Alcune annotazioni sul processo di categorializzazione dell'essere nell'Antica Accademia

A crucial transformation of the conceptual framework of ancient Greek philosophy is the gradual abandonment of the presumption of the Eleatic and univocal conception of being in favour of a process of categorialisation. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on some moments of this process, arguing that it has its roots in problematic aspects of Plato’s theory of ideas, displayed by Plato himself, and takes a more defined shape in the Old Academy, also thanks to the influence of the two-opposite-principles doctrine. In the first part of the paper some fragments of Speusippus, Xenocrates and Hermodorus are considered as proof of interest for categorialisation in the Old Academy. The second part is devoted to three passages – from Plato’s Statesman, Sophist, and Philebus – which show the presence of traces of abandonment of the austere conception of being. The third and fourth parts provide an analysis of the interlacing of the two-opposite-principles doctrine and of categorialisation.