Table Of ContentThinking, Knowing, Acting: Epistemology and Ethics in Plato
and Ancient Platonism
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Brill’s Plato Studies Series
Editors
Gabriele Cornelli (Brasilia, Brazil)
Gábor Betegh (Cambridge, United Kingdom)
Editorial Board
Beatriz Bossi (Madrid, Spain)
Luc Brisson (Paris, France)
Michael Erler (Würzburg, Germany)
Franco Ferrari (Salerno, Italy)
Maria do Ceu Fialho (Coimbra, Portugal)
Mary-Louise Gill (Providence, usa)
Debra Nails (Michigan, usa)
Noburu Notomi (Tokyo, Japan)
Olivier Renaut (Paris, France)
Voula Tsouna (Santa Barbara, usa)
volume 3
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bpss
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Thinking, Knowing, Acting:
Epistemology and Ethics in Plato
and Ancient Platonism
Edited by
Mauro Bonazzi
Filippo Forcignanò
Angela Ulacco
leiden | boston
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The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bonazzi, Mauro, 1973- editor.| Forcignanò, Filippo, editor. | Ulacco, Angela, editor.
Title: Thinking, knowing, acting : epistemology and ethics in Plato and
ancient Platonism / edited by Mauro Bonazzi, Angela Ulacco, Filippo
Forcignanò.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2019. | Series: Brill's Plato studies
series, ISSN 2452-2945; volume 3
Identifiers: LCCN 2019004464 (print) | LCCN 2019010930 (ebook) | isbn
9789004398986 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004398986 (hardback : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Plato. | Knowledge, Theory of. | Ethics. | Platonists.
Classification: LCC B395 (ebook) | LCC B395 .T516 2019 (print) | DDC 184--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019004464
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
issn 2452-2945
isbn 978-90-04-39898-6 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-39899-3 (e-book)
Copyright 2019 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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Contents
Introduction vii
1 Acting and Knowing before Plato: on Solon’s Theodicy 1
Mauro Bonazzi
2 Plato and the ‘Performative Contradiction’ 20
Franco Trabattoni
3 Self-knowledge and Politics in the Alcibiades I 30
Albert Joosse
4 Plato’s Journey through the Conflict: Knowledge, Action and καιρός in
the Syracusan Experience 53
Filippo Forcignanò
5 Learning from the Gods: Episteme and Politics in Plato’s
Menexenus 72
Emilia Cucinotta
6 Der beste Logos als Handlungskriterium in Platons Kriton 99
Sabrina Mertler
7 Das δαιμόνιον im Theages und der Weg zur Weisheit 119
Giusy Maria Margagliotta
8 The Theaetetus Digression: an Ethical Interlude in an Epistemological
Dialogue? 138
Emanuele Maffi
9 Kompsoi Logoi. Some Remarks on Plato’s Linguistic Conventionalism
and Its Ethical Implications 161
Mariapaola Bergomi
10 Aristotle’s Method of Inquiry in Eudemian Ethics 1 and 2 186
Andrea Falcon
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vi CONTENTS
11 Is the Phronimos Shame-Less? Shame, Habituation and the Notion of
the Noble in Aristotle 207
Marilù Papandreou
12 The telos of Assimilation to God and the Conflict between theoria and
praxis in Plato and the Middle Platonists 228
Paolo Torri
13 Wissen und Meinung im anonymen Theaitetoskommentar 251
Bernd Hene
14 The Theory of Mixtures and Its Ethical Implications: Role and
Responsibility of the Galenic Physician 279
Maria Luisa Garofalo
15 Selbstbewegung und Kreisbewegung. Autokinēsis in Plotin anhand der
Enn. 6, 9, 8 [9] 300
Giovanni Panno
Index of Modern Authors 325
Index of Relevant Passages 330
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Introduction
Over the last years, the interest in the origin and development of Platonism in
the Imperial Period has grown exponentially. This fact is largely due to the ac-
knowledgement that Western philosophical thought has been fundamentally
shaped by the way ancient and late ancient Platonists read Plato’s dialogues
and how they were transmitted to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, thus
triggering centuries of debate that characterise the long history of Platonism.
Scholars have investigated in depth the metaphysical and to a certain extent
the epistemological and ethical aspects of this reception. However, the correla-
tion between the two last factors, epistemology and ethics, which are usually
considered of central importance in the Platonic tradition, has not received
the attention it deserves. What roles did epistemology and theory of knowl-
edge play in ethical and political discussions? Is it possible to discuss and solve
moral and social questions with the help of epistemology, tracing them back to
a cognitive dimension? In other words: how should the relationship between
knowing (in all those forms) and acting be conceived? This question certainly
attracts great interest in contemporary philosophical and political debate as
well. It was definitely a core issue for Plato and his interpreters in Antiquity. An
intensely discussed question is the moral or ethical intellectualism inspired
by Socrates, according to which science and virtue are unified, whereby the
search for knowledge corresponds to a search oriented toward moral action.
With all its obvious permutations, this connection has never ceased to attract
the attention of Platonic interpreters, who have certainly been compelled to
engage with Aristotle’s criticism of Plato and his personal contribution to the
definition of ethics as a ‘practical science’.
The aim of this book is to offer a fresh perspective on this issue from both
a historical and systematic perspective. In particular, the book addresses the
connection between knowing and acting by viewing it from a specific angle,
namely conflict or disagreement. There are not only social conflicts, but also
conflicts between desires, between reason and necessity, norm, and nature. Up
to what point is it possible to analyse and solve conflicts considering them as
epistemological issues, i.e., a lack of knowledge, or faulty application of knowl-
edge? This raises further questions: how many forms of knowledge are there?
Do different levels of knowledge correspond to different manifestations of
practical activity? How important is knowledge of the self for action?
The first part of this book deals with the social, juridical, and theoretical
premises of Plato’s investigations, from the ‘early’ to ‘late’ dialogues, with par-
ticular attention given to the relation between science and practical action.
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viii INTRODUCTION
The last part of the volume focusses on the reception of the topic in the Pla-
tonic tradition (from Eudorus to Plotinus). The central part is dedicated to
Aristotle, as his criticism of Plato and his foundation of a practical science
played a key role in the Platonic tradition. The chapters can stand on their own
but, at the same time, they trace a long arc encompassing the issues put for-
ward in the book’s title. Thus any reader would benefit from devoting attention
to the entire volume. We hope that this volume will be useful to a broad range
of readers: to all researchers working on Plato, Aristotle, Middle Platonism, and
Neoplatonism, but also to those interested in epistemological, psychological,
and ethical issues.
This book originated as the result of cooperation between the Department
of Philosophy of Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg and the Department of
Philosophy of the Università degli Studi di Milano, which was made possible
by the generous financial support of the DAAD (German Academy Exchange
Service-Programm ‘Hochschuldialog mit Südeuropa’).
We would like to thank the other participants in our joint meetings for their
stimulating contributions to the discussion, in particular Christoph Helmig,
who also gave a paper at the first meeting in Freiburg, Klaus Döring, and Jan
Opsomer. Our deep gratitude also goes to our colleagues who generously read
and commented on various chapters in this book, Rachel Barney, Andrea Ca-
pra, Riccardo Chiaradonna, Diego De Brasi, Franco Ferrari, Francesco Fron-
terotta, Alexandra Michalewski, and Maria Michela Sassi.
We also thank Edwin Zoltan (Zoli) Filotas for his careful and competent
revision of the English language of non-native English speakers involved in the
project.
Special thanks go to the anonymous referees for their very insightful com-
ments, and to Gabriele Cornelli and Gábor Betegh, for agreeing to publish this
book in the Brill Plato Studies Series.
The Editors
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Chapter 1
Acting and Knowing before Plato: on Solon’s
Theodicy
Mauro Bonazzi
Abstract
The paper argues for a compatibilist reading of the two most important of Solon’s po-
ems, the Elegy on the Polis and the Elegy to the Muses. In the two poems Solon claims
that the gods intervene in the human world and sanction good and evil actions. The
problem is, however, that human beings are not always able to understand the divine
perspective. This leads to recognize that they need divine help and therefore the ex-
hortation to moderation.
One vetus quaestio for any reader of Solon’s verses regards the compatibility
between his two most famous poems, the so-called Elegy on the Polis and the
Elegy to the Muses.1 The problem is clear, as a quick presentation of the two
poems suffices to show. Let’s start with the Elegy on the Polis. After four verses
which stress faith in the divine aid of Athena and underline the guilt of those
wicked citizens who drag the city into ruin, there is a description of the effects
that dysnomia has over the city: first is depicted the behaviour of the bad citi-
zens (and leaders) who try to destroy the city (5–14); then Dike appears and
there is a long description of the concrete consequences of her fury on the
city (17–29). After that, Solon intervenes in the first person to warn his fellow
citizens of the danger of not respecting Dike (30–31), and to exalt the opposite
situation of Eunomie and of her positive effects on the city (32–39). In short,
the Elegy on the Polis may be read as an exhortation to the citizens to follow jus-
tice. Human beings can and must build a just city that will flourish under the
benevolent protection of the gods. Indeed, divine justice “bears silent witness
to the present and the past and in time assuredly comes to exact retribution”
(15–16): human beings must therefore decide whether they want to go against
1 As for the text I follow Noussia 2010, who adopts the numeration of Gentili – Prato: the Elegy
on the Polis is fr. 3 (= fr. 4 West) and the Elegy to the Muses fr. 1 (= 13 West).
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���9 | doi:�0.��63/9789004398993_00�
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