Already a subscriber? - Login here
Not yet a subscriber? - Subscribe here

Displaying: 1-9 of 9 documents


1. Maynooth Philosophical Papers: Volume > 6
Michael Dunne Foreword
view |  rights & permissions | cited by
2. Maynooth Philosophical Papers: Volume > 6
Amos Edelheit Issue Editor’s Introduction: Philosophy, not Ignorance!
view |  rights & permissions | cited by
3. Maynooth Philosophical Papers: Volume > 6
John Glucker Α Ι Τ Ι Ο Σ and Cognates: the Cart and the Horse
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
This article discusses some methodological issues concerning the nature of the study of ancient philosophy, and especially the relation between the precise historical and philological reading of the ancient texts and the philosophical speculation about what these texts mean, or (as is often the case) what one thinks that they should, or must, mean. I take as a specimen of the ‘more philosophical’ approach two articles by Michael Frede, both from his Essays in Ancient Philosophy. In his Introduction, Frede seems to base what he regards as the proper study of the ancient philosophical texts on the detection in these texts of what he calls “good reasons”, which he identifies with “what we ourselves would regard as good reasons”. This would imply – in this particular case – that the criteria employed by a contemporary analytic philosopher should serve as the acid test of the validity of any historical reconstruction of what an ancient philosopher – who had no idea whatsoever of analytic philosophy (or of any other modern philosophical fashion) – really meant. Purely historical considerations, according to Frede, should only serve in the last resort, in cases where we have failed to detect “good reasons”. To illustrate the consequences of such an approach, I discuss some of the features of the other article, ‘The Original Notion of Cause’, showing that, while it makes some very useful contributions to elucidating Stoic concepts of causality, it sheds no light on the earlier meanings of αἴτιος and αἰτία as two of the main, and original, Greek concepts of causation. This is demonstrated through a brief (and very basic) survey of the development of these two concepts from Homer to the early fourth century.
4. Maynooth Philosophical Papers: Volume > 6
Ivor Ludlam Thrasymachus in Plato’s Politeia I
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
This is part of a forthcoming book analysing Plato’s Politeia as a philosophical drama, in which the participants turn out to be models of various types of psychic constitution, and nothing is said by them which may be considered to be an opinion of Plato himself (with all that that entails for Platonism). The debate in Book I between Socrates and Thrasymachus serves as a test case for the assumptions that the Socratic method involves searching for truth or examining the opinions of interlocutors and that Socrates is the mouthpiece of Plato. Socrates and Thrasymachus are usually assumed to be arguing about justice. In fact, they are going through the motions of an eristic debate, where the aim is not to discover the truth about the matter under discussion but to defeat the opponent by fair means or foul, but especially foul. The outrageous wordplay used by both men is not so obvious in translation, and in any case tends to be ignored or explained away by scholars who assume that Plato the philosopher was writing a philosophical treatise (an exposition of philosophical ideas) and not a philosophical drama (a presentation of philosophically interesting models, to be compared and contrasted by the reader).
5. Maynooth Philosophical Papers: Volume > 6
Yosef Z. Liebersohn Rejecting Socrates’ Rejection of Retaliation: Gregory Vlastos, Socrates’ Morality, Plato’s Dialogues and Related Issues
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
This paper criticizes one of Vlastos’ well-known articles, in which he purports to reveal what he takes to be one of Socrates’ great achievements in ethics. By using what I take to be a more appropriate way of analysing Plato’s dialogues, I show how the same paragraph which is used by Vlastos to corroborate his case proves, in fact, the opposite. What Vlastos regards as “Socrates’ Rejection of Retaliation” turns out to be nothing but an instrument used by Socrates to make Crito look at his own behavior towards the polis. In a wider context, Plato’s Crito is shown to be a severe criticism of democracy, where the lex talionis is rather one of its dominant tools used both by the state and its citizens.
6. Maynooth Philosophical Papers: Volume > 6
Michael Dunne FitzRalph on Mind: A Trinity of Memory, Understanding and Will
view |  rights & permissions | cited by
7. Maynooth Philosophical Papers: Volume > 6
Gregorio Piaia What Point is there in Studying the History of Philosophy Today?
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Contrary to the opinion that considers the study of the history of philosophy to be useless, or sees it prevalently as subservient to today’s philosophical problems, the author maintains that a formative, not purely informative, insight is to be gained by such a study, because it helps us understand that past theories are something “other” than our contemporary view of man and the world. The history of philosophy thus reveals itself as a valuable tool for broadening and enriching our intellectual – and therefore human – experience, avoiding the risk of intellectual conformism.
8. Maynooth Philosophical Papers: Volume > 6
Cyril McDonnell Husserl’s Critique of Brentano’s Doctrine of Inner Perception and its Significance for Understanding Husserl’s Method in Phenomenology
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
This article first outlines the importance of Brentano’s doctrine of inner perception both to his understanding of the science of psychology in general in his Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (1874) and to his new science of descriptive psychology in particular which he later advances in his lecture courses on ‘Descriptive Psychology’ at the University of Vienna in the 1880s and early 1890s. It then examines Husserl’s critique of that doctrine in an ‘Appendix: Inner and Outer Perception: Physical and Psychical Phenomena’, which Husserl added to the 1913 re-issue of his Logical Investigations (1900–01). This article argues that, though Husserl promotes a very different method in phenomenology to the method of ‘inner perception’ which Brentano designs for descriptive psychology, one cannot fully understand the significance of the method that Husserl advocates in phenomenology, both in the Logical Investigations and in Ideas I (1913), without (1) distinguishing four different meanings for ‘inner perception’ (as accompanying inner percept, inner reflection, incidental awareness, immanent perception) in Brentano’s thought and addressing (2) the problematic issue of the particular kind of scientific method for his new science of descriptive psychology which Brentano bequeaths to Husserl.
9. Maynooth Philosophical Papers: Volume > 6
List of Contributors
view |  rights & permissions | cited by