Continuing with guest Peter Adamson with "On Nature" (475 BCE). We finally get to the great "fragment 8," which describes why Being must be singular and eternal, given that the notion of Non-Being is nonsense. So does it make any sense to talk of this eternal, uniform Being as a finite sphere? Would this absolute unity of Being make it impossible for us to even be Continue Reading …
Episode 197: Parmenides on What There Is (Part One)
On the fragments referred to as "On Nature" from ca. 475 BCE, featuring guest Peter Adamson from the History of Philosophy without Any Gaps podcast. One of the most influential Presocratic philosophers, Parmenides gives "the Way of Truth," which is that there is only Being, and talking of Non-Being is nonsense. And guess what? Any talk of difference implies non-being, so Continue Reading …
Peter Adamson’s Philosophy in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Volume 2
All of philosophy, Whitehead famously quipped, is a footnote to Plato. Not only does Plato’s corpus cover almost everything that we have come to call “philosophy,” but many great (and minor) thinkers have spent careers writing commentary on Socrates’s famous student—footnotes to Plato. Beginning with the Hellenistic schools devoted to Plato and Aristotle, there were the Continue Reading …
Alan Saunders and Han Baltussen on Aristotle’s Legacy
The Philosopher's Zone is now publishing repeats in light of Alan Saunders's passing, but one of the most recent of these is more or less on target for us: "Aristotle on Aristotle," an interview with Han Baltussen that gives a quick overview of his life, the preservation of his works (i.e. most of the best-written ones have not survived), and a glimpse of his doctrines in Continue Reading …