Session 9: Greek and Roman Experiences

3rd Global Conference

Thursday 15th March – Saturday 17th March 2012
Prague, Czech Republic

Aristotle on Vice: An Analysis of Evil in De Virtutibus et Vitiis
Apostolos N. Stavelas
Research Centre on Greek Philosophy, Academy of Athens, Greece

Elements of Aristotle’s disposition towards evil and vice can be traced in several parts of his treatises. In some cases this dispersal of references asked for further inquiry, as for whether Aristotle’s view upon bad character, vicious soul or evil act should be recognized as a coherent or an ambiguous one.

But in his short treatise De virtutibus et vitiis he gives a very detailed account of vices (κακά, αἰσχρά). He initiates his analysis on the basis of the traditional dualism of Greek thought: vice vs. virtue, the scorned against the praised, entailed traits vs. preceding attributes. Additionally, as in an intermediate state, he engages to his inquiry the platonic view of the three parts of the soul. By means of this whole foundation he works up an analytic stratification of vices as appearances of the evil soul, act, psychology and behaviour. According to this, vice (κακία) may be met in the forms i) of folly, ii) of anger or cowardice, iii) of debauchery or incontinence. Each one of these cases and subcases are being further analyzed into their constituents, building up and constituting a complete chart of components of a soul, which in all cases suffers from injustice, lack of freedom and pettiness.

Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)

Plato’s Treatment of the Problem of Evil in Laws X
Victor Ilievski
Central European University, Budapest, Hungary

Throughout history, many thinkers have tried to explain the nature of evil and establish a viable defense of god’s omnibenevolence. The first philosopher to explicitly embark on such an enterprise was Plato. In his Laws, book X, he offers a series of solutions to the problem of evil, starting with what will become famous as the aesthetic solution. Thus, the origin of that famed answer to the problem of evil is to be found in a short passage of Plato’s Laws X.

The first aim of this paper is to give an analysis of Plato’s approach to the aesthetic solution, as contrasted with the more developed laying out of the same strategy in Plotinus, and to show that Plato’s version of it is philosophically more sound than the one of his renowned follower, who exerted tremendous influence on the subsequent thinkers. The second aim of the paper would be to show that after Plato, there are actually not that many striking innovations in the field of theodicy. That is to say that, in the wake of his exposition of the aesthetic solution, Plato also offers a host of other strategies meant to provide an answer to the pertinent issue of the existence of evil in a world whose creation was motivated by the Demiurge’s good will. Although these are subservient to the main one, they are also the formulations of some of the most important latter attempts at solution to the problem of evil. Finally, this paper seeks to establish that Plato’s strategies in the Laws X are bona fide philosophical solution to the problem of evil. This goes contra a) Cherniss, who asserts that Plato has no intention to provide a solution to the problem of evil, but simply to explain its existence; and b) contra Mohr, who claims that Plato’s purpose is to explain evil away by pronouncing it factually non existent.

Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)

Cicero’s Wickd Way With Words: In defense of Clodia Metelli
Linda McGuire
Independent Researcher, France

In 56 BCE Cicero took up the defense of a former student named Marcus Caelius Rufus, who was charged with several counts of political violence. Cicero sought to exonerate Caelius by discrediting the main witness, a woman named Clodia Metelli (or ‘wife of Metellus’). His surviving speech, the Pro Caelio, provides a particularly scathing attack on a woman by a master of character assassination. Little is known of Clodia Metelli outside this speech and too often Cicero’s eloquence has influenced ancient and modern readers alike in the opinion that this woman, like so many others in the late Republic, was utterly depraved.

His attack on her behaviour focusses on three main points: her lifestyle as a rich and independent woman, her financial dealings with men and her relations with her younger brother. However what if Clodia Metelli were little different from other women of her social class? This paper seeks to examine some of the information Cicero used to damn her and compare it with what is known of another elite woman who lived at the same period, namely Terentia, the wife of Cicero. While it has to be recognised that Terentia is also a construct in Ciceronian sources, there is less bias as she occurs in private letters never intended for publication. What can this approach tell us, if anything, about how Cicero, like other Roman writers, went about creating an idea of female wickedness? What does it say about the work still to be done in deciphering the lives of ancient Roman women?