THE APORETIC TRADITION IN ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY
Edited by George Karamanolis (Universität Wien, Austria) , Vasilis Politis (Trinity College Dublin)
Ancient philosophers from an otherwise diverse range of traditions were connected by their shared use of aporia – translated as puzzlement rooted in conflicts of reasons – as a core tool in philosophical enquiry. The essays in this volume provide the first comprehensive study of aporetic methodology among numerous major figures and influential schools, including the Presocratics, Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Academic sceptics, Pyrrhonian sceptics, Plotinus and Damascius. They explore the differences and similarities in these philosophers’ approaches to the source, structure, and aim of aporia, their views on its function and value, and ideas about the proper means of generating such a state among thinkers who were often otherwise opposed in their overall philosophical orientation. Discussing issues of method, dialectic, and knowledge, the volume will appeal to those interested in ancient philosophy and in philosophical enquiry more generally.
(Text by the editors)
Contents
Contributors
Introduction
Chapter 1 – Contradiction and Aporia in Early Greek Philosophy
Chapter 2 – Socrates and the Benefit of Puzzlement
Chapter 3 – Aporia ans Sceptical Argument in Plato’s Early Dialogues
Chapter 4 – Aporia in Plato’s Parmenides
Chapter 5 – Aporia in Plato’s Theaetetus and Sophist
Chapter 6 – Aporia and Dialectical Method in Aristotle
Chapter 7 – Aporia in Aristotle’s Metaphysics Beta
Chapter 8 – Uses of Aporiai in Aristotle’s Generation of Animals
Chapter 9 – Aporia and the New Academy
Chapter 10 – Aporetic Elements in Plutarch’s Philosophy
Chapter 11 – Aporia and Enquiry in Ancient Pyrrhonism
Chapter 12 – Aporia and Exegesis
Chapter 13 – The Aporetic Character os Plotinu’s Philosophy
Chapter 14 – Aporia and the Limits os Reason and of Language in Damascius
Bibliography
Index Locorum
Subject Index