the dignity of the great-souled person, as
> he did in fact perpetually offend the dignity of the Athenian kaloi
> k'agathoi (e.g. Anytus and Callicles).
Aristotle cites Socrates in his discussion of magnanimity in the
Posterior Analytics:
οἷον λέγω, εἰ τί ἐστι μεγαλοψυχία
ζητοῖμεν, σκεπτέον ἐπί τινων
μεγαλοψύχων, οὓς ἴσμεν, τί ἔχουσιν
ἓν πάντες ἧι τοιοῦτοι. οἷον εἰ
Ἀλκιβιάδης μεγαλόψυχος ἢ ὁ
Ἀχιλλεὺς καὶ ὁ Αἴας, τί ἓν ἅπαντες;
τὸ μὴ ἀνέχεσθαι ὑβριζόμενοι· ὁ μὲν
γὰρ ἐπολέμησεν, ὁ δ᾽ ἐμήνισεν, ὁ δ᾽
ἀπέκτεινεν ἑαυτόν. πάλιν ἐφ᾽
ἑτέρων, οἷον Λυσάνδρου ἢ Σωκράτους.
εἰ δὴ τὸ ἀδιάφοροι εἶναι
εὐτυχοῦντες καὶ ἀτυχοῦντες, ταῦτα
δύο λαβὼν σκοπῶτί τὸ αὐτὸ ἔχουσιν
ἥ τε ἀπάθεια ἡ περὶ τὰς τύχας καὶ ἡ
μὴ ὑπομονὴ ἀτιμαζομένων. εἰ δὲ
μηδέν, δύο εἴδη ἂν εἴη τῆς
μεγαλοψυχίας.
If we were inquiring what the essential nature of pride is, we should
examine instances of proud men we know of to see what, as such, they
have in common; e.g. if Alcibiades was proud, or Achilles and Ajax were
proud, we should find on inquiring what they all had in common, that it
was intolerance of insult; it was this which drove Alcibiades to war,
Achilles wrath, and Ajax to suicide. We should next examine other
cases, Lysander, for example, or Socrates, and then if these have in
common indifference alike to good and ill fortune, I take these two
results and inquire what common element have equanimity amid the
vicissitudes of life and impatience of dishonour. If they have none,
there will be two genera of pride.
-- Translated by G.R.G. Mure
http://khazarzar.skeptik.net/books/aristot/analyt2g.htm
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/a8poa/anal2.html
Our problem is suggested here in the English rendering of magnanimity
as pride. It would help to refer to a more literal account. Thus Adam
Smith explains in his delightful XVIIIth century language:
Virtue, according to Aristotle, consists in the habit of mediocrity
according to right reason. Every particular virtue, according to him,
lies in a kind of middle between two opposite vices, of which the one
offends from being too much, the other from being too little affected
by a particular species of objects. Thus the virtue of fortitude or
courage lies in the middle between the opposite vices of cowardice and
of presumptuous rashness, of which the one offends from being too much,
and the other from being too little affected by the objects of fear.
Thus too the virtue of frugality lies in a middle between avarice and
profusion, of which the one consists in an excess, the other in a
defect of the proper attention to the objects of self-interest.
Magnanimity, in the same manner, lies in a middle between the excess of
arrogance and the defect of pusillanimity, of which the one consists in
too extravagant, the other in too weak a sentiment of our own worth and
dignity.
― The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part VII: Of Systems of Moral
Philosophy, Section II: Of the Different Accounts which have been given
of the Nature of Virtue, Chapter I: Of those Systems which make Virtue
consist in Propriety
http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smMS7.html
Today, we explain the ethical doctrines of Aristotle in different
terms. Unlike his teacher Plato, Aristotle does not seek to establish a
rational foundation for ethics. Unlike Plato, he does not ground it in
the transcendent principle of the Good. Instead, he locates them in
happiness (εὐδαιμονία), understood as activity of the soul
(ψυχῆς ἐνέργειά). Aristotle speaks of three kinds of
goods, goods of the soul (τὰ τῆς ψυχῆς), goods of the body
(τὰ τοῦ σώματος), and external goods (τὰ ἐκτὸς
ἀγαθά), in a descending order of ethical significance. Honor
(τιμή) is the greatest of external goods (τὰ ἐκτὸς
ἀγαθά). For power and wealth are desirable only for the honor
they bring. As regards the highest goods, Aristotle recognizes three
states of the soul. Every such state is either an emotion
(πάθος), a capacity (δύναμις), or a disposition
(ἕξις). Of these three things, virtue (ἀρετή) is the last,
inclining its subject, accustomed by his habits, to have appropriate
feelings (NE 1105b25-26). Every ethical virtue is the mean (τὸ
μέσον), an intermediate condition between two other states, one
involving excess (ὑπερβολή), and the other deficiency
(ἔλλειψις) (NE 1106a26-b28). Aristotle distinguishes between
ethical and dianoetic virtues. Ethical virtues are concerned with
praxis, actions in the world. Dianoetic virtues are concerned with
contemplation.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Aristot.+Nic.+Eth.+1105b+1
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Aristot.+Nic.+Eth.+1106a+1
Aristotle describes greatness of soul or magnanimity
(μεγαλοψυχία), as the crowning ornament of virtues. The
magnanimous man is the mean between two imperfections: the conceited
man (χαῦνος) and the pusillanimous man (μικρόψυχος).
It is hard to be truly magnanimous, for greatness of soul is impossible
without moral nobility (καλοκαγαθία). The magnanimous man
is especially concerned with honor (τιμή) and dishonor
(ἀτιμία). Great honors accorded by persons of worth please him
in a moderate degree. He feels that he is receiving no more than his
due, for no honor can be adequate to the merits of his perfect virtue.
All the same he deigns to accept their honors, because they have no
greater tribute to offer him. He holds in contempt honors rendered by
common people and on trivial grounds. He despises dishonor, which
cannot justly attach to him. The magnanimous man observes due measure
in respect to wealth (πλοῦτοσ), power (δυναστεία),
and good (εὐτυχία) and bad fortune (ἀτυχία). He
neither rejoices overmuch in prosperity (εὐτυχῶν), nor grieves
overmuch at adversity (ἀτυχῶν), for these external goods are
inferior to honor (τιμή), which is of no great consequence to him.
Hence magnanimous men are thought to be haughty (ὑπερόπτης).
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Aristot.+Nic.+Eth.+1124a+1
Although men of noble birth (εὐγενεῖς), the powerful
(δυναστεύοντες), or the wealthy (πλουτοῦντες)
are often esteemed worthy of honor and may be haughty
(ὑπερόπται) and insolent (ὑβρισταί), in reality
only the good man ought to be so honored and only the good man may be
justified in so acting, since true worth and greatness of soul cannot
exist without complete virtue. The magnanimous man is justified in
despising other people, because his estimates are correct; but most
proud men have no good ground for their pride.
The magnanimous man is not one to run into danger for trifling reasons
(μικροκίνδυνος), and is not a lover of danger
(φιλοκίνδυνος), because there are few things he values;
but he will face danger in a great cause, and when so doing will be
ready to sacrifice his life, since he holds that life is not worth
having at every price. He is fond of conferring benefits, and quick to
help others. But he is ashamed to receive benefits, and reluctant to
ask others for help. For the former is a mark of superiority and the
latter of inferiority. He returns a service done to him with interest
(ἀντευεργετικὸς πλειόνων) in order to put the
original benefactor into his debt in turn, making him the party
benefited. He is haughty towards men of position and fortune, but
courteous towards those of moderate station, because it is difficult
and distinguished to be superior to the great, but easy and vulgar to
outdo the lowly. The magnanimous man does not compete for the common
objects of ambition. He is idle and slow to act, except when pursuing
some high honor or achievement. He is open both in love
(φανερόφιλος) and in hate (φανερομισής), since
concealment shows timidity. He cares more for the truth
(ἀλήθεια) than for what people will think (δόξᾰ). He
speaks and acts openly (πράττειν φανερῶς
̔παρρησιαστὴς). Because he despises
(καταφρονητικός) other men he is outspoken and frank
(ἀληθευτικός), except when speaking with ironical
self-depreciation (εἰρωνεία), as he does to common people. He
is incapable of living at the will of another, unless a friend, since
to do so is slavish. The magnanimous man is incapable of flattery and
disinclined towards humility, for a flatterer (κόλαξ) is always
servile (θητικός), and a humble man (ταπεινός) a
flatterer. The magnanimous man is not prone to admiration
(θαυμαστικός), since nothing is great to him. He is not one
to bear a grudge (μνησίκακος), nor to recall things against
people (ἀπομνημονεύειν), especially the wrongs they
have done him, but would rather overlook them. He is not one given to
speaking evil (κακολόγος), even of his enemy
(ἐχθρός), except when he deliberately intends to give offense
(ὕβρις). In troubles that cannot be avoided or trifling mishaps
he will never cry out or ask for help, since to do so would imply that
he took them to heart. He likes to own beautiful and useless things,
rather than useful things that bring in a return, since the former show
his independence more. (NE 1123a29-1124b23)
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Aristot.+Nic.+Eth.+1123a+1
As regards the application to Socrates, the magnanimous man values
honor only inasmuch as he values its inferiors among the external
goods. Which is to say that even honor is of no great consequence to
him. Socrates has little trouble in maintaining his sense of
superiority whilst admonishing Callicles for his neglect of geometry.
He does not ask others for help, refusing Lysias' offer to ghostwrite
his apology. He behaves ironically to his inferiors, which by the
Delphic prophesy comprise the rest of mankind. It remains that at
Theaetetus 155d Socrates identifies the condition of wondering or the
state of astonishment, θαυμάζω, as the wellspring of all
philosophy, whereas Aristotle deswcribes the magnanimous man as not one
prone to admiration (θαυμαστικός), since nothing is great
to him (οὐδὲν γὰρ μέγα αὐτῷ ἐστίν).
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plat.+Theaet.+155d
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Aristot.+Nic.+Eth.+1125a+1
This conflict is readily resolved. The astounding predicament whereinto
Socrates guides young Theaetetus requires him to come to terms with one
among the countless myriads of contradictions implicit in his own
thought. The result is an acute feeling of dizziness or vertigo,
σκοτοδινιάω, caused by conclusions equally unavoidable and
unacceptable, leading our inquiry into the quandary of ἀπορία.
While implying the lack of πόρος or passage, Theaetetus' mental
cul-de-sac is undistinguished between a superficial affront to
intuition and an insuperable contradiction. Likewise for Aristotle:
It is through wonder (θαυμάζω) that men now begin and
originally began to philosophize; wondering in the first place at
obvious perplexities, and then by gradual progression raising questions
about the greater matters too, e.g. about the changes of the moon and
of the sun, about the stars and about the origin of the universe. Now
he who wonders and is perplexed feels that he is ignorant (thus the
myth-lover (φιλόμυθος) is in a sense a philosopher
(φιλόσοφος), since myths are composed of wonders); therefore
if it was to escape ignorance (ἄγνοια) that men studied
philosophy, it is obvious that they pursued science for the sake of
knowledge, and not for any practical utility.
-- Metaphysics I, 982b, translated by Hugh Tredennick
Resolving the perplexity whence philosophy has its beginnings and
wherein it derives its ongoing sustenance, depends on distinguishing
between a paradox, an affront against unschooled intuition, and an
antinomy, an outright contradiction, an offense against the laws of
reason. The term ἀπορία (literally, "no way", or "cul-de-sac"),
derived from πόρος (passage), already occurs in the writings of
Democritus. Plato relates it to dialectic. The aporetic situation
arises as an intermediate consequence of elenchus, the Socratic method
of eliciting truth by means of brief questions and answers. One
characteristic instance witnesses Socrates eliciting doubts from his
interlocutors by being more in doubt than anyone else. (Meno 80c)
According to Aristotle, an aporia results when a gratuitously clever
sophistic argument from received premisses (ἔνδοξα,
Topics.100b21, EN1145b5, Rh.1355a17), leads to an impasse, wherein "the
mind is fettered, being unwilling to stand still because it cannot
approve the conclusion reached, yet unable to go forward because it
cannot untie the knot of the argument." (NE 1146a24) It is defined as a
condition of perplexity, which obtains "when we reflect on both sides
of the question and find everything alike to be in keeping with either
course that we are perplexed which of the two we are to do". (Topics
145b 17–20) However, the diaporematic method can also be used in the
task of attaining knowledge, as is declared in the beginning of the
book B of Metaphysics:
We must, with a view to the science which we are seeking, first recount
the subject that should be first discussed. These include both the
other opinions that some have held on certain points, and any points
beside these that happen to have been overlooked. For those who wish to
get clear of difficulties it is advantageous to state the difficulties
well; for the subsequent free play of thought implies the solution of
the previous difficulties, and it is not possible to untie a knot which
one does not know. But the difficulty (ἀπορία) of our thinking
points to a knot in the object; for in so far as our thought is in
difficulties, it is in like case with those who are tied up; for in
either case it is impossible to go forward.
--Metaphysics III, 995a 24-34, translated by Hugh Tredennick
Accordingly, Aristotle sets the goal of the diaporematic method as
liberating man from the bondage of his perplexity.
The Socratic sentiment of thaumaston, variously rendered into English
as astonishment, wondering, or marvel, and into French as étonnement
or le merveilleux, is thus identified the wellspring if all philosophy.
Likewise, the process of discovering the marvelous through recognition
(ἀναγνώρισις) plays a central part in the Aristotelian
poetics, where it is intimately associated with the sentiments of pity
and fear. But in saying that the magnanimous man is not prone to
admiration, since nothing is great to him, Aristotle does not appear to
foreclose his engagement with poetry and philosophy. On the contrary,
his explanation appears to refer to the foregoing disclaimer of
interest in external goods, including honor as the greatest among them.
He offers no reason for the magnanimous man to shun the goods of the
body, let alone the goods of the soul. Our evidence of Socrates
certainly agrees with this account.
As you rightly observe, Socrates is garrulous and rather shameless when
it comes to his logoi. His behavior is readily understood in connection
with a different follower, described as Socrates gone mad
(μαινόμενος). (Diogenes Laertius, Vitae Philosophorum,
VI.54) When Diogenes of Sinope arrived as an exile in Athens, he tried
to arrange for a cottage to live in. When the cottage failed to
materialize, Diogenes improvised the idea of living in a πίθος, a
large wine jar, in the manner of a dog. (D.L. VI.23) He fell under the
sway of Socrates and his eccentric (ἄτοπος) indifference to the
needs of the body, witnessed in his refusal to have sex with
Alcibiades, despite that young man’s great beauty. Diogenes preached
a doctrine that happiness comes from self-sufficiency
(αὐταρκεσία), and since it is easier to be self sufficient
by training oneself to limit one’s wants rather than by increasing
one’s wealth, Diogenes opted for the simplest life. His previously
mentioned flouting of modesty led Plato to call him the Dog
(κύων). Dogs are the symbol of shamelessness (ἀναίδεια).
>From this nickname Diogenes and his followers earned the title of
Cynics (D.L. VI.40). In fact, Diogenes followed the Socratic example by
making frequent appeals to shame (αἰδώς) in reproaching various
miscreants. (D.L. VI.65) His rejection of modesty was calculated to
offend manners without transgressing against morals. He observed that
things of great value (τὰ πολλοῦ ἄξια) were often sold
for nothing (τοῦ μηδενὸς ἔλεγε
πιπράσκεσθαι), and vice versa (καὶ ἔμπαλιν).
Accordingly, a statue would fetch three thousand drachmas, and a bushel
of meal only two obols. (D.L. VI.35)
I am not sure what to do with the magnanimous man liking to possess
many beautiful but useless things, given that Socrates anticipates
Diogenes in having no use for possessions regardless of their beauty or
utility. But neither do I regard this departure as fatal to Aristotle's
presentation of Socrates as an exemplar of magnanimity.
Doubtless, Socrates' way of life perpetually offended the dignity of
the Athenian kaloi k'agathoi such as Anytus and Callicles. But as
Aristotle points out, most proud men have no good ground for their
pride. In describing Socrates as indifferent to good and bad fortune,
he smartly distinguishes him from Anytus the politician and Callicles
the sophist. I reckon that such dsistinctions, supported by the
foregoing qualifications, would suffice to sustain his induction among
the spiriti magni it that epitome of mediaeval Aristotelianism that is
Dante's Divine Comedy. (Inferno, Canto IV, 119ff.)
http://dante.ilt.columbia.edu/new/comedy/comedy_hc/dante_mandelbaum/inf04.html
Thomas Bushnell, BSG
> The principle of sufficient reason implies that every event takes place
> of necessity.
No it does not. It implies that for every event, there is a reason.
That is not the same thing as implying necessity.
Thomas Bushnell, BSG
> Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
>> "Michael Zeleny" <larv...@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> > Aristotelianism is an infantile affliction of science. The moment
>> > you realize that sensory experience cannot suffice to determine
>> > theoretical understanding, you return to Plato.
>
>> It's not clear that these are the only two options on the table.
>> Aristotle was perfectly convinced of the need to do more than
>> consult and catalogue sense experience, though he was only at
>> the very beginning steps of making that program a success. It
>> is very easy to see Ptolemaic astronomy--a great success--as a
>> clear working out of the Aristotelian program, and very hard for
>> me to see it as any kind of Platonism.
>
> Follow through your example. Kepler forsook Copernican epicycles in
> favor of conic sections for exemplary Pythagorean reasons.
But Kepler was wrong. I see no evidence here that a Platonic view
works.
> I see no conflict between your example and my prognosis. Mathematical
> understanding of biology remains in its infancy. As to philosophy of
> science outside of the footsteps of Plato and Aristotle, my reading of
> its history and outlook for its prospects agrees with Whitehead. Still,
> in its appetite for novelty, the world awaits your groundbreaking
> contribution.
Huh? My example is that Aristotle achieved real success at biology,
while Plato achieved none. As for your last sentence, the ad hominem
is pointless. Whether I have achieved a groundbreaking contribution
to science or not does not have any bearing on whether Platonic
science is any hope.
Thomas
Michael Zeleny
> "Michael Zeleny" <larv...@gmail.com> writes:
> > Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> > > "Michael Zeleny" <larv...@gmail.com> writes:
> > > > Aristotelianism is an infantile affliction of science. The
> > > > moment you realize that sensory experience cannot suffice to
> > > > determine theoretical understanding, you return to Plato.
> > > It's not clear that these are the only two options on the table.
> > > Aristotle was perfectly convinced of the need to do more than
> > > consult and catalogue sense experience, though he was only at
> > > the very beginning steps of making that program a success. It
> > > is very easy to see Ptolemaic astronomy--a great success--as a
> > > clear working out of the Aristotelian program, and very hard for
> > > me to see it as any kind of Platonism.
> > Follow through your example. Kepler forsook Copernican epicycles in
> > favor of conic sections for exemplary Pythagorean reasons.
> But Kepler was wrong. I see no evidence here that a Platonic view
> works.
Please cite a Newtonian counterexample to Kepler's laws of planetary
motion.
> > I see no conflict between your example and my prognosis.
> > Mathematical understanding of biology remains in its infancy.
> > As to philosophy of science outside of the footsteps of Plato
> > and Aristotle, my reading of its history and outlook for its
> > prospects agrees with Whitehead. Still, in its appetite for
> > novelty, the world awaits your groundbreaking contribution.
> Huh? My example is that Aristotle achieved real success at biology,
> while Plato achieved none. As for your last sentence, the ad hominem
> is pointless. Whether I have achieved a groundbreaking contribution
> to science or not does not have any bearing on whether Platonic
> science is any hope.
By the same token, Plato achieved no success at proctology. It would
help to judge human accomplishment by in the light of its aims. Plato
explains mathematics, whereas Aristotelian universalia in rebus fail to
do so. As for what you take for an ad hominem, it is no such thing. The
problem of universals yields an approximate breakdown of philosophies
of science into Platonic and Aristotelian. I am eager to consider your
innovative position outside of this taxonomy.
Michael Zeleny
The principle of sufficient reason states that for every event, there
is a reason. In virtue of this content, it implies that every event
takes place of necessity. It helps to bear in mind that the nature of
implication involves logical axioms and rules of derivation.
In any discussion of Aristotle's views of modality, it helps to ask
whether any contingent truths exist in the first place. Spinoza's
argument to the contrary is well known, as are several refutations of
contingency from the principle of sufficient reason.
Herewith a Spinozean deduction of necessitarianism, due to Jonathan
Bennett. Suppose that we are working towards a refutation of Cartesian
claims that the exercise of free will consists of voluntarily choosing
between several options underdetermined by their antecedent efficient
causes. It follows that any agent can exercise at most continuum many
such choices in the linearly ordered temporal manifold. Assuming that
there are at most denumerably many such agents, it follows that there
could be at most continuum many contingent truths, everything else
obtaining of physical necessity. Let P be the conjunctive proposition
stating the entire contingent truth about the actual world, in respect
to past, present, and future alike. By the foregoing analysis, P exists
as a set. (Propositions are like numbers and unlike pink elephants, in
that their possibility suffices for their existence.) By the principle
of sufficient reason, whatever is the case, can be explained. Suppose
that P is the case because Q is the case. If the explicans Q itself is
contingent, it must be properly contained in the explicandum P, for it
would participate therein as a conjunct from the hypothesis. Whence the
conjunct Q cannot explain the conjunction P in its entirety. On the
other hand, if the explicans Q is necessary, it cannot cogently explain
any contingent proposition such as P. Therefore, if the principle of
sufficient reason is true, there are no contingent truths. Corollary:
God and man alike lack free will.
Along these lines, pretty much everybody working in the continental
tradition of mathematical physics, from Euler to Lagrange and onwards,
took the laws of physics to obtain of the same degree of necessity as
the laws of mathematics or logic. Their position was made plausible by
deriving classical mechanics from extremal principles that have an a
priori flavor.
We might try to get out of this fatalistic predicament by rejecting the
assumption of linear time. The natural model for free choice is forward
branching time. However this alternative leads to a picture of agents
splitting into different timelines on each occasion of their choosing
between genuine physical alternatives. Hence at the end of their days,
each of their alter ego counterparts would invite his individual why-
question, with the ensuing conjunction militating as before against
the compatibility of alternative possibilities with the principle of
sufficient reason. Something else along these lines might enable
rational libertarianism, e.g. as per Storrs McCall's A Model of the
Universe.
Michael S. Morris
Monday, the 25th of April, 2005
Thomas Bushnell:
But Kepler was wrong. I see no evidence here that a Platonic view
works.
Mikhail:
Please cite a Newtonian counterexample to Kepler's laws of planetary
motion.
(Raises hand.) The *Newtonian* derivation of the third law
shows that tau^2=4*pi^2*a^3/(G*(M+m)) (this is off the top of my head,
but I just this derivation in class about a month ago, and
the units are correct, so I think it's right), where I think
the meaning of the algebraic symbols will be obvious.
Nobody talks about this (no "paradigm shift" or "scientific
revolution" nonsense), but this *is* in contradiction to
Kepler. Kepler said that the constant of proportionality
was the same for all planets. The Newtonian theory shows
that the constant is not the same for all planets, but
that it depends upon the mass of the sun plus the mass of
the planet in question. In the case of Jupiter, this makes a
correction to Kepler of 1 part in 1000.
Of course, it is also the case that the gravitational attraction
from the other planets plus the solar wind, plus tidal friction,
all are "Newtonian" perturbative effects that alter the Keplerian
story. Moreover, there are Einsteinian effects as well, which
need to be added in, if we want to get the planetary orbits
predictively correct to as accurate as we can get at present
(I remember being told that the folks at JPL navigate spacecraft
utilizing the "Parameterized Post-Newtonian Approximation" to GR
and carry terms to something like order 2.5).
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Michael Zeleny
> "Ed Cryer" <e...@somewhere.in.the.UK> writes:
> > Beware of the Christian Church! Enemies of learning! I won't tell
> > you about Gallileo. Bertold Brecht did that well enough.
> Beware of over-generalization! Enemy of thought! I won't tell you
> about Gallileo [sic]. Cardinal Bellarmine did that well enough:
>
> Third, I say that if there were a true demonstration that the
> sun is at the center of the world and the earth in the third
> heaven, and that the sun does not circle the earth but the
> earth circles the sun, then one would have to proceed with
> great care in explaining the Scriptures that appear contrary,
> and say rather that we do not understand them than that what
> is demonstrated is false. But I will not believe that there
> is such a demonstration, until it is shown me. Nor is it the
> same to demonstrate that by supposing the sun to be at the
> center and the earth in heaven one can save the appearances
> [better than with eccentrics and epicycles], and to demonstrate
> that in truth the sun is at the center and the earth in heaven;
> for I believe the first demonstration may be available, but I
> have very great doubts about the second, and in case of doubt
> one must not abandon the Holy Scripture as interpreted by the
> Holy Fathers.
Bellarmine is propping up his orthodox benefit of the doubt with the
stake to the like of which he had consigned Giordano Bruno fourteen
years earlier. Following the example of yonder Athenian sycophants
refuting Socrates with a cup of hemlock, his elegant deconstruction
of Galileo's confirmation of Copernicus differs not a whit from an
authoritarian ad hominem gesture of our last engagement.
Thomas Bushnell, BSG
>> > Follow through your example. Kepler forsook Copernican epicycles in
>> > favor of conic sections for exemplary Pythagorean reasons.
>
>> But Kepler was wrong. I see no evidence here that a Platonic view
>> works.
>
> Please cite a Newtonian counterexample to Kepler's laws of planetary
> motion.
Keeping in mind that Newton was wrong also (when I say "Kepler was
wrong", it's not fair to insist that I produce a *Newtonian*
counterexample--some of the ways Kepler was wrong are ways that Newton
was wrong too).
Kepler predicted no influence of the planets on each other, but there
is in fact a measurable effect. (Indeed, careful measurement of that
effect on the orbit of Uranus led to the discovery of the planet
Neptune.)
Kepler's laws also do not account for tidal effects; Newton's laws do
not treat extended bodies the same as point masses because of these
effects; as a result, Newton's laws predict that a spherical planet
orbiting a spherical sun will not have a constant elliptical orbit,
but the orbit and the planet's rotation will (very slowly) change
until the planet and the sun are tidally locked (as the moon is with
respect to the earth).
> By the same token, Plato achieved no success at proctology. It would
> help to judge human accomplishment by in the light of its aims. Plato
> explains mathematics, whereas Aristotelian universalia in rebus fail to
> do so.
Plato "explains" mathematics? Where?
> As for what you take for an ad hominem, it is no such thing. The
> problem of universals yields an approximate breakdown of philosophies
> of science into Platonic and Aristotelian. I am eager to consider your
> innovative position outside of this taxonomy.
Ah, you dodge the point by talking about "approximate". I'm happy to
say that if the only possiblities are Platonic and Aristotelian, then
modern science is far more Aristotelian than Platonic. But I don't
think such a taxonomy is useful.
Thomas
Arindam Banerjee
> "to all takers" by that dedicated democrat Alexander the Great.
Alexander is not mentioned in any ancient Indian text, yet the date of
his invasion 326 BC is important, as it gives some kind of reference.
Seems to me, he was soundly thrashed by Porus and his war elephants,
who then treated him very kindly, as per normal Indian fashion.
However, he was still a threat, so he had to
a) break up his armies, and send half of them back
b) give up his conquests to Porus
c) personally return by a very hot and difficult route where he was
wounded by the Malloi (a ne'er do well boat people - Phoolan Devi's
ancestor probably wounded the great Alex)
d) certainly give up all hopes of conquering India! (After Ghori, it
was left to Napoleon to try to do an Alexander successfully, but he
failed to get across Russia.)
However, his defeat and humiliation was made out to be a success by
the same sort of WMD-pushing liar types, who seemed to abound in the
Western world then as of course now. This successful propaganda has
lasted down the ages, but for Eastern minds at least it needs to be
discarded, for a better perspective of their existences.
Greek culture in India did come across as Gandhara art. The Greeks
associated with Alexander and later commanders became Buddhist, and
made statues of the Buddha with the Grecian touch.
Gautham
jill kopis
> Donald Davidson is said to have claimed that the only successful
> analysis in the history of philosophy was Socrates' definition of mud
> as water mixed with dirt.
γη̂ ὑγρῳ̂ φυραθει̂σα πηλος ἀν εἰη
is a pretty succinct account when you come right down to it. Curiosity
drove me to check the OED, which has
Mud.n. 1. a. Soft, moist, glutinous material resulting from the mixing
of water with soil, sand, dust, or other earthy matter; mire, sludge.
Socrates version is superior insofar as his 'water' can mean any
liquid, his 'earth' can mean all the sorts above, and finally, his
'mixed' has a rather specific sense of actively admixing something dry
with something wet by means of kneading or working. (The Faith of Every
Freshman: if only Socrates had had a good dictionary, he wouldn't have
had to spend so much time in aporia...)
I think the mud example is important because Theaetetus' best and final
failure to say what ἐπιστημη is, την μετα λογου
ἀληθη̂ δοξαν, fails precisely because he is unable to put
"opining truly" together with a logos in any way other than in a merely
additive, i.e. mathematical, way. Not that surprising, given that
Theaetetus is a mathematician and that the answer to the basic question
of the dialogue is "no."
ἐπιστημη, it appears, may also be a twofold thing, but not in
such a fashion that it could brought into being by a simple additive
process, as one could e.g. first get earth and then get water and later
mix them to get mud. That is, we should not write
ἐπιστημη = την ἀληθη̂ δοξαν + λογος
`jill
Michael Zeleny
> "Michael Zeleny" <larv...@gmail.com> writes:
> > > > Follow through your example. Kepler forsook Copernican
> > > > epicycles in favor of conic sections for exemplary
> > > > Pythagorean reasons.
> > > But Kepler was wrong. I see no evidence here that a Platonic
> > > view works.
> > Please cite a Newtonian counterexample to Kepler's laws of
> > planetary motion.
> Keeping in mind that Newton was wrong also (when I say "Kepler
> was wrong", it's not fair to insist that I produce a *Newtonian*
> counterexample--some of the ways Kepler was wrong are ways that
> Newton was wrong too).
>
> Kepler predicted no influence of the planets on each other,
> but there is in fact a measurable effect. (Indeed, careful
> measurement of that effect on the orbit of Uranus led to the
> discovery of the planet Neptune.)
>
> Kepler's laws also do not account for tidal effects; Newton's
> laws do not treat extended bodies the same as point masses
> because of these effects; as a result, Newton's laws predict
> that a spherical planet orbiting a spherical sun will not have
> a constant elliptical orbit, but the orbit and the planet's
> rotation will (very slowly) change until the planet and the sun
> are tidally locked (as the moon is with respect to the earth).
Accusing Kepler and Newton of error depends on overlooking the fact
that Kepler's laws are a limit case of Newtonian mechanics with the
planetary mass negligibly small in comparison to the solar mass, just
as Newtonian mechanics is a limit case of General Relativity with weak
gravitational fields and at low speeds. The observable discrepancies
between Newton and Kepler were negligible for predictive accuracy
through the early XIXth century; those between Einstein and Newton,
through the early XXth.
> > By the same token, Plato achieved no success at proctology. It
> > would help to judge human accomplishment by in the light of its
> > aims. Plato explains mathematics, whereas Aristotelian universalia
> > in rebus fail to do so.
> Plato "explains" mathematics? Where?
In the Academy, to be sure. See Fowler's book on the same and
Kretzmann's history of late mediaeval philosophy. Sorry to be glib, but
going off topic is not in the cards.
> > As for what you take for an ad hominem, it is no such thing.
> > The problem of universals yields an approximate breakdown of
> > philosophies of science into Platonic and Aristotelian. I am
> > eager to consider your innovative position outside of this
> > taxonomy.
> Ah, you dodge the point by talking about "approximate". I'm happy
> to say that if the only possiblities are Platonic and Aristotelian,
> then modern science is far more Aristotelian than Platonic. But
> I don't think such a taxonomy is useful.
I have no reason to question your notions of utility. But if you are
concerned about dodging the Platonic point, look into the account of
the variational principles of classical mechanics by Cornelius
Lanzcos.
Michael Zeleny
Thank you. It follows that Newton agrees with Kepler whenever M >> m.
Conversely, their most significant disagreement is in dispensing with
the dilemma of geocentric versus heliocentric systems, and the reasons
therefor.
marko_...@hotmail.com
but it seems clear to me that Alexander the Great beat Porus.
I'll just note I've recently bought two new books on
Alexander. ALEXANDER THE GREAT by Nick McCarty - not a
very serious book, more one I bought for the colour
photographs. McCarty writes for television. But I was
struck by the absolutely magnificent green marble
"sarcophagus of Alexander the Great" which is now in
a museum in Turkey. It is highly ornate and the sides are covered with
battle scenes between Macedonians and Persians. Was this really
Alexander's coffin or some later imitation?
The scenes are also reproduced on the cover of the paperback edition of
Donald Kagan's THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR. McCarty
also notes that Porus was hardly seven feet tall as some
claim but more likely 6 foot 3 inches tall as some others say.
Still a big man and much taller than Alexander. The other book is by a
soldier, ALEXANDER KILLER OF MEN by David Lonsdale,
and gives a highly expert analysis of the great battles, Granicus,
Issus, Gaugamela and others, and is reminiscent
of the classic book by the old tank warfare strategist
J F C Fuller, THE GENERALSHIP OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT (and Lonsdale in
fact refers to Fuller several times in his book).
Fuller remind me that I recently read parts of Achtung-Panzer
by Heinz Guderian, a book that changed the course of history
as it taught the Germans how to break out of the positional
warfare of the First World War through the use of tanks.
Suprisingly, it was only translated into English a few years
ago, and Guderian was known only for his memoirs. Another
surprise was the word "blitzkrieg" was coined by an
American journalist in Time magazine and only picked up
the German army afterwards!
Michael Zeleny
The one time I had dinner at Patina, I was amused to see Alsacian wines
listed in the German section. Joachim and Christine Splichal are still
backing Hitler. Propping up Porus' sorry arse against Alexander might
be seen as a more benign kind of fuckwittery.