Harold F. Cherniss

Harold Fredrik Cherniss ( born March 11, 1904 in St. Joseph, Missouri, † June 18, 1987 in Princeton, New Jersey ) was an American university professor and respected expert on ancient philosophy.

Biography

Cherniss studied at the University of California at Berkeley, in Göttingen and Berlin, Greek, Latin and Sanskrit. In 1930 he received his doctorate with a thesis on Gregory of Nyssa. In the same year he accepted a job as a teacher at Cornell University. Following a stint at Johns Hopkins University and a professor at the University of California, he joined the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. During the Second World War he worked in the service of the U.S. Army in the British Secret. Cherniss attached great importance to the academic teaching, which he understood in the sense of the Humboldtian idea of ​​the university. How to thank the numerous mentions - often excellent - shows historical philosophy work of American and Scandinavian researchers, he achieved thus have a significant effect. Unlike in his publications he covered in teaching from the entire field of ancient philosophy. Politically Cherniss was left liberal; Ernst H. Kantorowicz as 1950 in connection with the Loyalty Oath affair at the University of California lost his job, prompting Cherniss his appeal to the - at the time of JR Oppenheimer led - Princeton Institute. Cherniss ' career was interrupted by a serious illness which incapacitated him made ​​during the last two decades of his life.

Works and impact

Cherniss has relatively few, albeit almost entirely basic, published essays. His main works are the two comprehensive books on Aristotle's criticism of the pre-Socratics (1935 ) or of Plato and the Academy (1946 ); of the latter is only the first part appeared. An impression of Cherniss ' massive erudition, sovereign overview of the entire research literature and the precision of its analysis, the 1942 held lectures give about the " mystery of the older Academy ", which in 1945 appeared and since then in numerous languages, including into German ( " The Older Academy ", 1966), Italian, French, Czech, were translated and still are. All of his books are - been reprinted, some more than once - not just usually for scientific works.

Cherniss has been shown in highly detailed investigations that Aristotle's views of the lessons of his philosophical forerunners should not be considered as reliable sources of knowledge of the theories and arguments of these thinkers, because Aristotle in his doxographies always already presupposes its own philosophy and earlier philosophers ascribe theses, they have not represented in fact that in his view they actually were required to represent. The basic idea behind this reasoning was even before Cherniss already known, but no one before him has shown in such detail how much the Aristotelian doxographies are interspersed with certain conditions and problematic patterns of argumentation. The image of the pre-Aristotelean philosophy looks at this critical passage through Aristotelian tradition - which is also the main source of knowledge of pre-Socratic philosophy - quite different than before. However, the very broad assertions Cherniss ' has not been accepted by a majority of researchers in their whole extent, but still and always serve his remarks in the technical discussion as a starting point for the critical examination of the history of philosophy tradition. Recent work endeavor almost always a matter of defending Aristotle's doxographies against Cherniss ' criticism. More recently, Cherniss ' method will criticizes that interprets "Plato ex Platone " and therefore itself remains within the doxographic without entering into the philosophical debate.

Special interest Cherniss ' lectures secured over the older Academy by the fact that they delivered fourteen years before the first publications Hans Joachim Krämer an anticipated criticism of the theory of the unwritten doctrine in which a significant portion of the arguments have already been provided, later were performed against shopkeepers and the " Tübingen School Plato " into the field. Kramer has in a long section of his dissertation " Arete in Plato and Aristotle " (1959) sharp and partly polemical dealt with Cherniss. Cherniss has not responded to these criticisms; an answer from the perspective of his school was his pupil Eugène Napoléon Tigerstedt. It is partly due to Cherniss ' due influence that the Tübingen interpretation of the unwritten teaching in the English speaking world - in spite of the work of John Niemeyer Findlay ( 'The Written and Unwritten Doctrines of Plato ', London 1974), which is independent of Krämer and Konrad Gaiser have emerged, but going in the same direction - has hardly found followers.

Writings

Font directories can be found in the following two publications:

• The Older Academy. A historical mystery and its solution. Translated by Josef Derbolav. - Heidelberg .: Carl Winter, 1966 (. . Library of classical Ancient Studies NF, 2nd row ) (p. 123-128 )
• Selected Papers of Harold Cherniss. Edited by Leonardo Taran. . - Leiden: Brill, 1977 (p. 524-530 )

Most important publications:

• The Platonism of Gregory of Nyssa. . . - Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1930 - (Reprint: New York: Burt Franklin, 1971 = Burt Franklin research and source works series; 685 )
• Aristotle's Criticism of Presocratic Philosophy. - Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1935.
• The Riddle of the Early Academy. - Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1945..
• Aristotle's Criticism of Plato and the Academy. Vol 1 - Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1946.
• Plato ( 1950-1957 ). - In: Lustrum 4 (1959 ) / 5 (1960 ), pp. 1-648.
• Plutarch 's Moralia, Vol 12 Translated by Harold Cherniss and WC Helmbold. . . (. Loeb Library): - Cambridge, Mass. Harvard University Press, 1957 ( translation of " De facie in orbe lunae " )
• Plutarch 's Moralia, Vol 13, Part 1: Platonic essays. - Part 2: Stoic essays. Translated by Harold Cherniss. - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976.. ( Loeb Library. )

Swell

• Paul A. Van der Waerdt, Cherniss, Harold Frederik. - In: Ward W. Briggs Jr. ( ed.), Biographical Dictionary of North American Classicists. Westport / Conn. , London 1994, 93-95.
• New York Times, July 12, 1987: Obituary Harold F. Cherniss.
• Encyclopedia Judaica 2, 1971, 351
• Aminta W. Marks: Princeton & Classics: A Notable Record. - In: Princeton Alumni Weekly, Volume LXVI, no. 15: February 1, 1966.
• " But who risked already to be out of work? " Eckart Grünewald in conversation with Robert L. Benson. - In: Ernst H. Kantorowicz: Gods in uniform. Studies on the Development of the Western monarchy. - Stuttgart: Klett - Cotta, 1998, p 367
• William Richard Baldes: Aristotle's relation to Democritus reconsidered and vindicated as against the criticism of Harold Cherniss. . . - Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1972 ( Diss Loyola University of Chicago, 1972).
• Gail Fine: On Ideas. Aristotle's Criticism of Plato 's Theory of Forms. - Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993.
• Hans Krämer: L'opera di Konrad Gaiser ' La Dottrina non scritta di Platone ', e sua collocazione all'interno della Scuola di Studi di Platonici Tubinga (1963-1993) - In: . Konrad Gaiser: La Dottrina non scritta di Platone. Studi sulla fondazione Sistematica e delle storica scienze nella scuola platonica. - Milano:. Vita e pensiero, 1994 (. Temi metafisici e problemi del pensiero antico Studi e testi; 37 ) S. XI -XVIII, here p XIV
• Eugène N. Tigerstedt: Interpreting Plato.. - Stockholm: Alqvist & Wiksell International, 1977 ( Acta Universitatis Stockholmensis; 17 ), pp. 63-91.

• University teachers ( Ithaca )
• University teachers (Baltimore)
• Philosopher ( 20th century)
• Americans
• Man
• Born in 1904
• Died in 1987