Forthcoming “The Late-Learners of the School of Names. Sph. 251a8-c6: ὁ ἀγαθὸς ἄνθρωπος (the good man) and 白馬 (white horse)”, in Brisson, L., Perry, R., Halper, E. (eds.), Plato’s Sophist. Selected Papers of the Thirteenth Symposium Platonicum, Academia Verlag, Baden-Baden, pp.?
Abstract: The focus on this contribution is on the ‘late-learners’ digression. In Sph. 251a8-c6, the Eleatic Stranger briefly discusses the view of some ‘young and old late-learners’ who hold that, from a logico-metaphysical point of view, unlike ‘a man is a man’ or ‘a good is good’, the statement ‘a man is good’ is neither a well-formed nor a grammatical sentence. Usually, modern commentators devote little energy to interpreting this passage since they are content to note that it suffices to discriminate identity and predication to avoid the sophism. The aim of this paper is to show that the position of the ‘late-learners’ is in fact more subtle than it seems, since it is widely open to many readings, and that the chosen reading of the digression has a direct impact on the general interpretation of the rest of the dialogue (communication of kinds, semantic distinction between names and verbs, etc.). To this end, the view of the ‘late-learners’ will be compared with a similar position discussed in a quite different philosophical ecosystem: the White-Horse Paradox forged by Gōngsūn Lóng, a dialectician of the ‘School of Names’. This paradox states that the sentence ‘a white horse is not a horse’ is true. Many readings of the White-Horse Paradox have been offered: some of these readings are the same as those suggested for the ‘late-learners’ view, but others are absent from the scholarly literature, although they provide interesting insights into the interpretation of Sph. 251a8-c6.
2024 “Existence is not relativistically invariant. Part 1: Meta-Ontology”, Acta Analytica, 39, pp. ? (online pre-publication: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12136-024-00586-3
https://philpapers.org/rec/MAREIN-2)
Abstract: Metaphysicians who are aware of modern physics usually follow Putnam 1967 in arguing that Special Theory of Relativity is incompatible with the view that what exists is only what exists now or presently. Partisans of presentism (the motto ‘only present things exist’) had very difficult times since, and no presentist theory of time seems to have been able to satisfactorily counter the objection raised from Special Relativity. One of the strategies offered to the presentist consists in relativizing existence to inertial frames. This unfashionable strategy has been accused of counterfeiting, since the meaning of the concept of existence would be incompatible with its relativization. Therefore, existence could only be relativistically invariant. In this paper, I shall examine whether such an accusation hits its target, and I will do this by examining whether the different criteria of existence that have been suggested by the Philosophical Tradition from Plato onwards imply that existence cannot be relativized.
2023 Modalité et changement: δύναμις et cinétique aristotélicienne (PhD Thesis), Université catholique de Louvain, 995pp. (link: https://philpapers.org/rec/FLOMEC)
Abstract: The present PhD dissertation aims to examine the relation between modality and change in Aristotle’s metaphysics. On the one hand, Aristotle supports his modal realism (i.e., worldly objects have modal properties – potentialities and essences – that ground the ascriptions of possibility and necessity) by arguing that the rejection of modal realism makes change inexplicable, or, worse, banishes it from the realm of reality. On the other hand, the Stagirite analyses processes by means of modal notions (‘change is the actuality of what is virtual insofar as it is virtual’). In other words: to grasp what change is, one has to resort to the modal idiom of potentialities, while the fact that there is change is indicative of the fact that nature is full of modal properties. Aristotle’s modal and kinetic realism finds a negative in the figure of the Megaric Diodorus Kronus. The polemical situation of Greek philosophy has indeed the dialectical advantage of not opposing the Aristotelian position to a sui generis straw man. Both in its reduction of modal judgements to temporal quantifications and in its dissolution of the reality of the state-of-being-in-motion in favour of a cinematographic view of processes, the philosophical figure of reductionist antirealism embodied by Diodorus constitutes an alternative that takes the opposite view of Aristotle’s realism. The present study is structured as a discussion between these two positions. In the face of Diodorus’ antirealist challenges, Aristotle articulates modal and kinetic considerations: the answers he gives to Diodorus’ puzzles thus provide valuable insight into his metaphysics. Moreover, the examination of Aristotle’s and Diodorus’ metaphysics, because of their insight and originality, will not fail to interest the philosopher concerned with the metaphysical foundations of modern physics, insofar as the entanglement between modalities and processes is nowadays at the core of mechanics (phase spaces, path integrals, etc.).
2022 “Seyn, ἕν, 道: brevis tractatus meta-ontologicus de elephantis et testudinibus”, Revue philosophique de Louvain, 119-1, pp. 1-51. (links: https://poj.peeters-leuven.be/content.php?url=article&id=3290591 and https://philpapers.org/rec/MARS-44)
Abstract: The question of ontological foundation has undergone a noteworthy revival in recent years: metaphysicians today quarrel about how exactly to understand the asymmetrical and hyperintensional relationship of grounding. One of the reasons for this revival is that the old quantificationalist meta-ontology inherited from Quine has been effectively criticised by leading philosophers favourable to a meta-ontology, the aim of which is to come to know “which facts/items ground (constitute the base of) which other facts/items”, thus to examine the relation of ontological dependence between beings (e.g. chemical properties depend on physical properties, the economic situation on the behaviour of individuals etc.), i.e. to explore the hierarchical structure of reality. I shall not discuss here the relationship of grounding in itself, but make some historical-formal remarks on the properties of the ultimate ontological foundational item itself and its aporetic nature. To do so I explore various more or less exotic philosophical ecosystems in the following order: Heidegger (Seyn), Plato (ἕν), Wáng Bi (道, dào). On the way I shall propose a new interpretation both of certain hypotheses in the Parmenides and of the nature of the opposition between Wáng Bì and Guō Xiàng in regard to the logical grammar of the expression “nothing (無, wú)”.
2019 Review of: R. Polansky & W. Wians (eds.), Reading Aristotle. Argument and Exposition, Leiden/Boston, Brill, 2017, Revue philosophique de Louvain, 117-1, pp. 166-169.
2018 “The ἐξαίφνης in the Platonic Tradition: From Kinematics to Dynamics” (available online: https://philarchive.org/archive/MARTI-7)
Abstract: Studies on Platonic ‘Theoria motus abstracti’ are often focused on dynamics rather than kinematics, in particular on psychic self-motion. This state of affairs is, of course, far from being a bland academic accident: according to Plato, dynamics is the higher science while kinematics is lower on the ‘scientific’ spectrum. Furthermore, when scholars investigate Platonic abstract kinematics, in front of them there is a very limited set of texts. Among them, one of the most interesting undoubtedly remains a passage of Parmenides in which Plato challenges the puzzle of the ‘instant of change’, namely the famous text about the ‘sudden’ (τὸ ἐξαίφνης). Plato’s ἐξαίφνης actually is a terminus technicus and a terminus mysticus at once, in such a way that from Antiquity until today this Platonic concept has been interpreted in very different fashions, either in a physical fashion or in a mystical one. Nevertheless, it has not been analysed how those two directions have been already followed by the Platonic Tradition. So, the aim of this paper is to provide some acquaintance with the exegetical history of ἐξαίφνης inside the Platonic Tradition, from Plato to Marsilio Ficino, by way of Middle Platonism and Greek Neoplatonism. After exposing Plato’s argument of Parm, 156c-157b and its various interpretations (1), I shall investigate the ways by which Middle Platonists (especially Taurus) and Early Neoplatonists as Plotinus and Iamblichus have understood Plato’s use of ἐξαίφνης (2), and finally how this notion had been transferred from kinematics to dynamics in Later Neoplatonism (3).
2014 “Le solipsisme dans le Tractatus logico-philosophicus: du solipsisme au Mystique”, Al-Mukhatabat, 9, pp. 264-283.
Abstract: The examination of solipsism in the Tractatus (5.6-5.641) reveals both the philosophical traditions which influenced Wittgenstein insofar as it is a radicalization of idealistic theory which Schopenhauer, Frege and Russell challenge and also, a step in his philosophical journey mapped out by aphorisms. This path ends with the Mystic’s assertion which is none other than the radicalization of realism in the same way the solipsism was, so to speak, an idealistic extremism. On this philosophical road, the transition from solipsism to realism (5.64) is unclear and calls for a review of the preparatory notes written during the First World War. This article is devoted to a study of upstream influences of the Wittgenstein’s discussion of solipsism and his mystical downstream.
Florian Marion
Philosopher & Historian of Philosophy at UCLouvain
Florian Marion 