Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480-525 A.D.) is regarded as a great thinker of the early Middle Ages. Indeed, Boethius is a man of immense erudition and his works touch upon many philosophical... Show moreAnicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480-525 A.D.) is regarded as a great thinker of the early Middle Ages. Indeed, Boethius is a man of immense erudition and his works touch upon many philosophical fields, including mathematics, logic and theology. In Boethius’ classification system, mathematics and theology belong to speculative philosophy, and logic is both a part of philosophy and an instrument of philosophy. However, scholars from different fields tend to focus only on the part of Boethius’ thoughts that relate to their own disciplines. The result is a lack of understanding Boethius as a whole. In my dissertation, I will reassess Boethius’ mathematics and logic, and their roles in philosophy, and on the basis of these, I will explore the connections between mathematics and logic in Boethius and their applications to theological or philosophical topics. However, I will not focus on the applications of al l his mathematical and logical knowledge but only on his basic ideas of arithmetic and music, and basic logic including knowledge of categories, theories of division and definition Show less
Political philosophy is not only a form of theory, but also a practice. If we wish to learn something about politics, therefore, we should focus not only on its propositional content, but also on... Show morePolitical philosophy is not only a form of theory, but also a practice. If we wish to learn something about politics, therefore, we should focus not only on its propositional content, but also on its performative meaning. This dissertation offers a reconstruction of the propositional contents of the writings of Karl Popper, Leo Strauss, and Hannah Arendt while bringing these into discussion with their performative meanings, such as polemical forms of reasoning, analogical and metaphorical uses of language, and hidden assumptions that become manifest as soon as people start acting upon them. First, it is demonstrated that Popper prescribes a conception of politics that is modeled after science, while he performs a polemical conception of politics. Next, it is shown that Strauss is aware of the performative condition of philosophy, whereas his way of framing it in terms of the mutually hostile opposition between phi losophy and politics and his remedy of the art of writing amount to an unrealistic escape from it. Finally, it is argued that Arendt not only shows to be aware of the contingent character of human action, but also develops forms of political thinking that do justice to it. Show less
