Essays On Being
by Charles H. Kahn /
2009 / English / PDF
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This volume presents a series of essays published by Charles Kahn
over a period of forty years, in which he seeks to explicate the
ancient Greek concept of Being. He addresses two distinct but
intimately related problems, one linguistic and one historical and
philosophical. The linguistic problem concerns the theory of the
Greek verb
This volume presents a series of essays published by Charles Kahn
over a period of forty years, in which he seeks to explicate the
ancient Greek concept of Being. He addresses two distinct but
intimately related problems, one linguistic and one historical and
philosophical. The linguistic problem concerns the theory of the
Greek verbeinai
einai, "to be:: how to replace the conventional
but misleading distinction between copula and existential verb with
a more adequate theoretical account. The philosophical problem is
in principle quite distinct: to understand how the concept of Being
became the central topic in Greek philosophy from Parmenides to
Aristotle. But these two problems converge on what Kahn calls the
veridical use of
, "to be:: how to replace the conventional
but misleading distinction between copula and existential verb with
a more adequate theoretical account. The philosophical problem is
in principle quite distinct: to understand how the concept of Being
became the central topic in Greek philosophy from Parmenides to
Aristotle. But these two problems converge on what Kahn calls the
veridical use ofeinai
einai. In the earlier papers he takes
that connection between the verb and the concept of truth to be the
key to the central role of Being in Greek philosophy. In the later
papers he interprets the veridical in terms of a more general
semantic function of the verb, which comprises the notions of
existence and instantiation as well as truth.
. In the earlier papers he takes
that connection between the verb and the concept of truth to be the
key to the central role of Being in Greek philosophy. In the later
papers he interprets the veridical in terms of a more general
semantic function of the verb, which comprises the notions of
existence and instantiation as well as truth.
