Richard Sorabji
University of Oxford, Wolfson College, Faculty Member
- Professor Sir Richard Sorabji is a fellow and member of the British, American and Royal Flemish Academiesedit
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Porphyry is the first person, so far as I know, to say that you are present to yourself, as he does at length in Sententiae 40 (rrapcbv rrapovTi). Plotinus had already said that intellect is evident (èvapyf|ç) to itself (5.5 [32]... more
Porphyry is the first person, so far as I know, to say that you are present to yourself, as he does at length in Sententiae 40 (rrapcbv rrapovTi). Plotinus had already said that intellect is evident (èvapyf|ç) to itself (5.5 [32] 2.13-21), but the expression 'present to itself, in its Latin version, is the one used by Augustine when he turns round the sceptical question, how the soul can know itself. The soul knows itself, according to Augustine, by being present (praesens) to itself (On the Trinity)...
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Accepted (8th Aug 2016) for ‘Verity Harte, Raphael Woolf, eds., ‘Rereading Ancient Philosophy: Old Chestnuts and Sacred Cows, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2017.
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The present two volumes represent part of a plan made by Richard Sorabji and Bob Sharpies in 1997. In that year, Sorabji held a week-long conference at the Institute of Classical Studies on the philosophy of the commentators on Plato and... more
The present two volumes represent part of a plan made by Richard Sorabji and Bob Sharpies in 1997. In that year, Sorabji held a week-long conference at the Institute of Classical Studies on the philosophy of the commentators on Plato and Aristotle who dominated the period 200 to 600 AD. The work culminated in the publication by Sorabji in 2004 of a Sourcebook in three volumes on the Philosophy of those commentators.1 Sorabji then put to Sharpies the further plan, to which he agreed, that when the first task was completed, they would join in doing something similar about the least accessible remaining period, 100 BC to 200 AD, though there were to be some differences. We decided to start with a week-long conference at the Institute of Classical Studies, but this time we would jointly edit two volumes of papers mostly adapted from those given at the conference, with some extra papers. The eventual sourcebooks, however, were to be by different hands, as there were so many different philosophical schools in this period, and individuals independent of a school, that it would be hard to find experts on the whole range. Sourcebooks are planned on the Aristotelians, on the Epicureans and on the Stoics. To our pleasure, we learnt that George Boys-Stones and Charles Brittain were independently planning a sourcebook on Platonism of the period, and accordingly we asked them to play a major role in organizing the Platonism part of our conference. The preface and introduction were written by Richard Sorabji, but have benefited throughout from the comments of Bob Sharpies.2 1 R.
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forward on BICS proceedings 1996
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book chapter VI.
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ARISTOTLE'S THEORY OF PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES. By EMMANUEL M. MICHELAKIS. Athens, Cleisiounis Press, i96i. Pp. vii, "15. Mr. Michelakis describes Aristotle's account in the Nicomachean Ethics of how a private individual can discover what is... more
ARISTOTLE'S THEORY OF PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES. By EMMANUEL M. MICHELAKIS. Athens, Cleisiounis Press, i96i. Pp. vii, "15. Mr. Michelakis describes Aristotle's account in the Nicomachean Ethics of how a private individual can discover what is To Telos and To Ariston, how he "affirms" this goal, and how he deliberates what ought to be done to achieve it. He compares Aristotle's account of how the lawgiver discovers "the practical principle" (p. 84) and deliberates what laws should be enacted in his city to achieve it. In outline Michelakis' description runs as follows. Aristotle assigns the process of discovery to Nous en tais praktikais and the subsequent "affirming" and deliberation to Phronesis. In this he deviates from the account in the Eudemian Ethics and De Anima, which are both earlier works. The deliberation is by practical syllogism, the discovery through induction, which Aristotle thinks of as being in syllogistic form. Aristotle makes the method of ethics and politics inexact and empirical. He thereby dissociates it from the method of mathematics and rejects his earlier account in the Protrepticus. In law the empirical method involves genuine scientific research. On the whole, Michelakis is concerned not to present new interpretations , but rather to amplify and give reasons in favor of familiar ones. This is a rather limited task, but Michelakis performs it ably.
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I first got to know Bill Fortenbaugh when we gave a seminar together on Aristotle's Ethics in King's College, London, in 1973. 1 learnt an enormous amount from our discussions, which were attended by Jim Dybikowski and David Sedley. Since... more
I first got to know Bill Fortenbaugh when we gave a seminar together on Aristotle's Ethics in King's College, London, in 1973. 1 learnt an enormous amount from our discussions, which were attended by Jim Dybikowski and David Sedley. Since then, he has moved a long way and founded the Theophrastus project, which has successfully made available to the world the fragments of Theophrastus and the ideas of the other early Aristotelians. Connie Fortenbaugh has repeatedly offered hospitality to the scholars from many countries who were drawn into the project, and who were well represented at the conference held in Bill's honour at the Institute of Classical Studies in June 2003. I have decided to substitute for the paper I delivered there one more closely related to Bill's work on Theophrastus and the early Aristotelians
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Presidential Address
Meeting of the Aristotelian Society held at 5/7 Tavistock Place, London WC1, on Monday, 14 October, 1985 at 6.00 p.m.
Meeting of the Aristotelian Society held at 5/7 Tavistock Place, London WC1, on Monday, 14 October, 1985 at 6.00 p.m.
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This chapter is based on my book Self: ancient and modem insights about individuality , life and death (Chicago and Oxford 2006). The translations are by me, unless otherwise indicated
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Does what is wholly past provoke no emotion? Should we feel the same about past and future non-existence? Ought we to remember good things in the past, and bad equally, the good to distract from present pain, the bad to create a narrative... more
Does what is wholly past provoke no emotion? Should we feel the same about past and future non-existence? Ought we to remember good things in the past, and bad equally, the good to distract from present pain, the bad to create a narrative of self, or because there is pleasure in remembering bad survived? But then there is pain in remembering pleasure lost. Is repentance good or bad? Is hope good, or should we pin no hopes on the future? Does anticipating misfortune fortify or depress? Is planning for the future needed for self-identity? Should we ignore both past and future, or abstract from time altogether? Does prolongation or delay make a difference, or an endless recurrence of history, or discontinuous, or dispersible, or everlasting selves? Can we create a persona through memory, or through choices? Can we create an inviolable self?
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Plato's Socrates denies akrasia (wanting the course one thinks worse), but his Republic allows that Leontius did that, at the cost of revealing a divided soul, since one thing cannot simultaneously have opposite desires about the same... more
Plato's Socrates denies akrasia (wanting the course one thinks worse), but his Republic allows that Leontius did that, at the cost of revealing a divided soul, since one thing cannot simultaneously have opposite desires about the same thing. Pseudo-Plutarch protests one can have simultaneous opposite capacities. Plato becomes increasingly sensitive to different reasons why one can want the course one thinks worse, but Aristotle concedes Socrates' position that ignorance must be responsible, while explaining the ignorance as types of attention-failure, that allow violation of one's deliberate policy (prohairesis). Since Chrysippus denies Plato's division of the soul, he has to postulate that one's unitary reason oscillates between the better judgement and the worse. The Christians Origen and Augustine deny two souls in us, but accept two wills. One may act with less than one's full will. Christ engaged in a conditional willing comparable to Stoic willing with ...
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The problem "The train leaves at noon", says the announcer. But can it? If so, when is the last instant of rest, and when the first instant of motion? If these are the same instant, or if the first instant of motion precedes the... more
The problem "The train leaves at noon", says the announcer. But can it? If so, when is the last instant of rest, and when the first instant of motion? If these are the same instant, or if the first instant of motion precedes the last instant of rest, the train seems to be both in motion and at rest at the same time, and is not this a contradiction? On the other hand, if the last instant of rest precedes the first instant of motion, the train seems to be in neither state, during the intervening period, and how can this be? Finally, to say there is a last instant of rest, but not a first instant of motion, or vice-versa, appears arbitrary. What are we to do? This kind of problem has had a long history. It is to be found already in Plato's Parmenides (156C-157A), and it had a great revival in mediaeval times.' To this day, it remains relevant to the definition of motion at an instant, as we shall see. I want to suggest a solution to it, which turns on treating motion differently from rest. I want then to argue, that though Aristotle has been castigated for attempting to solve the problem by means of a mistaken denial of motion or rest at an instant, he was also attracted by a second solution very close to the one I shall argue for. His treatment of dynamics can to this extent be reassessed.
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Bob Sharples joined me in London in a different college in 1973, and we worked closely together for 37 years until his untimely death at the age of 61. Our collaboration included innumerable research seminars, many teaching classes and... more
Bob Sharples joined me in London in a different college in 1973, and we worked closely together for 37 years until his untimely death at the age of 61. Our collaboration included innumerable research seminars, many teaching classes and publications and a very good number of conferences, with an emphasis on post-Aristotelian Philosophy. He became one of the world's leading experts on the school of Aristotle and the leading scholar in the English-speaking world on Aristotle's greatest interpreter and defender, Alexander of Aphrodisias. His characteristically generous messages to participants after seminars were an immense aid to everyone else's research. He taught not only in University College, London, where he became Professor and Head of the Department of Greek and Latin, but also in the Institute of Classical Studies, and for the Open University. His courage in bereavement and illness was remarkable, and his enormous bibliography, printed here, but excluding individual...
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Aristotle On Sense Perception 3, 6, and 7 explains the nature of light and of the borrowed colour of the sea. These need distinguishing from each other and from non-borrowed colour. Aristotle also allows imperceptible sounds and changes... more
Aristotle On Sense Perception 3, 6, and 7 explains the nature of light and of the borrowed colour of the sea. These need distinguishing from each other and from non-borrowed colour. Aristotle also allows imperceptible sounds and changes of pitch, yet denies imperceptible times. Why? I suggest that the discussion of imperceptible change of pitch is the target attacked in Theophrastus' account of singing. The theory of imperceptible times attacked seems unexpectedly elaborate, and I suggest it is a version of one found in the pseudo-Aristotelian de Audibilibus.
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Pagan Greek philosophy spread to the Persian king Khushru I, a Zoroastrian, in the 6th century CE, who first gave the Athenian philosophers refuge from their Christian emperor, to hold (newly translated) discussions with them, and then... more
Pagan Greek philosophy spread to the Persian king Khushru I, a Zoroastrian, in the 6th century CE, who first gave the Athenian philosophers refuge from their Christian emperor, to hold (newly translated) discussions with them, and then got a report through ‘Paul of Persia’ of the Alexandrian school’s case to Christian students for studying Aristotle’s logic, in order to decide between conflicting claims about Christian doctrine. The Greek philosophical author of this (newly translated) case can be identified, and it has nothing to do with the equally fascinating autobiography of Khushru’s physician, who got and translated into Middle Persian charming moral tales from India, but abandoned all effort to decide between conflicting Indian claims about religion.
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Phronesis, 35, 1990, pp 307-314.
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Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society supp.vol.
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reprinted in Michael Durrant, ed., Aristotle’s de Anima in Focus 1993.
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reprinted in Fiona Macpherson, ed., The Senses, Oxford University Press 2011, pp. 64-82.
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FUNCTION The writings of Plato and Aristotle throw a great deal of light of the claims that have recently been made about teleological exp It has recently been claimed that statements which tell us the fu something can be analysed into... more
FUNCTION The writings of Plato and Aristotle throw a great deal of light of the claims that have recently been made about teleological exp It has recently been claimed that statements which tell us the fu something can be analysed into statements which use no teleologi and analyses have been offered with a view to proving this.1 A se which has been made is that there are no philosophically importan tions between statements of function such as the biologist makes ments of purpose.2 Thirdly, some writers have denied explanator statements which tell us the function of something in cases where th ment of function does not refer to the purpose of some agent.3 Othe conceded some explanatory force but claimed that it is often mi that it exists only in very limited circumstances.5 Fourthly, a n different accounts have recently been offered of the way in which a of function is explanatory.6 The greater part of this paper will be concerned with saying s about the meaning of statements which tell us the function of so shall not attempt a complete analysis of the meaning. But I wan at least enough about the meaning to enable myself in the last part of the
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ARISTOTLE'S THEORY OF PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES. By EMMANUEL M. MICHELAKIS. Athens, Cleisiounis Press, i96i. Pp. vii, "15. Mr. Michelakis describes Aristotle's account in the Nicomachean Ethics of how a private individual can discover what is... more
ARISTOTLE'S THEORY OF PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES. By EMMANUEL M. MICHELAKIS. Athens, Cleisiounis Press, i96i. Pp. vii, "15. Mr. Michelakis describes Aristotle's account in the Nicomachean Ethics of how a private individual can discover what is To Telos and To Ariston, how he "affirms" this goal, and how he deliberates what ought to be done to achieve it. He compares Aristotle's account of how the lawgiver discovers "the practical principle" (p. 84) and deliberates what laws should be enacted in his city to achieve it. In outline Michelakis' description runs as follows. Aristotle assigns the process of discovery to Nous en tais praktikais and the subsequent "affirming" and deliberation to Phronesis. In this he deviates from the account in the Eudemian Ethics and De Anima, which are both earlier works. The deliberation is by practical syllogism, the discovery through induction, which Aristotle thinks of as being in syllogistic form. Aristotle makes the method of ethics and politics inexact and empirical. He thereby dissociates it from the method of mathematics and rejects his earlier account in the Protrepticus. In law the empirical method involves genuine scientific research. On the whole, Michelakis is concerned not to present new interpretations , but rather to amplify and give reasons in favor of familiar ones. This is a rather limited task, but Michelakis performs it ably.
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Nationality and ethnic origin can form a large component of a person's idea of their own self.
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The following poem was composed by Richard Sorabji for the closing of the conference that produced the present proceedings. Although some of the contributions have changed (some could not be published here and others have been added), it... more
The following poem was composed by Richard Sorabji for the closing of the conference that produced the present proceedings. Although some of the contributions have changed (some could not be published here and others have been added), it still seems a fitting piece with which to begin the collection.