Stoic values

Journal ArticleRM: Copyright © 1990, The Monist: An International Journal of General Philosophical Inquiry, Peru, Illinois, U.S.A., 61354, reproduced by permission. Discusses the values of Stoicism which say noting concrete about how a virtuous person should go about making choices and examines the Stoics impression that most of the things chosen are themselves good. Beliefs of the Stoics concerning the so-called 'indifferents'; Their distinctions with the class of indifferent; How virtuous people are categorized by the Stoics

Aristotle on sameness and oneness

Journal ArticleBefore I begin, let me get one substantial issue out of the way. Recently certain views which are in many ways similar to Aristotle's have been expounded in connection with the idea that there is something wrong with the words "same" and "identical" used by themselves, and that we should instead make use of expressions of the form "same F," where "F" represents a general term. Aristotle, so far as I can find, never says any such thing, and although he does say a number of things which would seem to suggest, even perhaps to imply, such a view, and although he maintains that the word "same" carries many senses, he does not offer to resolve its ambiguity by coupling it with general terms. Indeed, he almost never uses "same" in this way, and only rarely thus uses his word for "one," ev3. I shall accordingly be doing without such couplings in what is to follow

Courage in Plato’s Earlier Dialogues

Editor\u27s note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton\u27s 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981. Beginning in his earlier works. Plato attempted to give an account of virtue and of the particular virtues. including courage. which receives special attention in the Laches and the Protagoras. I want to explore a number of aspects of the virtue of courage about which I think that philosophers are still not fully clear. I am afraid that some of our lack of clarity results from the way in which Socrates and Plato began the discussion to which we are heirs, though of course my purpose is hardly to recommend a generally negative view of their contributions. There is a persistent tendency toward oversimplification in discussions of the virtues having to do with a distinction between, as we may roughly put it, cognitive and motivational aspects. Under the former I include both belief and knowledge; under the latter I here include things like feelings and desires. Socrates, of course, attempted a deliberate, bold simplification: he held that each virtue, and virtue as a whole, is a form of cognition, namely, knowledge of what is good and bad. Plato may initially have accepted this view. At any rate in the Laches, he seems anxious to reply to those who thought this Socratic view obviously absurd (see 195asqq.). Subsequently, in the Republic, he appears to have seen more of the necessary complications, as also did Aristotle and many subsequent figures

Forms and sensibles: Phaedo 74B-C

Journal ArticleIn Phaedo 74b6-c6 Plato offers an important argument for the proposition that such things as "the equal itself," i.e. such things as are often called "Forms," are distinct from sensible objects. The argument is especially important because it is one of a very small number of explicit arguments-perhaps only two-that Plato gives for this proposition. I wish to isolate this argument to concentrate on what I take to be its philosophically most interesting features as an argument for the existence of Forms distinct from sensibles. I am not here concerned with its other interesting features, such as its role in Plato's argument for the kind of a priori knowledge that he calls "recollection." I am especially interested in what must be presupposed if the argument is to be thought cogent (though I certainly do not believe that it is in fact cogent), and what is likely to have been presupposed by Plato. I am also concerned to show just how narrow a basis Plato wishes to use for the argument. In particular, I would like to make it clear how little of his view about Forms is presupposed in the argument, and how little of that view one can infer simply from interpreting the argument itself, as contrasted with the surrounding context

Rational self-sufficiency and Greek ethics.

ReviewThis is a book review of Martha C. Nussbaum's The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy; (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986)

Rulers' choice

Journal ArticlePlato undertook in the Republic to show that "it is in every way better to be just than unjust" (Book II, 357b1 -- 2). What did he mean by this? I would like to focus on two relevant questions. 1) Did he believe that invariably the more just a person is, the better it is for him? We should prefer this way of putting the important question to asking, as is commonly done, simply whether being just is good for one. A philosopher might reply to this question affirmatively, meaning thereby that a person who is just is better off than a person who is unjust. But that would still not answer the question that I am posing, which is whether Plato held that each and every increase in one's degree of justice is good for one or, as we might say,1 in one's interest

Conflicting parts of happiness in Aristole's Ethics

Journal ArticleExamines the concept of happiness based on Aristotle's view of ethics. Linkage between issues of ethics and altruism; Comparison between Kantian View and Hegelian View about the existence of a genuine dualism; Inclusivism as a common element in Aristotle's ethics; Conflicting parts of happiness

Low-Mass X-Ray Binaries, Millisecond Radio Pulsars, and the Cosmic Star Formation Rate

We report on the implications of the peak in the cosmic star-formation rate (SFR) at redshift z ~ 1.5 for the resulting population of low-mass X-ray binaries(LMXB) and for that of their descendants, the millisecond radio pulsars (MRP). Since the evolutionary timescales of LMXBs, their progenitors, and their descendants are thought be significant fractions of the time-interval between the SFR peak and the present epoch, there is a lag in the turn-on of the LMXB population, with the peak activity occurring at z ~ 0.5 - 1.0. The peak in the MRP population is delayed further, occurring at z < 0.5. We show that the discrepancy between the birthrate of LMXBs and MRPs, found under the assumption of a stead-state SFR, can be resolved for the population as a whole when the effects of a time-variable SFR are included. A discrepancy may persist for LMXBs with short orbital periods, although a detailed population synthesis will be required to confirm this. Further, since the integrated X-ray luminosity distribution of normal galaxies is dominated by X-ray binaries, it should show strong luminosity evolution with redshift. In addition to an enhancement near the peak (z ~ 1.5) of the SFR due to the prompt turn-on of the relatively short-lived massive X-ray binaries and young supernova remnants, we predict a second enhancement by a factor ~10 at a redshift between ~ 0.5 and ~ 1 due to the delayed turn-on of the LMXB population. Deep X-ray observations of galaxies out to z ~ 1 by AXAF will be able to observe this enhancement, and, by determining its shape as a function of redshift, will provide an important new method for constraining evolutionary models of X-ray binaries.Comment: 13 pages, including 1 figure. Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

An AGN Identification for 3EG J2006-2321

We present a multiwavelength analysis of the high-energy gamma-ray source 3EG J2006-2321. The flux of this source above 100 MeV is shown to be variable on time scales of days and months. Optical observations and careful examination of archived radio data indicate that its radio counterpart is PMN J2005-2310, a flat-spectrum radio quasar with a 5-GHz flux density of 260 mJy. Study of the $V=18.7$ optical counterpart indicates a redshift of 0.833 and variable linear polarization. No X-ray source has been detected near the position of PMN J2005-2310, but an X-ray upper limit is derived from ROSAT data. This upper limit provides for a spectral energy distribution with global characteristics similar to those of known gamma-ray blazars. Taken together, these data indicate that 3EG J2006-2321, listed as unidentified in the 3rd EGRET Catalog, is a member of the blazar class of AGN. The 5-GHz radio flux density of this blazar is the lowest of the 68 EGRET-detected AGN. The fact that EGRET has detected such a source has implications for unidentified EGRET sources, particularly those at high latitudes ($|b|>30^{\circ}$), many of which may be blazars.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures. To appear in ApJ v569 n1, 10 April 200