255 research outputs found

    Must Virtue Be Taught?

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    Must Virtue Be Taught?

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    SAGP Annual Meeting at Christopher Newport University, November 16 and 17 2019

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    The Program of the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Annual Meeting, at Christopher Newport University, November 16 and 17, 2019. Includes abstracts of the papers presented

    The stoics on nature and truth

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    First, this thesis outhnes part of the thought of some pre-Socratic thinkers, particularly Heraclitus. In doing this, I explore the historical provenance of certain ideas which came to be important in Stoicism. It then moves on to look at the Stoic view of 'physics', including some comparison with Epicurus and Aristotle, and with a focus on the concept of the continuum. The third chapter attempts to synthesise a common problem arising from a belief in the continuum, namely a problem of indeterminacy. In the fourth chapter, certain characterisations of Stoic epistemology are considered, along with an overview of recent interpretations of the Stoic theory of impressions. It concludes with the thought that at certain crucial points - such as whether impressions themselves are to be thought of as true and false - the Stoic position is underdetermined with respect to the evidence. Pursuing this thought into the fifth chapter, we see the evidence as being equivalently consistent with a 'two-tier’ theory of perception, where impressions themselves are understood as neither true nor false in any sense, but iu which 'the true' arises as a result of the transformative effect of reason. This theory is shown to connect with verbalisation through the 'rational impression'. This leads to the suggestion that the Stoics had a linguistic diagnosis for some problems in philosophy, arrived at by their reflections on ambiguity and etymology. In the final chapter, an account of intersubjectivity is explored, which preserves for the Stoics the claim that their truth has an objective character and is thus appropriate for a 'dogmatic' philosophy

    THE NOTHINGNESS OF THE GETTIER PROBLEM

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    This work, “The Nothingness” of the Gettier Problem is an attempt to deconstruct the popularly held view that a fourth condition may be necessary for the Traditional Account of Knowledge otherwise known as JTB. Plato, it was who championed the traditional account of knowledge as justified Belief in response to the agitation of the skeptics notably Georgias and Protagoras. This tripartite account held sway until Edmund Gettier Challenged the position with his article “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” Since this challenge, scholars have tried to solve what has become known as the Gettier Problem by trying to fashion out a fourth condition to JTB. This work argues that the celebrated Gettier counter-examples in the challenge of the tripartite account is a "nothingness". The traditional account is rather fundamental in knowledge claim, hence any new vista in form of additional information on JTB should not invalidate it. The textual analysis was adopted as a method for this research

    The Liar Paradox as a reductio ad absurdum argument

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    This presentation traces an historical root of the reductio ad absurdum mode of argumentation in Greek philosophy. I propose a new understanding of the liar paradox as an instance of this mode of argumentation. I show that the paradox was crea ted as part of a refutational argument in the controversy over the justification of realism and the realists concepts of truth and certainty. The paradox was part of the dialectical style of Greek scepticism, which was characterized, inter alia, by the u se of the reductio ad absurdum. The paradox turns out to be a metaphysical and epistemological argument

    SAGP SSIPS 2012 Abstracts

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    The Sophist In The Cave: Education Through Names In Plato\u27s Republic

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    The Cratylus is often considered an isolated dialogue in Plato’s corpus, and the major theses of the Cratylus are often seen as disposable and problematic elements in Platonic thought. When one carefully compares this dialogue, however, to Plato’s comments elsewhere about rhetoric and dialectic, a set of fascinating connections emerge. In this dissertation, I argue that the Republic ought to be read in light of the Cratylus. In the former dialogue, Plato is vitally concerned with the use of accurate language in his republic, a fact most clearly brought out by his accusation against demagogues: that they “give names” to things on the basis of the beliefs of the populace, not on the basis of reality. I argue that this sort of popular false nomenclature should be identified with Plato’s discussion of deceptive names in the Cratylus. Moreover, I explain how Plato’s discussions of sophistical manipulation of names in the Cratylus, the Euthydemus, and the Sophist can be used to illuminate the epistemological landscape of the Republic. In particular, I contend that the cave image can be best understood only when we understand that the cave itself is the realm of human language, a realm that includes two very separate regions: the shadow language which is presented by the sophist, and the truer language represented by the puppets which cast the shadows. This second region of language, I argue, plays a central role in the education of the guardians
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