Why Xenophanes?

Forgive me for pressing the point, but why is Xenophanes important?

An odd question for a blog, perhaps, but relevant to professors who actually teach Xenophanes. Why teach him? Why include him as a philosopher? Why is he interesting?

The problem is illustrated well by Hussey, who seems to contradict himself on this matter. Moreover, in chapter 2 (p. 14) he promises to say more about Xenophanes, whereas in chapter 3 (p. 33) he refers back to the preceding chapter, a nearly empty circle.

The seeming contradiction is this:

..whether or not any inspiration came from these quarter, Xenophanes' theology is still something quite new. ...He relies on entirely on certain general principles--certain conceptions of what it is reasonable or fitting that a god should be....This way of thinking, it must be repeated, was something quite new. For the first time, a conscious and deliberate attempt had been made to set up a standard of what was and was not 'reasonable' or 'fitting' in theology. Everything was to be judged in terms of this standard alone, and the authority of tradition, or of a general consensus, or of a great teacher, was to count for nothing (p. 14, my emphasis).

Xenophanes, a poet and a professional reciter of poetry who wandered about the Greek world, was not an original or systematic thinker (p. 33, my emphasis).

The circle involves this reference forward (coming after the just quoted lines):

Xenophanes will be considered again in the next chapter. He has been introduced here, out of turn, because it is by working back from his fragments that one may best hope to understand the intellectual atmosphere of the earliest Presocratics, the thinkers of sixth-century Miletus (p. 14).

Followed by this fulfillment of the promise:

Xenophanes, a poet and a professional reciter of poetry who wandered about the Greek world, was not an original or systematic thinker. There is nothing to suggest that he tried to improve the Milesian framework where it seemed in danger of inconsistency. His own views were in certain crucial places vague and incoherent, if we may trust Aristotle, and in one fragment (fr. 34) he takes refuge in the thought that, after all, no man can know anything for certain. Still, Xenophanes is illuminating: he casts light, as has been seen, on the Milesians, and his difficulties and deficiencies cast light on the situation as it presented itself to the other Ionian thinker of this period, Heracleitus of Ephesus (p. 14).

That's all on Xenophanes' importance in Hussey, about 30 lines of text, less than a full page.

KRS are equally uninformative on this point. They say that "Widely different views have been held on the intellectual importance of Xenophanes," but then they quote a difference in the extent, not the nature, of his importance, with Jaeger saying that he was enormously influential in theology, and Burnet saying that Xenophanes would have been amused to find that he had become regarded as a 'theologian'. "He was a critic, primarily," KRS add, "with an original and often idiosyncratic approach...His opinions on almost all subjects deserve careful attention" (168).

Okay, but why?

You Can't Get There from Here

Quine said on a variety of occasions (I heard him say it once myself) that he always regretted that he hadn't studied more medieval philosophy of logic. Perhaps it was his friendship with Geach which had led him to think this.

This seems to be a true counterfactual: He wouldn't have been helped in this regard by the new Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic--at least if the review in NDPR is accurate (see it here). According to the reviewer, J.C. Beall, the history covered by the handbook begins with Mill and Kant, entirely neglecting ancient and medieval logic. Here is Beall's summary:

Section One: Historical Background

Lisa Shabel. 'Apriority and Application: Philosophy of Mathematics in the Modern Period'. This essay discusses Kant's relevant views, and the views of his predecessors.

John Skorupski. 'Later Empiricism and Logical Positivism'. This essay lays out the influence of later empiricism on the target fields, and discusses the impact and ideas of John Stuart Mill and the logical positivists.

Juliet Floyd. 'Wittgenstein on Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics'. Like the other chapters in this section and their target figures, Floyd's essay nicely sketches the content and history of Wittgenstein's thought, as well as the ongoing impact that surfaces in different interpretations -- for example, inconsistency approaches to truth, and so on.

What explains the omission of about 2200 years of philosophy of logic? Not having the book, I can only conjecture. Perhaps the editor thinks that ancient and medieval logic have already been covered elsewhere. True, but then the philosophy of recent mathematics and logic, too, have been covered elsewhere. Isn't the point of a handbook to have it all in one source? Or maybe the Handbook takes itself to cover only 'mathematical logic' and its philosophy. Fine: but then the book misses entirely the question of the 'two logics', surely an important part of the philosophy of logic .

Beall writes:

If I were introducing someone to 'core, analytic philosophy', I would send them to the philosophy of mathematics and logic -- or, at least, I would like to, if a suitably accessible guide were available. As it turns out, there is now such a guide: Shapiro's Handbook does the trick.

Good enough, but then call it the Handbook of Analytic Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics. One must concede, of course, that the analytic movement is most important in this area. But if only that contribution is to be covered, make that condition explicit.

Evidence of Body?

Does the following fragment imply that, for Xenophanes, the deity has a body or not?

170 One god, greatest among gods and men, in no way similar to mortals either in body or in thought.

ei}=j qeo/j, e)/n te qeoi=si kai\ a)nqrw/poisi me/gistoj,
ou)/ti de/maj qnhtoi=sin o(moi/oj ou)de\ no/hma.

KRS say that it does: "The one god is unlike men in body and thought--it has, therefore (and also in view of 172), a body; but it is motionless, for the interesting reason that it is 'not fitting' for it to move around."

The other fragments that KRS are referring to are these:

171 Always he remains in the same place, moving not at all; nor is it fitting for him to go to different places at different times, but without toil he shakes all things by the thought of his mind.

ai)ei\ d' e)n tau)tw=| mi/mnei kinou/menoj ou)de/n
ou)de\ mete/rxesqai/ min e)pipre/pei a)/llote a)/llh|,
a)ll' a)pa/neuqe po/noio no/ou freni\ pa/nta kradai/nei.

172 All of him sees, all thinks, all hears.

ou(=loj o(ra=|, ou(=loj de\ noei=, ou(=loj de/ t' a)kou/ei.

But here's a problem about 170. It seems to contain at the start a contradiction: there is only one God, it says, but there are also many gods.

Commentators handle this by saying that the phrase "among gods and men" is used by Xenophanes poetically, as a 'polar opposition'. That is, he picks out extremes in order to pick out an entire dimension, of which these are extremes. Thus, "among gods and men" means, formulaically, something like "in the universe" or "in the realm of life".

Very well. But then why should we interpret "either in body or in thought" any differently? Why isn't that phrase, too, an example of 'polar opposition'? (It's possibly even a better candidate for it.) In that case it means something like "in nature", and all that Xenophanes would be saying in the fragment, in a poetical way, is that the deity is one, and that the deity is very much unlike us (and the gods also, as these are usually understood).

I don't see that the one opposition can be interpreted so lightly and the other so demandingly, as the KRS interpretation requires.

One might add that it's not clear that 'mortals' (qnhtoi=sin) means 'men'. If it means 'mortal creatures' generally (as seems preferable, because then the new contrast does not overlap with the preceding one) it would be even clearer that the fragment is merely emphasizing the distinctness of the deity from other things.

Moreover,172 cannot have the implication KRS claim. Presumably their line of reasoning is: seeing and hearing require sense organs, which implies a body. Yet in the fragment Xenophanes puts seeing, hearing, and thinking all on the same level, and that line of reasoning wouldn't evidently work for thinking. Also, surely Xenophanes denies that the deity has human or animal-like sense organs. But if so, then all bets are off: why suppose that he believes that these require a sense organ at all? (Maybe he does, after all, but you can't get that from 172.)

As for 171, doesn't that imply, rather, that the deity does not have a body? As KRS themselves point out, if the deity had a body, it would be the 'stuff' of the entire universe, and yet that is rotating. And if he had wanted, perhaps, to claim (strangely) that, although the universe was rotating, its 'stuff' (the divinity within) was not, it would be odd to express this as he does, by saying that it would be unseemly for the divinity to travel from place to place (a phrase which is clearly meant to evoke the wanderings on earth of Homeric deities).

If You Have to Explain a Joke...

Courtesy of a friend:

Q: Why is one side of a flying "V" of geese always longer than the other?
A: Because there are more geese on that side.

To some, it's obvious why this is funny. If not, here's an explanation: According to Aristotle, our natural tendency is to look for the cause. When we see that something exists, we inquire into its cause. Now apply this to the joke. Presumably, anyone hearing the joke would have experience of the phenomenon, but it's very unlikely that the reason would be known. So when the question is posed, the hearer naturally awaits the reason. This sets up the laughably unsatisfying answer.

According to Aristotle, there are four causes in nature: the formal, material, agent, and final. Take for example a sculptor sculpting: the causes of the statue would be the idea the sculptor intends (formal cause), the marble block (material cause), the sculptor himself (efficient cause), and the finished product(final cause). In this case the equivalent of the joke would be to explain the finished statue by saying that the marble is in the cause of the statue, without even a reference to the sculptor. But that clearly doesn't say why there statue is there, or how, only what it is.

And then Milesian philosophy becomes a handbook of humor, e.g.:

Q. What is the reason for the universe?
A. Water.

Very funny.

And yet I think that my friend analyzes the joke incorrectly. We laugh because we see that it must be the case that, in a V formation, one side is longer than another: even in a balanced V, the side that includes the lead goose is longer than the other. That is--if we must use Aristotelian language here--we take the question to be looking for an 'efficient' or 'final' cause, and an obvious 'formal' cause is given instead.

Golden Doodle Doo

No, it's not the cry of the coq d'or, but rather what I must be careful to avoid, now that we have yet another addition to the household, namely, a 5 month old puppy dog, which is a cross between a golden retriever and a poodle--hence the name, 'golden doodle'.

Now, can you guess why we got a dog? It has to do with our pig. (Answer: storgh/ now has another object.)

They called her 'Cindy Lou' at the store, which is a stupid name. We're all at odds over what new name to use in its place. Current favorites: Dixie, Lu (for 'Lucia'), Sandy, and Ginger.

Does Xenophanes Attack 'Anthropomorphism'?

It's one of the few things having to do with Will Durant that I actually like. Google 'define: anthropomorphism', and one finds, at willdurant.com, "the interpretation of God in the likeness of man", which is very nice.

That seems to me exactly the sense that is meant when commentators say, as they do, that one of Xenophanes' great contributions was his critique of 'anthropomorphism.' To wit, McKirahan:

Like the Milesians, Xenophanes does not question the presence of the divine in the universe, only the way it was conceived. His attacks imply that god is not immaterial or responsible for evil, is not anthropomorphic, is eternal, self-sufficient, independent and master of everything, and unmoving (62).

In keeping with the Milesian conception of the divine, god is demythologized and impersonal, but not isolated from the universe, of which he is fully aware (though not through human sense organs) and over which he exercises control ('shakes all things'), though not by physical might, but effortlessly and through his thought, without having to move from place to place.

It's clear that McKirahan takes Xenophanes to be criticizing anthropomorphism in the Will Durant sense, because he says that Xenophanes' God is impersonal. (Yet then in a footnote McKirahan must explain why he nonetheless refers to Xenophanes' God as 'he': "In describing god, Xenophanes uses masculine forms of adjectives." --Well, yes, but not only that: it's hard also to see how an impersonal being "sees, hears, and thinks" (DK 21B24).)

And yet there is a narrower sense as well of 'anthropomorphism' as applied to God, namely: 'taking God to have a human shape or appearance', that is, a human or human-like body.

So, my question: Is Xenophanes' criticism directed at anthropomorphism in the broad or narrow sense? I think: in the narrow sense. Xenophanes wishes to deny that God has a body, yet he does not wish to deny that human thought and reasonability give a clue as to what God is like.

Admittedly, DK 21B23 (KRS 170) might seem to count against this:

One god, greatest among gods and men, in no way similar to mortals either in body or in thought.

ei}=j qeo/j, e)/n te qeoi=si kai\ a)nqrw/poisi me/gistoj,
ou)/ti de/maj qnhtoi=sin o(moi/oj ou)de\ no/hma.

I'll say something about that tomorrow.

Neo-Sotion

Josh Dever at the University of Texas, Austin, is compiling a modern list of successions, a 'family tree' of dissertation supervisors and their philosophical descendents. You can see it here and add to the genealogy, if you wish.

The influence of Mourelatos, Owen, Cooper may be discerned. Some smile-provoking reconstructions of ancient successions are added. But Vlastos is conspicuous for his absence so far, and European universities are hardly represented. Still, it's a worthy and time-honored project. (Do we still all flourish at 40?)

BACAP 2005-6

I'm very pleased that the commentators as well as speakers for this year's Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy have now been settled. It looks to be an excellent program.

All lectures are on Thursday evenings at 7:30 pm. (But note: the April 25 lecture is on a Tuesday.)

~September 22, at Boston College~
Eric Perl (Loyola Marymount)
The Togetherness of Thought and Being: A Phenomenological Reading of Plotinus' Doctrine 'That the Intelligibles are not outside the Intellect'"
commentary by John Berchman (Dowling College)
seminar topic: Ennead V.5 and V.9
contact: Gary Gurtler, gurtlerg@bc.edu

~October 27, at Clark University~
Kevin Flannery (Gregorian)
Force and Compulsion in Aristotle's Ethics
commentary by Thornton Lockwood (Fordham)
seminar topic: Force and Compulsion: Texts in NE and EE
contact: Michael Pakaluk, mpakaluk@clarku.edu

~November 17, at Holy Cross College~
Ed Halper (Georgia)
Metaphysics X
commentary by Arthur Madigan (Boston College)
seminar topic: "The One" in Met. I.2, 7-8
contact: May Sim, msim@holycross.edu

~February 9, at Boston University~
Deborah Modrak (Rochester)
Aristotelian Substance, Functional Unity, and Embedded Matter
commentary by Mary Louise Gill (Brown)
seminar topic: Substance in Met. VII.17 and VIII.2
contact: David Roochnik, roochnik@bu.edu

~March 16, at Boston College~
Suzanne Stern-Gillet (Bolton Institute)
Introspection, Plotinian and Augustinian
commentary by John Kenney (St. Michael's College, Vermont)
seminar topic: The Concept of Introspection
contact: Gary Gurtler, gurtlerg@bc.edu

~April 25, at Brown~
Pierre-Marie Morel (Paris I, Pantheon-Sorbonne)
Method and Evidence (enargeia): the Epicurean Prolepsis
commentary by Brad Inwood (Toronto)
seminar topic: Preconception in Epicurus
contact: Mary Louise Gill, mlgill@brown.edu
N.B. This is a Tuesday night lecture.

~May 18, at Dartmouth~
C.D.C. Reeve (North Carolina)
Plato's Goat-stags: Philosophers and Cities in the Republic
commentary by Mark McPherran (U. of Maine, Farmington)
seminar topic: Glaucon's Challenge to Socrates in Republic 2
contact: Margaret Graver, margaret.r.graver@dartmouth.edu

Did Anaximander Accept "Sufficient Reason"?

This post falls in the category: what a non-expert wonders about when teaching X. (I expect to post many things of this sort, as I work through "History of Ancient Greek Philosophy" this Fall. May I hope that others, on the same path, will find such posts of interest?)

For years I've repeated the common claim that Anaximander, especially in his teaching about the earth, was relying upon something like the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Here are those familiar texts about the earth (texts and translations from Kahn):

The earth is aloft, not dominated by anything; it remains in place because of the similar distance from all points (Hippolytus).

th\n de\ gh=n ei)=nai mete/wron u(po\ mhdeno\j kratoume/nhn, me/nousan de\ dia\ th\n o(moi/an pa/ntwn a)po/stasin.

There are some who say that the earth remains in place because of similarity, as did Anaximander among the ancients; for a thing established in the middle, with a similar relationship to the extremes, has not reason to move up rather than down or laterally; but since it cannot proceed in opposite directions at the same time, it will necessarily remain where it is. (Aristotle, De Caelo, 295b11-16.)

ei)si\ de/ tinej oi(\ dia\ th\n o(moio/thta/ fasin au)th\n me/nein, w(/sper tw=n a)rxai/wn A).: ma=llon me\n ga\r ou)qe\n a)/nw h)\ ka/tw h)/ ei)j ta\ pla/gia fe/resqai prosh/kei to\ e)pi\ tou= me/sou i(drume/non kai\ o(moi/wj pro\j ta\ e)/sxata e)/xon: a(/ma d’ a)du/naton ei)j ta)nanti/a poiei=sqai th\n ki/nhsin: w(/st’ e)c a)na/gkhj me/nein.

And here are typical things that people say about this:

"...this explanation is the earliest certain instance of an appeal to the principle of Sufficient Reason" (Hussey, 26).

"For the history of ideas, Anaximander's theory of the earth's position is of an entirely different order of importance. Even if we knew nothing else concerning its author, this alone would guarantee him a place among the creators of a rational science of the natural world. ... More important for us is Anaximander's own use of this geometric idea [sc. of a circle] , as a general expression for the principle of symmetry or indifference. It is indeed the same notion which was glorified in modern times by Leibniz as his Principle of Sufficient Reason, according to which everything which is true or real implies a reason why it is so and not otherwise" (Kahn, 77).

But did Anaximander in fact accept this principle? I think not:

1. His famous fragment specifically supposes that Sufficient Reason is false. Extremes dominate at different times and places (e.g. hot in summer, cold in winter) for no apparent reason; the only 'reasonability' of the scheme is that these extremes get equalized over time.

2. An appeal to equipollence of forces or conditions is not an appeal to Sufficient Reason. Suppose I embed a glass marble in a slab of heavy jelly. Someone asks why it doesn't move in the jelly. I reply that it is similarly affected by the jelly on all sides. No 'Principle of Sufficient Reason' there.

3. The correct way to describe Anaximander's innovation (and he does have an innovation) is something else. It involves (we may say) "re-characterizing the explanandum". E.g. Galileo postulated that a body in motion remains in motion: in doing so, he re-characterized the explanandum, from "Why does this continue moving'?" to "Why is this not slowing down?" Anaximander does this also with his theory of heavenly objects. E.g. we might want to ask: "Why is that planet shining brightly there?" But since (it seems) Anaximander takes a planet to be (roughly) a tube with a puncture, he thinks the question is properly posed, rather, as "Why is Venus not shining everywhere else?" (Answer: Because the tube with fire inside is punctured only there.") Similarly also with the earth. The correct question to ask is not: "Why isn't it moving?" but rather "Why shouldn't it remain at rest?" This sort of shift happens all the time in science; it is not a matter of an appeal to Sufficient Reason.

The Problem Is That I Read Too Fast

Can you guess which two volume work is referred to by the following?

Wittgenstein once wrote, "Sometimes a sentence can be understood only if it is read at the right tempo. My sentences are all supposed to be read slowly". Similarly, to benefit from reading these volumes you need to read slowly. Read quickly, they can seem a superficial, repetitious, somewhat incoherent collection of allusions to halfway developed ideas -- or, worse yet, a sham version of a style Wittgenstein perfected in his later thought, but which it is well-nigh impossible to imitate with any authenticity.

Answer here.

But of course it's one thing to say that sentences won't be understandable if they are read quickly. It's another to say that they will appear to be superficial, repetitious, and half-baked sham imitations.

The Uniqueness of Persons

Did ancient philosophers lack a proper appreciation of human individuality, and does their ethical thought show this? Such is the charge presented by John Crosby, a leading ‘personalist’ philosopher, in his book, Personalist Papers (which I recently reviewed for the Journal of Markets and Morality).

According to Crosby, ethics is properly based on some notion of the ‘dignity of the human person’. Ancient philosophers, correctly so, recognized that the rational powers of the human soul conferred a special dignity on human beings. But they failed to see that there is a distinct and additional basis of human dignity, namely, an ineffable individuality, which is bound up with the fact that each human being is, as we say, a person.

Crosby argues that, if this individuality is not taken into account, then we must treat human beings as fungible, objectionably so, because each human being would serve equally well as an instance of rational nature. To illustrate this, Crosby uses a problem posed by Peter Singer. Singer says: suppose that a woman of limited means, who already has one child, has a second child who upon birth is discovered to have severe Down’s Syndrome; the woman believes with good reason that she could conceive another child, who would likely be healthy; she barely has the means to care for this Down’s Syndrome child in addition to her healthy child. Why, then, shouldn’t she kill the Down’s Syndrome child and ‘replace’ it with a healthy child? Crosby argues that, if all that is important about us is captured in this notion of ‘the dignity of our having a rational nature’, then there is no reason why she shouldn’t. By ‘replacing’ the Down’s Syndrome child, she brings into the world a better instance of rational nature, and a human being whose rational powers may be more fully developed.

We can avoid this conclusion, Crosby maintains, only by stressing that each human being has some ineffable individuality, which is not replaceable.

A similar argument has been put forward by Linda Zagzebski, "The Uniqueness of Persons." The Journal of Religious Ethics 29 (2001): 401-23, for which I give the abstract:

Persons are thought to have a special kind of value, often called "dignity," which, according to Kant, makes them both infinitely valuable and irreplaceably valuable. The author aims to identify what makes a person a person in a way that can explain both aspects of dignity. She considers five definitions of "person": (1) an individual substance of a rational nature (Boethius), (2) a self-conscious being (Locke), (3) a being with the capacity to act for ends (Kant), (4) a being with the capacity to act for another (Kant), and (5) an incommunicably unique subject (Wojtyla). She argues that none is capable of grounding both aspects of dignity since they are incompatible kinds of value; it is impossible for the same thing to ground both. Human persons are infinitely valuable in virtue of shareable qualities of their nature, whereas they are irreplaceably valuable because of a nonqualitative feature of their personhood.

And thus, two questions:

(1) Is it correct that ancient philosophers were blind to human individuality?

(2) Is it correct that, if individuality is not taken into account, then we must treat one another as in some sense ultimately replaceable?

(Vlastos’ “The Individual as Object of Love” seems to answer ‘yes’ to both of these questions, as regards Plato at least.)

Eristic, or Deep Nonsense?

Christopher Shields has a review in NDPR of Gail Fine’s collected essays, Plato on Knowledge and the Forms (see the full review here), which focuses mainly on the paradox about inquiry in the Meno. Shields poses the question: if the paradox involves fallacies, and Plato (as it seems) is aware that it does, then why does Plato bring in the doctrine of recollection to answer it?

Here is Shields’ representation of the paradox:

(1) For all x, either S knows x or not;
(2) If S knows x, S cannot inquire into x;
(3) If S does not know x, then S cannot inquire into x; hence,
(4) For all x, S cannot inquire into x.
If S is any arbitrary inquirer, then for any x unknown by S, S should not waste her time with x.

And here is Shields’ attempt to show that it involves fallacies:

…if (2) has any chance of being true then 'know' must mean something like 'knows all about x', whereas if (3) has a prayer, 'does not know' must mean not 'does not know all about x' but rather 'does not know anything about x' with the result that either (2) is true and (3) is false, or (3) is true and (2) is false, or, if we give both (2) and (3) true readings, then (1) is false and not the instance of the excluded middle it may have first seemed to be.

To simplify: Shields claims that the paradox commits the fallacy of false alternative. It is false that we either know a thing or we fail to know it. Things have parts, and thus we can know them in part and reasonably wish to inquire about the rest.

But this doesn’t really get around the problem, does it? For instance, suppose one holds (as it seems Plato does) that true objects of knowledge cannot have parts?

Or, even if we granted that they did, the problem would break out all over again, as regards each part. You either know that part, or you do not. Assume that you know it. Then you know all about that part. But then you know, in particular, the whole of which it is a part and to which it is connected—and then, once again, there would no need for inquiry. (And if you retort that you knew only a part of that part, an infinite regress results.)

So perhaps Plato reasonably thought that he needed something like the doctrine of recollection to resolve the paradox? Of course, the paradox would still, for all that, be a piece of eristic, insofar as it was proposed with the intent merely to dazzle or stun.

A Contribution to One's Mikrokosmos

In today's Wall Street Journal, Walter Mossberg reports on two web-based personal organizers. This is an ideal solution for keeping a calendar if, like me, you have easy access to the internet and almost always work when connected to the web, and if you need to work from a variety of machines (for me: a desktop in my office; a desktop at home; my own laptop; my wife's Mac), so that synchronizing them all to a single calendar is impractical. As Mossberg writes:

It's a pain to keep updating calendar programs that live on multiple computers, even if you only use one type of computer, and even with the help of a PDA or smart phone, like my Palm Treo. And it gets far worse if you use both Windows PCs and Macs, or if you'd like to occasionally rely on public computers or borrowed computers on the road.

The two programs seem to be fairly equivalent in features, however Trumba OneCalendar costs $39.95 to subscribe for the year, whereas AirSet is free. (Yet amortize the cost of a good PDA, and even that fee turns out to be a good deal.)

One nice feature:

Reminder emails for appointments can be set up on both programs...AirSet emailed us daily reminders of the next day's schedule every evening at the same time. Currently, AirSet and Trumba offer to send free reminders to your cellphone using text messaging, and AirSet can also send free daily schedule summaries using the same method.

I've started using AirSet already.

Aristotelian Particularism

On another note , I finally was able to study Anthony Price's BACAP contribution from last year, "Was Aristotle a Particularist?" I may eventually post something on his arguments, but for the moment I wanted simply to show how he defines the question, which I found very useful (I cite with his permission):

A recent line of thinking which may further our understanding of Aristotle is particularism. This label, being applicable to somewhat different claims, rather identifies a tendency than a dogma. We may oppose particularism to generalism, trying to identify where he stands, through a variety of issues. The questions that I shall try to answer, each within a section of this paper, are the following:

(1) Does Aristotle suppose that an agent’s practical decisions apply to a particular situation an articulate general specification of eudaimonia?

(2) Does he suppose that there are any principles to guide decisions that apply without exception?

(3) Does he suppose that there are factors to be taken into account whose valence is invariable between different contexts?

(4) Does he suppose that, as Jonathan Dancy has put it (1993: 50), ‘there is nothing that one brings to the new situation other than a contentless ability to discern what matters where it matters’?

An extreme particularist reading of Aristotle would answer ‘no’ to the first three questions, and ‘yes’ to the last. I shall argue for positive answers to (2) and (3), and negative ones to (1) and (4).

Ergon Taken

My piglet has additionally given me a better appreciation of the force of the ergon argument. The truth is, my pig is very good at enjoying himself. He eats his fill, pushes some dirt around, mixes up some comfortable mud, and then lies down in it with complete contentment. A pig satisfied.

It's easy to look at him and think: He does that very well indeed. There' s no way that I could possibly achieve anything like that contentment. That role is, so to speak, taken already. I'd better look for something else--something I can do, which a pig can't.

The Sun is New Each Day

Well, I've been bad and plan to return today, now, to my practice of daily posts on Dissoi Blogoi.

In part I've been distracted by a new arrival. Yes, I have some very good news to share: we have a piglet. Yorkshire breed, very cute. In the last week I've built a small pen for him and a servicable pig ark. We don't yet have a name (suggestions welcome). Since we're not vegetarians, people advise 'Pork Chop' or the equivalent.

I'm thinking of arranging a philosophy field trip for my students in ancient philosophy. They'll find ample corroboration of "Pigs wash themselves in mud, birds in dust or ash" and "Pigs rejoice in mud more than pure water." Indeed.

Correction to Review of Roochnik

Michael Kochin has published in BMCR a correction to his review of David Roochnik's Retrieving the Ancients. You may see the review here and the correction here. Here's the text of the correction:

In footnote 4 to my review of David Roochnik's Retrieving the Ancients (BMCR
2005.07.44) I wrote that "Roochnik nowhere in Retrieving the Ancients explains
who Diels is or the distinction between A and B fragments." As Michael Pakaluk
pointed out (on Dissoi Blogoi), my claim is false: Roochnik explains both what
Diels is and the distinction between A and B fragments on pp. 11-12, in the
initial paragraphs of his chapter on the Presocratics. I should not have
ventured such a comment relying only on memory and the absence of an entry for
Diels in Roochnik's index.

We'll leave it at that.

Teaching Ancient Philosophy

As the new academic year approaches, perhaps some of you, like me, are thinking about new ways to teach ancient philosophy in the fall.

Here is a question I'd very much like to pose to readers of DB--timely, too, given our discussions of the relationship between doing history of philosophy and doing philosophy.

I've always taught history of ancient chronologically. But has anyone had success teaching it by topic (or 'problem', even)? E.g. logic, ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of nature, theory of knowledge, psychology ('philosophical anthropology'), etc. I've thought of changing to teaching it in this way, and I'd be very interested to hear about others' experiences. Can this work in a semester? How?

Forgot to Say

I forgot to say that we (my daughter, Maria, and I) arrived in Austria via Munich, where I was able to meet briefly with Richard King, an ancient philosopher who teaches at the University of Munich. A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of reviewing his book, Aristotle on Life and Death, for Bryn Mawr Classical Review (here). Richard is a wonderful scholar and fine man. We visited some churches in the Marienplatz together and sampled a pastry together--this at the request of my daughter, who aspires to be a pastry chef.

Really Wish I Could Post, But....

Greetings from Mayrhofen, in the Zillertal Alps of Austria, where I'm hiking these next few days. I've found one internet terminal in a cafe and another in a bar (where I am now!). I've had to take care of some business in the occasion I've had to use these machines. I do have some items to post, and will aim to get at them soon?

Have any D.B. readers been here? It's an amazing place.