ARTICLES
Christos C. Evangeliou
Towson University, USA, cevang@aol.com
Language: English
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 10.1 (2016) 9–38
Keywords: Aristotle, rationality, logos, nous, eudaimonia, ontology, ousiology, philosophy, dialectic, man, cosmos.
Abstract. In order to make Aristotle’s philosophy better understood, I would like to provide here a brief but accurate account of the concepts of logos (discursive reason) and nous (intuitive mind), and their respective functions in his method of dialectic. Dialectic was used in all the major works of the corpus Aristotelicum, in the philosopher’s great effort to noetically grasp and philosophically explain the place of man in the cosmic order of things, and his search for eudaimonia (well-being). Since Aristotle’s conception of human nature and its potential for virtuous activity, at the ethical and political or at the intellectual levels of excellence, has deeper roots in his ontology and ousiology, such a synoptic account will be useful, for it will provide an appropriate context for the correct evaluation of the ethical and political views of this philosopher. It will become clear from our analysis that he is misunderstood by scholars in the West and in the East for different historical reasons, which will be elucidated as we proceed further into the discussion of our theme in this essay.
Miguel López-Astorga
Institute of Humanistic Studies “Juan Ignacio Molina”
University of Talca, Chile, milopez@utalca.cl
Language: English
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 10.1 (2016) 40–49
Keywords: Aristotelian theory, logic, principle of explosion, reasoning, syntax.
Abstract. The principle of explosion is a problem for the syntactic theories trying to explain and describe human reasoning. In fact, most of the formal cognitive theories tend to reject it. However, that rejection is not often based on a theoretical development of the theories, but on inductions from experimental data. In this paper, I expose Woods and Irvine’s arguments in order to show that Aristotelian logic does not have this problem, that its theoretical framework does not enable to accept the principle of explosion, and that this logic hence has, at least in a sense, certain advantages compared to the current reasoning syntactic theories.
Maya Petrova
Institute of World History, Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow), beionyt@mail.ru
Language: English
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 10.1 (2016) 50-60
Keywords: Donatus, biography, the Ancient tradition, a medieval text.
Abstract. The article treats a medieval text Vita Donati grammatici (The Life of Donatus), containing biographical information concerning [Aelius] Donatus, a Roman grammarian of Late Antiquity. The history of the scholarship of this text, as well as its contents, possible reasons of creation, its genre, and some eccentric and parodic features are under consideration. The study is accompanied by an English translation of the text.
Igor Tantlevskij
St. Petersburg State University, Russia, tantigor@mail.wplus.net
Language: English
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 10.1 (2016) 61–75
Keywords: Essenes, Therapeutae, the Qumran community, predestination, prediction, Messianic expectations, mysticism, esotericism, immortality of the soul, angel-like beings, rephaites.
Abstract. The author considers three possible Aramaic etymologies of the designation Ἐσσαῖοι/Ἐσσηνοί: (1) Since, according to reiterated Josephus Flavius’ accounts and the Dead Sea scrolls’ evidences, the Essenes and the Qumranites, closely associated with them, believed in predestination and foretold the future, they could be called: those, who believe in predestination, sc. the “fatalists”, “determinists”; or: those, who predict fate, i.e. the “foretellers”. This hypothetical etymology is derived from the Aramaic word ḥaššayyā᾿ (m. pl. in st. det.; resp. ḥš(᾿)(y)yn in st. abs.) reconstructed by the author from the term ḥšy/ḥš᾿ (“what man has to suffer, predestination, fortune”) after the model: C1aC2C2aC3. (2) In the present author’s opinion, the Qumran community held itself allegorically to be the “root(s)” and “stock” of Jesse, giving life to the “holy" Davidic “Shoot” (see: Isa. 11:1); or, in other words, the Qumranites appear to have considered their Yaḥaḏ (lit. “Unity/Oneness”) the personification of a new Jesse, who would “beget” and “bring up” a new David. (Cf., e.g., 1QSa, II, 11–12: “When [God] begets (yôlîḏ) the Messiah with them (᾿ittām; i.e. the sectarians. — I. T.)...”.) Proceeding from this doctrine, one can assume the etymology of the designation Ἐσσαῖοι/Ἐσσηνοί from the Aramaic-Syriac spelling of King David father’s name Jesse — ᾿Κ(š)ay. (3) The Essenes’ and the Qumranites’ aloofness from this world and their striving for interrelations with the other world could be a reason, by which they came to be regarded as “liminal” personalities and nicknamed (probably, with a tinge of irony) after the name of “rephaites” (the original vocalization seems to have been: rōfĕ᾿îm, lit. “healers”, sc. “benefactors”) of former times, whom they really recalled in some key aspects of their outlook and religious practice. In this case, the designation θεραπευταί, “healers”, — applied in Jewish Hellenized circles, primarily, in Egypt, to the members of the (ex hypothesi) Essenean communities of mystic-“gnostic” trend — could be in fact a Greek translation of the Hebrew term rōfĕ᾿îm. It also seems natural to assume that this designation of the sectarians could be interpreted/translated by the uninitiated by the word ᾿āsayyā᾿/᾿āsên, meaning “healers”, “physicians”, in the Aramaic-speaking milieu of the region of Syria-Palestine.
Sergey Avanesov
Tomsk State Pedagogical University, iskiteam@yandex.ru
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 10.1 (2016) 76–90
Keywords: Parmenides, ancient philosophy, ontology, epistemology, anthropology, poem, epistemic optics, visual connotations.
Abstract. In this article, I complete my brief study of visual anthropological themes and meanings that can be seen in the philosophy of Parmenides, primarily in his ontology. I analyzed the text of the Parmenides’ poem to detect in it the ideas that express the theoretical position of the Elea philosopher in relation to ontological parameters of human existence. “Optical” characteristics of Parmenides’ philosophical language is accented in this article to clarify his views on the mutual relations of sensually empirical experience and theoretical scientific knowledge, of explicit “many things” and implicit “single”, of the physical dynamics and speculative statics, of “human” world and the “true” being. I paid special attention to the problem of border and form of being-in-general in Parmenides, and I investigated the question of reflection of this form in the physical space. I conclude that the Parmenides’ philosophical “optics” can be explicated and described in the following key points, which was shown to 1) discourse in its specificity, 2) cultural-historical and physical contexts of the narrative, 3) an inner ascetic intention of author, 4) cosmology as a systemic critique of sensory experience, 5) epistemology in its visual aspects, 6) ontology, 7) semiotics.
Andrey Shetnikov
“New School” Ltd, Novosibirsk, Russia, schetnikov@ngs.ru
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 10.1 (2016) 91–106
Keywords: ancient and medieval arithmetic, school mathematics.
Abstract. The survey is devoted to the history of “arithmetical riddle problems” found in Diophantus’ Arithmetica, Anthologia Palatina, ancient Chinese Nine chapters of the mathematical art, The Book of Abacus of Fibonacci, Medieval Armenian “Questions and solutions”, some Arabian and Indian sources, etc. Many well-known “arithmetical riddle problems” known from our school textbooks were invented a long time ago – in Hellenistic antiquity, if not earlier. As a rule, their solving was based on techniques of oral arguments and account, which are restored in this paper.
Andrey Shetnikov
“New School” Ltd, Novosibirsk, Russia, schetnikov@ngs.ru
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 10.1 (2016) 107–120
Keywords: Greek Archeology, ancient temples, inductive metrology.
Abstract. Applying Euclidean algorithm to the main dimensions of Parthenon stylobate, we conclude that this stylobate was marked with 0.286 m foot. This measure fits 15 times in the interaxial column spacing, 108 times in the width of the stylobate and 243 times in its length, so the ratio of the width to the length is exactly 4 to 9. The same 0.286 m foot is recovered from the dimensions of Hephaisteion stylobate. However, applying the same analytical method to other Periclean Doric temples, we obtain other stylobate foot lengths, different for every building.
Dmitry Biryukov
National Research Nuclear University MEPhI, Saint Petersburg State University of Aerospace Instrumentation, Padova University, dbirjuk@gmail.com
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 10.1 (2016) 121–131
Key words: universals, patristic philosophy, Neoplatonism, hierarchy of natural beings, the categories, genera-species dividing, the tree of Porphyry.
Abstract. The article reconstructs philosophical context of polemics on the status of commonness in the Arian controversy. I suggest that this doctrine of Eunomius according to which the higher we go up the hierarchy of beings, the lesser the horizontal commonness in the nature of individual beings we see, may have been closely related to the Middle- and Neoplatonic interpretation of Aristotle’s Categories which implied that categories and especially the category of the second substance (corresponding to species and genera) could be applied only to the corporeal realm. Keeping it in mind, I demonstrate connection between the argumentation of Eunomius and the philosophical teaching of Iamblichus. I point out the opposite accounts on status of the universal between Eunomius and Gregory of Nyssa, who created treatise “Against Eunomius” refuting Eunomius’s “Apology for Apology”. Two strategies of the hierarchy of beings can be identified in Gregory’s “Against Eunomius”. I think that each of them is connected with the Tree of Porphyry. One of these strategies is opposite to the doctrine of Eunomius, since for Gregory the most common is placed at the summit of the hierarchy, and measure of commonness decreases when we go down the hierarchy. I suggest that it was a specific doctrine of Eunomius on the universal which triggered a philosophical reaction manifested in the doctrine of Gregory of Nyssa on the hierarchy of beings.
Valery V. Petroff
Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow)
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 10.1 (2016) 132–145
Keywords: Origen, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Methodius of Olympus, Gregory of Nyssa, growth and growing, eidos of the body, corporal identity, risen body.
Abstract. The paper treats Origen’s reception of Alexander of Aphrodisias’ arguments concerning growth and growing. It is shown that Origen uses the reasoning and examples used by Alexander, in his doctrine of the risen body. Taking the principle that the form (eidos) of the body experienced quantitative change remains the same, Origen tries to prove that even if a resurrected body possesses different material substrate, the remaining identity of its eidos (“appearance”) allows to postulate the identity of the former (earthly) body and the new risen body. At the same time, Origen neglects two premises, crucial in the Peripatetic framework which produced the doctrine of growth and growing. First, enmattered eidos could not be separated from its material substrate. Secondly, only the remaining continuity of the substrate, absent in the case of the resurrection, allowed to affirm not only indistinguishability but also the identity of the risen body. Methodius of Olympus’ criticism of Origen’s doctrine is also considered, together with an example of Gregory of Nyssa’s inefficient recourse to this Origenian concept.
Marina Wolf
Institute of Philosophy and Law, Novosibirsk, Russia
Novosibirsk State University, rina.volf@gmail.com
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 10.1 (2016) 146–168
Keywords: Empedocles, Parmenides, pluralism, monism, Pre-Socratics, argument, argumentation, elements, explanation.
Abstract. The question about justification of pluralism in post-Parmenidean doctrines is frequently discussed by scholars. Some of them argue that successors of Parmenides accepted their pluralism without any arguments. This paper demonstrates that B 17 DK of Empedocles can be interpreted as three sequential arguments for plurality: metaphysical, ontological and pro-Eleatic. Also we can read the passage as an intertextual argument, that is to say an argument which receives its persuasive force only in the context of another, original argument from the previous doctrine on which it is based. This is why the justification of plurality in Empedocles becomes clear only in the context of the Parmenidean B 8 DK.
Irina Protopopova
Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, plotinus70@gmail.com
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 10.1 (2016) 164–182
Keywords: dialogue Phaedo, μῦθος, λόγος, the soul, argumentation, opposites, dialectical dialogue, dramatic approach.
Abstract. The article offers an interpretation of Plato's Phaedo based on a new reading of the main themes of the dialogue. The author believes that the so-called theory of Forms and the proofs of immortality of the soul are used here by Plato mainly with a view to examine the questions of “simple unity” and interaction of opposites; in this, the Phaedo appears a kind of introduction to the Parmenides, Republic, Sophist, and Timaeus. However, the purported examination is presented in the form of a “dialectical dialogue” (according to classification of Aristotle's Topics), whose main task is pedagogical, i.e. the point here is not to present conclusive evidence in favor of the immortality of the soul, but to demonstrate the ways by which we can reason about it. Thus, in the context of the above substantial subject matter, two methods of philosophizing, “dogmatic” and “dialectical” ones, are being opposed, the so-called “genuine philosophers” (a collective image with explicit reference to the Pythagoreans) representing in the dialogue the dogmatic mode of philosophy. The main methodological basis of the article is the “dramatic approach”, which bespeaks not to limit oneself to mere isolation of philosophical positions in the dialogue but to pay close attention to their contexts, the idiosyncrasies of Socrates’ interlocutors and their replicas, to various “non-philosophical” detais, etc. Two samples of implementing this approach along the lines of the substantial interpretation of the dialogue suggested above are given in the article, focusing on the relationship between μῦθος and λόγος, and on implicit characteristics of Simmias and Cebes in the Phaedo's “prologue” (57–64b).
Dmitry Shmonin
Russian Christian Academy for Humanities, shmonin@mail.ru
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 10.1 (2016) 183–195
Keywords: Paideia, the ancient model of education, Jewish pedagogy, early Christian education, scholastic educational paradigm
Abstract. The author analyzes the religious elements in the Classical teaching models and the theory and practice of Jewish education, which are considered in the context of the formation of the Christian upbringing and education. The latter reflects a fundamentally new religious-eschatological perspective of human life and stimulating of social and cultural transcoding including changes in rational traditions (in theory), in image of a person's actions (in practice) and, as a consequence, in the emergence of new motivational aspects of education (pedagogy). As a result, in the 6–9th centuries we observe building a new Christian (Scholastic) educational paradigm with the Christian worldview, rationalistic scientific tradition and the idea of systemic productive knowledge as its basic constituents.
Roman Svetlov
St. Petersburg State University, Russian Christian Academy for Humanities,
spatha@mail.ru
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 10.1 (2016) 196–204
Keywords: ancient religious legislation, history of Russia, the history of Christianity, Peter I, Constantine the Great.
Abstract. Constantine the Great and Peter I are compared in the article in terms of their relationship to the Christian Church. The comparison of these rulers was an important element of the mythologizing of Russian history. As a result, the acts of Peter shade all pre-Petrine Russia's past (just as acts of Constantine distinctly shared by Christian Rome from the pagan Rome). Constantine was the protector of Christianity, while Peter strongly limited the rights and influence of the Church. However, in their religious policy is an important thing in common. Both emperors converted the church into an element of the state machine, and church leaders – in state figures. They both sought to maximize the mobilization and unification of social life.
Vsevolod Ladov
Tomsk State University, Tomsk Scientific Center SB RAS, ladov@yandex.ru
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 10.1 (2016) 205–213
Keywords: relativism, contradiction, self-reference, logic, epistemology, Plato, Russell, theory of types.
Abstract. In this article, I analyze two arguments against relativism in Plato’s «Theaetetus». Which argument is stronger from a logical point of view? Having used some results of contemporary research on the logic of paradoxes, I give my version of the answer to that question. The results of my analysis may be used in investigating the history of ancient philosophy as well as in contemporary epistemology.
Anna Afonasina
Tomsk State Pedagogical University, Novosibirsk State University, Russia, afonasina@gmail.com
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 10.1 (2016) 214–226
Keywords: Simplicius, Elements, the cosmic cycle, reconstruction, the Presocratics.
Abstract. The recent surge of interest in the Empedoclean philosophy is connected with a discovery of the previously unknown fragments of his poem in the structure of the Strasbourg papyrus. A new edition advanced by A. Martin and O. Primavesi has appeared in 1999. Before the eyes of many scholars has arisen a fresh picture of the Empedoclean great work. Some authors evaluate this fact as the beginning of the whole epoch in studying of the poem (or poems) by Empedocles, others do not incline to overstate its importance (P. Curd, for instance). The present work is dedicated in the first place to the problem of reconstruction of the new fragments and to the arguments in favor of their proper placing relative to the early-known ones. We will trace the process of the poem’s renaissance. This article opens the number of future studies, dedicated to different questions in studying of the Empedocles’ thought arisen in connection with the recently discovered fragments. I hope that the paper will be useful for Russian scholars, since no study on the Strasbourg papyrus has appeared in Russian yet.
Elena Lisanyuk
St-Petersburg State University, e.lisanuk@spbu.ru
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 10.1 (2016) 227–259
Keywords: Hippocratic Oath, Galen, Aristotle, judiciary, logic, practical syllogism.
Abstract. The ancient art of healing and practical argumentation are closely linked, and this link points to three substantial issues: that physicians enjoy certain social status, that medicine is recognized as a special area of knowledge and that the art of healing is a profession. We use the analogy between the medicine and the judiciary for demonstrating these issues. The analogy involves two groups of norms governing the activities of judges – the norms of competence and the norms of conduct which we interpret as the actional and the practical aspects of the ancient art of healing. The actional aspect is similar to the norms of competence of a judge and sets the goal for the art of healing – restoring patient’s health, and defines a physician as a person who is publicly allowed to pursue this goal in his professional activities. The practical aspect is reminiscent of the judges’ norms of conduct and it outlines the terms and techniques which lead to achieving this goal by those who are considered physicians, according to the norms of competence. In order to become a real tekhne, it is necessary and sufficient for the art of healing to secure its actional and practical aspects in the body of theoretical knowledge, on the one hand, and in the appropriate professional code, on the other. Practical argumentation serves as the tools of this implementation, for it allows to combine the norms and actions in a set of strategies of conduct, aimed at restoring patient’s health, of which the physisian is now free to chose the one that appear to be the most effective.
Eugene Afonasin & Anna Afonasina
Novosibirsk State University, Institute of Philosophy and law, Russia, afonasin@post.nsu.ru
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 10.1 (2016) 260–280
Keywords: Athena, Asclepius, Damascius, Julian, the House of Proclus, blood sacrifice, healing.
Abstract. In general, Proclus had intimate relations with gods, but Asclepius seems to assist him all his life: the young Proclus miraculously recovered when the son of Asclepius, Telesphorus, appeared to him in a dream; in a more advanced age the patron of medicine saved him again, this time from arthritis; and it was Asclepius who appeared to him as a serpent “in his final illness” (Vita Procli 7 and 31). The philosopher speaks about a vision of Asclepius in his Commentary to Alcibiades 166. Besides, he was probably involved in the process of establishing an Asclepian cult in his home country. It is against this background that one may look at the Neoplatonic attitude to medicine. Having discussed first the principal philosophical interpretations of Asclepius found in Apuleus, Aelianus, Macrobius, Julian, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Proclus, Damascius, etc., we turn to Proclus’ attitude to Athena and Aslepius as reflected in Marinus’ Vita Procli and finally discuss the cult of Eshmun as found in Damascius. The textual data are supported by arhcaeological evidence from the “House of Proclus” in Athens.
TRANSLATIONS
Eugene Afonasin, translation and comments
Tomsk State University, Novosibirsk State University, Russia, afonasin@post.nsu.ru
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 10.1 (2016) 281–306
Keywords: Ancient medicine, Galen, empiricism, skepticism, dogmatism, Methodism.
Abstract. Galen’s last work, De propriis placitis (On my own opinions) has a very complex textual history. Except to few extracts, the Greek original of the treatise is lost. The last two chapters of the treatise, entitled On the substance of natural faculties, circulated independently in a fourteenth century translation into Latin by Niccolò da Reggio. The main body of treatise is preserved in a medieval Latin translation made from an Arabic translation (as numerous words, transliterated from the Arabic, testify). There is also a quote in Hebrew. Fortunately, some time ago V. Nutton (1999) published an excellent commented edition of the treatise. It was proven indispensable for the present study, as well as a recent publication of a newly discovered Greek text by Boudon-Millot and Pietrobelli (2005). The treatise, important for understanding of Galen’s various opinions, certainly deserves a close study. It is now translated into the Russian for the first time.
Eugene Abdullaev
Tashkent Greek Orthodox College, Uzbekistan, abd_evg@yahoo.com
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 10.1 (2016) 307–334
Keywords: ancient oneirology, Neoplatonic schools, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Lucretius, Zoroastrianism.
Abstract: Chapters 2–3 of the Solutiones ad Chosroem of Priscian of Lydia addressed the questions of the Persian king Chosroes I on the nature of sleeping and dreams. An introductory article reviews the main sources of this part of the Solutiones: three small Aristotle’s oneirologic treatises, the On sleep and dreams by Theophrastus and the Symmikta Zetemata by Porphyrios. It also reviews the possible links of the chapters to the oneirologic speculations in the Persian religion and court’s cult. The article is supplemented with a commented Russian translation of the relevant chapters of the treatise.
REVIEWS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
L. G. Tonoyan, tonoyan2003@list.ru
J. V. Nikolaeva, culturaitalia@yandex.ru
Saint Petersburg State University
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 10.1 (2016) 335–346
Keywords: Boethius, L. Obertello, R. Pinzani, logic, the doctrine of hypothetical syllogisms, propositional logic, logic of predicates, Peripatetic logic, Stoic logic.
Abstract. In the article we review modern studies in Boethius’ treatise On the Hypothetical Syllogisms as exemplified by the works of Luca Obertello, Roberto Pinzani, Mauro Nasti de Vincentis and other historians of logic. We conclude that interpretation of R. Pinzani (2003) allows avoiding many difficulties encountered by the mathematical logicians during the analysis of the Boethius’ doctrine of hypothetical syllogism. Professor of the University of Parma R. Pinzani places high emphasis on the “philosophy of language” of Boethius, which precedes syllogistic calculations (it. calcolo sillogistico). Boethius sees no fundamental difference between categorical and hypothetical propositions as both are formed due to the properties of terms. R. Pinzani proves that both the hypothetical and categorical syllogistic work on the same structural ground. Unlike other researchers, Pinzani applies in his analysis the apparatus of the contemporary logic of predicates and combines categorical and hypothetical syllogistic with the general theory of proof, developed in the Analytics of Aristotle. This approach seems to be the most promising one for understanding the logic of Boethius developed in accordance with the Aristotelian logical system, and contrary to the Stoic one.
Vitaly Tselishchev
Tomsk State University, Institute of philosophy and law, Novosibirsk, Russia, leitval@gmail.com
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 10.1 (2016) 347–356
Keywords: Aristotle, the history of logic, new developments in logic, epistemology.
Abstract. A review on a series of Jaakko Hintikka’s Aristotelian studies, esp. his Analysis of Aristotle: Selected Papers. Kluwer Academic Publisher, 2004.
