INTERNATIONAL
ASSOCIATION FOR
PRESOCRATIC STUDIES
FIFTH BIENNIALCONFERENCE
Monday 13 June – Friday 17 June, 2016
Austin, Texas, USA
ABSTRACTS OF THE
CONTRIBUTED PAPERS
THEMATICALLY
ARRANGED
HOST:
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN,
COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS
DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS,
DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY,
THE JOINT CLASSICS–PHILOSOPHY
GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY
Sessions at the Liberal Arts Building (CLA):
Julius Glickman Conference Center
Illustration: imaginative hand-colored representations of ten
Presocratic philosophers, from the copy of the Nuremberg
Chronicle (15th century incunabulum) at the Morse Library
of Beloit College (by permission).
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INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR PRESOCRATIC STUDIES (IAPS)
FIFTH BIENNIAL CONFERENCE, MONDAY 13 JUNE – FRIDAY 17 JUNE, 2016
ABSTRACTS OF THE CONTRIBUTED PAPERS
THEMATICALLY ARRANGED
Before the “Presocratics,” p. 3; Thales, p. 4; Anaximander, p. 5; Pythagoreans/ eanism, p. 7; Alcmaeon, p. 9; Xenophanes, p. 9; Heraclitus, p. 10; Parmenides,
p. 13; Melissus, p. 20; Anaxagoras, p. 21; Empedocles, p. 22; Philolaus, p. 24;
Hippodamus of Miletus, p. 25; Democritus/Atomists, p. 25; Gorgias, p. 27;
Antiphon, p. 28; Medical Authors, p. 29; Tradition and Reception, p. 30;
Comparative Study, p. 32.
Before the “Presocratics”
CECILIA COLOMBANI, Universidad de Morón, Universidad Nacional de Mar del
Plata
EN LOS ALBORES DE LA FILOSOFÍA. HESÍODO Y LA PREOCUPACIÓN POR EL KOSMOS.
La lectura que ha hecho la crítica con Olof Gigon a la cabeza, de la cual nos nutrimos y seguimos
como marco interpretativo, ha ubicado a Hesíodo en esa zona oscura, de fronteras imprecisas
entre poesía y filosofía, propia de la Grecia arcaica; asimismo, ha trabajado los núcleos
filosóficos presentes en Teogonía como relato emblemático de la totalidad. El problema del ser,
del todo, del origen, de la verdad y de la transmisión de la verdad han sido los hilos que Gigon ha
encontrado para hilvanar el tapiz del Hesíodo-filósofo. A la luz del marco precedente, nos
proponemos releer la Teogonía desde una lectura que trata de relevar cierto alejamiento de lo que
constituyen las marcas del discurso mítico habitual, esto es, la fuerte tendencia a la divinización
de los elementos como impronta de la primera especulación sobre el ser en términos teológicos.
Pretendemos dar cuenta de ciertas líneas de fuga de lo que constituye la matriz mítica habitual.
Pensemos en la primera formulación por la preocupación por el orden y por la búsqueda del
principio. El primer elemento a considerar es que Hesíodo presenta cuatro elementos primeros,
sin aparente relación entre sí, y menos aún, sin relación amorosa alguna; no hay cópula, ni
abrazo amoroso, ni contacto que sugiera el orden del discurso posterior, donde sí el elemento
erótico parece jugar los destinos de las descendencias divinas. Allí están los cuatro primerísimos,
ta protista, sin que ninguno derive de otro, definiendo una primera genealogía-cosmogonía, ya
que el poeta, al tiempo que presenta los primeros elementos, ofrece una primera organización
cósmica. Así las primeras descripciones y las asociaciones recuperan un presunto matiz
cosmológico-natural, alejado de rasgos de imaginería mítica, que, por supuesto, luego harán su
aparición. En esta línea, Caos y Tierra parecen tener, en esta instancia primera, la capacidad de
que surjan de ellos ciertos principios por fuera del dispositivo de las alianzas, lo cual parece
desdivinizar, de algún modo, el relato fundacional.
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TOM HERCULES DAVIES, Princeton University
THE INDO-EUROPEAN ROOTS OF GREEK COSMOLOGY
Last century saw a gradual revolution in the study of Greek poetry, spurred by the discovery
that epic did not precede lyric. Comparative study of cognate Indo-European poetic traditions,
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along with careful dating of the Greek material, proved beyond doubt that the two forms had
been coeval since before Greek was spoken. This fact toppled an industry in Classical
scholarship: epic and lyric could not represent sequential stages in the history of human
consciousness; there was no “Entdeckung des Geistes” from the anonymity of the Homeric bard
to the distinctive personality of a Sappho or Archilochus. The stories we told about Greek
culture were built on mere accidents of preservation.
A similarly pernicious story still squats upon the study of Greek philosophy. It’s another
developmental tale: it holds that myth and religion are the primitive antecedents of natural
science and cosmology; that a Hesiod must come before an Anaximander; that the “Greek
miracle” of περὶ φύσεως ἱστορία constitutes a break with tradition.
But what if this story were just another accident? My paper argues that natural
scientific speculation must be an Indo-European tradition, and that for the entire history of Greek
culture it must have been practised alongside religious myth. I compare the testimonia for Thales
and Anaximander with the Nāsadīya Sūkta of the Ṛg Veda (RV X 129), a creation hymn with
many parallels to the Milesian tradition in cosmology. I adduce supporting evidence from
elsewhere in Vedic Sanskrit, and from Armenian and Old Norse texts, to show that some
central ideas of Milesian cosmology are attested in cognate languages and must be prehistoric:
among them, the differentiation of the sky into dim aereal and bright aethereal spheres, and the
idea that all creation requires a hot, dry substance acting upon a cold, moist one. Finally, I use an
idea gleaned from comparative Indo-European analysis to explain a puzzling piece of Presocratic
philosophy: Anaximander’s drum-shaped earth.
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Thales
CLAAS LATTMANN, University of Kiel, and Emory University
FROM PYRAMIDS TO TRIANGLES. THALES AND EARLY GREEK MATHEMATICS
Thales brought geometry from Egypt to Greece. Therefore he was the first Greek mathematician
proper, wasn’t he? At least some of the ancients tell us so. And indeed, several testimonies
intimate that Thales did concern himself with triangles, semicircles and the like.
However, the fact that this assessment comes from and relies on relatively late authors should
make us suspicious. The first authentic testimonies for Greek mathematics date from the early
fourth century BCE, and nearly everything that we know about earlier times comes from later
authors – who, to be sure, were no objective historians in the modern sense, but apparently
looked back through the lens of the state-of-the-art of their own times, that is, “Euclidean”
mathematics.
As a contemporary philosophy of science perspective can show, “Euclidean”
mathematics decidedly differed from the preceding stages and was separated from them by a
scientific revolution that took place (presumably) in the first half of the fourth century BCE. This
in particular relates to the fact that whereas “Euclidean” mathematics dealt with abstract
diagrams, its predecessors operated exclusively on the basis of numerically determined,
particular objects, quite like oriental (and especially Egyptian) mathematics.
Against this background, this paper reassesses the mathematical testimonies relating to
Thales and suggests that his approach to “mathematics” was less theoretical than practical, that is,
was less that of a “mathematician” than that of an engineer. By adducing further relevant
testimonies, this perspective will situate Thales’ contributions to “mathematics” in their history
of science context more adequately than before, leading not only to the insight that Thales
shouldn’t be regarded as the founder of Greek mathematics, but also that after all, in Greece too
there seems to have been a time when “geometry” was nothing but the art of “land-measuring.”
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LILIANA CAROLINA SÁNCHEZ CASTRO, Universidad Autónoma de Colombia
ARISTOTLE’S DIALECTICAL PROCEDURE ON THE DE ANIMA: THE CASE OF THALES OF
MILETUS’ ENDOXON
The dialectical procedure of Aristotle’s De Anima Book 1 has been often neglected, because it is
considered a simple état de l’art or, worst, a tendentious interpretation of the Presocratics.
However, the doxographic books hide some interesting features of how Aristotle actually
conceived dialectic as an heuristic, on one side, and an hermeneutical tool, on the other.
In the following paper I want to argue in favor of the thesis that the dialectical feature of the
scientific inquiry in the De Anima is a necessary condition in order to pursue the psychological
investigation. In order to do that, I propose to evaluate the case of the endoxon of Thales that
Aristotle uses in his characterization of the soul by the help of his predecessors. For doing so, I
am going to provide, first, a reconstruction of what I think is the hermeneutical process Aristotle
did over the endoxon of Thales by the aid of dialectic, in order to provide an argument of how
the dialectic works in the case of the De Anima as a “sifting device” in order to produce the
conceptual elements, aporiai or premises. If my procedure is correct, then, we will understand
Aristotle’s hermeneutical effort on Thales’ opinion and, so, we can apply the same device for the
Aristotelian testimonies on other Presocratics.
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Anaximander
NICOLA CARRARO, University of CampinaS
HOW DID ANAXIMANDER BECOME A MATERIAL MONIST?
A very influential aspect of Aristotle’s interpretation of the Presocratics is the opposition
between Material Monists, who believed that all things are generated by alteration of a single
stuff, and Pluralists, who conceived generation as the aggregation of several stuffs. Although the
view that Anaximander was a Material Monist is not popular nowadays, it is still widely held
that it was embraced by Aristotle at least on some occasions, then adopted by Theophrastus, and
later on inherited by most Ancient authors, including Simplicius. I claim that the view that
Anaximander was a Material Monist was not standard in Antiquity.
I argue, first of all, that Aristotle did not regard Anaximander as a Material Monist: for
him, Anaximander’s single principle was not the constituent matter out of which all things are
produced by alteration, but the original mixture from which they are separated. He sometimes
speaks of Material Monists who believed in an “intermediate” basic stuff that is distinct from the
elements, but (contrarily to what many interpreters claim) he never suggests that they should be
identified with Anaximander, and he once implies that they should not.
Secondly, I show that Simplicius inherited Aristotle’s picture of Anaximander, in that he
clearly differentiates Anaximander’s original mixture from the Monists’ persistent substratum.
The same is true of other Aristotelian commentators. Moreover evidence indicates that many of
them relied on Theophrastus on this point.
Finally I suggest that authors like Alexander, who saw Anaximander as a Material Monist,
did not draw this notion from the Theophrastean tradition, but from an incorrect reading of
Aristotle’s passages on the intermediate-stuff Monists. Thus I conclude that the notion that
Anaximander was a Material Monist finds virtually no support in Ancient sources.
__________________________________________________________________
ANDREW GREGORY, University College London
ANAXIMANDER’S RINGS
I want to question some assumptions about Anaximander’s celestial rings. As the likeness is to a
wheel (DK12A21), the general assumption is that the rings are rigid and the apertures in them
5
are fixed. There is another possibility well worth investigation though, that the wheels are more
fluid. The wheel analogy will only take us so far. We would not, for instance, believe that the
rings are wood, as with a wheel for Anaximander, or that they have spokes. The likeness to a
wheel may give us no more than shape and orientation to the earth as centre. So given that the
rings are constructed from a core of fire and a covering of condensed air, a more fluid state is
possible, even likely. Why does this matter? It allows some interesting further possibilities for
understanding both the construction of the rings and Anaximander’s astronomy. We can have a
more organic sense of the holes in the rings, perhaps taking stoma, breathing hole as the key
description, allowing the holes to change from circular to any shape taken by a human mouth,
giving a more flexible account of eclipses and phases. If the holes can move relative to the rings,
either in longitude or latitude that may allow better modelling of several astronomical
phenomena. Such possibilities may also be important in a broader debate about whether
mechanical or biological analogies dominate in Anaximander’s thinking. KRS rightly see
similarities between Anaximander’s account of the origins of the earth and celestial rings
(DK12A10) and the origin of animals (DK12A30). However, they take the origin of the earth
account in a mechanical manner and use that to inform their view on the origin of animals in
Anaximander. I think that is an interesting choice, as I would reverse it. Anaximander has a very
organic account of the origin of animals which should inform how we see his origin for the earth
and celestial rings. If the celestial rings can be seen as fluid/ jelly like and organic rather than
rigid and mechanical that has some important consequences for that debate. More broadly, this
discussion is part of an attempt to question whether we have assimilated Anaximander too
closely to the ancient atomists, not only in cosmogony but in mechanical analogies as well and to
see if a more organic, biologically oriented reading of Anaximander produces some interesting
results.
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RADIM KOČANDRLE, University of West Bohemia in Pilsen
THE APEIRON OF ANAXIMANDER AS “BOUNDLESS NATURE”
According to tradition, Anaximander of Miletus used the term τὸ ἄπειρον, usually translated as
‘the Boundless’, with reference to ἀρχή, meaning ‘source’ or ‘principle’. However, extant texts
show a marked uncertainty among classical authors in their understanding of what τὸ ἄπειρον
actually meant.
In contrast to Aristotle, who describes Anaximander’s principle as ‘one’ or a ‘mixture’,
τὸ ἄπειρον is repeatedly referred to as the Milesian’s ‘source’ only in texts which are based on
Theophrastus. One can suppose that Theophrastus or another author from the Peripatetic circle
‘created’ Anaximander’s principle within the broader effort of systematizing his predecessors.
The author’s starting point could have been some particular original term. Therefore, it is worth
considering the adjective ἄπειρος, which may have been used with reference to the term φύσις.
One can assume that works of the Presocratics deal with the origin of the world, its
appearance and its transformations – issues treated against the background of the most intimate
features of life. The phrase φύσις ἄπειρος may then express the boundless power of nature,
responsible for all creation and growth.
In terms of classical philosophy, Anaximander explained that creation is a process of the
separation of opposites. However, seen cosmogony from a biological perspective, Anaximander
argued that out of the power of boundless nature, a fertile seed, which subsequently evolves and
undergoes differentiation into parts and shapes, has been expelled. Each further step in the
differentiation of the phenomenal world is a continuation of original separation, which is
maintained and constantly established in the coming to be of the earth, of particular
meteorological phenomena, and even of living beings. Φύσις ἄπειρος as the power of growth
and movement is thus further present in everything that exists, ‘steering all things’.
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ROBERT W. MCINTYRE, University of California, Santa Barbara
ANAXIMANDER, THOMAS HOBBES, AND THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON: A
NOTE ON THE USE OF A PRIORI PRINCIPLES IN PHYSICS.
Anaximander’s argument establishing that the Earth is stationary (On the Heavens 2.13 295b1116 = DK 12A26) is sometimes regarded as indicative of a general tendency in Presocratic
philosophy toward a methodology that prioritizes pure reason and cosmic speculation over
explanations grounded in mundane observation. For example, Karl Popper maintains that the
cosmology supported by Anaximander’s argument is “counter-observational” with “no analogy
whatever in … observational facts” (1958, p. 4). He enlists Anaximander as an avatar in his
campaign against a peculiar picture of the scientific method according to which science advances
by way of a slow accretion of humdrum observations that issue, eventually, in cautious,
verifiable hypotheses. Though few would support Popper’s position on Presocratic methodology
in its every detail, his general assessment that Anaximander’s view is somehow ungrounded in or
even contrary to observation remains influential.
The aim of this paper is to temper this influence by drawing a comparison between
Anaximander’s method and the hypothetico-deductive method of seventeenth century natural
philosophy. The scope of my investigation is modest: it begins by examining Anaximander’s use
of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) alongside Thomas Hobbes’s use of the PSR in his
demonstrations of the Law of Inertia. Hobbes is a decidedly anti-metaphysical philosopher with a
positivist bent; yet, Hobbes is happy to accept the scientific credentials of a priori demonstrations
of physical principles, for he holds an “immanent” conception of the a priori according to which
universal principles of physics are demonstrable from within a presupposed framework of
postulates. A cornerstone of Hobbes’s method is precisely an analogical inference from within
such a framework: observable and unobservable bodies obey the same laws because the same
definitions and postulates apply to both. By considering Hobbes’s demonstrations alongside
Anaximander’s argument, I argue that there is space for an interpretation of the latter that allows
him to give a priori arguments for cosmological propositions, while respecting a standard of
empirical adequacy.
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Pythagoreans/ -eanism
OMAR ÁLVAREZ SALAS, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
PYTHAGORAS AS NAME GIVER AND PARMENIDES’ OΝΟΜAΖΕΙΝ
The main purpose of this paper will be to present and analyze the ancient tradition about
Pythagoras’ interest in names, according to which they should faithfully reflect the true nature of
the things they are supposed to designate, so that he came to be viewed by the commentators of
Plato’s Cratylus as one of the main supporters of linguistic naturalism. I will start by
reconstructing the earliest phase of Pythagoras’ linguistic intervention, which consists arguably
in the coinage by Pythagoras himself of a series of terms that would eventually become
worldwide hits —like φιλόσοφος and τετρακτύς (echoed in the Pythagorean oath)—, in the
resemantization of old words (like ψυχή and κόσμος used to refer respectively to the ‘soul’ and
to the ‘universe’), as well as in some ‘definitions’ or word equations preserved in the
Pythagorean ἀκούσματα transmitted by several ancient sources. In this connection, I will also
discuss the testimonies about the abilities attributed to Pythagoras as a superhuman being whose
mental powers enabled him to go back to the previous incarnations of a given soul, so that its
real identity (= name) was retrieved. Next, I will try to show how Pythagoras’ onomastic practice
may have been one of the main targets of Parmenides’ critique of the ὀνομάζειν, inasmuch as in
several fragments of the latter’s poem name giving is linked not just with the basic mistake made
by men in looking for labels to distinguish processes and changing objects (especially 28 B 8 vv.
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38 ff. and 28 B 19 v. 3), but also with the recognition of two separate forms (especially 28 B 8 vv.
53 ff. and 28 B 9). I will argue that in the rejection of such a dualistic system that recognizes the
existence of negative principles, a reference to the Pythagorean doctrine of the contraries or
opposites (as quoted by Aristotle in Metaph. A 5. 986a15) might be seen, which gets along well
with a condemnation by Parmenides of the very practice of name giving inaugurated by
Pythagoras himself.
_________________________________________________________________
GUILLERMO CALLEJAS BUASI, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
THE POSSIBLE INFLUENCE OF SOME PARTS OF OCELLUS LUCANUS’S DE UNIVERSI
NATURA IN ARISTOTLE’S COSMOLOGY
This paper analyzes some of the core ideas of cosmological system from Ocellus Lucanus,
exposed in his work De universi natura. Ocellus developed the cosmological thesis that the
universe is eternal, unbegotten and indestructible. In ancient times there was the belief that
Ocellus Lucanus was a Pythagorean who lived before Plato. Nevertheless, contemporary
scholars (like Mullach) have questioned the authenticity of De universi natura, arguing that its
style and its content is a mixture of different theories, coupled with the fact it is very possible
that this text was written in the first century BC.
We think that, despite these arguments, we can find in this treatise some ideas that are
typical of the old Pythagoreanism. Many of which could have an influence in Aristotle’s
Cosmology. Our purpose is to show a few arguments to discover the possible influence that this
text may have had on the development of Aristotle’s cosmology. The basis of this hypothesis is
based on the use that Aristotle gives in the De caelo some terms and arguments which are
inherent in some passages of Ocellus’s treatise and in the old Pythagoreanism. This fact is not
disagree with the testimony of ancient doxographers who related the thought of Ocellus Lucanus
with the thought of Aristotle.
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PABLO DE PAZ AMÉRIGO, Universidad Complutense, Madrid
REINCARNATION IN THE CARMEN AUREUM PYTHAGORICUM?
The Pythagorean Golden Verses or Carmen Aureum has been seen as a witness of the evolution
in the eschatological beliefs and metaphysical thought inside the Pythagorean movement: from a
belief in reincarnation of the soul to a vision of the Netherworld with punishment and rewards
but without reincarnation. In this presentation we will discuss the last part of the poem, where are
mainly contained the eschatological and metaphysical ideas in the text, and I will offer an
alternative interpretation of these verses as a result of a long and intense research on this poem
and on Pythagorean ideas about Afterlife. We will compare this interpretation with the original
ideas about Afterlife attributed to the religious and philosophical movement, trying to trace an
evolution in the development of these ideas inside the sect. We will also examine some formal
aspects in the poem, like its structure and composition, with the aim of removing some
conceptions traditionally assumed, as is the idea of the poem as a compilation of Pythagorical
sentences.
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CATERINA PELLÒ, University of Cambridge
THE TABLE OF OPPOSITES: ARISTOTELIAN FORM AND PYTHAGOREAN SUBSTANCE
The Aristotelian corpus is teeming with explicit references, as well as veiled allusions, to the
Pythagorean tradition and is even reputed to have once included several, now unfortunately lost,
monographs on Pythagoreanism. At a first reading of his extant works, however, Aristotle seems
to leave quite a few questions unanswered, and among these puzzles, we find the socalled
Pythagorean Table of Opposites from Met. 986a22-b4.
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In this paper, I shall try to shed light on this passage and address the question of how we
are to interpret the relation between the opposites here listed. In shed light on this issue, it is
worth considering two fundamental aspects. As for the form in which this theory has been
handed down to us, I shall investigate (i) by whom such table structure was first devised. As for
the content, since the most detailed account of Pythagorean opposites comes in Philolaus of
Croton, I shall analyse (ii) the Philolaic theory of opposites, as well as how much of this theory is
then mirrored in Aristotle. I will finally introduce (iii) the notions of polarity and
complementarity as the key to understand how the Pythagorean opposites are connected to each
other both in Philolaus and in the table. My purpose is to provide a reading of the table that
would make it fit in the more general picture of ancient Pythagoreanism and show that this is
indeed a theory of Pythagorean mould – even if the enigma of its authors will ultimately be left
unsolved.
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Alcmaeon
STAVROS KOULOUMENTAS, Center for Hellenic Studies (Harvard University)
ALCMAEON AND HIS ADDRESSEES: REVISITING THE INCIPIT
Alcmaeon’s incipit constitutes one of the few surviving prefaces of early Greek prose and the
longest verbatim quotation from his treatise. It consists of a formal introduction of the author, a
reference to three addressees, and an incomplete statement concerning the limits of human
knowledge. Scholars disagree as to the identity of these figures and their connection with the
author. It has been suggested that (a) Alcmaeon dedicated his treatise to them as a matter of
admiration or gratitude, (b) that his discourse embodied the instruction given by Alcmaeon to
three disciples on one particular occasion, (c) and that he addresses a group of students in
medicine.
The aim of this paper is to reassess these proposals by taking into account the
fragmentary evidence concerning Alcmaeon’s doctrines, his alleged connection with the
Pythagoreans, and the opening sections of contemporary philosophical and medical treatises. I
suggest that Alcmaeon’s address to these figures may well be polemical, as was common in
archaic era. It can be argued that Alcmaeon disagreed with certain Orphico-Pythagorean
doctrines and wished to reply to his addressees in a direct and emphatic manner. His preface can
thus be seen as providing further evidence for the clash between empiricism and inspiration in
early Greek thought.
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Xenophanes
RAVI SHARMA, Clark University
THINGS IN THE SKY AND BELOW THE EARTH: XENOPHANES’ EPISTEMOLOGY AND
FIFTH CENTURY THOUGHT
I’ll argue that Xenophanes’ fragments on knowledge (primarily 21B18, 34-36 DK) are much
more influential for the course of fifth century thought than has generally been acknowledged.
Instead of focusing on the meteorological and cosmological traditions, I’ll concentrate on the
fragments’ underappreciated influence in two domains: medical theory and rhetoric.
I’ll begin with a statement of my reading of B34, according to which it is not so much
“pessimistic”/”skeptical” in character as it is concerned to advance a new conception of theoryconstruction, one based on an idea of plausible conjecture. After noting some advantages of that
reading, I’ll point out that the ancient tradition does not in fact uniformly support the skeptical
reading.
9
I’ll then turn to the medical tradition and argue that Xenophanes’ conception of theoryconstruction is applied by others (perhaps first by Alcmaeon of Croton) to the invisible workings
of the human body and thereby inspires the idea of reasoning from a ‘hypothesis’, which is
famously attacked at the opening of On Ancient Medicine.
In looking at the rhetorical tradition, I’ll propose that two texts show the influence of
Xenophanes’ ideas: Euripides fr. 913 (Nauck) and Gorgias’ Helen 13. As I’ll contend,
proponents and critics of the rhetorical ideal of plausible argumentation conceived of it as a
natural extension of Xenophanes’ epistemological theory. That helps explain why Aristophanes
would seamlessly blend the natural scientific and sophistical traditions in the Clouds (which is
not, as Dover thought, an attack on intellectual life per se). It also permits a new reading of what
Plato’s Socrates says concerning the charges of the “first accusers” at Apology 18b-19c.
Recognizing the influence of Xenophanes’ theories will hopefully allow us better to
appreciate the interconnections between the relevant traditions and more accurately to evaluate
later philosophical reactions to them.
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Heraclitus
KEITH BEGLEY, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
SOME SOLUTIONS TO ROMAN DILCHER’S THREE PROBLEMS REGARDING
THE UNITY OF OPPOSITES, AND THE MISUNDERSTANDING OF MARKEDNESS IN
HERACLITUS
This paper has been abstracted from my recent doctoral thesis entitled Duality and Opposition in
Heraclitus and Modern Philosophy of Language and Linguistics. I argue that Roman Dilcher
(1995, 2013) was incorrect to reject the notion of the Unity of Opposites thesis in Heraclitus. The
three problems articulated by Dilcher are as follows: (1) Heraclitus does not use the term enantia
or any equivalent term. (2) There is no clear answer to the question whether there is, over and
above the many examples of opposition, a single doctrine regarding opposition. (3) Ascribing
such a doctrine to Heraclitus runs the danger of Aristotelianizing him.
I take each of his three problems regarding this thesis one at a time, and argue for
solutions to them, derived partly in light of my consideration of the interpretations given by
Alexander Mourelatos and Julius Moravcsik. Further, I show that what prompts these problems
for Dilcher is, ultimately, a misunderstanding regarding the presence of Markedness in
Heraclitus’ philosophy, and that the presence of Markedness further reveals the hypotactic (i.e.
opposed to ‘paratactic’ and ‘naïve’) nature of Heraclitus’ metaphysics. I also point out that this is
a feature of Heraclitus’ philosophy that was recognised by Mourelatos (1973), when he briefly
noted what he described as being the “leaning” of opposites, without actually realising at that
time the connection with the linguistic concept of Markedness.
Select Bibliography:
Dilcher, Roman (1995) Studies in Heraclitus. (Hildesheim, Olms).
Dilcher, Roman (2013) ‘How Not to Conceive Heraclitean Harmony’, In: David Sider & Dirk Obbink
(Eds.) Doctrine and Doxography. pp. 263–280. (Berlin, De Gruyter).
Mourelatos, Alexander P. D. (1973) ‘Heraclitus, Parmenides, and the Naive Metaphysics of Things’, In:
E. N. Lee, A. P. D. Mourelatos, and R. M. Rorty (eds.) Exegesis and Argument. Phronesis, supplementary
Vol. 1. (Assen, Van Gorcum).
Moravcsik, Julius M. (1991) ‘Appearance and Reality in Heraclitus’ Philosophy’, The Monist, Vol. 74,
No. 4, pp. 551–567
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10
RICH NEELS, McMaster University
ON THE VARIETY OF OPPOSITES IN HERACLITUS
The fragments of Heraclitus present us with many pairs of opposites which are said, in some
sense, to be one. While many commenters recognize that there are various kinds of opposites,
most try to find a single, unified thesis (e.g. all opposites are connected) under which all the
examples of opposites can be subsumed. While this method may procure a tidy interpretation of
Heraclitus, all such interpretations must downplay the significance of certain opposites, or
pigeon-hole recalcitrant examples into the tidy, singular thesis. In this essay, I argue that there is
no such singular thesis called the ‘unity of opposites’ but that there are several theses evident in
different categories of opposites. These different categories form a metaphysical system that
supports his perspectival epistemology. While his perspectival epistemology might be the end
result of the unity of opposites, it is not a singular thesis under which all examples of opposites
can be subsumed. In this essay, I provide a sketch of this system (the full details of which will be
developed in my future research). The base level of reality for Heraclitus is the transformation of
opposite elements; the second-order level of reality is that of mid-sized objects which are defined
as composites of oppositional pairs; and the highest-order of reality is the pantheist deity which
is said to be a collection of all the opposites. Indexed to and grounded by this system is a
category of perspectival opposites. Heraclitus uses these opposites to demonstrate that
knowledge is perspectival and that there are three levels of perspective (animal, human, and
divine), urging his readers to take the divine perspective. The upshot of this interpretation is that
it promises to be a more comprehensive account of opposition in Heraclitus while grounding his
epistemology in a metaphysical system.
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CELSO DE OLIVEIRA VIEIRA, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
HERACLITUS AND THE PRINCIPLE OF NON-CONTRADICTION IN ARISTOTLE’S
METAPHYSICS
My source will be Aristotle’s comments on Heraclitus in Metaphysics (mostly Gamma 3-8). He
usually quotes Heraclitus en passant a few times in discussing the deniers of the principle of noncontradiction (PNC). My aim will be to identify what kind of contradiction Aristotle is thinking
while using Heraclitus as a paradigm. To do so, first I will divide the nominal quotes to see if
there is any signifying pattern used by Aristotle to distinguish Heraclitus from the Heracliteans.
We will see how he proposes a difference of degree but not a rupture. While in Plato the
Heracliteans stand for theses that are not clearly attributed to Heraclitus, in Aristotle the
Heracliteans present only more radical versions of the same thinking (cf. Cratylus in Met.
4.1010a10). Being so their views allow Aristotle to point out problems in Heraclitus’ conception
that the Ephesian himself could have missed. One of these problems is the violation of PNC
(Met.1005b24). I will proceed to verify which features attributed to Heraclitus’ thought violate
PNC according to Aristotle. He supposes two motivations for those (not only Heraclitus) who
deny PNC. Some see conflicting appearances in face of the same object and conclude that both
are true. Others see that contrary qualities come from one another and look for a material
explanation for it (Met. 4.1010a20). Usually Heraclitus is identified with the first group, but if
we go to the fragments we can find examples of both movements (cf. B61 and B126). Based on
that I will try to prove that Aristotle identified both mistakes in Heraclitus, even if he believed
that Heraclitus was unaware of these differences and their problems. In the end I will bring some
fragments to the discussion to verify in what extent it is possible to identify some sources of this
analysis in Heraclitus’ thought.
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LUKE PARKER, University of Chicago
HARMONIA, ACTIVITY, AND KOSMOS IN HERACLITUS
Recent treatments of Heraclitus’ style, drawing on the supposition of a broad analogy between
language and logos, argue that the texts use lexical features to imitate the world. (e.g., Vieira
2013). Yet this mimetic account has ignored two important points. The first is a long-standing
claim by James Lesher (1983), that Heraclitus is one of the first to locate meaning in syntactical
relationships. The second is that he uses syntax to model his thought in a way that is not simply
imitative, but offers a performance of the thought in the comprehension of the text. This paper
shows that Heraclitus’ statements on ἁρµονίη or “fitting-together” present features of their own
syntax as exemplary of the type of ἁρµονίη named there: παλίντροπος or “backward-turning” in
B 51, and ἀφανὴς or “non-apparent” in B 54. Taken together, these statements model ἁρµονίη
on the fitting-together of words in syntax. Moreover, these syntactical relationships enact the
concept in the comprehension of the sentence: the reader performs the notion of ἁρµονίη in
apprehending the “fitting-together” of words to produce sense.
My reading of the ἁρµονίη statements has important consequences for our view of the
concept and of Heraclitus’ kosmos. The enactment of ἁρµονίη in syntax challenges existing
views of ἁρµονίη that emphasize physical structure (e.g., Snyder 1984). I argue instead that
Heraclitus’ ἁρµονίη is best understood as a dynamic, intelligible relation between things rather
than as a reified structure. This accords with longstanding but underappreciated suggestions that
Heraclitus’ kosmos is a form of purposeful activity (Kahn 1979, Hussey 1999). In closing, I
develop the suggestion that Heraclitus’ kosmos must be apprehended in its activity. The ἁρµονίη
statements, by enacting this key concept in syntax, offer an instance of such an apprehension in
Heraclitus’ own text.
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MARTIM REYES SILVA, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
WORDPLAY AND MEANING IN HERACLITUS OF EPHESUS
Acknowledged as one of most important authors in early Greek philosophy, but also as an “artist
of the word”, Heraclitus uses in his fragments a very diversificated set of examples and
illustrations, in a particularly poetical and philosophical language. The “word” of Heraclitus, as a
microcosm of the world order, mimetizes its own content. This correlation between form and
content, according to the analysis of the poetic structures observed in the fragments (as recently
examined by S. Mouraviev), indicates a dynamic procedural reading provoked by Heraclitean
wordplay, which results not in determining a single reading key, but in realizing several
hermeneutical possibilities, as main characteristic of the contact with the fragments (as what C.
Kahn had assigned as “semantic density”, potentialized by Mouraviev’s analysis). By using
examples and metaphors always in very diverse and significant ways, Heraclitus establishes a
network of similarities and contrasts that complement each other. In his fragments, any poetic
resource seems also to be a philosophical one, in such a way that Heraclitus’ wordplay reveals
both the world and the word: each oxymoron, antithesis, paradox, metaphor and comparison is
itself a way to resignify and rethink both reality and language. Being a critic but also a knower of
the culture of his time, Heraclitus uses this kind of resource creatively as a way of provoke
perplexity and reflection that takes us through and beyond the word itself, toward the ‘unseen
harmony’ of the world.
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Parmenides
SOSSEH ASSATURIAN, The University of Texas at Austin
PARMENIDEAN ONTOLOGY AND VERBS OF COGNITION: A SOLUTION TO THE
ALĒTHEIA-DOXA PROBLEM
In this paper, I resist what I call the ‘metaphysical’ approach to reading Parmenides. What is
common to these approaches is (1) a primary focus on adjudicating controversial interpretive
issues in fragments B2, B4, B6, and B8 of the Alētheia, which are meant to support the reading
that (2) Parmenides’ chief aim in the poem is to do ontology, which results in (3) considerations
of how the Doxa relates to the Alētheia that are post hoc and unsatisfying. In this paper, my aim
is to provide a reading of the poem of Parmenides that does not run into what I call the AlētheiaDoxa problem. I propose the following alternative approach.
My interpretation starts from the position that the Doxa ought to be taken as a serious and
substantial part of the poem of Parmenides. With this constraint in place, I then give what I think
is the most consistent and plausible reading of the Alētheia. My thesis will be that the Alētheia
is not fundamentally an inquiry into how many things there are, or into the nature of what exists.
Rather, it is a reflective inquiry into inquiry itself, on terms of, and in an approach that does not
necessarily commit Parmenides to an ontology. I read the Alētheia as carving out the criteria for
a special kind of knowledge involving (something like) necessary truths that are predicative.
Since I take these as having mere possible existence as opposed to actual existence, my reading
treats of both the Alētheia and the Doxa as philosophically significant and consistent with one
another. I argue that the poem encourages a view of Parmenides as a philosopher interested in
the parameters of different kinds of inquiry—and one who is at best ambivalent about the
ontology of the objects that might satisfy these parameters.
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ALBERTO BERNABÉ – JULIA MENDOZA, Universidad Complutense, Madrid
“BEING” AND “NOT BEING” IN THE ṚGVEDA AND IN PARMENIDES:
DIFFERENT USES OF THE SAME RESOURCE
The ṚgVeda contains several speculative hymns, in which the wise composer confronts in a new
way the question on the origin of the world: the mythical answer is not enough, but he aims to
unlock the precedents of the inherited tale, and asks what there was before the initial moment
told by the myth. In order to answer this question he must acquire terms that are capable of
expressing abstract concepts that vehicle the new categories of thought.
In several of the Vedic hymns we find a way of coining abstract terms that is similar to the
procedure employed by the first Greek philosophers: the substantivization of adjectival neuters.
This paper examines one of these instances: the substantivization of the neuter present participle
of the verb “to be”, sát, which becomes a resource to express the new sense of “what has
existence”, i.e. “being”.
This new concept is found in some hymns paired with its antonym ásat, “the not being”.
Sometimes they clearly form a pair of opposites; however, both terms appear in some contexts
linked to each other, in expressions of mutual relationship, which seem to indicate that both
participate in the same quality and, either they constitute the same unique entity or are interdependent from each other.
Though Parmenides develops an identical resource, the substantivization of τὸ (ἐ)όν and
τὸ μὴ (ἐ)όν, it is evident not only that the creation of this mechanism in Indian context is
independent of its coining in Greece and that there is no genealogical relation between both
innovations, but also that the respective usages are completely different. Nevertheless it may be
interesting to launch a typological comparison of two different usages of the same resource to
see how from the analysis of these different usages and their contexts two opposing logical
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systems may be deduced: one, the Indian system, in which the terms “being” / “not being” are
interdependent, and other, the Parmenidean system, in which “being” and “not being” are
opposed in a radical way, so that “not-being” is even denied the possibility of being thought and
expressed. This paper proposes a comparative study of the substantivizations, in order to draw
some conclusions over the different usages of this resource for two diametrically divergent
systems of thought.
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BERNARDO BERRUECOS FRANK, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
RINGS, POLYPHONY, AND CHORALITY IN PARMENIDES’ PROEM: STRUCTURE AND
SYMBOLIC SCHEMES IN FR. DK28B1
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the intricate structure of one of the most enigmatic texts
of ancient Greek poetry, the Proem of Parmenides, following some of the methodological
premises that C. Faraone (2008) used for his analysis of elegiac poetry (i.e. the organization of
the verses in stanzas and ring composition). In the second part of this paper, adding to the list of
thematic parallels with the lyric tradition, I will try to demonstrate that from the very first verse a
link could be drawn between Parmenides’ own poetic project, Alcman’s choral poetry and the
monody of Sappho and Anacreon through the image of the mare which sets in motion an
effective metaphoric register and a ritualistic and religious undertone. More than a peculiar kind
of epic rhapsody or a philosophical abstraction that is poetic in an artificial way, rather
Parmenides’ poem resembles a text that, while appropriating some traditional discursive
strategies and “choral” symbolic elements (circularity, polyphony, repetition and vision), seeks
to become the ideal artistic vehicle for the communication of a message bestowed with authority
to a community that— through the process of listening and getting involved in the event they are
participating in— is being initiated in the teachings that will allow it to become part of the group.
Therefore, faced with the traditional negative judgements concerning the quality of his verses,
the fundamental objective of this study is to reconsider the poetic profile of Parmenides and how
his poetry is anchored to the Greek poetic tradition, in particular, the so-called lyric poetry
(elegiac and melic.)
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JENNY BRYAN, University College London
THE ANALYSIS OF PARMENIDEAN BEING
For some, Parmenides is the first real philosopher: the first to show a committed interest in logic,
to whom it is possible to attribute extended argumentation and the first to engage in something
like recognizable metaphysics and epistemology. One strand of scholarship has sought to present
him as a proto-analytic philosopher, working with a familiar set of concerns about a priori
knowledge and modal logic etc., and presenting arguments that are best understood when broken
down with formal logic and close conceptual analysis. Others have sought to emphasise the
strangeness and ambiguity of his text, pointing to the possible influence of some kind of mystical
thinking and importance of his chosen literary form. It’s notable that relatively few authors have
managed to adequately account for both these aspects of Parmenides’ poem.
Parmenidean Being is a particularly interesting test case for considering the value of
these two different approaches (and the question of whether they are compatible). The nature of
Being is clearly central to the message of Parmenides’ poem and much analytic effort has been
expended on attempting to explicate precisely what Parmenides must mean when he says that ‘it
is’. One of the most problematic aspects of explicating Parmenides’ intended sense here is that
what he says about Being is ambiguous. This paper will reconsider the debates around the
interpretation of Parmenides’ Being, not so much in an effort to establish the right answer, but
rather to draw out the preconceptions that lie behind such debates and to scrutinize the
legitimacy of applying them to a text such as Parmenides’ poem. I will ask whether it is truly
14
possible develop an analysis of Parmenides’ Being that is sympathetic both to his clear interest in
argument, logic, knowledge and truth and to his ambiguous expression and cultural and literary
resonances.
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NÉSTOR-LUIS CORDERO, Université de Rennes 1 (France), Ministerio de Ciencia e
Innovación (España)
POURQUOI ARISTOTE PRÉSENTE-T-IL UN PARMÉNIDE MÉCONNAISSABLE?
Quand un philosophe s’occupe d’un autre, il ne l’expose pas; il l’interprète. En général, une
lecture du texte commenté suffit pour tracer les limites entre exposition et interprétation. Ceci est
cependant impossible dans le cas de l’interprétation aristotélicienne de Parménide, car elle
semble non seulement ignorer le texte de son Poème (ce qui ‘est pas concevable), mais surtout le
contredire. Mais le cas d’Aristote est tragique parce que Simplicius reprend son interprétation, et
celle-ci, via G.G.Fülleborn (1795) arrive jusqu’à Diels, et se consacre comme “l’“ interprétation
de Parménide. Voyons quelques exemples. (a) Au début du Livre I de la Physique Aristote place
Parménide parmi les philosophes qui se sont intéressés à l’ arkhé (184b14). Or, l’eón (parfois tò
eón) de Parménide n’a rien à voir avec la notion aristotélicienne d’arkhé. (b) Concernant l’unité,
rien n’autorise à dire que, “parce qu’il n’y a pas un mè eón à côté (?) de l’eón”, celui-ci soit
“nécessairement hén” (Met.986b29). (c) Mais le point le plus contestable de l’interprétation
d’Aristote est l’attribution à Parménide de la physique dualiste que Parménide à partir de 8.52 et
dans les fr. 9, 12 et 19 attribue aux “mortels qui ne savent rien”: “Il proposa deux causes et deux
principes, le chaud et le froid, c’est à dire, le feu et la terre [pour expliquer tà phainómena ], et
plaça l’un en fonction de l’être (katà tò ón) et l’autre en fonction du non-être (katà tò mè ón)
“ (Met. 986b31). Ces deux “principes” sont des “noms” (eînai te kaí oukhí, 8.40) placés par les
“mortels” sur les choses. Parménide ne dit rien sur les phénomènes ou les apparences. Platon
l’avait déjà remarqué: “tò phaínesthai kaì tò dokeîn” suppose que “tò mè òn esti” (Soph. 236e237a), mais, pour Parménide “ou gàr mépote toûto damêi, eînai mè eónta” (7.1).
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NICOLA STEFANO GALGANO, University of São Paulo, Brazil
AMECHANIÉ IN PARMENIDE DK 28 B 6.5
The paper examines closer the notion expressed by the word amēchaníē in DK 6. 5. In his
analysis of the problematic of knowledge, Parmenides alerts about the amēchaníē of mortals, a
word generally translated with ‘lack of resources’ or ‘perplexity’, a kind of problem that drives
the thinking astray. Scholars point out in many passages of the poem the opposition between
imperfect mortals and the eidōs phōs of DK 1. 3, the wise man. However, as much as I know,
nobody noticed that, if mortals have a lack of resources, the goddess is teaching exactly how to
fix it with a kind of method given through her precepts, which are an authentic mēchanē. The
paper shows that this is the genuine didactic aim of Parmenides, as he says in 1.28-30, i.e., to
point out where the error of mortals is and how the wise man fixes it. Starting from a
reinterpretation of 1.29 and following with the analysis of fr. 6, the paper shows that the method
suggested in the poem is indeed the mēchanē that can do that. Although the word is not present
in the poem, it is one of its main topics.
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JEREMY C. DELONG, University of Kansas
RING-COMPOSITION AND PARMENIDES’ POEM
Modern interpreters of Parmenides’ metaphysical poem have understandably tended to focus on
the central metaphysical portion (Alētheia), and its relationship to the ensuing “cosmology” of
Doxa, largely minimizing or even dismissing the religious and supernatural Proem as holding
any interpretative import. Thus, the central issue for understanding the poem’s overall meaning
15
has been how to reconcile: a) the positively endorsed, counter-intuitive conclusions of
Alētheia—that in some way “reality” is necessarily lacking in generation, perishing, motion,
change, time, etc., with b) the ambivalently presented account of mortal views, which
paradoxically makes use of the very phenomena just denied in Alētheia. I refer to this as the “AD Paradox,” a persistent interpretative problem for which, despite numerous noble attempts, a
thoroughly satisfying resolution remains elusive.
I suggest that closer attention to the Proem’s relationship to Doxa can lead to a resolution
of the central interpretative problem (“A-D Paradox”) in Parmenides’ poem. These book-ending
sections share a great deal of imagery, and their themes stand in parallel (or rather, reverseparallel). There is a circular journey from the mortal to divine realm in the Proem, and a return
from discussion of the divine (theogony and cosmogony) to mortal topics (sexual reproduction in
animals) in Doxa. The Proem begins with named, concrete, anthropomorphic divine agents, and
transitions towards more abstract powers, ending with meeting the spokes-goddess who, while
anthropomorphic, has no clearly identified name, powers, or associations. In reverse, the Doxa
begins with an abstract, unnamed entity, and proceeds to name and associate powers with gods
and heavenly objects, concluding by “naming” all things.
These similarities, along with others, suggest an intentional reverse-parallelism common
in archaic ring-composition. Adopting this non-linear reading of the poem, the Proem can be
understood to set up a problem (supernatural, anthropomorphic accounts of the divine in the
mythopoetical tradition), offer a resolution (adopting a modal reading of Alētheia similar to
Palmer’s, of what necessary and thus divine being must be like), and a return to the initial
problem (mythopoetical accounts) which are warned against. In this way, the A-D Paradox is
eliminated entirely, as Doxa can be taken entirely negatively—how mortals misunderstand the
nature of the divine—without any problematically absurd entailments (e.g. denying the reality of
the sensible world), or risk of anachronism (e.g. Parmenides’ anticipated Plato’s “Two-World”
view of the Forms and sensibles). Instead, by criticizing traditional religious accounts and
offering an alternative view of divine nature founded on reason, Parmenides’ poem aptly fits his
cultural context, and closely follows Xenophanes, as ancient reports regularly attested.
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THOMAS K. HUBBARD, The University of Texas at Austin
GENDER TROUBLE IN EARLY GREEK BIOLOGY: IS PARMENIDES B18 D-K REALLY
PARMENIDES?
Parmenides , fr. 17 DK says that embryos become male when conceived on the right side, female
when on the left side. However, some testimonia (listed in A53-54 DK) suggest a more complex
interaction of both father’s and mother’s seed, to the effect that if male seed from the father
becomes deposited in the left part of the mother’s womb, the result will be an effeminate male,
whereas if female seed from the father becomes deposited on the right side of the womb, the
result will be a masculinized female.
However, some scholars are puzzled that fr. 18, preserved in a Latin translation by the
late medical writer Caelius Aurelianus, implies a different process of gender determination:
when mother’s and father’s seed are properly mingled, a “normal” boy or girl results, but when
their qualities (virtutes) fight (pugnent) and do not properly unify, they will “trouble” (vexabunt)
the “developing sex” (nascentem sexum) with twin seed.
The language of mixture and conflict between male and female seeds is suspiciously
close to Empedocles’ dialectic of Love (often called Aphrodite) and Strife among elements.
Empedocles was also intimately concerned with the processes of generation and birth, as we see
from the abundant testimonia in A79-83 DK, as well as some fragments that directly concern bisexed and sterile animals.
Could it be that fr. 18 was really from Empedocles’ poem and falsely attributed to
Parmenides by Caelius Aurelianus? Some aspects of Caelius’ citation are suspect: he refers to
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this fragment as an epigramma from Parmenides’ libri de natura. Diogenes Laertius 1.16 is clear
that Parmenides’ poem was one continuous book, whereas he attributes (8.77) no less than 5000
lines to Empedocles, necessitating multiple books, as well as a collection of epigrams (likely a
syllogē). The doxographical tradition includes numerous passages comparing the sayings of
Parmenides, Empedocles, and Anaxagoras on similar topics, such that an excerptor or incautious
reader might easily confuse an attribution.
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ALEXANDER P. D. MOURELATOS, The University of Texas at Austin
THE LOGIC OF MODAL EXPRESSIONS IN PARMENIDES
The thematically important modal expressions chrē and chreōn esti in Parmenides’ “Truth” have
often been translated “it is necessary” (in German “nötig ist”). On the basis of this translation,
some interpreters have projected onto these Greek modals the rules of alethic logic or deontic
logic—rules that allow for a significant distinction between the external and internal negation of
the modal. For, as is reflected also in natural-language use, “it is necessary not to . . . ” and “it is
not necessary to . . .” have different meanings; and likewise for “it is obligatory not to . . . “ and
“it is not obligatory to . . . .”
This projection of alethic-deontic logic has nurtured the interpretative hypothesis that
Parmenides is advancing a threefold distinction, one that posits three “routes of inquiry,” and
correspondingly three modes of Being: “what necessarily is” (expounded in “Truth”); “what
necessarily is not” (set aside as panapeuthēs, “altogether uninformative”); and “what is, but not
necessarily,” i.e. contingent Being (which is supposedly expounded in the second part of
Parmenides’ poem, the “Doxa”).
The paper examines evidence provided by three domains: (a) the natural-language use of
modals, in particular uses that do not distinguish between internal and external negation (e.g., in
English, “is right,” “is proper,” “it behooves one”); (b) analysis of the use of modal terms in the
preserved Parmenides fragments; and (c) the evidence concerning the use of chrē /chreōn esti in
the fifth century or earlier.
The conclusion that emerges: the threefold distinction is a mirage of mistranslation. For
as is strongly suggested by the rhetoric in Parmenides’ poem, only “two routes of inquiry” are
countenanced, the second of which is decisively rejected. The “Doxa” does comprise important
empirically driven science, including insights and discoveries made by Parmenides himself; but
it does not represent a “third route.” Its rationale and content is not adequately captured by the
hypothesis that it represents a scheme of non-necessary or merely contingent Being.
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CHIARA ROBBIANO, University College Utrecht
UNDERSTANDING PARMENIDES’ IDENTITY OF KNOWING AND BEING—
IN DIALOGUE WITH ŚAṄKARA AND CONTEMPORARY PHENOMENOLOGISTS
Both Parmenides (5th cent. BCE), Śaṅkara (8th cent. CE) and 21st century phenomenologists
refer to a fundamental reality that is prior to divisions, opinions, and stories we tell. I will look at
similarities in the ways they refer to the presumed fundamental reality.
The fundamental reality pointed to by 21st century phenomenologists is pre-reflective
self-consciousness: an ubiquitous self-awareness, which accompanies all mental states and
makes them possible (Zahavi 2006, 125), is more fundamental than any experiential content
(Gallagher 2000, 15 in Krueger 2010, 38), unchangeable and constant (Zahavi 2005, 132, in
Krueger 2010, 47), unitary and continuous (Zahavi 2010, 76). It might be quite invulnerable
(Damasio 1999, 118, in Krueger, 2010, 40), with no boundaries (Albahari 2010, 81-82), and nonindividualized (Ganeri 2010, 182).
All our philosophers use spatial metaphors that suggest lack of divisions and continuity
of reality across what seem to be boundaries. Just like ether or space (ākāṡa) is the same
17
notwithstanding its apparent enclosure in jars and pots, we are fundamentally self (ātman) that is
Brahman, but we mistakenly identify with our different bodies and minds (BSB. I.1,5; BSB
I,2,6), says Śaṅkara. Parmenides visualises being as undivided and protected as if by an ultimate
boundary (peîras pumatón, DK B8,42): a limit that does not separate two domains but signals the
invulnerability of what is inside. Pre-reflexive self-consciousness is referred to as “background”,
“one coherent space”, which is not separated from the single experiences, like space is not
separated —only distinguished— from objects in space (Fasching 2010, 204-206).
Pre-reflexive self-consciousness, just as Parmenides’ being, which is noeîn, and
Śaṅkara’s self, which is Brahman, can be pointed to as an undivided space, which is prior to —
and on neither side of— the distinction between subject and object, since it is the condition of
this and any other distinction.
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LIVIO ROSSETTI, Università di Perugia
LA POLUMATHIA DI PARMENIDE
The thesis I propose to outline is that our ‘universal’ perception of Parmenides’ poem is biased
by traditional readings to a considerable degree, at least if the poem actually included two
different doctrinal bodies, one on being and another on the physis, the latter necessarily
encompassing a number of sustained chapters on the physical world and (some) living organisms.
What I plan to offer in support of this claim is, first of all, an inventory of the topics dealt with in
the section devoted to physical world and living creatures. Something on Parmenides’ way of
studying and understanding different aspects of the physical world and living organisms is likely
to follow.
Once acknowledged the above (which, I presume, should not be found very
controversial), the poem comes to look differently and some principles of interpretation are
likely to collapse: first of all, the customary assumption that frgs. 1-9 include definite ideas on
the doctrines to be found in the second main body since the ‘second body’ is hardly compatible
with those strictures: just consider how often the doctrines taught in the ‘second body’ claim to
be not less reliable than the doctrine of being.
Several corollaries are likely to follow. Among them: (a) Parmenides was a polymath,
though not in the same way of Empedocles; (b) he may have been aware of that, since some
evidence in support of the awareness thesis is in fact available.
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BARBARA SATTLER, The University of St Andrews
THE NOTION OF CONTINUITY IN PARMENIDES
I want to show in this paper that Parmenides is the first thinker to use the notion of continuity in
a philosophically interesting and systematic way. By analysing three passages from fragment 8
of his poem, I demonstrate that synechês for Parmenides implies complete homogeneity and
indivisibility.
The three passages I look at are (1) fragment 8, line 6, where Parmenides calls eon
“syneches” for the first time and links being syneches and being homou (being together). (2)
Lines 22-25 show being synechês to exclude all differences, differences in kind as well as any
more or less. (3) Lines 42-49, finally, even though not using the word “synechês”, can be
understood as taking up the discussion of conditions that would prevent eon from being synechês
and as systematizing these conditions. The argument of this passage shows that what would
prevent eon from being synechês is either Non-Being, or unequally distributed Being, or the lack
of a final limit.
With an analysis of these three passages in hand, I also aim to explain part of the
difference in understanding “synechês” that we find in Parmenides’ poem and in Aristotle’s
Physics: both thinkers start from understanding being continuous as being homogenous, i.e., as
18
what is internally uniform. But strikingly, they draw opposite inferences from the assumption of
homogeneity – Parmenides claims homogeneity to imply complete indivisibility, whereas
Aristotle assumes homogeneity to entail divisibility as one likes. One explanation for this
difference can be found, or so I want to argue, in the way the two thinkers see the principle of
sufficient reason at work: for Parmenides the lack of any difference demonstrated in the passages
discussed shows that there is no sufficient reason for a division. By contrast, for Aristotle there is
no sufficient reason against any division.
__________________________________________________________________
JAN SZAIF, University of California, Davis
TALKING TO THE LAD: PARMENIDES ON HOW KRISIS ENABLES A TRUSTWORTHY
ACCOUNT OF THE TRUTH
In the first part of my talk, I reflect on how to interpret the roles of the narrator and the goddess
in Parmenides’ poem, given that the goddess’s logos concerning being lays out a form of a priori
reasoning. Why is an a priori argument presented as a revelation by a divine authority, along the
lines of the traditional model of a poet receiving his knowledge from a divine source? And are
we meant to identify the narrator (addressed as kouros) with Parmenides himself, delivering
some kind of autobiographical report? Or should we, rather, view him as a generic ideal listener
to the logos? My discussion includes a (brief) comparison with the role of the ‘I’ and the notion
of logos in Heraclitus and in some Socratic dialogues.
While the first part of my discussion argues for the claim that the ‘I’ of the proem is a
stand-in for any human listener to the logos, the second part discusses the conceptions of truth
and reliability/trustworthiness underlying the notion of a logos that is pistos. It highlights the
ways in which the concept of krisis is involved in the initial formulation of two alternate paths of
inquiry and in the rejection of an apparent third path of inquiry. It explains how this concept of
krisis informs Parmenides’ understanding of the words alêthês/alêtheia, etêtumos, and pistis,
eupeithês, etc.
The overall goal of the talk is to show how both the allegorical stage-setting and the use
of certain key terms in the argument of the goddess point to a conception of universal truth
which is there to be grasped just on account of the force of an argumentation that can be shared
by everyone.
________________________________________________________________
STEPHEN WHITE, The University of Texas at Austin
EUDEMUS OF RHODES ON PARMENIDES AND MONISM
Parmenides was a monist. On that there is a general consensus stretching back at least to Plato.
But what sort of monism he propounded, and on what grounds, is far from clear. The prevailing
modern view has long been that his monism is ontological (OM): there is exactly one thing or
entity of any sort. Call it being or (the) one, fudge or oobleck, anything you will, there is nothing
but it, ungenerated and imperishable, wholly undivided, undifferentiated, unchanging, and fully,
completely, perfectly whatever it is. So runs, in abbreviated form, the catalogue of predicates
Parmenides deduces for this special (way of) being in B8 – problematic in their plurality but also
in the absence of the very one at issue, its supposed uniqueness. Or at least its absence should be
striking, though in practice it is widely ignored. For as Barnes (1979) showed decades ago,
nowhere do the extant verses advance even the semblance of an argument for OM: for there
being a unique subject of those several predicates. Barnes reasonably set ancient testimony aside
to focus squarely on Parmenides’ own words. So we might still wonder if, as some contend, the
case for Parmenides holding OM rests on reactions his work inspired.
That is the question this paper takes up by examining some evidence rarely discussed:
some excerpts from a work by Eudemus of Rhodes, whose Physics began with a sustained
critique of Eleatic monism that closely parallels the opening chapters of Aristotle’s Physics but
19
also differs significantly. Both Aristotle and Eudemus treat Parmenides as holding that being is
in some way one. The key question for each of them is to determine what this way might be.
Both consider multiple alternatives; and nothing in either discussion provides much fodder for
saddling Parmenides with OM – or numerical monism (NM), as they would call it. On the
contrary, the options they canvas turn on the “many ways” (as they both put it) being and one
“are said”: the homonymy of both being and one. And as their formulation suggests, the forms
of monism they explore turn on issues of predication, not on a supposedly unique subject (for
any such predication).
I focus on four passages in Simplicius’ commentary on Physics 1.2-3 (Eudemus frs. 35,
37, 43, 44 Wehrli; cf. Coxon test. 36-7). These show Eudemus considering three distinct but
related positions, each treated as ranging over any number of entities in line with numerical
pluralism: everything belongs to a single category, or has a single predicate, or is defined by a
single essential feature. In other words, Eudemus explores whether Parmenides held that any
subject has predicates of only one categorial kind (categorial monism or CM), or only one
predicate of any sort (predicational monism or PM), or an essence characterized or defined by a
single predicate (definitional monism or DM). All three positions anticipate or prefigure key
principles of Aristotelian essentialism, or so Eudemus proposes. Showing how he proceeds and
explicating his alternative positions are the twin burdens of this paper
________________________________________________________________
See also: OMAR ÁLVAREZ SALAS, PYTHAGORAS AS NAME-GIVER AND PARMENIDES’
ὈΝΟΜΆΖΕΙΝ, at Pythagoreans/ -eanism.
__________________________________________________________________
Melissus
MATHILDE BRÉMOND, Paris IV Sorbonne, and Ludwig Maximilian University of
Munich
PHILOPONUS ON MELISSUS: A NEOPLATONIST REINTERPRETATION.
It is well known that Neoplatonist philosophers were inclined to read the Presocratics as
defending Platonist theses. Modern critics have already pointed out that Parmenides has been
interpreted in this way since Plutarchus. However, few have taken into account the application of
such a reading to Melissus, and most critics consider that Simplicius is its only supporter.
I aim to show that Philoponus, who is not usually known as particularly interested in the
Presocratics, not only is the first one to provide such an interpretation, but that he went out of his
way in order to reconcile the Melissan monism with the dualist Platonist system. I will present
textual evidence for the originality of his approach. Moreover, I will point out how Philoponus
strives to transfer the interpretations of Parmenides to Melissus, although Melissus does not
provide a two-folded study that offers an easy distinction between the intelligible and sensible
world. He finds a solution by quoting the Timaeus 27d-28a: it allows him to interpret the remarks
in the fragment B2 of Melissus on what is generated, τὸ γινόµενον, as considerations on the
sensible world. He is then able to reconstruct the whole Melissan picture of Being as an account
on the intelligible world that escapes the Aristotelian criticisms. I will finally show that
Simplicius’s own Neoplatonist interpretation rests on the one of Philoponus, as the resumption of
lexicon and arguments and the parallel structure of the two commentaries on the beginning of
Physics I, 3 make clear.
This contribution as a whole aims to underline the originality of Philoponus’s reading and
to present him as a much more interesting interpreter of the Presocratics than it is usually thought.
20
__________________________________________________________________
See also: CHRISTOPHER KURFESS, NAMING AND NON-NAMING IN THE ANONYMOUS DE MELISSO
XENOPHANE GORGIA: at Tradition and Reception.
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Anaxagoras
ANNA ARAVANTINOU, Research Centre for Greek Philosophy, Academy of Athens
ON ANAXAGORAS B14
Nous.. is ... where everything else is, in what surrounds the many things , and in what has been
been ( 1. ) proskritheisi and in what has been ( 2. ) apokekrimenois. DK 59B14
The above fragment of Anaxagoras has raised various problems, especially concerning the
identity of the things 1. and 2. , both of which are in close connection with the surrounding
( polla periechon ) . [ See the surrounding of the B2 ] .
In this paper I intend to show that the two categories of things are 1. things introduced in
this second surrounding and 2 . things definitely separated from it . More specifically , I try to
maintain that A . has retained the embryological model of the cosmos - along with the
mechanistic character of some of his explanations. Accordingly, since the cosmos has to be
‘nourished’ with new fuel , the former things are what are necessary for its augmentation and
preservation, and the latter are things that are no longer useful in any compound.
Apart from the analysis of B14, I try to derive additional support for my interpretation
from the phrase of the B13.8 ( and so much as Nous set in motion was separated ) , which
implies , in my opinion, that there is an even greater quantity not yet separated.
I also try to make clear the meaning of proskrinesthai , as it is encountered in some of
the Aristotelian Scholiasts as well as in Epicurus’ texts.
Finally , I try to show that aer and aether , participating in the actual revolution of the
cosmic bodies [ B12.23 ], are the real Anaxagorean “apeiron” , the full universal space , from
where this additional ‘matter’ comes inside the cosmos .
_________________________________________________________________
MICHAEL M. SHAW, Utah Valley University
RING COMPOSITION AND PARATAXIS IN ANAXAGORAS
In his commentary on Fragment B4a, Simplicius notes that Anaxagoras could be “hinting at
another world order besides ours.” He stops short of affirming this reading, concluding, “whether
this interpretation is right or not merits further investigation.” Frankel emphasizes that the
particle ἄν with an optative verb in the final line should be taken to construe the reference to
other civilizations as more of a thought experiment regarding hypothetical worlds. Other
interpreters find the fragment to support the existence of spatially separated cosmic systems
organized according to distinct separations. Leon maintains infinitely proliferating “microcosmic”
worlds, while Curd rejects this microcosmic interpretation, suggesting that the other separations
refer to worlds existing within the same primordial mixture as our rotation, but at unreachable
distances. Mansfeld advocates that the construction concluding fragment B4a, “ὅτι οὐκ ἂν παρ’
ἡμῖν µόνον ἀποκριθείη, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἄλλῃ,” should be taken as an optative of necessary inference,
rather than as a potential optative. Leon further points out that the use of the infinitive
construction throughout the passage supports reading it as single train of thought. Another
philological consideration sheds light on this fragment. A long string of coordinating
conjunctions, in this case thirteen “καί’s” and two “τε’s,” links nearly the entire fragment
together. Further examination reveals other rhetorical devices consistent with the poetic
techniques of ring composition and parataxis, common in Homer and Hesiod, among others.
Such devices primarily give unity to a simile, speech or other description. Homeric similes
exhibit this style, as does his description of the shield of Achilles. By comparing Anaxagoras’
21
fragment B4a with Achilles’ Shield, the intended unity of Anaxagoras’ structure will emerge.
Reading the fragment from this context shows the bulk of B4a to be a single, unified passage,
yielding a conception of infinitely proliferating microcosmic worlds functioning within a single
cosmos.
__________________________________________________________________
Empedocles
XAVIER GHEERBRANT , Université Lille 3 – UMR Savoirs, Textes, Langage
REPETITIONS AND EPISODIC COMPOSITION IN EMPEDOCLES’ PHYSIKA I: THE ROLE OF
ASYMMETRIC REPETITION IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE ARGUMENTATION
To build the argument of his cosmology, Empedocles took advantage of ways of poetic
composition that he had inherited from epic poetry. As in the Hesiodic poems, the meaning is
entrusted not only to the contents that are explicitly expressed within the poem itself, but also to
the way these contents are organized and shaped. The discussion will focus on the adaptation by
Empedocles of two modes of organization of the poetic material in the first book of the physical
poem: Ritournell-Komposition, i.e., the use of refrains or repetitions of lines or expressions; and
episodic composition.
I will argue that the asymmetry introduced between different instances of repeated verses
sheds light on the relationship between the “episodes” that form the argument. The study will
focus on two examples: (1) the smaller-scale example of three expressions, εἰς ἕνα κόσµον (26.5),
εἰς ἓν ἅπαντα (17.7, 20.2), and (διέφυ) πλέον' ἐξ ἑνὸς εἶναι (17.2, 17.17); (2) the larger-‐scale
example of the repetitions in fragment 26, and the role of this fragment in the argumentation of
book I.
__________________________________________________________________
JOSHUA I. GULLEY, Purdue University
THE EMPEDOCLEAN ROOTS AS POWERS
Empedoclean mixture is the mutual manifestation of powers. By ‘powers’ I mean beings that
manifest themselves differently in different conditions. In saying that they are beings, I mean
that they are not merely the properties of other beings, but they are real in their own right. For
Empedocles, Earth, Water, Air, Fire, Love, and Strife are all powers, and stuffs are
manifestations of the powers interacting in different combinations.
My defense of this interpretation will assume that Empedocles holds that the six
fundamental beings do not change in their natures, a thesis he adopts from his reading of
Parmenides. Given that assumption, any interpretation according to which the roots change in
their natures in mixture cannot be sustained. (Thus I will not offer any extended response to
views such as those in Palmer 2009 here.) My main target, therefore, will be interpretations that
treat Empedoclean mixture as the aggregation of discrete bits of stuff. In response to the
aggregation view, I undertake two main tasks. First, I offer a couple of positive reasons to think
that mixture is the mutual manifestation of non-stuffy powers rather than the aggregation of bits
of stuff: Empedocles’ theory has more explanatory power for its economy if mixture is the
mutual manifestation of powers, and the homogeneous unity of the Sphere is best explained by
powers. Second, I address some of the evidence that has been marshalled for aggregation
interpretations. I conclude that the power ontology I attribute to Empedocles provides him with
the best theory of mixture overall.
__________________________________________________________________
22
TAKASHI OKI, University of Oxford
EMPEDOCLES AND ARISTOTLE IN PHYSICS B 8
In this paper, I examine Empedocles’ view as presented by Aristotle in Physics B 8. With the
exception of Irwin (1990), many scholars (Ross 1923; Cherniss 1935; Waterlow 1982) think that
Empedocles as described in Physics B 8 explains why animals that have parts suitable for
survival account for the vast majority, and that Aristotle’s criticism of his explanation misses the
mark. In my view, however, it is more reasonable to interpret Empedocles’ argument in such a
way that Aristotle’s remark that teeth and all other natural things which come about always or for
the most part in a given way cannot be ascribed to chance (198b34-36) works as a criticism of it.
Even though it is not improbable that Aristotle presents Empedocles’ position imprecisely, I
believe it is less probable that Aristotle misguidedly criticizes Empedocles’ view as Aristotle
himself describes in Physics B 8. Further, if Empedocles is cited in favour of the rival view
against which Aristotle argues in the chapter, Empedocles’ view must be interpreted in
conformity with the argument at 198b16-31. I argue that a scrutiny of the text shows that true-totype reproduction is not presupposed in Empedocles’ argument. On the basis of a detailed
examination of Aristotle’s teleological explanation and his criticism of the anti-teleological
argument, I seek to clarify how Aristotle refers to Empedocles’ idea in Physics B 8.
________________________________________________________________
SIMON TRÉPANIER, University of Edinburgh
EMPEDOCLES ON THE LAW OF EXILE AND LIFE IN HADES
Part 1 offers one new papyrological observation and two new supplements to section d of the
Strasburg papyrus. I will argue that the text of ensemble d 5-7 should be restored as follows:
d5
⌊Οἴ⌋µ̣οι ὅτ(ι) οὐ πρόσθεν µε δι̣⌊ώλεσε νη⌋λεὲς ἦμαρ, DK B 139.1
⌊πρὶν⌋ χηλαῖς̣ ⌊σχέ⌋τ̣λι’ ἔργα βορ̣⌊ᾶς πέρι μητ⌋ί̣σ̣α̣⌊σθαι·⌋ DK B 139.2
[νῦν δ]ὲ μάτη[ν ἐπὶ] τῶι γε νό[µωι κατέδ]ε̣υσα παρειάς.
[ἐξικ]ν̣ούµε[θα γὰ]ρ̣ πολυβενθ̣[ὲς σπεῖος], ὀ̣ΐω
Woe that the pitiless day did not destroy me sooner,
before I plotted horrible deeds with my claws for the sake of food!
But now in vain on account of that law I have drenched my cheeks,
For we have come to a very deep cave, I reckon...
The previous text of d 7, either τῶιδε νότ̣[ωι (Primavesi 2011) or τού]τωι γε νότ̣[ωι
(Janko 2004) is wrong, since the basis for the supplemented ‘tau’ is in fact an unrelated letter
fragment lying atop the omicron. A figure to support this claim will be supplied at the
presentation. The reference to the law in d 7, I will then argue, is an internal reference back to the
exile of the daimones in DK B 115. This shows that B 115 belongs in the proem of the On
Nature, not the Purifications, or perhaps in a single original work. As for d 8, I propose
πολυβενθ̣[ὲς σπεῖος ‘very deep cave’ instead of πολυβενθ̣[εα Δῖνον] ‘very deep whirl’
(Primavesi 2011), on the basis of B 120 ἠλύθομεν τόδ’ ὑπ’ ἄντρον ὑπόστεγον, ‘we have
come down to this roofed cavern.’
Part 2 surveys the evidence for the ‘life in Hades’ doctrine in Empedocles, including
comparison with the After-life schemes in Pindar’s Second Olympian Ode and Plato’s Phaedo
myth.
________________________________________________________________
LEON WASH, University of Chicago
ON VEGETAL METAPHORS IN EMPEDOCLES
Plants enjoy a special prominence in Empedocles’ thought, but few scholars have studied their
role. Most famously there are the four-fold “roots” (ῥιζώματα DK B6). More interestingly, a
23
number of fragments apply the language of vegetation (through φύω, βλαστάνω, etc.) to a wide
variety of phenomena, including those roots. When these fragments are combined his claim to
have been a shrub (DK B117) and his suggestive use of ἐμπεδόφυλλον (“constant-leafed” DK
B77) and ἐμπεδόκαρπα (“constant-fruited” DK B78) to allude, it seems, to his own name, it
becomes clear that the vegetal loomed large in his imagination and self-conception. The chief
attempts to take account of this imagery are those of Kingsley and Motte, who insist upon its
likely origin in mystery cult and magic. Focusing instead upon the less esoteric, this paper will
consider the significance of this imagery by reference to Empedocles’ own thought and that of
his more prominent literary and philosophical predecessors. Seen in that light, his work becomes
a still more noteworthy episode in the peculiar productivity of vegetal metaphors in Greek poetry
and philosophy. Their potential will be seen in the striking figuration of psychology and zoogony,
and in the anticipation of a universal, teleologically governed nature. Thus in his vegetal imagery,
overshadowed though it is by imagery drawn from craft, Empedocles presents a pivotal move
toward later authors. The potential of a plant to suggest teleology should not be underestimated.
In the words of Aristotle, “… in plants too there is purpose (that for the sake of which), though it
is less articulated” (Phys. 199b9f.). While Empedocles’ notion of purpose, and indeed his vegetal
metaphors, are not so well articulated as those of later authors such as Plato, I hope to illuminate
in this paper their special relationship and historical role.
__________________________________________________________________
Philolaus
MÁTÉ HERNER, Central European University, Budapest
SOUL AS HARMONY IN PLATO AND PHILOLAUS
Among the views discussed and dismissed in the Phaedo is the theory, usually attributed to
Philolaus of Croton, that soul is a blend and harmony of opposites. The theory of soul presented
in the Timaeus shows striking similarity to this theory. Here the substrate of the World-soul is a
blend of its components, and harmony is its essential feature, necessary both for its coherence
and for its functions as principle of orderly motion and paradigm of intellection. I will argue that
Philolaus’ remark in Fragment 6 suggests that he did not in fact develop the exact ontological
character of harmony, and thus Plato was also not familiar with it. I propose that the presentation
and criticism of the theory in the Phaedo, and Timaeus’ account about the World-soul are two
attempts to fill this gap by developing Philolaus’ ontology further, and adapting it for the case of
the soul.
I will argue that modern interpretations of soul in Philolaus as the harmony of numbers
and as that of its own material parts fail to take sufficient notice of Aristotle’s testimony in the
Metaphysics about the absence of the material-immaterial distinction in Pythagorean thought.
Similarly in the Phaedo, Plato approaches the theory presupposing his corporeal-incorporeal
distinction, and attributes a role to harmony, which is the exact opposite of the one it plays for
Philolaus: instead of the necessary condition for the existence of composite beings, it becomes
their weak-emergent, supervenient product, unfit to account for soul’s role as ruler of the body. I
will conclude that Timaeus’ account is the more successful interpretation, because it stays true to
the peculiarity of Philolaus’ ontology by presenting numbers and harmony not as descriptive
tools or immaterial attributes, but as reflections of the essential nature of reality, which at the
same time also have perceptible manifestations.
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24
Hippodamus of Miletus
ROGÉRIO GIMENES DE CAMPOS, Universidade Federal da Integração LatinoAmericana
BETWEEN THE PLAN AND THE REALITY OF CITIES: ARISTOTLE AGAINST THE
INNOVATIONS OF HIPPODAMUS OF MILETUS
What we know of Hippodamus of Miletus comes almost completely from a portion of Aristotle’s
Politics Ar. Pol. 1267b23-1268a15 = DK 39, 1-2), in which he describes in general terms aspects
of Hippodamus’ life and his proposal for a tripartite city. Aristotle refutes all of Hippodamus’
proposals as inconsistent. In this text, we recover some clues as to the antagonistic conceptions
of Hippodamus and Aristotle with respect to cities and their transformations, observing
Aristotle’s peculiar way of understanding the city and preserving it, conceptually, from
transformation.
Keywords: city, politics, social models, legislation, and transformation.
__________________________________________________________________
Democritus/Atomists
MERRICK E. ANDERSON, Princeton University
DEMOCRITUS ON ‘ΕΥΔΑΙΜΟΝΊΑ’
One important feature of Democritus’ use of the term ‘εὐδαιµονία’ is the negative role it plays in
the extant fragments. We learn that εὐδαιµονία is not to be found in wealth and, moreover, that it
is problematic to assume the rich life is a good life. Although this is very important for
understanding Democritus’ considered ethical views, it has gone largely unnoticed in philosophic
commentary on his fragments.
In this paper I argue that Democritus used the term εὐδαιµονία primarily to argue against
a particular conception of the good life. In its original use, εὐδαιµονία primarily commended
wealth, prosperity and other external goods. To the extent that the word identified a sort of good
life it was the ‘good life-cum-material prosperity’. It is clear from Democritus’ other fragments
that he believed wealth was not only not necessary for happiness of the individual, but also that it
could be quite pernicious and damaging. Moreover, he was acutely aware that an excessive
desire for wealth was the biggest threat facing the polis. For these reasons, Democritus needed to
undermine the insidious assumption that wealth contributed to the happiness of the individual.
He did this by arguing that εὐδαιµονία was not to be sought in wealth, but in our soul. In this
way he hoped to reorient his contemporaries search for happiness from their external possessions
to their inner life. This was a major contribution to the history of Greek ethics insofar as it was a
conscious articulation that the good life is to be found within us and not without. None of this,
however, indicates Democritus’ own substantive understanding of the good life. I end by arguing
that he used the term εὐθυµία to identify his own account of the good life and briefly sketching
what this account looked like.
__________________________________________________________________
MICHAEL J. AUGUSTIN, University of California, Santa Barbara
ARISTOTLE AGAINST THE ATOMISTS ON THE EXISTENCE OF THE VOID
From Physics 214a16-217b28 Aristotle marshals a battery of arguments against the existence of
the void. One of the more intricate arguments is given at 215a24-216a25. The argument centers
on how a body’s weight and the rarity or density of some medium determine the speed at which,
and so time in which, that body traverses that medium. Aristotle contends that consideration of
25
this relationship in conjunction with the existence of the void yields the following
impossibilities: either (1a) that a body must traverse a certain distance of void in no time at all; or
(1b) that whether a body travels a certain distance through a medium or in a void, that body must
traverse that distance in the same specific interval of time; and (2) that all bodies must travel,
regardless of their weight, at an equal speed in the void. He concludes that while the void was
postulated to secure locomotion, in fact its existence renders locomotion impossible (216a21-22).
The present paper engages with this argument from the position of the fifth-century
Atomists Leucippus and Democritus. I maintain that, with respect to this argument, the
fundamental disagreement between Aristotle and the Atomists concerns how a body’s weight
determines the speed at which, and so time in which, that body will traverse some distance. I
argue that the Atomists can welcome the conclusion that all bodies must travel, regardless of
their weight, at an equal speed in the void. For it is compatible with their views on weight’s role
in atomic motion. Then I demonstrate that accepting this conclusion provides the Atomists with
those resources necessary to deny both (1a) and (1b). I conclude by offering some textual
evidence that the Atomists did set a natural limit to the speed at which the atoms move through
the void. As it concerns this argument, I submit that Aristotle does not succeed in demonstrating
the impossibility of the void.
________________________________________________________________
PATRICIA NAKAYAMA, Universidade de São Paulo
NOTES ON THE IDEA OF PHÙSIS IN DEMOCRITUS AND IN EARLY MODERN PHILOSOPHY
In the Stromata (Patchwork, IV, 151) of Clement of Alexandria we found a doxography about
Democritus which points to a very particular conception of nature (phùsis), similar to the human
education process, that is the building of nomos. This paper aims to elucidate the ambivalence
between nomos and phùsis present in the conception of phùsis of Democritus. As human
instruction can set numerous nomoi, the idea that establishes the meaning of signs (symbola)
which appoints the nomos is the convention and its notion of indivisibility (átomos). Finally, we
will observe how this notion has based the social contract of modern philosophers such as
Hobbes and other contractualists.
__________________________________________________________________
MIRIAM CAMOLINA DINIZ PEIXOTO, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
DEMOCRITUS ON DEATH
The subject of death is present in different contexts in the collection of fragments attributed to
Democritus in the edition of the Presocratics established by Hermann Diels. The treatment of this
topic in physics and cosmology spheres, as well as those of psychology and ethics, provide rich
material to conjecture about the physical foundations of reflections on death in the field of
anthropology and ethics.
In a passage drawn from the treatise On death of Philodemus, it reads that at the death,
“the corporeal nature dissolves in certain substances” (DK68B1a). A contrast can be seen in how
men conceive death, in the images they produce of what would happen you, and its various
conceptions explain, in turn, how they behave and conduct themselves in their lives (DK68B199,
200 , 201, 203, 206), and how, wanting to escape it, they end up going to meet her (DK68B203).
This attitude denotes, in men, their ignorance about its real nature, and its erroneous
understanding of the processes of generation and corruption, and ephemeral consistency of their
existence whereas bodies composed of atoms and void.
As witnessed by Aristotle in De generatione et corruptione, birth and death consist to
Leucippus and Democritus, respectively, aggregation and disaggregation of primary and
indivisible elements. In our paper we intend to present and examine testimonies and fragments
out of which it is possible to devise, within the framework of speculation atomistic and
reflections about death, the premises that have led them to support this thesis. In so doing, we
26
aim to clarify the reasons underlying the Democritus judgment concerning the different attitudes
and behaviors observed in men regarding this natural event. In other words, we want to verify
that the theses present in physics, cosmology and atomistic ethics are reconcilable, in its entirety,
in the context of his explanation as to what is life, the human life in particular and the birth and
death processes.
For this, we need to explain (1) the distinction they establish between simple bodies - the
invisible and indivisible elementary bodies - and composite bodies, (2) how they conceive the
soul as animating principle of living beings, and (3) the role of breathing in the preservation of
life and the ephemeral consistency of compound bodies animated.
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ENRICO PIERGIACOMI, University of Trento
NAMING THE PRINCIPLES IN DEMOCRITUS: A LINGUISTIC PROBLEM
It is well known that Democritus posited two principles of reality, i.e. atoms and void, and that
he gave to them many names. Synonyms of “atom” were for example the terms «body», «form»
and «thing» or δέν, while “void” was also called «space», «infinite» and «no-thing» or μηδέν.
What usually escapes the attention of scholars is the problematic outcome that this apparent
peaceful way of expression arises at the theoretical level.
Indeed, accordingly to Proclus (In Plat. Crat. 16ss. = fr. 68 B 26 DK), Democritus
believed that all names are not established by nature, but are mere conventions, that do not
express the true nature of the named object. And he gave four proofs in his behalf, among which
there is also that of the πολυωνυμία or ἰσορροπία. Names were not established naturally and do
not consequently express the nature of the objects, since we recognize that a same thing receives
different designations and meaning, none of which fully expresses its real φύσις. Now, if we
apply this idea to the principles, it follows that Democritus may have recognized that they are not
comprehended by men. The fact that both the “atom” and the “void” receive many names /
meanings is the sign that their nature escapes human understanding.
The speech which I would like to deliver at the IAPS conference aims at developing
further this problem and at trying to solve it. I will argue that this insistence on the
conventionality may have been only a first step of our process of knowledge, not the point of
arrival which necessarily brings to scepticism. Indeed, it may be a way to educate on how we
should name the principles, namely to choose those terms that better express their nature and to
establish with them a scientific method.
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Gorgias
LARS LEETEN, University of Hildesheim, and University of Oslo
KÓSMOS, LOGOS, ALĒTHEIA. TRUE SPEECH IN GORGIAS OF LEONTINI
The Encomium of Helen is particularly famous for its depiction of speech. Gorgias describes
logos as a “mighty lord” (dynastēs megas), a “body” (sōma) and a “drug” (pharmakon). This has
often been taken as evidence that he was engaged in a formal technique of persuasion. This
contribution, by contrast, reconstructs Gorgias’s stance on logos as a culture of speech that aims
at ethical education. The paper proceeds by contextualizing the Gorgianic logos, its sensuous
quality and aesthetic efficacy, within the practice of praising and blaming, mentioned in the
opening passage of the Helen, which reads:
“The grace (kosmos) of a city is excellence of its men, of a body beauty, of a mind
wisdom, of an action virtue, of a speech (logos) truth (alētheia); the opposites of these are a
disgrace (akosmía). A man, a woman, a speech, a deed, a city, and an action, if deserving praise
(epainos), one should honor with praise, but to the undeserving one should attach blame
(mōmos).” (Enc. 1, transl. D.M. MacDowell)
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My claim will be that the normative requirement of having to praise what is praiseworthy
and to blame what is blameworthy, which is spelt out in the second sentence, explains the
conception of alētheia implied in the first sentence of the speech. According to this conception,
speech is true if it supports and exemplifies morally right conduct and moral beauty, a thought
that can be traced back to Pindar. “True speech” in this particular sense will also be effective
speech, since it will promote right behaviour in the future.
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Antiphon
STEFANIA GIOMBINI, University of Girona, Spain
LOGIC AND RHETORIC IN THE TETRALOGIES OF ANTIPHON
Antiphon’s Tetralogies are complex antilogies where the rhetoric strength often hides the nature
of the logical structure. My aim is to show that the Tetralogies, as antilogies, are logically
unsolvable because the logical elements, from time to time taken by Antiphon, are never used as
basic elements for the speeches. The prosecutions and defenses of each antilogy take place from
two different logical contexts that do not allow an interplay between the systems.
In order to show this thesis, we will analyze in particular the II tetralogy, or that of the
javelin, where it can be found the use of a law, that is not actually existent and in force in this
period in Athens: it is forbidden to kill either rightly or unfairly (μήτε δικαίως μήτε αδίκως
ἀποκτείνειν). Through the analysis of the logical structure, we will see that this law is “accepted”
and “forgotten” at the right time during the arguments. The law, therefore, is not used as a
possible topic for the demonstration and it can not give continuity to the logic speeches. The
verification of these devices, leads us to the first two conclusions:
(i) Antiphon does not rely on the strength of the correct reasoning but on the thrust of the
persuasive topics; for this reason, paradoxically, the same logical dimension requires a well
defined structure;
(ii) the law is a pure fictional element (against the idea of some scholars who see it as a
possibly existing element or as a legacy of the draconian law).
Following the analysis, we will depict the figure of Antiphon as a rhetorician, capable of
an effective and powerful communication and the Tetralogies as a didactic-demonstrative work
where the fictional element overcomes the elements of the reality (compared to this, we will see
the function of the miasma).
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JOEL MANN, St. Norbert College
RATIONALIZING ACTION AND RESPONSIBILITY IN ANTIPHON
The tetralogies of Antiphon have largely been ignored for their potential contributions to early
Greek conceptions of action and law. To the extent that commentators have studied the
tetralogies, they have settled into two patterns of interpretation: the tetralogies are about
causation (Williams and Gagarin) or they take on issues of moral or legal responsibility without
clearly distinguishing them from issues of causality properly speaking (Barnes and Vegetti).
In this essay, I argue that there is in fact a clear distinction in the tetralogies between causal and
other forms of responsibility, and that the tetralogies are best understood as part of a tradition
that rationalizes traditional religious notions of responsibility—especially the notion of miasma,
or pollution—by refining the concept of what it means to be the agent of an action. I claim that
the tetralogies’ mysterious reference to the “law forbidding killing whether just or unjust” is
meant to problematize the persistent Greek idea that homicide pollution attaches to a person in
virtue simply of his or her prominent causal involvement in a death. To determine that “A killed
B” in a way that justifies the appropriate social response to the crime (e.g., exile for homicide),
one needs to go beyond the merely causal to consider questions of intent, fault, and, ultimately,
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justice and right. The “law forbidding killing whether just or unjust” is, I argue, exposed as
incoherent, and the two trends in Antiphon interpretation are in important ways refuted. The new
interpretation suggests that the ethical ambitions of Antiphon and the sophists mirror those of the
natural philosophers during roughly the same period: to rationalize a domain human knowledge
traditionally dominated by religious superstition.
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LAETITIA MONTEILS-LAENG, University of Montreal
ANTIPHON’S OPPOSITION PHUSIS/NOMOS AND GLAUCON’S APPROPRIATION
(REP. 360E-362A)
In the Peri Alētheias, Antiphon denounces a justice dia doxan (Antiphon, [Pendrick] F44 (a)
II.21-23), against nature, and ineffective. According to him, men can and should use this kind of
justice for their own benefits: when injustice may be detected by a witness (Antiphon, [Pendrick]
F44 (a) I.12-20), we have to obey the laws, but if we are sure that our actions won’t be observed
(F44B1), we have to obey nature (phusis), which is disconnected from conventional laws
(nomos). So we have to obey the human laws only selectively. While breaking (parabainein) the
law is real only if a witness effectively observes it – that’s why nomos is pros doxan –,
transgressing nature is automatically sanctioned, so according to Alētheia (F44B1). Nomos and
phusis are opposed: 1) nature’s requirements are necessary, and phusis is the only criterion of
what is advantageous (sumpheron), which is useful to the individual (F44A4). The prescriptions
of nomos are secondary; 2) nomos imposes substantial restrictions upon phusis.
In his thought experiment (Rep. 2. 360e-362a), Glaucon denounces the existing justice
through the same opposition phusis/nomos (358e, 359c) to which he adds another couple of
opposites, doxa/Alētheia (361b-362a, 365c) which is used by Antiphon (F44A2). Glaucon draws
the same conclusion as Antiphon: justice is a social construct. No one must actually have a just
character. We only have to seem just. But Glaucon does not idealize phusis. We do not find
anywhere in his speech something like a true standard of justice. Glaucon does not exactly repeat
what Antiphon says. How and why Glaucon, and ultimately Plato, use Antiphon’s doctrine? Is
Plato’s strategy an attempt to subvert Antiphon’s theory?
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Medical Authors
ADITI CHATURVEDI, University of Pennsylvania
AΡΜΟΝIΑ IN ON REGIMEN
“Order” was an extremely important notion for the Indo-Europeans and is denoted by the Greek
ἁρµονία, the Sanskrit ṛta, and the Avestan aša, all of which descend from the same root —
*H2er-(to join, adapt).While some modern commentators mistakenly tend to conflate ἁρµονία
with (musical) “harmony” or regard it as no more than a vague metaphor for unity, a closer
examination of pre-Platonic texts reveals that ἁρµονία occupies central importance for the early
Greeks in their writings on cosmology and the self. Although its role in the thought of Heraclitus,
Empedocles, and Philolaus has been recognized, the Hippocratic notion of ἁρµονία remains
under-studied. In this paper, I attempt to fill this lacuna by analyzing somatic ἁρµονία in On
Regimen.
For the Hippocratics, a positive somatic state requires a harmonic proportion, i.e. one that
allows an entity or set of entities to dominate. A striking passage in On Regimen I.8 describes
the ἁρµονία of male and female seeds in a growing human embryo using language that strongly
echoes Philolaus’ description of musical ἁρµονία in DK44 B6a. Later, in I.18, we are told more
about the nature of this ἁρµονία — it is that which governs dissimilar entities, and the finest
ἁρµονία comes from the most diverse entities. An analysis of these and other related passages is
enlightening on three fronts: we are afforded a more precise account of what somatic order
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consisted in for the Hippocratics via the musical/medical analogy, we can better understand the
archaic doctrine of ἁρµονία, and we can perhaps see the view on ἁρµονία that Simmias defends
in Plato’s Phaedo (85e-86c) and Aristotle alludes to in De Anima (408 a).
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Tradition and Reception
GUSTAVO LAET GOMES, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
THE PHILOSOPHER, HIS PREDECESSORS, THE COMMENTATOR AND HIS CRITICS: ON THE
CRITICISM OF HAROLD CHERNISS’ CRITIQUE OF ARISTOTLE AS A SOURCE FOR EARLY
GREEK PHILOSOPHY.
When studying the early Greek philosophers, it is usually not enough to recur solely to fragments.
Testimonies are useful and sometimes key in order to reconstitute their doctrines. However,
dealing with testimonies — and our major source of testimonies is Aristotle and the Peripatetic
tradition — may be tricky. Harold Cherniss’ Aristotle’s criticism of presocratic philosophy
(1935) was a major milestone in the study of Aristotle’s transmission of the doctrines of his
Preplatonic predecessors. Cherniss’ critics, however, have been hard over his reading of Aristotle.
If Aristotle distorts Presocratic doctrines intentionally, as Cherniss’ critics charge him of
accusing Aristotle, then it would be too risky to use Aristotle as a source. If he intentionally
distorts his predecessors, we should expect him to do everything he can to hide all traces of it.
However, if he is sincere, the so-called distortions may seem so because he cannot avoid seeing
his predecessors through his own lenses.
In this paper, I analyze three paradigmatic types of criticism raised against Cherniss: the
one that aims to safeguard Aristotle’s reliability as a source for early Greek philosophy; the one
intended to safeguard his right to the title of historian; and another one that rejects both
discussions as shadowing Aristotle’s philosophical activity. Even if some of Cherniss’
conclusions about the doctrines of the early Greek philosophers may seem outdated, his general
method stands valid: Aristotle’s testimony should be approached in a careful and systematic way
in order to remove his misinterpretations and eventual distortions. The three types of criticism
analyzed, however, do not seem to touch the kernel of this method. On the contrary, they seem to
agree with the basic premises, but somehow insist that Cherniss criticism is out of place.
Keywords: Harold Cherniss, ancient atomism, De generatione et corruptione, Leucippus,
Democritus.
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CHRISTOPHER KURFESS, University of Pittsburgh
NAMING AND NON-NAMING IN THE ANONYMOUS DE MELISSO XENOPHANE GORGIA
The work commonly referred to today as the de Melisso Xenophane Gorgia, or MXG, and
confidently classified as Pseudo-Aristotelian, was not always so titled. In the manuscripts that
preserve the treatise, where titles are given at all, the three portions of the work are traditionally
associated with Xenophanes, Zeno, and Gorgias respectively. While the modern scholarly
correction is well-founded, studies of the work tend to overlook a noteworthy feature of the text
that allowed for the confusion in the first place. Strangely, in the first portion of the work,
devoted to Melissus, the author avoids expressly naming him, either in the paraphrase of
Melissus’ thesis or in the criticism that follows. Though many prominent Presocratics are
mentioned in the course of the discussion, Melissus’ name does not actually appear until the
second portion of the work, that is, until the discussion of an argument which may be attributed
(problematically, but with the help of a parallel report in Simplicius) to Xenophanes. In this
second part, Xenophanes’ own name, which was among those that had appeared earlier, is now
30
withheld. Gorgias, meanwhile, is not only unnamed in the third part, which tradition correctly
associates with him, but anywhere else in the work.
These are not, I suggest, accidental omissions, but deliberate stylistic choices made by
our author, a study of which can reveal something of his manner of engagement with the
philosophical matters he treats. Treating such omissions as well as the occasions on which the
author decides to name names as significant, I seek to make some sense of the array of names
that appear over the course of the work as a whole, and to situate the author in a tradition of
playful reflection on the nature of naming as well as being.
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RICHARD MCKIRAHAN, Pomona College, and University Of California, Santa
Barbara
THE DOWNSIDE OF DOXOGRAPHY (WITH THALES AS A TEST-CASE)
This paper offers a critical assessment of the limits of doxographic sources, in particular their
limits as regards the reconstruction of the actual thought of the Presocratic philosophers. I start
by outlining Frede’s taxonomy of ways to pursue the history of philosophy and sketching the
kind of information doxographical sources provide. I briefly consider what our situation would
be if texts like Aëtius were our only sources of information about the Presocratics and then
discuss how doxographical information is (or is not) useful to those who study the history of
philosophy in each of Frede’s ways. With this in mind I turn to Thales and consider doxographic
testimonia relevant to some of his views on astronomy, gods and the soul, calling attention to the
variety of views that our sources attribute to Thales on these topics. Finally I discuss problems
that this variety raises for historians of philosophy and I suggest some ways of dealing with them.
__________________________________________________________________
ANNIE HOURCADE SCIOU, Université de Rouen
MODALITÉS DE LA “PISTIS” DANS L’ANONYME DE JAMBLIQUE
Malgré le nombre important d’études dont le but était de déterminer l’identité de l’auteur des
fragments référencés sous l’intitulé « Anonyme de Jamblique » figurant sous le numéro 89 des
fragments et témoignages collectés par Hermann Diels, aucun consensus n’a pu s’établir sur la
question de l’identité de l’auteur, même s’il est incontestable qu’il s’agit d’un représentant de la
sophistique ancienne – comme le suggère le classement de Diels – prenant part au débat
opposant les défenseurs du nomos et les tenants de la physis.
Le but de cette communication ne sera pas de poser une hypothèse concernant l’identité
de l’auteur des fragments mais d’interroger et d’analyser la présence, dans le texte, d’un même
terme – recouvrant néanmoins des acceptions différentes mais complémentaires – identité
terminologique qui fournit un outil de lecture des sept fragments. Ce terme est celui de pistis, que
l’on peut traduire dans les trois cas par « confiance ». L’Anonyme, en effet, articule trois
acceptions de ce sentiment exclusivement positif : la pistis en tant qu’elle s’oppose au phthonos,
à la jalousie, confiance authentique que suscite chez les autres non pas celui qui maîtrise la
technique du discours mais qui pratique de longue date la vertu – perspective manifestement
critique à l’égard d’une pistis exclusivement fabriquée par le discours ; la pistis que suscite la
bonne législation (eunomia), confiance collective associée à l’epimeixia et, partant, à la paix
sociale, qui autorise la circulation des richesses contribuant à l’intérêt commun, perspective qui
considère la confiance comme un élément-clé de l’un des points les plus originaux du texte de
l’Anonyme : sa conception économico- politique ; enfin la pistis associée à l’espoir (elpis), qui
dérive de la confiance collective et en constitue l’aspect moral, confiance qui, peut-être plus
qu’un simple sentiment, désigne un état durable de l’âme favorable, précisément, à l’exercice de
la vertu.
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See also: ROGÉRIO GIMENES DE CAMPOS, THE TRIPARTITE CITY OF HIPPODAMOS OF MILETUS, at
Hippodamus of Miletus; MATHILDE BRÉMOND, PHILOPONUS ON MELISSUS: A NEOPLATONIST
REINTERPRETATION, at Melissus; CATERINA PELLÒ, A PYTHAGOREAN TABLE OF OPPOSITES?, AT
PYTHAGOREANS/ -ISM.
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Comparative Study
KELLI C. RUDOLPH, University of Kent (Canterbury)
THE SENSE OF TASTE IN PRESOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY
The sensory turn is well underway in Classical studies, and in this paper I bring insights from
sensory studies to bear on Presocratic accounts of taste and the epistemological concerns that lie
at the heart of these philosophical investigations.
Although Xenophanes inaugurates the epistemic approach to the senses with his claim
about the relative sweetness of honey and figs, Alcmaeon and Democritus too make comparisons
between the perceptions of gods, humans and animals a part of their discussion of the senses.
These comparisons arise from attempts to clarify the boundaries of human perception, judgement
and taste. This should not surprise us since taste, and the pleasure taken in it, is considered the
most subjective of the senses.
Turning to the accounts of Alcmaeon and Democritus, it is clear that their theories of
taste are characterized first and foremost by their desire to find a physiological basis for the
epistemological concerns raised by the senses. The physiology of taste is, by nature, multisensory, involving touch and smell as well as taste. An analysis of Alcmaeon’s physiological
account reveals a thinker interested in how sensations are transferred in the perceiving subject.
Taste is particularly important since it has a double effect, both on the brain and in the stomach.
Democritus’ account, by contrast, is more concerned with understanding the causes of taste
sensations and how particular atomic shapes can alter the perceiver’s experience. Unlike
Alcmaeon, Democritus is most interested in the cases of dissimilar sensation and this becomes
the basis for much of his theorising.
What these three approaches to taste have in common, however, is this: they are all
attempts to explain how we, as humans, are able to gain an understanding of our world and
ourselves in the most fundamental way: through consumption.
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