{"_index":"sire","_id":"482","_score":null,"_source":{"id":482,"authors_free":[{"id":653,"entry_id":482,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":14,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Steel, Carlos","free_first_name":"Carlos","free_last_name":"Steel","norm_person":{"id":14,"first_name":"Carlos ","last_name":"Steel","full_name":"Steel, Carlos ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/122963083","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":654,"entry_id":482,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":164,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Erler, Michael","free_first_name":"Michael","free_last_name":"Erler","norm_person":{"id":164,"first_name":"Michael ","last_name":"Erler","full_name":"Erler, Michael ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/122153847","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":2424,"entry_id":482,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":null,"person_id":478,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"He\u00dfler, Jan Erik","free_first_name":"Jan Erik","free_last_name":"He\u00dfler","norm_person":{"id":478,"first_name":"Jan Erik","last_name":"He\u00dfler","full_name":"He\u00dfler, Jan Erik","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1059760533","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":2425,"entry_id":482,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":null,"person_id":479,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Blumenfelder, Benedikt (Collaborator)","free_first_name":"Benedikt","free_last_name":"Blumenfelder","norm_person":{"id":479,"first_name":"Benedikt","last_name":"Blumenfelder","full_name":"Blumenfelder, Benedikt","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Surface Reading and Deeper Meaning. On Aristotle reading Plato and Platonists reading Aristotle","main_title":{"title":"Surface Reading and Deeper Meaning. On Aristotle reading Plato and Platonists reading Aristotle"},"abstract":"We are here together to discuss various forms of philosophy in antiquity. There is a surprising variety of literary genres of philosophy so different from the narrow academic format of proceedings, handbooks, and referred journal articles. Already among the works of Aristotle, as the commentators noticed, there is a great variety, and Aristotle always adapted his style to the genre: dialogues, letters, protreptics, documentation works, research discussions, treatises on ethics and politics aiming at a broader public.\r\n\r\nAnd if we take the whole literary production of ancient philosophy, the variety is even more impressive. Besides the treatises and commentaries, the summaries and paraphrases, refutations and replies, the handbooks, manuals, and doxographies, there are dialogues and diatribes and orations, letters and catechisms with sentences to be set in practice, epigraphical posters in public city galleries, philosophical poems and political pamphlets, revelations of Hermes Trismegistos, Chaldean oracles, and we must include the manifold Jewish and Christian interpretations of biblical texts, sermons, and theological polemics. They all require other ways of reading and interpreting.\r\n\r\nThe title of this introductory lecture does not mean that I would recommend us to seek for deeper meaning hidden under the many literary forms. It was undoubtedly a very influential hermeneutical model, in particular when combined with the esoteric\/exoteric distinction. But in my view, it remains primarily a model for interpreting mythical and sacred texts and, since the secularization of sacred hermeneutics, for reading \u201cchallenging literary texts.\u201d It is not a method for the interpretation of philosophical texts, where analysis, insight into the structure of arguments, questioning, and criticism are required.\r\n\r\nTo play with a well-known quote from Thoreau: \u201cIn this part of the world (i.e., in philosophy), it is considered a ground for complaint if a man\u2019s writings admit of more than one interpretation.\u201d This refusal of a search for deeper meaning in philosophy, however, does not mean that we should remain just superficial readers, surfing on the text. Let us use all the possibilities we have, including attention to the literary context, to better understand the argument of the author.\r\n\r\nTo avoid the impression that I am finally agreeing with Aristotle against Plato, let me conclude with a remarkable statement of Plato in the Phaedo. It comes from the crucial section of the debate where Socrates starts his critique of Simmias\u2019 argument that the soul is the harmony of the body and will disappear once the substrate is destroyed.\r\n\r\nAll participants are deeply impressed by the harmony argument, and there is an uneasy silence, as they thought it was a fatal blow to Socrates\u2019 belief in immortality, but Socrates is not impressed. He confronts Simmias with a difficult choice: If you stick to the harmony doctrine, you will have to give up the other doctrine you just accepted, because it is incompatible with the harmony thesis, namely that all knowledge is recollection. What will you keep then, Simmias, this new theory or the former you already accepted? Simmias answers without hesitation that he would stand by the anamnesis doctrine.\r\n\r\nFor this other (sc. the doctrine that the soul is like a harmony) came to me without demonstration; it merely seemed probable and attractive, which is the reason why many people hold it. I am conscious that arguments which base their demonstrations on mere probability are deceptive, and if we are not on our guard against them, they deceive us greatly, in geometry and in all other things.\r\n\r\nWhen commenting on this passage, Damascius, the last head of the Platonic Academy in Athens, distinguishes between what he calls superficial (\u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u03b9) and profound (\u03b2\u03b1\u03b8\u03cd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9) thinkers, but not in any esoteric sense. Superficial thinkers, he says, \u201cfind pleasure in plausible arguments,\u201d based on analogies and comparisons, metaphors. That is why the analogy of the soul with the harmony of the lyre is so attractive. \u201cThe more profound thinkers, who scorn the world of senses and its ready-at-hand (\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd) beliefs, rise above plausibilities and love arguments that are connected by necessity.\u201d\r\n\r\nIn this sense, I would also like to be a \u2018profound\u2019 reader ... alas, there arises again a problem. The doctrine that, according to Socrates, is supposedly demonstrated by sound, almost geometrical arguments, and not by analogy, as the rejected harmony thesis, is itself based on analogy and metaphor.\r\n\r\nFor, Aristotle, sitting in this hall, would stand up and say: \u201cWhat do you mean, Socrates, by that anamnesis? Is it not a metaphor and poetical phrase?\u201d [conclusion p. 490-492]","btype":2,"date":"2013","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/3r4OKQesOkyPwb0","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":14,"full_name":"Steel, Carlos ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":164,"full_name":"Erler, Michael ","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}},{"id":478,"full_name":"He\u00dfler, Jan Erik","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}},{"id":479,"full_name":"Blumenfelder, Benedikt","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":482,"section_of":322,"pages":"469-494","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":322,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":4,"language":"en","title":"Argument und literarische Form in antiker Philosophie. Akten des 3. Kongresses der Gesellschaft f\u00fcr antike Philosophie 2010","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Erler2013","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"2013","edition_no":null,"free_date":"2013","abstract":"In der modernen Universit\u00e4t werden Literatur, Philologie und Philosophie als unterschiedliche Bereiche betrachtet. Damit wird eine im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert zunehmende Entfremdung zwischen der Erforschung antiker Philosophie und Philologie manifest, die den urspr\u00fcnglichen Gegebenheiten in der Antike keineswegs gerecht wird. Denn die Philosophie entwickelt sich in Griechenland und Rom in enger Verbindung mit und oft in einem Spannungsverh\u00e4ltnis zu unterschiedlichen literarischen Genres. Dies hat zur Folge, dass die Autoren und Interpreten infolge der Wahl bestimmter Gattungen als Medium philosophischer Botschaften neben der eigentlichen Argumentation auch Darstellungsformen der jeweiligen Gattungen zu w\u00fcrdigen haben. Dieses oft spannungsvolle Verh\u00e4ltnis von philosophischem Argument und literarischer Form auszuleuchten hatte sich der 3. Kongress der Gesellschaft f\u00fcr antike Philosophie vorgenommen. In Vortr\u00e4gen und Diskussionsrunden von Philosophen und Philologen wurde diese Frage unter verschiedenen Aspekten mit Blick auf antike Philosophen verschiedener Epochen lebendig diskutiert. Dieser Band, der den Gro\u00dfteil dieser Beitr\u00e4ge versammelt, mag einen Eindruck von der Diskussion vermitteln und Philologen, Philosophen und an der Antike Interessierte zu weiteren \u00dcberlegungen anregen. [author's abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/0QiKNhBCl16gJMn","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":322,"pubplace":"Berlin","publisher":"de Gruyter","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":null,"valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":["Surface Reading and Deeper Meaning. On Aristotle reading Plato and Platonists reading Aristotle"]}