Special Issue
ANCIENT PSYCHOLOGY
Eugene Afonasin
The Centre for Ancient philosophy and the Classical Tradition,
Novosibirsk State University, Institute of Philosophy and Law, Russia, afonasin@gmail.com
Language: Russian, translated from the Ancient Greek
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 6.2 (2012) 228–258
Keywords: Ancient psychology, Neoplatonism, doxography, the soul, eschatology
Abstract: Built on two previous studies, dedicated, respectively, to Iamblichus of Chalcis’ (c. 240–325) Letters and his vision of the afterlife (ΣΧΟΛΗ 4.1 (2010) 166–193 and ΣΧΟΛΗ 4.2 (2010) 239–245), the author now turns to the De anima of the Syrian Neoplatonist, preserved only fragmentary in John of Stobi’s Eclogae. Unfortunately, only a doxographic part of Iamblichus’ original treatise On the Soul was preserved by Stobaeus. The fragments were collected and for the first time studied by Festugière (1953), are then comprehensively edited, translated and commented by J. Finamore and J.M. Dillon (2002). The text is interesting for many respects. It supplies us with a considerable amount of information concerning ancient opinions about the nature of the soul, its powers, activities and faculties, considers the questions related with the number of the souls, their descent, encounter with the body, life and death, and, finally, such eschatological matters as purification, judgment, punishment and reward. Besides, the fragments allow us to perceive Iamblichus’ own concept of the soul as a mediator between the world and the higher reality, immersed in the context of his sharp criticism of his predecessors, such as Numenius, Plutarch, Atticus, Albinus, Plotinus, Amelius, and Porphyry. The fragments are translated into the Russian for the first time.
Vladimir Baranov
Institute of Physiology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences
Novosibirsk State University, baranovv@academ.org
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 6.2 (2012) 259–282
Keywords: Origenism, Platonism, Soul of Christ, Christology, Embryology, Eucharist
Abstract: On many occasions Byzantine Iconoclasts name religious images “soulless.” The article offers a review of the pertinent sources and a re-evaluation of the Iconoclastic doctrine exploring the hypothesis that the Iconoclasts might have used the term in a literal and technical sense of “deprived of soul.” Indeed in the Iconoclastic doctrinal sources the mediating role of Christ’s soul between the divinity of the Word and the human flesh is emphatically stated. This Christological scheme, going back to the Christian Platonist Christology of Origen and his followers, preconditions the primary objection of the Iconoclasts to the veneration of artificial images: the Iconodules’ failure of rendering the soul of Christ on the icon results in confusion or separation of natures since the soul in the Iconoclastic Christology is that which holds the natures of flesh and of divinity together. Moreover, in a passage on the non-anthropomorphic Eucharist as the legitimate image of Christ, the Iconoclasts parallel the Incarnation to the Eucharist, stating that Christ assimilated only the matter from the human nature, which is not characterized by any human shape. If we add to this other passages on the Incarnation that mention the human soul of Christ, it becomes clear that the doctrine of assuming only flesh from mankind, represented by the Virgin Mary, is a consistent doctrine. In this Christology, the soul of Christ is not only pre-existent, but has a special instrumental function, condensing and shaping Christ’s body in Mary’s womb. The role of the Mother of God in this Christology is substantially less important since she only provides matter to the Christ’s soul which shapes his human body. This can explain the substantial amount of hagiographical sources that accuse the Iconoclasts of a “Nestorianizing” attitude towards the Mother of God.
Sergey Avanesov
Tomsk State Pedagogical University, Russia, iskiteam@yandex.ru
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 6.2 (2012) 283–305
Keywords: Values in archaic society, Homer, Ancient literature, epic poems
Abstract: Axiology as a sphere of value orientation and preferences is the base of every society. The analysis of Homer’s poems gives an opportunity to explicate the value base of archaic Mediterranean culture. In the first part of the article (ΣΧΟΛΗ 4.2 (2010) 260–290) I have examined various patterns of behavior. Values such as honor, glory, devotion, self-sacrifice, friendship, mutual help, hospitality, justice-equality and justice-retribution are on the positive pole of this culture. Anger, insult, deception, greed, cowardice, audacity, and desecration of the enemy’s body are on the negative pole. Positive values are fixed in the sanctioned “standards” of social behavior. In the second part I turn to the foundation of decision-making and examine how the particular actions of epic heroes are determined by the fate, the will of the gods, the traditional moral standards, or various practical considerations.
Eka Avaliani
Tbilisi State University, Georgia, eka_avaliani@yahoo.com
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 6.2 (2012) 306–322, illustrated
Keywords: Ancient mythology, artistic representation, gorgon, Vani, Georgia
Abstract: The article “Vani in the 4th and in the first half of 3rdI centuries BC” by D. Kacharava, D. Akhvlediani, G. Kvirkvelia (Iberia-Colchis, 3 (2007)) demonstrates recent finds in the region; the artifacts illustrated in the article, are dated from the end of early Classical times to the Early Hellenistic period and interesting in two respects; first, they are singular finds of antefixes with the representation of Medusa Gorgon, second and more interesting is the presence of “fair-cheeked Medusa’s” image in Vani archaeological context. In the Mediterranean art, the head of Medusa was very common as a decoration on shields, buildings, citadel walls, vases, and other objects. Antefixes with the representation of Medusa Gorgon images found in Vani context are stylistically close to the archaic images of Medusa Gorgon on the antefix discovered in the Acropolis of Athens, although they do not make an impression of pieces of refined art, unlike the versions from Athens. They remind us more of pieces of “craft” and peripheral versions. These discoveries are somewhat exceptional and do not have general character. Medusa iconography areal did not expand to the territory of Hellenistic Georgia, which in this case can be considered as a marginal cultural zone, where discovery of Medusa Gorgon image on abovementioned artifacts is a single fact.
Svetlana Mesyats
Institute of philosophy, Moscow, Russia, messiats@mail.ru
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 6.2 (2012) 323–339
Keywords: Ancient philosophy, ontology, epistemology, Platonism, textual analysis
Abstract: The article concerns the ontological dimension of the One-and-Many problem in Plato’s Philebus. A well-known sophistic paradox “unity is plural, while plurality is one” is inspired by the question of identity of the existent things: how a given thing can be identical with itself and simultaneously be determined in many ways in relation to other things? Having distinguished the realms of Being and Becoming, Plato solved the problem of perceptible things to the effect that only the real beings (forms) are deserving to be named unities, while the rest of the things are unified only in their appearance to the extend they are participating in the forms. But this does not eliminate the One-and-Many problem: now it is applied to the forms themselves. How the unified forms are undergoing division in the realm of becoming, and why, taken in their capacity of being existent, they are losing their self-identity and are becoming plurality? In the Philebus Plato introduces the concept of the ‘middle’, something to be found between the unified and undivided form and the indefinite plurality of its perceptible manifestations. Perceived from the prospective of such a ‘middle’ term, the form ceases to appear as a compete and indiscernible unity, on the one hand, or an empty notion, that designate an indefinite plurality of things, on the other. A blend of unity and diversity, the limiter and unlimited, the form becomes a number and logos. Why Plato in the Philebus has stripped the form of its unique self-identity? Probably because he does not describe the structure of the ideal realm in itself, being instead concerned with the structure of our knowledge about it?
Vladimir Brovkin
Institute of philosophy and law, Novosibirsk, Russia, drakar@ngs.ru
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 6.2 (2012) 340–349
Keywords: Epicurus, Cicero, Seneca, virtue, pleasure, good, happiness
Abstract: The article is devoted to the problem of correlation between virtue and pleasure in Epicurus' ethics. In the Letter to Menoeceus Epicurus expressed some ideas that may seem controversial. On the one hand he claims virtue to be the biggest good, tied to pleasure. On the other hand Epicurus says that pleasure is the beginning and the end of a happy life, and also criteria of any good and evil. The main opponents of Epicurus in regard of the issue of virtue and pleasure are the Stoics and Cicero. Their critique is based on the idea that virtue and pleasure have nothing in common. They differ in essence and origin. Virtue is based in the soul and intellect, while pleasure is located in the body and feelings. From this could be derived that the idea of Epicurus about the ties that link virtue and pleasure are controversial and ill-conceived. However it is the aims of virtue and pleasure, not its basis that is important for Epicurus. The aims are tranquility of the soul and corporal health. According to Epicurus pleasure is the beginning and the end of the happy life. But, in order to achieve it, one needs a proper mean, and, according to Epicurus, such a mean is virtue.
Ludmila Sychova
Novosibirsk State University, sls@academ.org
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 6.2 (2012) 350–364
Keywords: Archimedes, method of mathematical theorems, calculus, innovative thinking
Abstract: The paper deals with the history and mechanisms of the novation in mathematics from Archimedes to Newton and Leibnitz that had ultimately led to invention of the integral calculus. Archimedes created the ‘method’ and managed to solve the basic problems, related with calculation of the areas and volumes of curvilinear figures. Although Kepler, Cavalieri, Fermat and other modern mathematicians followed the way and developed the method of Archimedes, the calculus in the proper sense of this word was finally invented by Newton and Leibnitz as a result of their ‘reflexive thinking’, when they realized that it was the calculus itself, not the class of problems it had been designed to solve, that should be considered the primal objective of their investigation. The article shows how the exact and natural sciences, such as astronomy, mechanics and optics, put questions to mathematics and how the latter respond to this questions with various form of innovative solutions.
Alexander Marey
The National Research University – Higher School of Economics,
Moscow, Russia, fijodalgo@gmail.com
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 6.2 (2012) 350–383
Keywords: Alphonse the Sage, Siete Partidas, Castile, crime, sin, yerro
Abstract: Using various sources, including the narrative, normative and documental ones, the author describes the process of genesis of the concept of “misdemeanor” (yerro) in the Castilian language. In the reign of Alphonse the Sage (1252 – 1284) this word was used by court lawyers for signifying any crime without making difference. On the basis of information discerned from the bilingual texts (such as the Etymologiae of Isidor of Sevilla, Fuero Juzgo, etc.) the author shows that originally the yerro was an ethic concept and only starting with the Alphonse’s linguistic reform it had gradually acquired religious and juridical connotations.
Andrey Sсhetnikov
ΣΙΓΜΑ. The Centre of Educational Projects, Novosibirsk, Russia, schetnikov@ngs.ru
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 6.2 (2012) 384–404
Keywords: Ancient and medieval geography, measuring of the distances, travel
Abstract: The review deals with the origin and late development of the spherical Earth’s doctrine in ancient Greece, as well as how it was assimilated in other cultures that came into the contact with Hellenistic culture directly or through a chain of tradition. Special attention is paid to the methods of mathematical geography, which allow to measure the circumference of the globe and to determine the coordinates of geographical points on its surface.
Andrey Sсhetnikov
ΣΙΓΜΑ. The Centre of Educational Projects, Novosibirsk, Russia, schetnikov@ngs.ru
Language: Russian, translated from the Ancient Greek
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 6.2 (2012) 405–433
Keywords: ancient science, mechanical devices, movement, lever, arm
Abstract: A collection of the questions and answers on the subject of mechanics of the Aristotelian corpus (847a10–858b30) was compiled in the Lyceum during and after Aristotle's time, in the late fourth and the early third centuries BCE. This earliest treatise on the theoretical mechanics allows us to observe a new branch of science in the process of its creation. Among other matters the authors attempt to explain the work of various mechanisms on the basis of a single principle, the lever and circular motion. The collection is marked by its diversity: it proposes a range of working hypotheses and offers alternative explanations for the same phenomenon, a rare witness of vivid school discussions of the scientific matters.
Konstantyn Rayhert
Odessa National University, Ukraine, virate@mail.ru
Language: Russian
Issue: ΣΧΟΛΗ 6.2 (2012) 434–449
Keywords: Presocratics, Preplatonic philosophy, Early Greek philosophy, criticism, analysis
Abstract: In a series of his studies A. Lebedev insists in abandoning of the term Vorsokratiker, introduced by Diels-Kranz and widely accepted in the contemporary historiography of the ancient philosophy. Essentially, he proposes three basic arguments. The purpose of this article is to show that all of them are weak and, therefore, one cannot accept Lebedev’s criticism as convincing.
