Browsing by Subject "Ancient philosophy"
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Item An analysis of Plato's Meno(2015-10-16) Duggan, Nicholas James; Stauffer, Devin, 1970-; Pangle, Thomas LThis thesis offers an analysis of Plato’s Meno, in which the Greek philosopher addresses more directly than in any other dialogue the character of human virtue. Believing that Plato has considerable guidance to offer us in respect to the question of what virtue is, I attempt to approach his writing with considerable care and attention to the details and the structure of the argument. I argue that the dialogue ultimately presents a complicated teaching about virtue’s character, and the way that virtue comes to be present, which ultimately culminates in the claim that virtue is knowledge – and in the thoughtful consideration of the alternatives to, and the nuances of, that claim.Item Anatomy and anatomical exegesis in Galen of Pergamum(2013-12) Salas, Luis Alejandro; Dean-Jones, Lesley; Hankinson, R. J.This dissertation is a study of the differing explanatory criteria used for the assessment of epistemic medical claims, particularly anatomical claims, in the work of Galen of Pergamum (129-c. 216 CE). It focuses on Galen's use of anatomy and anatomical exegesis to position himself in relation to the various medical sects or haireseis active in the Late Roman Empire. Consequent on the emergence of invasive anatomical investigations in the early Hellenistic period (3rd cent. BCE), the explanatory and therapeutic value of anatomical information came to be a defining characteristic of competing medical sects. The Empiricists, who, we are told, were reacting to what they believed was the theoretical promiscuity of other medical thinkers, took their name from their reliance on experience rather than theory, the latter a methodological commitment they attributed to other medical thinkers whom they grouped under the broad category of Dogmatists. This sensitivity to theoretical claims is apparent from the fact that the Empiricists eschewed anatomical dissections, on the grounds that they required analogical moves from structures in corpses to structures in living creatures. If Galen is to be taken at his word, by the second century CE, sectarian disputes between the medical sects had risen to a fever pitch. Galen, who was at pains to make a place for his own medical beliefs in this debate, stresses the need for explanatory theoretical accounts of the body and things relevant to its biological function but also insists that these theoretical accounts be based in empirical observations. One of the arguments he must overcome is the problem of anatomical analogy, raised by the Empiricists. Galen not only engages with this issue from an abstract point of view but, this dissertation argues, he engages with it through the narrative structure of his anatomical accounts throughout his work and especially in his procedural anatomical handbook, De Anatomicis Administrationibus. Historically, this treatise has either been ignored by scholars or studied as a technical treatise that lacks in artifice. This dissertation questions this approach and considers the argumentative role of Galen's anatomical exegesis in the debate over the explanatory value of anatomy in Greco-Roman medicine. It takes as one of its main focuses, Galen's accounts of elephantine anatomy. It argues that these accounts are governed by different norms of assertion, which do not place the same premium on accurate reporting of anatomical detail, from the surrounding anatomical narrative in De Anatomicis Administrationibus. To that end, it shows the need for a more nuanced reading of fachprosa, such as Galen's anatomical work, than these texts have historically received.Item Evidentiary criteria in Galen : three competing accounts of medical epistemology in the second century CE(2012-12) Salas, Luis Alejandro; Hankinson, R. J.; White, Stephen AThis report examines the sectarian backdrop for Galen of Pergamum's medical epistemology. It considers the justificatory role that experience (empeiria) and theoretical accounts (logoi) play in Empiricist and Dogmatist epistemology in an attempt to track how Galen incorporates experience into theoretical accounts as a means by which to undergird them. Finally, it briefly considers the exiguous evidence for Methodism, Galen's main medical rivals in the Roman world and claims that Galen forges a middle path between these sects.Item Monarchy and political community in Aristotle's Politics(2012-05) Riesbeck, David J., 1980-; White, Stephen A. (Stephen Augustus); Gagarin, Michael; Morrison, Donald; Perlman, Paula; Woodruff, PaulThis dissertation re-examines a set of long-standing problems that arise from Aristotle’s defense of kingship in the Politics. Scholars have argued for over a century that Aristotle’s endorsement of sole rule by an individual of outstanding excellence is incompatible with his theory of distributive justice and his very conception of a political community. Previous attempts to resolve this apparent contradiction have failed to ease the deeper tensions between the idea of the polis as a community of free and equal citizens sharing in ruling and being ruled and the vision of absolute kingship in which one man rules over others who are merely ruled. I argue that the so-called “paradox of monarchy” emerges from misconceptions and insufficiently nuanced interpretations of kingship itself and of the more fundamental concepts of community, rule, authority, and citizenship. Properly understood, Aristotelian kingship is not a form of government that concentrates power in the hands of a single individual, but an arrangement in which free citizens willingly invest that individual with a position of supreme authority without themselves ceasing to share in rule. Rather than a muddled appendage tacked on to the Politics out of deference to Macedon or an uncritical adoption of Platonic utopianism, Aristotle’s defense of kingship is a piece of ideal theory that serves in part to undermine the pretensions of actual or would-be monarchs, whether warrior- or philosopher-kings.Item Poetic genetics : family, sexual reproduction, and community in Lucretius' De rerum natura(2018-08-17) Takakjy, Laura Chason; Dean-Jones, Lesley; Gordon, Pamela; Galinsky, G. Karl; Lushkov, Ayelet H.; White, Stephen A.; Hankinson, Robert J.My dissertation examines family, sexual reproduction, and community in Lucretius’ poem De Rerum Natura and reconsiders the importance of these topics in Lucretius’ formulation of Epicureanism for a Roman audience. I argue that Lucretius modifies Epicurus’ teachings about family and sex to render Epicureanism more palatable to a Roman audience. I explore the cultural resonance of the social metaphors Lucretius uses to explain atomic movement, particularly in Books 1-3, and I argue that Lucretius presents the atomic world as built on cooperative relationships. In light of my findings regarding Lucretian atomic movement, I propose a new reading of Lucretius’ views on love and sexual reproduction in Book 4. I argue that Book 4 presents love as a bivalent phenomenon and that Lucretius finds conjugal love as most natural and in line with the atomic universe. Building on my analysis of Lucretian theories of love and sexuality, I propose a new reading of Lucretius’ presentation of marriage in Book 5. I argue that family, rather than friendship, is presented in Lucretius’ anthropology as the foundational social relationship in society, and, in this respect, that Lucretius departs from Epicurus. Next, I propose that Lucretius considers religio to be the greatest harm to the family, and I offer a contextualization of Lucretian pietas in Roman culture. I conclude my project with an analysis of the “Sacrifice of Iphigenia,” which I propose portrays Agamemnon as committing a crime against nature since he interferes with the cycle of generational renewal by killing his daughter. I contend that in this episode Lucretius formulates an Epicurean virtue of pietas, which aims, above all, at maintaining the integrity of the Roman family.