Ancient Relativity: Plato, Aristotle, Stoics, and Sceptics

by Matthew Duncombe

Overview

Ideas about relativity underlie much ancient Greek philosophy, from Protagorean relativism, to Plato's theory of Forms, Aristotle's category scheme, and relational logic. In Ancient Relativity Matthew Duncombe explores how ancient philosophers, particularly Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and Sextus Empiricus, understood the phenomenon and how their theories of relativity affected, and were affected by, their broader philosophical outlooks. He argues that ancient philosophers shared a close-knit family of views referred to as 'constitutive relativity', whereby a relative is not simply linked by a relation but is constituted by it. Plato exploits this view in some key arguments concerning the Forms and the partition of the soul. Aristotle adopts the constitutive view in his discussions of relativity in Categories 7 and the Topics and retains it in Metaphysics Delta 15. Duncombe goes on to examine the role relativity plays in Stoic philosophy, especially Stoic physics and metaphysics, and the way Sextus Empiricus thinks about relativity, which does not appeal to the nature of relatives but rather to how we conceive of things as correlative.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198846185
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	03/13/2020
Pages:	306
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 6.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Matthew Duncombe, University of Nottingham

Matthew Duncombe is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Nottingham. He held a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at Durham University and was a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Groningen. He studied philosophy and Classics at the University of Cambridge. His research interests focus on ancient Greek philosophy, particularly logic, metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction2. Constitutive Relativity in Plato3. Relativity and Separation in the Theory of Forms4. Relativity and Partition in Republic 45. Relativity in Categories 7, Topics, and Sophistical Refutations6. Aristotle on the Distinction Between Substances and Relatives7. Relativity in Aristotle's Metaphysics 5.158. Relativity and Independence in Aristotle's On Ideas9. Stoic Relativity10. Relativity in Stoic Physics, Metaphysics, and Ethics11. Relativity Against Dogmatism in Sextus Empiricus12. Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

"This book is a rare kind of achievement in ancient scholarship, dealing as it does with a subject that is understudied and yet, as Duncombe convincingly shows, indispensable for properly understanding ancient philosophical thought on many key topics. Given the range of problems on which the book makes new progress, it will be a rewarding read for just about anyone working on Greek philosophy." — Ian J. Campbell, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Journal of the History of Philosophy

From the Publisher