Ancient Thought Experiments

Ierodiakonou, Katerina

doi:10.5840/ancientphil20052518

Cited by 15 publications

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“…The Stoic solution is to reject the being-nothing dichotomy as exhaustive: to embrace (all and only) body as being, and to recognize in addition a kind of non-being that is something more than nothing at all (239D-240C). The Stoics prise apart something from being (rejecting the Visitor's the interpretive difficulties concerning the division of Stoic philosophy, and Ierodiakonou (2005) on the status of these puzzles as thought experiments. 11 Again, for welcome support of this point, particularly in the detailed exposition of the Sophist, see Aubenque (1991).…”

Section: Some Lessons From the Sophistmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…saying what is true and fitting, hence, the science of yardsticks and criteria, definition, fallacy, sophism, ambiguity, and signification, which is to say, epistemology broadly speaking, as well as ontology. See LS26 for texts and discussion; see Ierodiakonou (1993) for an illuminating analysis of The metaphysics of Stoic corporealism consists, then, in the division of Plato's labor between a corporealist cosmology and an inflationist somatology, and their metaphysically innovative accounts of body: on the one hand, as a matter of cosmology and hence Physics, body is fundamental and continuous rather than hylomorphic or atomistic, and on the other hand, as a matter of mereology and hence Logic, a qualified body is simply a corporeal substrate in a certain condition, as clay to statue, or hand to fist. It consists in a metaphysical distinction between the composition of one thing out of many and the constitution of one thing by another.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Metaphysics of Stoic Corporealism

Harven

2021

Apeiron

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The Stoics are famously committed to the thesis that only bodies are, and for this reason they are rightly called “corporealists.” They are also famously compared to Plato’s earthborn Giants in the Sophist, and rightly so given their steadfast commitment to body as being. But the Stoics also notoriously turn the tables on Plato and coopt his “dunamis proposal” that being is whatever can act or be acted upon, to underwrite their commitment to body rather than shrink from it as the Giants do. The substance of Stoic corporealism, however, has not been fully appreciated. This paper argues that Stoic corporealism goes beyond the dunamis proposal, which is simply an ontological criterion for being, to the metaphysics of body. This involves, first, an account of body as metaphysically simple and hence fundamental; second, an account of body as malleable and continuous, hence fit for blending (krasis di’ holou) and composition. In addition, the metaphysics of body involves a distinction between this composition relation seen in the cosmology, and the constitution relation by which the four-fold schema called the Stoic Categories proceeds, e.g. the relation between a statue and its clay, or a fist and its underlying hand. It has not been appreciated that the cosmology and the Categories are distinct — and complementary — explanatory enterprises, the one accounting for generation and unity, the other taking those individuals once generated, and giving a mereological analysis of their identity and persistence conditions, kinds, and qualities. The result is an elegant division of Plato’s labor from the Battle of Gods and Giants. On the one hand, the Stoics rehabilitate the crude cosmology of the Presocratics to deliver generation and unity in completely corporeal terms, and that work is found in their Physics. On the other hand, they reform the Giants and “dare to corporealize,” delivering all manner of predication (from identity to the virtues), and that work is found in Stoic Logic. Recognizing the distinctness of these explanatory enterprises helps dissolve scholarly puzzles, and harmonizes the Stoics with themselves.

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Section: Some Lessons From the Sophistmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Metaphysics of Stoic Corporealism

Harven

2021

Apeiron

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“…The practice of thought experimentation is probably as old as the human mind. Thought experiments have been recorded since the times of ancient Greek philosophy (Ierodiakonou 2005). It was the philosopher‐scientist Hans‐Christian Ørsted who introduced the term thought experiment in 1811 (Ørsted [1811]1920, 172).…”

Section: Thought Experiments In Philosophy Of Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

Quantum Physics and Theology: John Polkinghorne on Thought Experiments

Fehige

2012

Zygon

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Thought experimentation is part of accepted scientific practice, and this makes it surprising that philosophers of science did not seriously engage with it for a very long time. The situation changed in the 1990s, resulting in a highly intriguing debate over thought experiments. Initially, the discussion focused mostly on thought experiments in physics, philosophy, and mathematics. Other disciplines have since become the subject of interest. Yet, nothing substantial has been said about the role of thought experiments in nonphilosophical theology. This paper discusses the role of thought experiments in Christian theology in comparison to their role in quantum physics, as mentioned by John Polkinghorne in Quantum Physics and Theology. We first look briefly at the history of the inquiry into thought experiments and then at Polkinghorne's remarks about the role of thought experimentation in quantum physics and Christian eschatology. To determine the actual importance of thought experiments in Christian theology a number of new examples are introduced in a third step. In the light of these examples, in a fourth step, we address the question of what it is that explains the cognitive efficacy of thought experiments in quantum physics and Christian theology.

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“…See e.g.Stuart et al (2018). 14 For thought-experiments in ancient philosophy in general, with particular emphasis on the Hellenistic Schools, seeIerodiakonou (2005Ierodiakonou ( , 2011Ierodiakonou ( , and 2018; for Plato, seeBecker (2018), and for Aristotle, seeCorcilius (2018). It is possible to see a connection between the hypothetical mode of reasoning discussed above and the use of thought-experiments; for more on this, seeIerodiakonou (2018, 33-34).…”

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Ancient Modes of Philosophical Inquiry

Larsen

Steinkrüger

2020

Hist. Philos. Log. Anal.

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At least since Socrates, philosophy has been understood as the desire for acquiring a special kind of knowledge, namely wisdom, a kind of knowledge that human beings ordinarily do not possess. According to ancient thinkers this desire may result from a variety of causes: wonder or astonishment, the bothersome or even painful realization that one lacks wisdom, or encountering certain hard perplexities or aporiai. As a result of this basic understanding of philosophy, Greek thinkers tended to regard philosophy as an activity of inquiry (zētēsis) rather than as a specific discipline. Discussions concerning the right manner of engaging in philosophical inquiry -what methodoi or routes of inquiry were best suited to lead one to wisdom -became an integral part of ancient philosophy, as did the question how such manners or modes of inquiry are related to, and differ from, other types of inquiry, for instance medical or mathematical.In this special issue of History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis, we wish to concentrate in particular on ancient modes of inquiry. 1 But, the reader may wonder, why do we talk about modes of inquiry, rather than methods? There are at least two reasons for this. First, the modern term 'method' gives connotations of something wider than inquiry: we talk of various methods for doing something, or for going about something, without thereby implying that we are directly engaged in inquiry into something. In another sense, however, method is narrower than inquiry; for a method proper prescribes in a strongly regulative way how to proceed in order to get from an initial state to another state. Whether there are any such prescriptions for philosophical inquiry is an open question, both now and in antiquity. Most ancient philosophers would agree, however, that there are, as it were, small-scale methods or techniques in philosophy, for instance the method or technique of disproving a claim by counterexample; and they would further agree that such methods play some role in inquiry. However, most real philosophical inquiries are far too complex to be carried out by relying on only one such method or technique. A proper method of philosophical inquiry would thus at least require a description of how these specific individual techniques can be combined. But even if no such largescale method can be discovered in philosophy, philosophical inquiry may still be possible and facilitated by certain modes or elements in a general account of such inquiry. This latter possibility is especially important for the sceptical school of the Pyrrhonists, who were keen on claiming that they were engaged in inquiry without subscribing to any of the various methodoi which had been developed up to this point, and, in fact, to any specific method of inquiry at all. It 1 In the past years, a number of seminal contributions in relation to inquiry in ancient philosophy have been published; see, for instance, Fine (2014), Politis (2015) or Karamanolis & Politis (2018).

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Ancient Thought Experiments

Cited by 15 publications

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The Metaphysics of Stoic Corporealism

The Metaphysics of Stoic Corporealism

Quantum Physics and Theology: John Polkinghorne on Thought Experiments

Ancient Modes of Philosophical Inquiry

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