Open research questions in Classical Philosophy and Thought

What the literature leaves open

• Explanatory Limits and Open Questions The comparison between Plato and Aristotle does not produce a final resolution of the problems surrounding knowledge, cognition, and life. These open questions reinforce the article’s central claim: intellectual development involves not only the accumulation of answers but also the reorganization of explanatory problems. If perception is insufficient for knowledge in its strongest sense, its precise contribution to learning and rational inquiry also requires clarification.

  From the Question of Mind to the Living Organism: Plato, Aristotle, and the Origins of Cognitive Thought · 2026 · DOI

• If it is not understood that Socrates is tried and convicted for crimes related to the religion of the city, not being able to do so for political reasons, since a period of amnesty had been established to try to shovel part of the terrible damage that the government of the “30 tyrants” did to the entire Athenian society during the year that they held power, in no way could we finish understanding the significance that the death of Plato’s teacher has had. In this way, we find that in the same dialogue a multiplic- ity of topics is treated, and it is that, as an ancient philosophical system, all its phi- losophy is concatenated with each other, so that if one aspect is not understood, others cannot be understood.

  Studying Plato from his Philosophical Problems · 2026 · DOI

• And yet, in Roxana, the ontological status of the Devil remains uncertain: is he there, or not there? This question is not one we would ask of earlier portrayals, such as Milton's Satan, but one we must ask of Defoe's Devil, who never physically appears in person, but seems to operate as an unseen, internal force, tempting Roxana from within her own mind.

  Is There a Devil in This Text? Subtlety and Satanic Persuasion in Defoe's <i>Roxana</i> · 2025 · DOI

• This is obviously so in the Topics, where problems are limited to the question of whether an attribute belongs to a subject or not; but it is also true in the Analytics, where problems include the questions of why an attribute belongs to a subject or what a particular state of affairs, which can be analysed into a predicative relation, is.

  Aristotelská logika jako nástroj řešení problémů · 2022 · DOI

• The introduction (Chapter 1) considers Polybius’ ultra-cynical view that Romans’ scrupulous observance of ritual was reducible to a mechanism of control over the underclass, a position that Champion calls “elite instrumentalism” and that he argues is insufficient to explain Roman religious practice.

  The Peace of the Gods: Elite Religious Practices in the Middle Roman Republic by Craige B. Champion · 2018 · DOI

• Whether Kochin succeeds [End Page 284] in showing that rhetoric's job is to allow the facts to speak for themselves remains unclear, for reasons I address below.

  <i>Five Chapters on Rhetoric: Character, Action, Things, Nothing, and Art</i> (review) · 2010 · DOI

• He makes certain key assumptions about oral transmission that seem more than somewhat arguable: “Whereas writing permits a storage of messages which is—in theory, at least—infinite, the accumulation of orally transmitted messages can only be individual, and therefore limited by the capacity of an individual memory” (Plato the Myth Maker, 19).

  <i>How Philosophers Saved Myths: Allegorical Interpretation and Classical Mythology</i>, and: <i>Plato the Myth Maker</i> (review) · 2008 · DOI

• "Persuasione" is, by contrast, something lived, not understood—or, more precisely, it is a state to which true philosophers (Parmenides and Socrates, for instance) aspire with the full understanding that, like the limit approached asymptotically by an hyperbola (see 48, 109), it can never be attained.

  Persuasion and Rhetoric (review) · 2006 · DOI

• In the treatment of the last six obscure words, however, he no longer proceeds so securely: , first of all, poses difficulties for him; he extracts himself from these with the following turn, which is scarcely compatible with his otherwise sharp demarcation of pity and fear: The relates merely to the foregoing pity and fear; tragedy should excite our pity and our fear only in order to cleanse these and suchlike passions, but not all passions indifferently.

  On Catharsis: From Fundamentals of Aristotle's Lost Essay on the "Effect of Tragedy" (1857) · 2004 · DOI

• To some, dialectic's role in philosophic investigation is limited to the verification of definitions already discovered and to bringing an investigator to the threshold of discovering first principles, to others, dialectic's last stage (resolution, euporia ) comprises part of the philosophic discovery itself.

  Aristotle's Dialectic, Refutation, and Inquiry · 1982 · DOI

• It is not, therefore, limited to any specific community or geographical area but is a tendency to normlessness in society. Subcultural anomie was defined as a lack of consensus among group members about the appropriateness of normative standards. In this rooted ambivalent feelings about case the issue seems to be not a lack of consensus about the norms but rather a breakdown in social control - hence feelings of ambivalence and guilt. 49) But the Colorado group have not adequately distinguished between dissensus and normative breakdown and, as their study was undertaken in a culturally plural setting, this interpretation of anomie as a lack of consensus might be confused with the notion of culture conflict. There is indeed, lack of consensus in its interpretation, on the grounds of an almost total good reason for suggesting that the anomie concept be abandoned. This lack of consensus accounts, unfortunately, failure to measure not only anomie but many other important concepts besides.

  Theoretical and empirical meanings of anomie - a critique · 1971 · DOI

• were offered to the citizens for choosing their rulers: some precise There are three qualifications required in those who have to fill the highest offices—(1) first of all, loyalty to the established constitution; (2) the greatest administrative capacity; (3) virtue and justice of the kind proper to each form of government....48 The ability to carry out the functions of a given office was apparently not a primary concern. The moral qualities of the office holder are considered to be far more important, "for more virtue than ordinary is required in the holder of such an office, but the necessary knowledge is of a sort which all men possess."49 A parallel approach to the problems of morality seems to exist in the Ethics and the Politics. While the ultimate standard of ethical behavior for the individual is demonstrated by the lives of the best men, the best states function through the activities of these same men. The Aristotelian notion of virtue is essentially an endorsement of the habits of the cultivated classes. Good men evaluated on an individual basis in the Ethics become an entire class of good men working for the preservation 47 Pol. v. 1309a. 48 Pol. V. 1309a. 49 Pol. V. 1309b. Downloaded by [University of Sussex Library] at 07:14 10 May 2016 INTENDED USES OF ARISTOTLE'S RHETORIC 145 of the social order when united in the Politics. Ethical conduct and political behavior are, in sum, rooted in the beliefs and activities of the reasonable, property-owning, aristocratic classes. THE ROLE OF RHETORIC If this view of Aristotle's total moral theory is accurate, what is the role of rhetoric? For greater understanding of this problem, one must turn to pertinent passages in the Ethics and the Rhetoric.

  The intended uses of Aristotle's<i>rhetoric</i> · 1968 · DOI

• Perhaps the choice of Eros is much closer to certain Greek ideas than Freud recognized at this point, and although Freud presented the concepts of Eros and the death instinct as highly tentative hypotheses, he was soon to give them the quality of a myth, treat them as objective reality,llg even though objective evidence was lacking.

  Freud and the Greeks: A study of the influence of classical Greek mythology and philosophy upon the development of Freudian thought · 1965 · DOI

• I realize that the roles which I have assigned to these three primordia in the formation of the superego can only be tentative ones. These roles are in the nature of approximations. Any abnormal ity in the development of the infant, in his object relations, in his identifications, will inevitably distort the role played by one or the other of the primordia and perhaps even eliminate it from the super ego formation. We will then get a distorted or partially defective superego. This is an assumption which points up the significance of our understanding of these steps in the child's development for purposes of prevention. It is self-evident that an appropriate amount of pro hibition and of frustration in the proper form at this age, between nine and eighteen months, is the sine qua non for the normal devel opment of the child, for the establishment of the basis for the later development of his superego. We will, however, have to investigate the forms in which the prohibitions are desirable, the amounts of prohibition or frustration needed, and the timing of such frustra tions. It is equally self-evident that the prototypes for the identifications which go into the formation of the ego ideal must be made available to the infant. And furthermore, that restraint as well as facilitation of muscular activity in the earliest months of infancy and throughout the first year of life cannot be left to an inanimate enclosure, whether this consists in the strait-jacket of a blanket tightly wrapped around the child's arms and body, or in the bars of his cot. These restraints GENESIS OF SUPEREGO COMPONENTS have to be imposed by a responsive human being, just as the facili tations have to be offered by someone capable of empathy. Finally, we come to the therapeutic aspect of what we have dis cussed. It seemed rather obvious to me that the ever increasing num ber of imitations and identifications of the growing child are indi cators of his progress toward the formation of the ego ideal; that the timely development of the head-shaking "No" gesture is the indi cator that the child has acquired the mechanism of the identification with the aggressor. This knowledge should be used for diagnostic purposes. Furthermore, continued research should make it possible to develop an instrument, with the help of which we can evaluate where too little and where too much prohibition or frustration has been imposed, as well as information on how to facilitate imitation and identification. Such an instrument will enable us to introduce correctives where the above mentioned diagnostic signs indicate it. BIBLIOGRAPHY Abraham, K. (1924), A Short Study of the Development of the Libido. Selected Papers on Psycho-Analysis. London: Hogarth Press, 1927. Buehler, C. (1928), Kindheit und ]ugend. Leipzig, p. 219. Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. (1957), Ausdrucksformen der Saugetiere, Handbuch der Zoologie. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Fenichel, O. (1925), The Clinical Aspects of the Need for Punishment. The Collected Papers of Otto Fenichel, I. New York: Norton, 1953. - - (1926), Identification. The Collected Papers of Otto Fenichel, I. New York: Norton, 1953. - - (1934), Defense against Anxiety, Particularly by Libidinization. The Collected Papers of Otto Fenichel, I. New York: Norton, 1953. - - (1935), The Scoptophilic Instinct and Identification. The Collected Papers of Otto Fenichel, I. New York: Norton, 1953. - - (1945a), The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis. New York: Norton. - - (1945b), The Means of Education. The Collected Papers of Otto Fenichel, II. New York: Norton, 1954. Freud, A. (1935), Psychoanalysis and the Training of the Young Child. Psa. Quart., IV. - - (1936), The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense.

  On the Genesis of Superego Components · 1958 · DOI

• One aspect, however, remains to be discussed, an aspect that Beck himself does not seem to have taken into account: I am referring to the methodological problem of how, given the concrete structure of reality, we can obtain abstract-sim- ple ideas.

  “… the Fundamental Platonic Tenet …” Maximilian Beck’s Ideenlehre Within the Context of Early Phenomenology · 2026 · DOI

• ’ Despite significant scholarly interest in these manipulative maneuvers over the last two decades, there is no agreement regarding the notable discrepancies observed in the two works regarding defini- tions and the examples the philosopher employs to illustrate them.

  The Fallacy of Synthesis and Diairesis: Towards Logic and Logos in Aristotle’s Rhetoric and Sophistical Refutations · 2024 · DOI

• The first possibility is that the relation between philia and aretē is limited to the aretological friendship at the expense of narrowing the meaning of aretē to the human one.

  Aristotle on the Real Object of Philia and Aretē · 2024 · DOI

• On the whole, however, Markovich is able to extract much more from the scarce evidence about protreptics in this period than one might have thought possible.

  Promoting a New Kind of Education: Greek and Roman Philosophical Protreptic, by Daniel Markovich · 2023 · DOI

• Little is known about this stage in his life, but it was apparently then that as a young man he became interested in asceticism and at the end of this period of time finally decided to become a monk.

  Jerome's Epistula Prima · 2022 · DOI

• Gracchus had a religious dimension remains controversial, but the controversy highlights a fact about ancient Rome: many members of the political elite were also priests.

  The Peace of the Gods: Elite Religious Practices in the Middle Roman Republic by Craige B. Champion · 2018 · DOI

• What remains to be examined is the question of whether Plotinus himself made use of the work of Jewish and Christian thinkers in forming his doctrine of an infinite God, rather than those thinkers leaning on Plotinus, as is usually assumed.

  Nieskończoność Boga u Orygenesa: przyczyna wielkiego nieporozumienia · 2018 · DOI

• He is sensitive to one limitation placed upon such friendships: that, owing to their extreme closeness, devotion and intimacy, they can only be actualised with a small number of people.

  Ten un‐Aristotelian reasons for the instability of Aristotelian character friendships · 2018 · DOI

• The influence of Vatican II and the conciliar era on Virgilio Elizondo’s theology is insufficiently acknowledged.

  Divine Pedagogy: <i>Dei Verbum</i> and the Theology of Virgilio Elizondo · 2017 · DOI

• On the other hand, the quotation theory does not account for the several passages in which the narrating voice is that of a mortal: “at certain points he gives expression to his admiration for divine objects or apologizes for his human limitations.

  Horace's Epodes: Context, Intertexts, & Reception by Philippa Bather and Claire Stocks · 2016 · DOI

• Srebrny’s translation is unimpaired by time, and it remains to be regretted that not all of the Greek thinker’s surviving fragments had been translated into Polish by Srebrny’s hand.

  Myśli Heraklita – niedrukowane drobiazgi z przekładów Stefana Srebrnego (Heraclitus’ Thoughts: Unprinted Bits and Pieces of Stefan Srebrny’s Translations). · 2014 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Classical Philosophy and Thought

• Sappho as Initiatory Figure in the Platonic Mysteries: Scholarly Grounding and Literature Review · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2026 · 12 citations
• Ten un‐Aristotelian reasons for the instability of Aristotelian character friendships · Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour · 2018 · 9 citations
• FREE EXPRESSION OR EQUAL SPEECH? · Social Philosophy and Policy · 2020 · 9 citations
• Religion, Platonist Dialectics, and Pragmatist Analysis: Marcus Tullius Cicero’s Contributions to the Philosophy and Sociology of Divine and Human Knowing · Qualitative Sociology Review · 2021 · 9 citations
• THE CONCEPT OF JUSTICE IN REFERENCE WITH PHILOSOPHIES OF PLATO AND ARISTOTLE: A CRITICAL STUDY · Journal of Liberty and International Affairs Institute for Research and European Studies - Bitola · 2021 · 9 citations
• Aristotle's <i>Politics</i> on Greeks and Non-Greeks · The Review of Politics · 2021 · 8 citations
• On Catharsis: From Fundamentals of Aristotle's Lost Essay on the "Effect of Tragedy" (1857) · American imago · 2004 · 8 citations
• Ephemeral climates: Plato's geographic myths and the phenomenological nature of climate and its changes · Journal of Historical Geography · 2022 · 8 citations
• The Practical Wisdom of <i>Phronesis</i> in the Education of Purported Virtuous Character · Educational Theory · 2023 · 7 citations
• Euclid’s Fourth Postulate: Its authenticity and significance for the foundations of Greek mathematics · Science in Context · 2022 · 6 citations

Most recent work

• Sappho as Initiatory Figure in the Platonic Mysteries: Scholarly Grounding and Literature Review · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2026
• Socrates as Orthonym: The Heteronymic Configuration of Western Philosophy's Founding Corpus · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2026
• Philosophy's Shadow: Jacob Brucker and the History of Thought · UvA-DARE (University of Amsterdam) · 2026
• Eros as the Meeting of Ecstasies in Christ: The Eucharistic Link between Divine and Human Love in Dionysius the Areopagite · International Journal of Systematic Theology · 2026
• Según Platón, los «mortales» de Parménides ¿son los antepasados de los sofistas? · Eidos · 2026
• La fisiología del alma en el Filebo (32a-42c) de Platón · Eidos · 2026
• Studying Plato from his Philosophical Problems · Repertorio Americano · 2026
• Fate in Ancient Greek Philosophy and Religion · Religions · 2026
• Who taught Aristotle about women? · Metascience · 2026
• An Eudemian Approach to the Concept of ‘what is up to us’ in Alexander’s <i>De Fato</i> · Apeiron · 2026

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