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Lorenzo Valla’s dialogue On Free Will is the first explicit critique of Boëthius’ Consolation of Philosophy, more precisely of it’s the fifth book which deals with the issue of the harmony between God’s prescience and human free decision. Valla refuses Boëthius’ philosophical solution as too dependent on pagan philosophy
and instead of rationalistic argument proposes rhetoric argument. The article analyzes principles and strategies of Valla’s humanistic approach that aims to show the absurdity of the issue if it is solved by means of philosophical tools.

The main aim of this paper is to thoroughly analyse Plato’s simile of the cave. Since it is closely tied to two previous smiles (namely the Sun and the Line), the first section of the paper is devoted to a brief recapitulation of the content of these similes and their relation to the Cave. Then, the simile of the cave itself is being scrutinized. It is argued that in order to understand the simile properly, one must distinguish between different contexts in which Plato applies it. It is claimed that although they are mutually non-transferable (and so, as many scholars think, a consistent interpretation of the whole simile cannot be given), they are, nonetheless, complementary, and only when taken together one can understand the complexity of human situation in this world. The last section of this paper is then devoted to the topic of philosophical education which plays a key role in the simile of the cave.

Aristotle’s conception of the natural slave remains a contentious issue. I challenge two common interpretations that misrepresent his account. The first holds that natural slaves share the same human nature as free men, with their deficiency arising from their actions and habituation. The second sees the natural slave as a subhuman, closer to animals, with an innate and ineliminable rational defect. I reject both views and argue that Aristotle sees the natural slave as a legitimate human being but with a rational deficiency. Furthermore, I contend that this deficiency is more severe than some scholars acknowledge, particularly those who take Aristotle as identifying non-Greeks with natural slaves and assess their cognitive abilities on the basis of the intellectual achievements of non-Greeks.

This article explores the medieval origins and antecedents of contemporary marriage rights as articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The foundational document of modern human rights asserts 1) that all human beings have the right to marry; 2) that marriages are to be entered into through free and uncoerced consent of the spouses; and 3) that both marriage partners are to enjoy equal rights. The argument is made that these principles are not strictly speaking modern innovations, but rather the result
of the long legal and doctrinal evolution of marriage, reaching back to the Middle Ages, and in part to Antiquity. The influence of medieval theories of marriage as a natural law institution, of the medieval doctrine of marital consent, and of medieval theories of the simultaneous equality and inequality of spouses in shaping modern marriage rights are highlighted.

The use of teleological language in biology is burdened with many difficulties. Speakers in everyday and scientific discourse confuse functions with purposes and misunderstand functionality, finality, and intentionality. The paper is structured into three sections. In the first part the difference between Platonic supranatural and Aristotelian quasi-natural account of teleology will be explained, with examples from the history of philosophy of biology. The second part will present the Darwinian approach to etiology that constitutes a more sound alternative to the teleological explanation. In the last section I will briefly introduce the teleological bias that is studied by developmental and cognitive psychologists. I believe that this psychological inclination is the real source of intuitive worldviews that are incompatible with contemporary science.

The article explores the beginnings of the integration of the term psyche into Presocratic philosophy. The author’s main aim was to examine whether the traditional authorities with which the new use of psyche is usually associated would actually hold up in this role if the doxographic tradition is left aside. The Orphics and Pythagoreans, who are often regarded as the founders of the doctrine of immortal psyche in the 6th century BCE, could not have played this role because, on the one hand, it is not attested by authentic texts and, on the other hand, the historical development of the meanings of psyche contradicts it. This is also the case for Anaximenes, since the key fragment B 2 is almost certainly inauthentic and compiled from the ideas and terms of Diogenes of Apollonia.

During the late 1610s, the Iberian philosopher and theologian Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza (1578–1641) authored Disputations on Faith, now preserved as a manuscript in Dublin, The Library of Trinity College Dublin, ms. 298. The text, apparently originating as part of Hurtado’s teaching in Salamanca, included a comprehensive account of theological virtues and is currently the earliest known witness to Hurtado’s theological career. As part of his discussion of theological issues relating to faith, Hurtado addresses a wide range of epistemological issues, including the general accounts of certainty and evidence and issues specific to the topic of the treatise, such as epistemic authority and testimonial knowledge.

Philosophical terms are subject to a variety of interpretations depending on, and / or determining the entire context in which they occur. Amor intellectualis dei, a composite notion from philosophical theology, assumes different aspects according to the emphasis laid on one or the other of its three elements. This can be shown by highlighting the different approaches of three thinkers, in whose philosophy the intellectual love towards god plays a central role: Meister Eckhart, Marsilio Ficino, and Benedict Spinoza.

Girolamo Cardano wrote, besides his better-known treatises on natural philosophy and his autobiographies, some treatises (Hymnus seu canticum ad Deum, De uno, De sapientia) that define wisdom as a human skill of orientation in the world, specifically as a feature of human nature, as ethical and political means, and as the capability of dominating things and humans. The effect is that human wisdom, although apparently a divine virtue, is reduced to the capability and task of humans to secure their position, to make sense, and to make conjectures about the principles of human agency. This eventually regards religion and God: everything is a hypothesis and a tool for human secular felicity.

This paper endeavours to examine the function of pain in Aristotle’s ethical philosophy. First, it delves into the relationship between pleasure and activity before directing its attention towards the relationship between pain and activity. While certain pains can be interpreted as kineseis that drive an animal out of its natural state, in the ethical domain, that pain which is understood as hindering the energeia assumes greater significance. This paper expounds on the implications of this idea of pain as an impediment to the activities of human and animal life and its connection to other vital areas of Aristotle’s philosophical thought, including sense perception, psychology, and moral action.

This article contributes to the debate on the relation between Aristotle’s practical and theoretical philosophy. It argues that his practical philosophy depends to a considerable extent on his teleological conception of nature. This thesis is primarily directed against scholars who maintain that Aristotle does not derive political and human relations from natural or cosmic conditions. The paper defends David Sedley’s anthropocentric interpretation of Aristotle’s natural teleology and shows how Aristotle applies teleological explanations to power relations among human beings – among men and women and among freemen and natural slaves – and their purposes and goals. The article focuses on Aristotle’s human ‘function’ (ergon) argument, which is a teleological argument at the centre of his practical philosophy. It argues that this argument, which Aristotle presents to define ‘human flourishing’ or ‘happiness’ (eudaimonia), depends on his definition of man as the only ‘living being that has language and reason’ (zôon logon echon). It further claims that the dispute about whether Aristotle identifies eudaimonia only with a life of contemplation or whether eudaimonia includes a political life can be clarified by referring to the natural purpose of logos.

The early modern mechanics, as developed in the works of Descartes, Newton, and Wolff, introduced as its principle (in some cases, as axiom) the law of inertia, stating that “every body perseveres in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its
state by forces impressed.” The present paper presents the eighteenth-century debates on the law by the Augustinian Eusebius Amort (1692–1775) in his Philosophia Pollingana (first edition published 1730) and by the Jesuit Berthold Hauser (1713–1762) in his Elementa philosophiae (8 volumes published between 1755 and 1764). To explain their positions in the contemporary debates, their concepts of nature and natural motion (in the sense of a motion driven by the intrinsic principles of a body), which give the proper background to the laws of motion and to the law of inertia in particular, are discussed, resulting into a confrontation of a more traditional Aristotelian notion held by Amort with the Wolffian mechanicistic
reading of the same notion which Hauser leans towards. The analysis of these sources uncovers interesting reconciliation attempts between mechanicism and scholasticism in the eighteenth-century physics.

This paper contributes to the discourse about how to characterize one of the most misunderstood and diversely interpreted religious philosophers, Baruch Spinoza. I begin by focusing on the widely different ways that Spinoza’s teaching about God has been characterized, finding the root in these divergencies in the unique way that he defined words. The paper then examines the arguments for treating Spinoza first as an atheist, then as a pantheist, and lastly as a panentheist, arguing that the third of these terms is clearly the most faithful if his texts are to be taken at face value. Finally, the paper presents Spinoza as a bridge builder between secularism and religion, one whose iconoclasm is easily matched by his ability to inspire a deep religiosity.

In this article, I examine how Aeschylus works with the discourse of honour and shame. In most of the cases mentioned, this discourse is problematised (Sept., Ag., Suppl., Pers.) or its ambivalence can also be implied (Pers.). Aeschylus’ revision of the Homeric concept of immortal glory (κλέος ἄφθιτον) is quite clear. Both war in general and the heroes of Aeschylus’ tragedies are problematic, and the emphasis is clearly on the  suffering and crushing consequences that war brings, whether for members of the ruling families or for the polis. This is probably due to the experiences of Aeschylus’ generation. The Athenian ideology of Aeschylus’ time worked with heroic concepts of honour that made it possible to gain, maintain, and develop a hegemonic position and the τιμή associated with it. This political-social direction also required a new conceptualisation of the relationship between the individual and the collective. We can probably observe what problems this conceptualisation could generate in the retelling of the Iliad in the Myrmidons. Hand in  hand with the problematic nature of the discourse of honour and shame in the political-military field goes its problematisation in the religious-political field. This problematisation is part of the study of the anatomy of individual and collective fall.

In this paper, I offer a synthetic presentation of Jan Patočka’s account of the spiritual roots of Europe. On this account, the most fundamental principle of Europe’s spiritual life is the so-called care for the soul (epimeleia tés psychés). From the very beginning, Patočka argues, the principle had two forms: the Democritean and the Socratic-Platonic one. The Democritean was characterized by an unworldly contemplation of the unchangeable principles of the universe. In the Socratic-Platonic form of the care for the soul, the contemplative element has only a subordinated role. At least as important was the ethical-political and the eschatological dimension. The ethical-political dimension centered around the idea of a just polis, in which “the philosophers will not have to die.” Key to the eschatological dimension was the question of the eternal destiny of the soul. In this eschatological vision, the soul acquired a new level of interiority and was set into relation to the fundamental moral order of good and evil. In the European spiritual history, the Democritean spiritual attitude prepared for a unilateral objectivist and depersonalized conception of the universe. By contrast, the Socratic-Platonic form of the care for the soul paved the way for later European ethical-political and eschatological ideals. The loss of this latter form of the care for the soul is, Patočka argues, the ultimate root of the spiritual crisis of modern Europe.

The article aims at critically exploring David Hume’s analysis of the divine being with respect to the widely accepted cosmological argument. Part IX of Hume’s work in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion reflects the formulation of the cosmological argument in the form of a deductive proof through the voice of a character named Demea. The author then counters Demea’s version of this argument through the voice of his next important character named Cleanthes. The main purpose of the paper is the reconstruction of the proofs in a form amenable to logical analysis in propositional logic which demonstrates that all of the proofs can be given a valid form. This
reconstruction enables one to glean some of the similarities and differences between the arguments to obtain some
insight into their workings. The paper does not concern the soundness of the arguments. Neither does it discuss the truth of the premises and the philosophical principles behind them.

In this study, I argue that two motifs of shame are present in Plato's dialogue Phaedrus - shame (aischyné) and "reverent shame" (aidós). Yet only the latter, according to Socrates, can solidly ground life or instead ground a more serious-minded attitude to life. The ambivalent form of shame in Plato's dialogue is supported by the generally recognised difference in meanings associated with aidós and aischyné. I trace both motifs on the dramatic level of the dialogue and in Socrates' teaching in his second speech (palinode). The different expressions of shame in Socrates's and Phaedrus's characters correspond to the other human types presented in the palinode. Suppose the palinode develops and appreciates the shame motif as shame based on the divine dimension of life. In that case, Lysias' speech develops and appeals to the motif of shame as fear of moralising condemnation. I further interpret the motif of reverent shame throughout the study through the prism of Scheler's conception of shame, including its division into physical and spiritual or sexual and mental dimensions. The reading of the Phaedrus dialogue presented here finally supports the more general thesis of Socrates' conception of love and friendship: 1. It is attentive to the whole, including the highest realities imaginable, and only within that framework is it also a defence of sensuality and the shame that comes from it; 2. It belongs to the culture of honour, even if it transforms it peculiarly; 3. Eros is not one kind of lust (epithymia) but a divine mania. Therefore, it cannot be reduced to or controlled by emotion (including shame).

The so-called Five Modes of Agrippa – the first of discrepancy, the second of regress ad infinitum, the third of relativity, the fourth of hypothesis, and the fifth of reciprocity – are reported by only two surviving ancient sources; Diogenes Laertius attributes them to the otherwise unknown Agrippa. We can only assume that Agrippa was an important systematic philosopher of the later Pyrrhonian scepticism and that he (together with his followers or disciples) wrote a set of the Five Modes. Sextus Empiricus makes no mention of Agrippa in his writings; and he attributes the Five Modes only to the later Sceptics, as opposed to the older Sceptics who supposedly introduced the Ten (Aenesidemusʼ) Modes. This paper deals with the Five Modes of Agrippa, their argumentation structure and their role in the work of Sextus Empiricus. The argumentation
of the Five Modes remains a crucial issue in epistemology, traditionally known as the epistemic regress or infinite regress problem. Sextus explicitly writes in Pyrrh. hyp. that the Five Modes of Agrippa were not intended to reject the Ten Modes of Aenesidemus, but were propounded to complement them with more variety, in order to demonstrate the self-conceit and rashness of the dogmatists. The specific subject of this text is the analysis of the argumentation interface between Aenesidemusʼ and Agrippaʼs Modes; this analysis is important for understanding the relevant context of Sextusʼ approach to Pyrrhonic scepticism.

Following study analyses general features of ancient economic thought and economics. The main aim of the study is to point out that ancient economical lore has intrinsic ethical and normative dimensions inherited from moral philosophy, functioning as determinants of its main ideas and categories (performance, growth, institutions, etc.). Study is divided into three parts. The first part briefly focuses the history of ancient economic thought with its most influential authors and works. The second part analyses main ancient economic themes, concepts and theories in the works of Plato, Xenophon and Aristotle. The third part of the study summarizes the conclusions about ancient economics and its ethical and normative determinants in the works of modern historians of ancient economic thought from the so-called „Bücher-Meyer controversy“ to contemporary scholars.

The study presents the motif of shame as an interesting and hitherto neglected intersection in the Nietzsche-Plato relationship. The first part of the essay recapitulates the function of this motif in Nietzsche’s culminating texts (mainly Zarathustra and Gay Science), while in the second part I turn my attention to the motif of shame in Plato’s work, more precisely, to the two “extreme” contexts of death (Apology, Crito) and love (Symposium). It turns out that for both authors, shame is a constitutive phenomenon that is thematized in relation to logos. Shame and logos thus stand in close and contrasting relation. There is a tension between the two moments that is decisive for the life of the soul, for its upward movement (Plato) or gradation (Nietzsche). It is therefore not a simple subjugation of the irrational element by the rational component of the soul that plays the central role, but an interplay of irreducible, mutually demanding moments.

This article explores the significance of shame in Plato’s moral psychology, specifically focusing on its position within the tripartite theory of the soul. Drawing primarily from Plato’s Republic and Gorgias, this analysis aims to shed light on the role of shame in human life. According to the tripartite theory, the soul comprises reason, spiritedness, and desire, and understanding shame’s placement within this framework offers insights into its impact on moral behaviour. As shame resides within the spirited soul, the article further explores the dynamic interaction between spirit, reason, and desire. It is shown that spirit naturally (fysei) tends to align with reason and oppose desire, although it can be influenced negatively during the process of education. Consequently, the emotion of shame can guide us towards moral truth and virtuous conduct, but only when properly nurtured through education.

This paper opens by reviewing Aristotle's conception of the natural slave and then familiar treatments of the internal conflict between the ruling and subject parts of the soul in Aristotle and Plato; I highlight especially the figurative uses of slavery and servitude when discussing such problems pertaining to incontinence and vice-viz., being a 'slave' to the passions. Turning to Campanella, features of the City of the Sun pertaining to slavery are examined: in sketching his ideal city, Campanella both rejects Aristotle's natural slave and is critical of the European institutions of slavery. The fact that slavery has no place in the City of the Sun takes on added significance when complemented with Campanella's remarks on dominion and servitude in his Quaestiones de politiciis: I show that Campanella's conception of slavery is intimately bound to sin, and consider whether his employment of the trope of slavery within the context of vice diverges from familiar usage.