Download or read book Teleology in the Ancient World written by Julius Rocca and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-12 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection provides a comprehensive examination of ancient teleological arguments from philosophical and medical perspectives.
Download or read book Teleology written by Jeffrey K. McDonough and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-08 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Teleology is the belief that some things happen, or exist for the sake of other things. It is the belief that, for example, salmon swim upstream in order to spawn, and that bears have claws for the sake of catching fish. This volume takes up the intuitive yet puzzling concept of teleology as it has been treated by philosophers from ancient times to the present day. It includes nine main chapters centered on the treatment of teleology in Plato, Aristotle, the Islamic medieval tradition, the Jewish medieval tradition, the Latin medieval tradition, the early modern era, Kant, Hegel, and contemporary philosophy. Each chapter probes central questions such as: is teleology inherent in its subjects or is it imposed on them from the outside? Does teleology necessarily involve intentionality, that is, a subject's cognizing some end, goal, or purpose? What is the scope of teleology? Is it, for example, applicable to elements and animals, or only to rational beings? Finally, is teleology explanatory? When we say that salmon swim upstream in order to spawn, have we explained why they swim upstream? When we say that bears have claws for catching fish, have we explained why bears have claws? The philosophical discussions of the main chapters are enlivened and contextualized by four reflection pieces exploring the implications of teleology in medicine, art, poetry, and music.
Download or read book Foucault and Classical Antiquity written by Wolfgang Detel and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-01-06 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 2005 book is a critical examination of Michel Foucault's relation to ancient Greek thought, in particular his famous analysis of Greek history of sexuality. Wolfgang Detel offers an understanding of Foucault's theories of power and knowledge based on modern analytical theories of science and concepts of power. He offers a complex reading of the texts which Foucault discusses, covering topics such as Aristotle's ethics and theory of sex, Hippocratic dietetics, the earliest treatises on economics, and Plato's theory of love. The result is a philosophically rich and probing critique of Foucault's later writings, and a persuasive account of the relation between ethics, power and knowledge in classical antiquity. His book will have a wide appeal to readers interested in Foucault and in Greek thought and culture.
Download or read book Aristotle on Teleology written by Monte Ransome Johnson and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 2005-11-03 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Monte Johnson examines one of the most controversial aspects of Aristiotle's natural philosophy: his teleology. Is teleology about causation or explanation? Does it exclude or obviate mechanism, determinism, or materialism? Is it focused on the good of individual organisms, or is god or man the ultimate end of all processes and entities? Is teleology restricted to living things, or does it apply to the cosmos as a whole? Does it identify objectively existent causes in the world, or is it merely a heuristic for our understanding of other causal processes? Johnson argues that Aristotle's aporetic approach drives a middle course between these traditional oppositions, and avoids the dilemma, frequently urged against teleology, between backwards causation and anthropomorphism. Although these issues have been debated with extraordinary depth by Aristotle scholars, and touched upon by many in the wider philosophical and scientific community as well, there has been no comprehensive historical treatment of the issue. Aristotle is commonly considered the inventor of teleology, although the precise term originated in the eighteenth century. But if teleology means the use of ends and goals in natural science, then Aristotle was rather a critical innovator of teleological explanation. Teleological notions were widespread among his predecessors, but Aristotle rejected their conception of extrinsic causes such as mind or god as the primary causes for natural things. Aristotle's radical alternative was to assert nature itself as an internal principle of change and an end, and his teleological explanations focus on the intrinsic ends of natural substances - those ends that benefit the natural thing itself. Aristotle's use of ends was subsequently conflated with incompatible 'teleological' notions, including proofs for the existence of a providential or designer god, vitalism and animism, opposition to mechanism and non-teleological causation, and anthropocentrism. Johnson addresses these misconceptions through an elaboration of Aristotle's methodological statements, as well as an examination of the explanations actually offered in the scientific works.
Download or read book Explanation and Teleology in Aristotle s Science of Nature written by Mariska Leunissen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-08-26 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Aristotle's teleological view of the world, natural things come to be and are present for the sake of some function or end (for example, wings are present in birds for the sake of flying). Whereas much of recent scholarship has focused on uncovering the (meta-)physical underpinnings of Aristotle's teleology and its contrasts with his notions of chance and necessity, this book examines Aristotle's use of the theory of natural teleology in producing explanations of natural phenomena. Close analyses of Aristotle's natural treatises and his Posterior Analytics show what methods are used for the discovery of functions or ends that figure in teleological explanations, how these explanations are structured, and how well they work in making sense of phenomena. The book will be valuable for all who are interested in Aristotle's natural science, his philosophy of science, and his biology.
Download or read book Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity written by David Sedley and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2008-01-16 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world is configured in ways that seem systematically hospitable to life forms, especially the human race. Is this the outcome of divine planning or simply of the laws of physics? Ancient Greeks and Romans famously disagreed on whether the cosmos was the product of design or accident. In this book, David Sedley examines this question and illuminates new historical perspectives on the pantheon of thinkers who laid the foundations of Western philosophy and science. Versions of what we call the "creationist" option were widely favored by the major thinkers of classical antiquity, including Plato, whose ideas on the subject prepared the ground for Aristotle's celebrated teleology. But Aristotle aligned himself with the anti-creationist lobby, whose most militant members—the atomists—sought to show how a world just like ours would form inevitably by sheer accident, given only the infinity of space and matter. This stimulating study explores seven major thinkers and philosophical movements enmeshed in the debate: Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Socrates, Plato, the atomists, Aristotle, and the Stoics.
Download or read book Being Nature and Life in Aristotle written by James G. Lennox and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek and Roman Science written by Liba Taub and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-30 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a broad framework for engaging with ideas relevant to ancient Greek and Roman science, medicine and technology.
Download or read book Aristotle s Ontology of Change written by Mark Sentesy and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-15 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates what change is, according to Aristotle, and how it affects his conception of being. Mark Sentesy argues that the analysis of change leads Aristotle to develop first-order metaphysical concepts such as matter, potency, actuality, sources of being, epigenesis, and teleology. He shows that Aristotle’s distinctive ontological claim—that being is inescapably diverse in kind—is anchored in his argument for the existence of change. Aristotle may be the only thinker to propose a noncircular definition of change. With his landmark argument that change did, in fact, exist, Aristotle challenged established assumptions about what it is and developed a set of conceptual frameworks that continue to provide insight into the nature of reality. This groundbreaking work on change, however, has long been interpreted through a Platonist view of change as unreal. By offering a comprehensive reexamination of Aristotle’s pivotal arguments, and establishing his positive ontological conception of change, Sentesy makes a significant contribution to scholarship on Aristotle, ancient philosophy, the history and philosophy of science, and metaphysics.
Download or read book The Timespace of Human Activity written by Theodore R. Schatzki and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2010-04-12 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book shows that a concept of activity timespace drawn from the work of Martin Heidegger provides new insights into the nature of activity, society, and history. Although the book is a work of theory, it has significant implications for the determination and course, not just of activity, but of sociohistorical change as well. Drawing on empirical examples, the book argues (1) that timespace is a key component of the overall space and time of social life, (2) that interwoven timespaces form an essential infrastructure of important social phenomena such as power, coordinated actions, social organizations, and social systems, and (3) that history encompasses constellations of indeterminate temporalspatial events. The latter conception of history in turn yields a propitious account of how the past exists in the present. In addition, because the concept of activity timespace highlights the teleological character of human action, the book contains an extensive defense of the teleological character of such allegedly ateleological forms of activity as emotional and ceremonial actions. Since, finally, the book's ideas about timespace and activity as an indeterminate event derive from an interpretation of Heidegger, the work furthers understanding of the relevance of his thought for social and historical theory.
Download or read book Experience and Teleology in Ancient Historiography written by Jonas Grethlein and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-17 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the tension in ancient historiography between teleological design and narrating the past as it was experienced by historical characters.
Download or read book Teleology First Principles and Scientific Method in Aristotle s Biology written by Allan Gotthelf and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-02-23 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents an interconnected set of sixteen essays, four of which are previously unpublished, by Allan Gotthelf—one of the leading experts in the study of Aristotle's biological writings. Gotthelf addresses three main topics across Aristotle's three main biological treatises. Starting with his own ground-breaking study of Aristotle's natural teleology and its illuminating relationship with the Generation of Animals, Gotthelf proceeds to the axiomatic structure of biological explanation (and the first principles such explanation proceeds from) in the Parts of Animals. After an exploration of the implications of these two treatises for our understanding of Aristotle's metaphysics, Gotthelf examines important aspects of the method by which Aristotle organizes his data in the History of Animals to make possible such a systematic, explanatory study of animals, offering a new view of the place of classification in that enterprise. In a concluding section on 'Aristotle as Theoretical Biologist', Gotthelf explores the basis of Charles Darwin's great praise of Aristotle and, in the first printing of a lecture delivered worldwide, provides an overview of Aristotle as a philosophically-oriented scientist, and 'a proper verdict' on his greatness as scientist.
Download or read book Philosophy in the Ancient World written by James A. Arieti and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2005 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophy in the Ancient World: An Introduction--an intellectual history of the ancient world from the eighth century B.C.E. to the fifth century C.E., from Homer to Boethius--describes and evaluates ancient thought in its cultural setting, showing how it affected and was affected by that setting. The greatest philosophers (Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine) and cultural figures (Homer, Euripides, Thucydides, Archimedes) and a number of lesser ones (Hesiod, Posidonius, Basil) receive careful description and evaluation. Philosophy in the Ancient World is ideally suited as a supplement for undergraduate courses in Ancient Philosophy and the History of Philosophy in the West.
Download or read book Medicine and Paradoxography in the Ancient World written by George Kazantzidis and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-08-05 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present volume offers a systematic discussion of the complex relationship between medicine and paradoxography in the ancient world. For a long time, the relationship between the two has been assumed to be virtually non-existent. Paradoxography is concerned with disclosing a world full of marvels and wondrous occurrences without providing an answer as to how these phenomena can be explained. Its main aim is to astonish and leave its readers bewildered and confused. By contrast, medicine is committed to the rational explanation of human phusis, which makes it, in a number of significant ways, incompatible with thauma. This volume moves beyond the binary opposition between ‘rational’ and ‘non-rational’ modes of thinking, by focusing on instances in which the paradox is construed with direct reference to established medical sources and beliefs or, inversely, on cases in which medical discourse allows space for wonder and admiration. Its aim is to show that thauma, rather than present a barrier, functions as a concept which effectively allows for the dialogue between medicine and paradoxography in the ancient world.
Download or read book The Social Evolution of Human Nature written by Harry Smit and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-03 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Harry Smit examines the elements of current evolutionary theory and how they bear on the evolution of the human mind.
Download or read book Technological Animation in Classical Antiquity written by Maria Gerolemou and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-09-24 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The persistent desire to animate inanimate objects has been a recurring theme in European culture dating back to ancient Greek and Roman times. Technological Animation in Classical Antiquity aims to establish, for the first time, the significance of this aspiration and its practical realization within Greek and Roman societies. While certain aspects of this narrative have been explored previously, this study shifts the focus to place technological animation at the forefront. The sixteen chapters examine the tangible existence of such devices across various media and considers their roles in diverse contexts, delving into the reciprocal relationship between technological and material realities, and its influence on the concept of animation and vice versa. By adopting this perspective, technological animation not only provides a new understanding of the processes behind animation but also lends a fresh perspective to the animated artifact. In contrast to other types of animation, where the technologically animated artifact is often dismissed as a perceptual error induced, for instance, by rhetoric or magic, this study separates technological animation from notions of rhetorical or magical skills, theurgy, or divine intervention. Specifically, it concentrates on a subset of artificial animation solely produced through technical procedures, exploring how various motive forces actively contributed to giving objects agency and impacting their viewers, illuminating how the material conditions of the artifacts themselves played a role in the process of technological animation--whether through the distinctive materiality of bronze or the design of a statuette's hinge.
Download or read book Galen and the Early Moderns written by Matteo Favaretti Camposampiero and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-03-07 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the presence of Galen of Pergamon (129 – c. 216 AD) in early modern philosophy, science, and medicine. After a short revival due to the humanistic rediscovery of his works, the influence of the great ancient physician on Western thought seemed to decline rapidly as new discoveries made his anatomy, physiology, and therapeutics more and more obsolete. In fact, even though Galenism was gradually dismissed as a system, several of his ideas spread through the modern world and left their mark on natural philosophy, rational theology, teleology, physiology, biology, botany, and the philosophy of medicine. Without Galen, none of these modern disciplines would have been the same. Linking Renaissance with the Enlightenment, the eleven chapters of this book offer a unique and detailed survey of both scientific and philosophical Galenisms from the sixteenth to the late eighteenth century. Figures discussed include Julius Caesar Scaliger, Giambattista Da Monte, Hyeronimus Fabricius ab Aquapendente, Andrea Cesalpino, Thomas Browne, Kenelm Digby, Henry More, Ralph Cudworth, Robert Boyle, John Locke, Guillaume Lamy, Jean-Baptiste Verduc, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Christian Wolff, Julien Offray de La Mettrie, Denis Diderot, and Kurt Sprengel.
