Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  1. Home
  2. Browse subjects
  3. Classical Studies
  4. Ancient philosophy
  5. Content listing

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

11517 results in Ancient philosophy

Page 157 of 576

  • Introduction

  • Erik Kenyon, Rollins College, Florida
  • Book:
    Augustine and the Dialogue
    Published online:
    16 February 2018
    Print publication:
    08 March 2018, pp 1-23

  • Summary

    20th-century debates over how Augustine’s thought developed across his dialogues and the historicity of the earliest of them have set scholarly agendas at odds with the dialogues themselves. Over time, scholars have come to see them as poorly composed. This study seeks to articulate the philosophical/pedagogical method at play in the dialogues by using the earliest of them, Contra Academicos, as a programmatic work (ch 1). Applying its method to the remaining dialogues allows us to see how each, despite plurality of content, is tightly unified around a single pedagogical project (ch 3-5, 7), in what ways this project is ‘Platonic’ (ch 2), and how the earliest dialogues operate as a set (ch 6).

  • Chapter 1 - The Pursuit of Wisdom

  • Erik Kenyon, Rollins College, Florida
  • Book:
    Augustine and the Dialogue
    Published online:
    16 February 2018
    Print publication:
    08 March 2018, pp 24-56

  • Summary

    Contra Academicos presents a debate over the Academic skeptical claim that certainty is impossible. The debate ends in perplexity (aporia). Augustine then delivers an oratio which refutes the skeptics’ arguments against certainty yet concludes, in skeptical fashion, that it is plausible (probabile) that wisdom can be found within Christianity/Platonism and suggests that the Academic skeptics were secretly Platonists all along. I read this work as setting out a three-part pedagogical method: Aporetic debates “un-teach” characters’ problematic assumptions (e.g. materialism); Reflection on the act of debating brings self-knowledge (e.g. that rational inquiry presupposes certain norms); Plausible conclusions avoid the problems that led to aporia and provide explanatory frameworks for the characters’ self-reflective discovery (e.g. Platonic intellectualism). I argue that this fusion of Aporia, Reflection and Plausibility (ARP) drives each of Augustine’s dialogues. While scholars see the dialogues’ failed arguments, sudden reversals and shifts into oratio as flaws in Augustine’s refutation of skepticism, I see them as advancing a bigger pedagogical program rooted in skeptical practice.

  • Chapter 4 - God’s Classroom

  • Erik Kenyon, Rollins College, Florida
  • Book:
    Augustine and the Dialogue
    Published online:
    16 February 2018
    Print publication:
    08 March 2018, pp 101-140

  • Summary

    De ordine opens as mice prompt Licentius to claim that all things are ruled by Providence (ordo). Characters debate this claim, but the effort ends in aporia. Augustine suggests they have not held to the “order of study” and sets out a curriculum of seven liberal disciplines. Scholars disagree as to why the debate fails, yet all assume that the content of this curriculum holds the answer. Augustine, however, presents the liberal arts as useful but unnecessary preparation for philosophy. On my reading, it is the act, not the content, of liberal study that matters here. The self-reflective payoff of liberal study is that human reason seeks unity. Debaters fall into aporia because they explain mice moving men to inquiry in terms of mice rather than men. Augustine concludes that the world is good for humans because experience of disorder prompts us to seek deeper unity, moving us closer to the distinctively human good of grasping Unity itself, i.e. God. In short, this work presents an application of ARP (see ch 1). I present De Musica pursuing this philosophical use of liberal studies, and I trace De ord.’s account of providence through the scenic dialogues’ dedications.

  • Chapter 6 - Philosophy and Kathartic Virtue

  • Erik Kenyon, Rollins College, Florida
  • Book:
    Augustine and the Dialogue
    Published online:
    16 February 2018
    Print publication:
    08 March 2018, pp 160-168

  • Summary

    Scriptural references in Augustine’s early dialogues are scarce. Yet by reading them in terms of ARP, we find them playing a key structural role. Augustine’s plausible conclusions invoke the “dual weight of reason and authority” (C. Acad.), Christ as “measure of the soul” (De beata v.) and “Unity” as first cause (De ord.). Taken together, these works present an extended meditation on Wisdom 11:20’s claim that God holds all things in “measure, number, weight.” They also exploring the Classical virtues of wisdom, moderation and justice. Sol. + De imm. an. completes the set using 1 Cor. 13:13’s “faith, hope, love” to structure an exploration of courage. I use De quantitate animae as a framework for understanding the place of virtue in these works. This slightly later dialogue presents the Platonist idea that virtues come in grades: civic, kathartic and contemplative. I argue that Augustine’s Cassiciacum dialogues present an exercise in kathartic virtue, as aporia and reflection “purify” characters’ minds, preparing them for the eventual contemplation of truth. This echoes C. Acad.’s presentation of Platonism as a mystery cult and shows the tight programmatic unity of these works.

Page 157 of 576