Luc Brisson

A oposição phúsis / tékhne em Plotino

Neste artigo, tenciono mostrar que e impossivel concluir, como fez Andre Grabar, que ha uma mudanca da atitude de Plotino em relacao a obra de arte. Plotino coloca sob o vocabulo tekhne toda uma serie de atividades humanas associando artes, oficios e inclusive ciencias que nao apresentam nenhum traco comum alem daquele da competencia. Alem do mais, a tekhne nao e associada a producao artistica. Enfim, em Plotino assim como em Platao, a natureza precede sempre a tekhne; com efeito, somente a natureza tem uma acao espontânea, continua e dispensadora de vida e de potencia.

Behind the Veil: In Memory of Pierre Hadot

This memorial essay on the French historian of philosophy Pierre Hadot (1922 – 2010) explores his life and work. Starting out from an ecclesiastical background and education, Hadots interest in mysticism led him to study the late Greek Neoplatonists Plotinus and Porphyry, as well as the Latin Church Fathers. Elected first to the Ecole pratique des hautes etudes and then to the College de France, Hadot developed his most influential idea, that ancient philosophy was not the construction of an abstract system of ideas, but a concrete, lived practice intended to transform the perception and being of the practitioner, and thereby to ensure his or her happiness. Later in his career, Hadot, influenced by German Romanticism and above all by Goethe, turned to study the history of the concept of nature from classical to modern times. The breadth of his interests and the novelty of his approach account for the wide interest in his works, extending to circles that extend far beyond the disciplines of classical studies and the history of philosophy.

Between Matter and Body Mass (γκος) in the Sentences of Porphyry

In the Corpus Hippocraticum and in tragedy, γκος is difficult to translate, for it corresponds to a very primitive notion, intuitively implying a confusion between two aspects that were gradually distinguished: 1) a thing’s bulk or extension, and 2) an appreciation, as a function of its bulk and its extension, of the load represented by this thing, or its weight. This explains why the term usually designates something that has a certain mass. As an indefinite quantity of formless matter, this is probably a notion which was used by medio-Platonists, strongly influenced by Stoicism, to understand matter the Timaeus. In Plotinus’ polemic against the Stoics, γκος, which refers to a magnitude with resistance bereft of qualities, is thus situated at a level intermediate between matter (λη), bereft of all determination, and the body (σμα), which is endowed with magnitude and qualities. In the Sentences, Porphyry uses the term γκος 30 times in its technical sense, almost as often as Plotinus in the whole of the Enneads. This is probably because he felt uncomfortable with Plotinus’ notion of matter bereft of all determination, including magnitude.

The Role of Myth in Plato and Its Prolongations in Antiquity

Plato was the first author to use the term mûthos (myth) in our modern sense.1 He described the role of myth in Athens, in order to contrast it with an argumentative philosophical discourse aimed at the truth. Even so, he had recourse to this unverifiable story not only in a practical role, in order to persuade the citizen to obey moral norms and political laws, but also in a theoretical context, evoking premises from which philosophical discourse could develop, and picturing realities such as the soul, that could not be grasped by either the senses or the intellect. With the disappearance of the city-state and the constitution of Kingdoms and Empires, the social and political aspects of myth tended to disappear in the Mediterranean world, allowing the soul to take “centre-stage.” While theogony, cosmogony, and anthropogony persisted, they did so only to provide a framework for a vast drama—that of the salvation of the human soul—as described in the Chaldaean Oracles and the treatises of the Sethian Gnostics.

A religião como fundamento da reflexão filosófica e como meio de ação política nas Leis de Platão

In Book 10 of the Laws, Plato inaugurates a new way of speaking about the divinity, albeit reluctantly. He addresses a restricted group of individuals, young atheists who had not been convinced by the myths they had been told since childhood, or by the cult practices they had witnessed. Since he can no longer invoke traditional religion, Plato tries to give a demonstration of the existence of the gods, their providence, and their incor ruptibility, by calling on the regularity and the permanence of the motion of celestial bodies as his witnesses. This new kind of discourse on the gods, which, although based on traditional religion, seeks to transcend it by philosophical reflection, is intended to provide the foundation for the government of the whole of society.