Explorations in Ancient and Modern Philosophy

Explorations in Ancient and Modern Philosophy
Author: M. F. Burnyeat
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 393
Release: 2012-06-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 0521750725

The first of two volumes collecting the published work of one of the greatest living ancient philosophers, M.F. Burnyeat.

Logic, Signs and Nature in the Renaissance

Logic, Signs and Nature in the Renaissance
Author: Ian Maclean
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 436
Release: 2007-04-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521036276

How or what were doctors in the Renaissance trained to think, and how did they interpret the evidence at their disposal for making diagnoses and prognoses? This 2001 book addresses these questions in the broad context of the world of learning: its institutions, its means of conveying and disseminating information, and the relationship between university faculties. The uptake by doctors from the university arts course - the foundation for medical studies - is examined in detail, as are the theoretical and empirical bases for medical knowledge, including its concepts of nature, health, disease and normality. Logic, Signs and Nature in the Renaissance ends with a detailed investigation of semiotic, which was one of the five parts of the discipline of medicine, in the context of the various versions of semiology available to scholars. From this survey, Maclean makes an interesting assessment of the relationship of Renaissance medicine to the new science of the seventeenth century.

Logic and Aristotle's Rhetoric and Poetics in Medieval Arabic Philosophy

Logic and Aristotle's Rhetoric and Poetics in Medieval Arabic Philosophy
Author: Black
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2022-07-04
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9004452397

This book examines a widespread, and often misunderstood, doctrine within the medieval Aristotelian tradition, namely the inclusion of Aristotle's Rhetoric and Poetics within the scope of the Organon. It studies this doctrine, as presented by the Islamic philosophers Al- Fārābī, Avicenna, and Averroes, from a purely philosophical perspective, and argues that the logical construal of the arts of rhetoric and poetics is both interesting and illuminating. The book begins by examining some prevalent misconceptions regarding the logical interpretation of the Rhetoric and Poetics. Chapter two considers the Greek background of the doctrine, first through an examination of the Aristotelian divisions of the sciences, and then through an examination of the beginnings of the logical classification of the Rhetoric and Poetics among the Greek commentators from the school of Alexandria. The remainder of the work is devoted to a detailed consideration of the Arabic philosophers' development of the doctrine, both their understanding of its general epistemological and logical underpinnings, and their elaboration of the specific logical structures upon which poetical and rhetorical discourse is based. Consideration is also given to the relationship between contemporary philosophical views of rhetoric and poetics, and the views of these medieval authors.

Uncountable

Uncountable
Author: David Nirenberg
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 429
Release: 2024-05-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 0226828360

Ranging from math to literature to philosophy, Uncountable explains how numbers triumphed as the basis of knowledge—and compromise our sense of humanity. Our knowledge of mathematics has structured much of what we think we know about ourselves as individuals and communities, shaping our psychologies, sociologies, and economies. In pursuit of a more predictable and more controllable cosmos, we have extended mathematical insights and methods to more and more aspects of the world. Today those powers are greater than ever, as computation is applied to virtually every aspect of human activity. Yet, in the process, are we losing sight of the human? When we apply mathematics so broadly, what do we gain and what do we lose, and at what risk to humanity? These are the questions that David and Ricardo L. Nirenberg ask in Uncountable, a provocative account of how numerical relations became the cornerstone of human claims to knowledge, truth, and certainty. There is a limit to these number-based claims, they argue, which they set out to explore. The Nirenbergs, father and son, bring together their backgrounds in math, history, literature, religion, and philosophy, interweaving scientific experiments with readings of poems, setting crises in mathematics alongside world wars, and putting medieval Muslim and Buddhist philosophers in conversation with Einstein, Schrödinger, and other giants of modern physics. The result is a powerful lesson in what counts as knowledge and its deepest implications for how we live our lives.

Three Arabic Treatises on Aristotle’s Rhetoric

Three Arabic Treatises on Aristotle’s Rhetoric
Author: Lahcen El Yazghi Ezzaher
Publisher: SIU Press
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2015-05-22
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0809334143

Winner, 2018 MLA Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Scholarly Study of Literature It is increasingly well documented that western rhetoric’s journey from pagan Athens to the medieval academies of Christian Europe was significantly influenced by the intellectual thought of the Muslim Near East. Lahcen Elyazghi Ezzaher contributes to the contemporary chronicling of this influence in Three Arabic Treatises on Aristotle’s Rhetoric: The Commentaries of al-Farabi, Avicenna, and Averroes, offering English translations of three landmark medieval Arabic commentaries on Aristotle's famous rhetorical treatise together in one volume for the first time. Elegant and practical, Elyazghi Ezzaher’s translations give English-speaking scholars and students of rhetoric access to key medieval Arabic rhetorical texts while elucidating the unique and important contribution of those texts to the revival of European interest in the rhetoric and logic of Aristotle, which in turn influenced the rise of universities and the shaping of Western intellectual life. With a focus on Book I of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, the commentaries ofal-Farabi, Avicenna, and Averroes translated by Elyazghi Ezzaher are paramount examples of an extensive Arabic-Muslim tradition of textual commentary while also serving as rich corollaries to the medieval Greek and Latin rhetorical commentaries produced in Europe. Elyazghi Ezzaher’s translations are each accompanied by insightful scholarly introductions and notes that contextualize—both historically and culturally—these immensely significant works while highlighting a comparative, multidisciplinary approach to rhetorical scholarship that offers new perspectives on one of the field’s foundational texts. A remarkable addition to rhetorical studies, Three Arabic Treatises on Aristotle’s Rhetoric: The Commentaries of al-Farabi, Avicenna, and Averroes not only provides vibrant English translations of essential medieval Arabic rhetorical texts but also challenges scholars and students of rhetoric to consider their own historical, cultural, and linguistic relationships to the texts and objects they study.

Aristotle and Confucius on Rhetoric and Truth

Aristotle and Confucius on Rhetoric and Truth
Author: Haixia Lan
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2016-11-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1315400413

Readings of Aristotle’s and Confucius’ teachings reveal that both philosophers’ rhetorical thinking contain vital similarities which can help us understand cultural differences today. Much has been said about Aristotle’s definition of rhetoric as ‘the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion’ but few studies have focused on his depiction of rhetoric as ‘partly like dialectic, and partly like sophistical reasoning’. Yet, this Aristotelian conception of rhetoric sheds light on a similarity with Confucius’ teaching: both Confucius and Aristotle see the human understanding of the truths of things as necessarily having a dimension that is open-ended and discursive.

Tracing the Emergence of Psychology, 1520–⁠1750

Tracing the Emergence of Psychology, 1520–⁠1750
Author: Sven Hroar Klempe
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2020-08-25
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 3030537013

This book pursues the very first use of the term “psychology”, which is traced back to 1520. The appearance of the term was not as a part of philosophy. Thus, the main hypothesis of this book is that psychology from the very beginning was a stranger to philosophy. It demonstrates that even Aristotle used his thesis on the soul to delineate philosophy from psychological aspects. It is therefore suggested that psychological wisdom and knowledge has been retained and in popular culture as long as humans have reflected upon themselves. There were, however, several reasons for why psychology appeared as a part of philosophy at around the year 1600. One important factor was Humanism, which among other things had challenged Aristotelian logic. Another important movement was Protestantism. Luther’s emphasis on the need to confess one’s sin, led to a certain interest to explore the human nature. His slogan, “the scripture alone” represented an attack on the close relationship that had existed between theology and philosophy. Yet when philosophy was thrown out of theology, it was left without the basic theological tenets that had guided philosophical speculations for centuries in Europe. Hence, this book pursues how philosophy gradually adopts and includes psychological aspects to rebuild the foundation for philosophy. This culminates partly with the British empiricists. Yet they did not apply the term psychology. It was the German and partly ignored philosopher Christian Wolff, who opened up modern understanding of psychology with the publication of Psychologia empirica in 1732. This publication had a tremendous impact on the enlightenment in the modern Europe.

Visualizing the invisible with the human body

Visualizing the invisible with the human body
Author: J. Cale Johnson
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 508
Release: 2019-11-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 3110642697

Physiognomy and ekphrasis are two of the most important modes of description in antiquity and represent the necessary precursors of scientific description. The primary way of divining the characteristics and fate of an individual, whether inborn or acquired, was to observe the patient’s external characteristics and behaviour. This volume focuses initially on two types of descriptive literature in Mesopotamia: physiognomic omens and what we might call ekphrastic description. These modalities are traced through ancient India, Ugaritic and the Hebrew Bible, before arriving at the physiognomic features of famous historical figures such as Themistocles, Socrates or Augustus in the Graeco-Roman world, where physiognomic discussions become intertwined with typological analyses of human characters. The Arabic compendial culture absorbed and remade these different physiognomic and ekphrastic traditions, incorporating both Mesopotamian links between physiognomy and medicine and the interest in characterological ‘types’ that had emerged in the Hellenistic period. This volume offer the first wide-ranging picture of these modalities of description in antiquity.