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1. Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy: Volume > 19 > Issue: 1
Theodore George Letter from the Editor
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2. Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy: Volume > 19 > Issue: 1
Scott F. Aikin Xenophanes the High Rationalist: The Case of F1:17-8
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Scholarship on Xenophanes’s F1 has had two foci, one on the rules of the symposium and the other on the religious program posed at its close. Thus far, the two areas of focus have been treated as either separate issues or as the religious program proposed in the service of the sympotic objectives. Instead, I will argue that the sympotic norms Xenophanes espouses are in the service of the broader program of rational theology.
3. Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy: Volume > 19 > Issue: 1
S. Montgomery Ewegen 'An Inconsistent Ado About Matters of No Consequence': Comic Turns in Plato's "Euthydemus"
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Scholarship on the Euthydemus has largely focused on the protreptic character of the Euthydemus—that is, the manner by which Socrates attempts to turn the young Cleinias toward philosophy. By focusing on the dramatic structure of the text, and above all its comic tenor, this article argues that it is Crito—he to whom Socrates tells his hilarious story of his encounter with the two sophist-brothers—who is the real object of Socrates’s protreptic speech.
4. Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy: Volume > 19 > Issue: 1
Joe Balay "The Special (Dis)Advantage of the Beautiful" in Gadamer's Plato Reading
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In this paper, I examine two important claims that Hans-Georg Gadamer makes in his Plato interpretations. The first claim is found at the end of Wahrheit und Methode, where Gadamer suggests that “the special advantage of the beautiful” in Platonic philosophy is both a shelter and a reminder of the good, as well as the structure of eidetic appearance that brings together ideality and appearance in the event of new understanding. The second claim considered here is Gadamer’s suggestion that while non-being is more alive in Plato than Heidegger’s critique of metaphysics admits, a genuine thinking of semblance remains only “subliminal” in Plato. Drawing these two claims together, I argue that Gadamer’s reading of Plato’s Philebus reveals that the nature of the beautiful grounds semblance in a deeper way than even Gadamer recognizes. Specifically, I contend that beauty’s appearance is both a necessary concretion of the dynamic mixture of the good, the limited, and the unlimited, and yet, as just this concrete appearance it also always dissembles this ongoing dynamic. As the context of the Philebus indicates, however, this is a claim that concerns not only human experience, but ontology itself. In the end, such a finding contributes to a more Socratic interpretation of Platonic wisdom and philosophical hermeneutics, suggesting that genuine knowledge begins with the recognition of the limits and vulnerability of understanding.
5. Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy: Volume > 19 > Issue: 1
Véronique M. Fóti Revisiting Greek Tragedy in Dialogue with Jacques Taminiaux
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In Le théatre des philosophes, Taminiaux suggests that both German Idealism and Heidegger understand Greek tragedy as ontological in its import. So does Plato who, however, censures it for the inadequacy of its ontological vision, which he seeks to correct by means of the aesthetic education of the guardians of the ideal city. Taminiaux stresses that Aristotle understands tragedy as a mimēsis of action which is pluralistic, willing to engage with appearances, and oriented toward phronēsis. A key question concerns his understanding of the katharsis or purification of powerful passions, treated here as a cognitive clarification requiring the intense passional engagement that Plato censors. In response to Taminiaux’s claim that Hölderlin’s tragic inspiration is Aristotelian, this essay explores his understanding of tragic purification. In separating the hybristic union of god and man, such purification restores the possibility of interlocutory praxis.
6. Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy: Volume > 19 > Issue: 1
Russell Winslow Biological Meaning
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In the following article, the author offers an interpretation of George Canguilhem’s thinly articulated concept “biological meaning.” As a way into the problem, the article begins with the question: how does “biological meaning” differ from other forms of meaning? That is to ask, if we are to hold that the mere physical/chemical mode of being of a stone differs from the biological mode of being of an organism, how do they differ in their meaning? In an effort to supply an answer to this question, our author postulates that, when we consider the lived circumstances of the organism, the existential situation of living beings, their biological facticity, then we intuit a fundamental difference in the mode of being of the motions of billiard balls and those of organisms. Moreover, through the investigation into, on the one hand, the motions that take place in a living milieu and, on the other hand, the form of potentiality inherent in what we might call the motions of adaptation, the author offers a preliminary description of a meaning that might be uniquely biological.
7. Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy: Volume > 19 > Issue: 1
Christophe Perrin From Metaphysics to the Juridical: Heidegger and the Question of Law
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Philosophy of Law sometimes refers to Heidegger, yet Heidegger does not explicitly tackle this area of philosophy. In this paper, I will argue that it is actually possible to bring to light a theory of law in Heidegger’s writings. Such a theory would help juridical thought by tracing it back to its metaphysical presuppositions.
8. Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy: Volume > 19 > Issue: 1
Golfo Maggini Europe's Janus Head: Jan Patocka’s Notion of “Overcivilization”
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Jan Patocka’s idea of Europe can be viewed as a continuation of Edmund Husserl’s reflections on the issue. Still, the differences are numerous and worthy to be studied, especially in today’s critical times for Europe’s future. Patocka doubts the teleological, rationality-based determination of Europe’s identity, and, following that, the diagnosis of Europe’s current crisis as a deficiency in rationalization, which could be in its turn overcome by a surplus of rationalization. Patocka’s early differentiation from Husserl’s intellectualist account of European humanity will lead to an integral, phenomenology-inspired philosophy of the European civilization. For Patocka, the prevailing of the “hegemonic” against the “universalist” Europe means a fall behind the standards of European humanity, to that of the mere biological level, as specified by today’s preponderant economy-oriented discourse. For him, the seeming victory of the “hegemonic” over the “universalist” Europe is false, because it already contains the seeds of its self-destruction.
9. Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy: Volume > 19 > Issue: 1
María del Rosario Acosta López Contributions to Continental Philosophy: John Sallis
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This is an introduction to a special section consisting of articles by Bernard Freydberg, Claudia Baracchi, and Charles Scott on the contributions of John Sallis to Continental Philosophy, followed by Sallis’s response. These papers were all presented as part of the session Contributions to Continental Philosophy: John Sallis at the annual meeting of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy in Eugene, Oregon, in October 2013.
10. Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy: Volume > 19 > Issue: 1
Bernard Freydberg John Sallis's Recent Contributions to Continental Aesthetics
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In a sustained and protracted meditation on imagination and art, John Sallis has more than challenged the traditional metaphysical distinction between sensible and intelligible that has governed much of aesthetic discourse. In his Sense of Imagination (Indiana University Press, 2000), he excised that philosophical marker altogether in favor of a language of sense  in which intelligibility occurs as a secondary function—if at all. Praising Hegel’s celebration of color, he disputes the latter’s declaration that “art is dead” in favor of the Nietzschean hearkening to art as the movement toward the future.
11. Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy: Volume > 19 > Issue: 1
Claudia Baracchi In the Theater of Earth and Sky: On the Work of John Sallis
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Sallis situates himself within the discourse of the “end of metaphysics” that in various idioms traversed the twentieth century. This lineage has variously declared the fulfillment and completion of the epoch of Western philosophy as metaphysics, exposed metaphysics to the discipline of the question, inverted its hierarchical structure with a view to overcoming the privileges of disembodied reason. Yet, even within such a lineage of systematic exhaustion and often spectacular provocations, John Sallis’s work stands out for its radical traits. First and foremost, for the unrelenting interrogation of the things below. His deconstructive (or even dismantling) gesture does not simply rest on textual encounters, but crucially also on the frequentation of the things of sense and the cultivation of intimacy with them. 
12. Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy: Volume > 19 > Issue: 1
Charles Scott Elemental
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This discussion of John Sallis’s thought on “the elemental” begins with an engagement of Terrance Malick’s film The Tree of Life. In this engagement the emphasis falls on mere cosmic force, the formation of life on earth, and the development of human bodies with the elemental inevitability of cruelty and violence that is simultaneous with nurturing care, tenderness, and love. Does Sallis give adequate consideration to cosmic force and human kinship with mere force? The next section expands Sallis’s understanding of “elemental” to include such integral aspects of human lives as institutions, languages, cultural identities: To include all the defining (elemental) aspects intrinsic in human lives. This section calls for a re-thinking of “elemental” and its restricted use in connection with “nature.” The third section engages parts of the chapter, “Elemental Cosmology,” in Logic of Imagination. Although Sallis often appears to give priority to vision, in this chapter he turns to the invisible in his encounter with “the” elemental. In this process he develops within the context of a broadly conceived phenomenological tradition a new conception of objectivity and a new conception of logic. A final section summarizes Sallis’s and my encounter and leads to an incident the telling of which shows a deep compatibility in Sallis’s and my thought in spite of significant differences.
13. Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy: Volume > 19 > Issue: 1
John Sallis To Behold the Light of the Sun: Response to Bernard Freydberg, Claudia Baracchi, and Charles Scott
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This response addresses a series of themes from my writings on imagination, on art, and on ancient philosophy.