![]() ![]() ![]() The first section includes three papers on early Hellenistic philosophy. ![]() The discussions of these issues are organized by historical period, dividing into four sections. (Dialectic was of course later given central prominence in the philosophical systems of modern German philosophers like Kant, Hegel, and Marx, though consideration of this later usage in this book does not continue after the introduction.) The questions that the contributors to this volume address are: in what ways are the Platonic and Aristotelian senses of dialectic at play in the thinking of later ancient authors? What additional ‘dialectical’ considerations inform the thinking and method of later authors, where ‘dialectic’ is understood loosely to suggest either a question-and-answer structure or an inquiry into nature via something akin to Platonic division, or both? In the Topics, Aristotle used the term to describe a method of arguing with reference to received opinions. It was first used by Plato in several interrelated senses, such as the elenctic method of examining the worth of implicit beliefs and the ‘highest science’ of grasping the relationships between intelligible forms as described, for example, by the Eleatic Stranger in the Sophist. This book is of interest both to those working on ancient metaphysics, epistemology, or logic broadly and those engaging with any of the various historical figures and schools covered, including Megarics, Peripatetics, Epicureans, Stoics, the Hellenistic Academy, Cicero, Pyrrhonian Skeptics, Galen, and the Middle Platonists.Īs co-editor Thomas Bénatouïl describes in his helpful introduction, the term ‘dialectic’ has consistently entailed a technical sense throughout the history of philosophy, referring either to one or more of a set of methods or a general orientation towards philosophical practice. Written by an international group of authors including both established and younger scholars, the chapters in this volume constitute a rich set of discussions of several key aspects of the history of these practices that have heretofore received inadequate attention. ![]() What emerges in the book is an account of several interrelated ways in which the ancient practices of dialectic reflect the nature of philosophy as a lived activity, in which the interlocutors are oriented toward ultimate goals like learning to account for truth by carving up nature at its joints or assessing the worth of received opinion through a question-and- answer process. The term διαλεκτική and its cognates were used to describe a wide range of practices throughout antiquity, and the contributors to this volume trace out several consistent themes corresponding to its usage. Dialectic After Plato and Aristotle is a collection of ten papers, nine from the 13th Symposium Hellenisticum held in the Abbaye des Prémontrés at Pont-à-Mousson in Lorraine, France in July 2013, each addressing the role of dialectic in Hellenistic or early imperial thought. ![]()
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