| Abstract [eng] |
This master’s thesis aims at reconstructing Xenocrates’ doctrine of principles and present it in the context of the philosopher himself as well as the conditions in which it was written. First, the thesis provides an overview of the sources of Xenocrates’ philosophy as well as the factors that influenced him: Aristotle’s criticism of Plato and Speusippus and the obscurities of the canonical dialogue Timaeus, which Xenocrates seeks to clarify. The contextual overview is followed by the analysis of the fragments, those that directly mention Xenocrates as well as those that present his position without mentioning him. The interpretation of the fragments is based not only on their analysis in terms of content but also on the analysis of their status and the factors that influenced later accounts of Xenocrates’ statements. Finally, the contextual overview is used not only to shed light on the rationale of the reconstructed doctrine but also to evaluate the reconstruction itself and to clarify those aspects which remained obscure after the reconstruction. The twofold nature of the study has led to a new interpretation of Xenocrates’ doctrine of principles: the Monad and the Dyad turned out to be two, on the one hand, equal and ontologically independent, on the other hand, cosmologically interconnected principles, which, by interacting with each other, supra-temporally constitute the universe of a mathematical nature, characterised by coherence and connectedness as well as direct and total ontological dependence on the principles. |
