Daniel W. Graham

Anaxagoras and the Solar Eclipse of 478 BC

Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (ca. 500-428 BC) was perhaps the most famous scientist-philosopher of his time. Although he spent some thirty years in Athens and enjoyed the patronage of the city’s leading citizen, Pericles, there is much we do not know about the philosopher and his theory. His estimate of the sun’s and moon’s sizes is unique in its specifi city and its geographical reference and consequently puzzling. Two scholars working independently have hypothesized that the estimate is based on an actual solar eclipse. This hypothesis does not seem to have gained much attention, and the specifi c proposals run into historical problems; but it raises interesting questions that may illuminate Anaxagoras’ scientifi c activity. We wish to show that this hypothesis can be supported by astronomical evidence which reveals some interesting

Γραμματική in Plato and Aristotle

Abstract The term grammatikē appears frequently in Plato and Aristotle as the name of an art or science that can serve as a paradigm of knowledge. It is typically rendered into English by the cognate ‘grammar.’ A close look at relevant passages, however, makes it clear that this translation is inadequate. The term never refers to grammar. Rather, grammatikē signifies the basic art of associating letters with sounds and connecting letters to represent speech. The art of letters is the basis of reading and writing–the art of literacy. When the term is understood correctly, a number of difficult passages become clear.

The Theology of Nature in the Ionian Tradition

Abstract: There are two extreme interpretations of Presocratic, and in particular Ionian, theories of religion. In one case, the Ionians are viewed as the initiators of a tradition of rational theology leading up to Augustine and early Christian thinkers. Natural theology as practiced by the early philosophers provides a basic understanding of the divine independent of revealed truths. In the other case, the Ionians are viewed as subversives who undermined the basis of civic religion by replacing the gods in every important role they played in the cosmos. On this view, they were positivists who aimed at replacing religion with science. I argue for a middle ground between these two extremes. For the Ionians, an understanding of the gods was fundamentally different from that of later theistic theologians, precisely because the former saw the divine not as autonomous and sovereign, but as a subordinate feature of nature. The Ionians did not recognize a supernatural realm, but only divine attributes that were exemplified within the domain of nature. On the other hand, the Ionians (with the possible exception of the atomists) did not aim at banishing divine properties from the world, but rather at associating them with the rational and orderly power governing the world. Their interest was not in rejecting divinity, but in rejecting a conception of the divine as arbitrary and willful. What they invented was not natural theology, but a theology of nature.