Soloi crane gate

Krantor († 276 or 275 BC) was a Greek philosopher ( Platonist ).

Life

Krantor came from Soloi in Cilicia and entered the Athens Academy , where he studied with Xenocrates and his successor Polemon and then began to teach himself. He was popular as a teacher and could have founded his own school, but remained loyal to the academy. He would have been trusted to take over the management of the academy, but he died in 276 or 275 before the reigning scholar (head of the school) Polemon. The fact that Krantor won the Arkesilaos for the academy was historically significant because Arkesilaos became his most important pupil and later founded a new school as a scholarch, the Younger Academy (also known as the Middle Academy ). The two were also close friends and lived together. Krantor left his fortune of twelve talents to Arkesilaos .

plant

Like other philosophers of the time, Krantor was very productive. Only a few fragments of his extensive literature have survived. His commentary on Plato's dialogue Timaeus , with which the story of the Timaeus commentary begins, should be emphasized . In it he emphasizes the timelessness of the order of being with regard to cosmogony . The fact that Plato in the Timaeus depicts the cosmos as something that has become and therefore time-dependent is not concrete in Krantor's view, not to be understood literally as temporal successions, but only for a didactic purpose, namely the mythical illustration of the dependence of what is caused on the causer.

In the Timaeus commentary, Krantor also dealt with the Atlantis myth. A remark in a fragment of the commentary handed down from Proclus is interpreted - and was already in antiquity - to the effect that Krantor considered the myth to be a historical fact, and is considered to be evidence of an early discussion about the historicity of the Atlantis story. The interpretation of the text passage is, however, controversial; possibly it is not an expression of Krantor's own opinion, but only a reproduction of a passage from Timaeus .

The ancient world remembered Krantor mainly as an ethicist. Cicero and Horace testify that he was considered a classic in this field. His consolation book On Mourning was famous . The idea of naturalness, equating the natural with what is appropriate and right, plays a central role for him. From his point of view, natural affects (including negative ones such as fear, anger and sadness) are purposeful devices of nature. Therefore they are justified and not to be suppressed (provided that the right measure is maintained). To kill off the affects that lead to numbness would be disregard for human nature. With this, Krantor turns against the cynical and stoic apathy ideal.

iconography

A silver statuette found in Bordeaux in 1813 , which is now in the National Library in Paris , shows a philosopher who is identified by a typical attribute , a scroll, as a member of the Platonic Academy. In the research literature it has been suggested that it is a crane.

literature

Hans Krämer : The late phase of the older academy . In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy . The philosophy of antiquity , Volume 3, 2nd edition, Schwabe, Basel 2004, ISBN 3-7965-1998-9 , pp. 113–129.
Hans Joachim Mette : Two academics today: Krantor from Soloi and Arkesilaos from Pitane . In: Lustrum 26, 1984, pp. 8-40 (with a compilation of the fragments and sources).

Remarks

↑ For the dating see Tiziano Dorandi: Ricerche sulla cronologia dei filosofi ellenistici , Stuttgart 1991, pp. 3–6; Carl Werner Müller : The Archonate of Philocrates and the Chronology of the Hellenistic Academy . In: Rheinisches Museum für Philologie NF 146, 2003, pp. 1–9, here: 5–8.
^ Alan Cameron : Crantor and Posidoius on Atlantis . In: The Classical Quarterly 3, 1983, pp. 81-91; Leonardo Tarán: Proclus on the Old Academy . In: Jean Pépin, Henri Dominique Saffrey (eds.): Proclus lecteur et interprète des anciens , Paris 1987, pp. 269-272. See Harold Tarrant: Atlantis: Myths, Ancient and Modern . In: The European Legacy 12, 2007, pp. 159–172, here: 163 f. Heinz-Günther Nesselrath thinks that Krantor speaks in the sentence : Atlantis on Egyptian steles? The philosopher Krantor as an epigraphist . In: Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 135, 2001, pp. 33–35.
↑ Hans Krämer: The late phase of the older academy . In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy. The philosophy of antiquity , Vol. 3, 2nd edition, Basel 2004, pp. 113–129, here: 113, 162; on the scroll as an attribute of Karl Schefold : Greek poet portraits , Zurich 1965, p. 15, 46.

personal data
SURNAME	Soloi crane gate
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Crane gate
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Greek philosopher (Platonist)
DATE OF BIRTH	4th century BC BC or 3rd century BC Chr.
PLACE OF BIRTH	uncertain: Soloi , Cilicia
DATE OF DEATH	between 276 BC BC and 275 BC Chr.

[1] For the dating see Tiziano Dorandi: Ricerche sulla cronologia dei filosofi ellenistici , Stuttgart 1991, pp. 3–6; Carl Werner Müller : The Archonate of Philocrates and the Chronology of the Hellenistic Academy . In: Rheinisches Museum für Philologie NF 146, 2003, pp. 1–9, here: 5–8.

[2] Alan Cameron : Crantor and Posidoius on Atlantis . In: The Classical Quarterly 3, 1983, pp. 81-91; Leonardo Tarán: Proclus on the Old Academy . In: Jean Pépin, Henri Dominique Saffrey (eds.): Proclus lecteur et interprète des anciens , Paris 1987, pp. 269-272. See Harold Tarrant: Atlantis: Myths, Ancient and Modern . In: The European Legacy 12, 2007, pp. 159–172, here: 163 f. Heinz-Günther Nesselrath thinks that Krantor speaks in the sentence : Atlantis on Egyptian steles? The philosopher Krantor as an epigraphist . In: Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 135, 2001, pp. 33–35.

[3] Hans Krämer: The late phase of the older academy . In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy. The philosophy of antiquity , Vol. 3, 2nd edition, Basel 2004, pp. 113–129, here: 113, 162; on the scroll as an attribute of Karl Schefold : Greek poet portraits , Zurich 1965, p. 15, 46.